[user104658]

Originally Posted by Livia

I don't think anyone ever imagined that being in Afghanistan would mean an end to terrorism across the world. There's nothing glorious about it. I doubt you'd find one soldier who's served there who would describe it as either glorious or a victory, and neither would any of us who lost someone.

People in military service are not political decision makers though, they hand themselves over to those powers and they do their job and follow orders. There's a certain nobility in that, a selflessness and bravery that obviously should never be overlooked. Praise for the armed forces should be a given and should be a completely separate thing from debate over any specific conflict and the success (or in the case of the middle east, disaster) of those campaigns.

However, the fact that soldiers deserve praise, that their bravery and selflessness should be applauded, does not negate the fact that the people pulling the strings, safe in their ivory towers, make some terrible mistakes and when they do, they sometimes send those soldiers to sit striking matches under an unholy pile of dynamite.

The terrorist threat in the middle east isn't just "not gone", it's worse and more extreme than it ever was. The withdrawal of troops for Afghanistan will, within a few years, allow terrorist groups like ISIS (or whatever worse entity comes next) to take hold and the country will slide straight back to where it was a decade ago and keep on sliding. When that happens, the little men in their little suits will be back in their little room talking about air strikes and trying to figure out how long they can stall before breaking it to the public that the troops will be going back.

Western military intervention in the middle east has been an unyielding **** storm. This is not the fault of the soldiers. This doesn't lessen the sacrifices. The military didn't make mistakes. The politicians did and still are; It's the fault of ham-fisted puppet masters.

I might be wrong, Afghanistan might be able to get itself on track and become as close to a success story in the middle east as is possible, but I very much doubt it. There are dark times ahead for Afghanistan. Darker than there would have been had no British serviceman ever set foot there.