From the home of a serving soldier
Tomorrow we are broadcasting from the home of Jane Horrey - her son Ross is a Sapper in the Royal Engineers and is preparing to go back to Afghanistan. We're hoping to invite the Armed Forces Minister back onto the programme so he can answer questions from serving soldiers.
If you're in the armed forces right now, please post a question here or call tomorrow morning from 10 - 0500 909693...
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As you know I am not in the armed forces but I hope this does not preclude me from commenting.
As a neighbour of someone who lost her only son a few weeks ago, and a close friend of someone with a son doing a second tour, I have been able to hear from families suffering the pain of worry and loss first hand.
All the old stuff comes out about doing the job because they believe in it, etc etc, from all these government worthies who have been in the job, oh, a month. They may have a view, mine is that the force in Afghanistan is woefully under-funded and under-provided with ALL necessary equipment, and that the exhaustion and atmosphere these often very young men are working under is a war crime by our own government on its own men.
If any of you reading this saw any of Ross Kemp's reports on Sky from the Sangin area you can get a taste of how frightening and brutal and sudden all of these attacks on our soldiers can be.
The Taliban will never be defeated. They have seen off countless attempts to rid the country of them and this is a lost cause and one we should be ashamed of being involved with.
But at least, if Brown insists on doing it, he could at least give the guys the best and the most efficient equipment so it can be done properly.
Another war to be ashamed of, I have walked on the marches and I still do not believe our country should have been sucked in to this conflict.
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Victoria,
You have continually cited polls which claim that there are high levels
of support for the presence foreign armies within their country by the
Afghan people themselves - but this is not accurate and represents a
disservice to Radio 5 live listeners.
A recent poll commissioned by the BBC, ABC News and ARD of Germany
with fieldwork carried out by the Afghan Centre for Socio-Economic and
Opinion Research in Kabul found that:
Afghans take an increasingly sceptical view about the presence and
effectiveness of foreign troops on their soil and the British rate less well than the Americans.
Sixty-nine per cent of people still support the overthrow of the
Taleban by foreign forces in 2001. But only 32% think US forces are
doing a good or excellent job now, compared with 68% in 2005.
Forty-seven per cent have a favourable opinion of the United States as a whole down from 83% in 2005 and 65% in 2007. And only 38% have a favourable view of Britain a fall from 49% a year ago.
So it would be more accurate to perhaps highlight the point that
support for UK and US troop presence in Afghanistan is not high and
Afghani people's confidence in both the government, and the ability of
American, British and other troops to bring about lasting change for
the better, are significantly diminished.
It feels as if you are parroting a propaganda line that the
government might want Radio 5 listeners to here.
More details can be found at the bbc website below.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/pressoffice/pressreleases/stories/2009/02_february/09/afghanistan.shtml
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