No!

An Afghani man cries for those he knew

It's less than a week since I posted about six young English soldiers killed tragically and needlessly far away from home in Afghanistan. Four of them were Yorkshiremen. Now the latest chapter in that country's ongoing horror story involves an American soldier going berserk and killing sixteen innocent citizens - including women and children.

Though the full facts of this disturbing incident are not yet known, the  BBC said this of the unnamed murderer: "he had apparently recently suffered a mental breakdown".  Well if that is the case why the hell was he still able to pick up a weapon and walk out of his base on a Terminator-type spree of killing? Don't the US Army have procedures in place that make doubly sure that armed soldiers only leave their bases on bona fide missions? And didn't this blood-crazed fellow realise that allegedly the whole reason that western troops are in Afghanistan is to make life better for ordinary Afghans who are certainly not "the enemy"? As a local woman said of a murdered two year old child: "There are no two year old Taliban fighters as far as I know."

How many more people must die in this pointless and unwinnable military adventure? Lord knows how Afghani fighters and the ordinary populace will respond to this atrocity in the coming days. But have you noticed how normally we don't get to hear very much at all about civilian deaths or indeed the deaths of those alien creatures from outer space known as...The Taliban! Aaaarrggh! So, BRING OUR BROTHERS HOME! Please...