Learn the lessons of Afghanistan

AS the parent of a son who has completed three voluntary tours in Afghanistan and, mercifully, returned unscathed I watched the BBC’s Panorama programme (February 25) on Afghanistan with horrified fascination. The programme portrayed the Afghan army and police as a bunch of corrupt degenerates who don’t want to fight, and who abduct civilians, smoke dope on duty and sell their weapons and fuel in the bazaar.

It’s too late now to retrieve the British lives that have been squandered and ruined, but the sooner we get our people out of that squalid mess the better.

Is it too much to hope that our Government might learn from this experience and think twice about committing our people to such ill-advised adventures in future? Peter Jopp, 5 Victoria Circus, Glasgow.