Warfare is costly and futile waste of life

IN his letter (“West was right to try to change Afghanistan”, September 7), Alan Byrne offers probably the poorest argument I have ever seen in these columns.

He amazingly, and ridiculously, compares the West’s invasion of Afghanistan, with its 20 years of death and destruction culminating in withdrawal and abject failure, to the allied fight against a mighty military power intent on dominating the world and breathing down our necks across the channel.

As an attempt to rewrite history this is astounding!

After failures in Vietnam, Libya, Iraq and now Afghanistan perhaps it will dawn on the US and its lapdog supporters in the UK Government that military intervention in these countries is a futile waste of life and money.

In the 1960s, Harold Wilson stood up to the US president and refused to get involved in Vietnam, saving hundreds, maybe thousands, of British lives – and we all know how that adventure finished.

Let’s hope that future decisions by our Government lean towards the Wilson opinion and that we no longer involve ourselves in fruitless warfare.

Phil Garner, Littleover