Sorry Kev your points are laudable and well made, but, extremely dangerous in my view.

The fact that we had the terrorists in Afghanistan chased off, for miniscule publicly recognised losses, into the Waziristan border regions right from the start of this is well accepted. The problem is that it left nothing behind as a nationally-recognisable authority to take charge as there was no ready ‘opposition’ structure waiting in the wings who could do the job. There were several who made pretensions to it, but, no-one who could deliver on the promise.

What is obvious is that there has to be some, independent, force structure in place there until some form of ‘good governance’ can be established. That governance is not the existing regime or the one to come. We are looking, at least, at two generations for the concepts of governance, as we know them, to establish themselves over there. Only then could we consider scaling back the force presence with the hope of leaving a stable and robust political entity behind.

We’ve seen what happened after the Soviets were obliged to retreat in 89. The vacuum forms and the Taleban essentially return the country to the tribal fiefdoms of centuries back. We retreat, wash our hands of the mess, and the whole cycle starts again.

What happens is that the hardcore Al-Qaeda mob come down from the Northern Pakistani badlands with the Pakistani’s helping them on the way to shore-up their own border security situation. In a decades time thereafter the Taleban and Al-Qaeda are not only back up to pre-9/11 capability levels, but, enjoying the reputation of having chased NATO out as well as the best that the Soviets could throw at them.

If we pull out, as you suggest, we stop the tragic, but relatively limited, flow of casualties out of the combat zone (and I say that as someone who has friends out there and soon to deploy) and we enjoy a lull of maybe as much as a decade whilst Al Qaeda reconstitutes. Then we get to wait and see which civilian populations take the brunt of the renewed and invigorated terrorist campaign that ensues.

As a secondary effect to pulling out we suffer our own Vietnam-hangover. We admit failure and an inability to make good on our pledges. We show ourselves as a nation lacking in resolve and conviction even when our (western democratic) interests are expressly challenged. In short we show ourselves to be an unreliable partner, ally and friend to anyone who may wish to see such qualities in us….and this isn’t an intangible, frivolous factor to be dismissed when stacked up against the cost in service personnel’s lives. It is a crucial dimension in how others define their relations with us.

Post-Falklands Great Britain’s’ stock could not have been higher, we had shown ourselves as people who could be trusted to back their words with deeds, still the people who would make the principled stand….even at the highest of costs. That communicated a message to potential friends as much as potential opponents. Pulling out of Afghanistan citing it as an unwinnable war sends out every bit as powerful a message and is one we will pay a price for down the track as perceptions are very hard to change once ingrained.

Afghanistan is in every way a lose/lose situation for us. One way we suffer the casualties and trauma associated with a 30yr long presence in a country facing an effective armed insurrection and the other way we give that armed insurrection an unassailable political victory and brace our civilian populations for the resurgent backlash that results. To my mind the ‘least worst’ option there is obvious and it doesn’t involve a pull out.