“WE ARE NOT GOING TO WIN THIS WAR”

In a time of desperate financial struggle, with climate change happening around us and little action taken, why are we at war in Iraq and Afghanistan? Even the USA is beginning to question being in Iraq, McCains stubborn refusal to even consider leaving till he gets a 'victory', even if its 1000 years later, is losing him votes.

"We're not going to win this war." So said Brigadier Mark Carleton-Smith, the British general in charge about Afghanistan. He was effectively admitting the Taliban and other anti occupation groups are winning and both the occupation and the Karzai government are completely discredited. What he didn’t mention is the root cause of all this. Life has quite simply got much worse for Afghans since the occupation. There has been virtually no reconstruction. All the research, including that of UN shows the same picture.

The Green Party have an interesting new policy from last months conference on buying their drugs for medicine, instead of trying to burn them and turning the farmers towards the Taliban.

* Life expectancy has fallen since 2003 to 43.1 years;
* Since 2001, the infant mortality rate has risen to 135 per 1,000 deaths;
* Only 31% of the population have access to clean water;
* Adult literacy has fallen from 2003 figure to 23.5%.

Theres a new pamphlet called AFGHANISTAN, WHY WE SHOULD GET OUT. Introduced by John Pilger, the pamphlet covers the war, women’s rights, the opium boom and the tremendous cost of the war to the Afghan people and the British Exchequer.

Pamphlet £1 http://tinyurl.com/3no7sg

http://greenerblog.blogspot.com/2008/10/united-states-should-buy-afghanistans.html
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/uk/article4882597.ece