What is the end plan for Afghan war?

THE unnecessary death of a further six of our service personnel raises the obvious questions, what was it for? and will Afghanistan be any different when we come out to when we went in?

It wouldn’t be too bad if the people of Afghanistan actually wanted us to be there, or that there was some end plan, but more and more you get the impression that it is the amount of pain for all have to suffer to satisfy the American revenge requirement for 9/11.

Shortly, with the upcoming Presidential Election, we will no doubt see a US-condoned Israeli attack on Iran, and certainly no pressure from the US Government to get Israel to return to its pre 1967 War borders. If we have to be in Afghanistan, and I haven’t understood a reason so far for being there, why are we required to have so many of our personnel in the invasion force, and in the most dangerous areas?

I anticipate a Royal visit soon to West Yorkshire, and more expression of deep sympathy from our political leaders, who do not have the strength to say to our bankrupt American allies, fight your own wars for a change – we’re pulling out!

It was bad enough with Teflon Tony, Call Me Dave is getting as bad, seemingly he can’t go to the toilet without asking Clegg first!

From: John Bolton, Gregory Springs Mount, Mirfield.

FROM the many letters I imagine you received following the terrible loss of our young servicemen last week, the selection you published (Yorkshire Post, March 13) was excellent and covered so many important aspects of the whole sad issue.

I had previously raised some of these in recent weeks in a letter you headed ‘What price do we put on a military life?’ so I am pleased to identify myself totally with those in todays issue.

There is one further important point relating to all that has been said. The Prime Minister has publicly stated on a few occasions in recent months how he and his government embrace ‘The Military Covenant’. I have to ask in what way, and how will that be any comfort to the grieving families of these brave young heroes?

Driver errors cause carnage

From: Allan Ramsay, Radcliffe Moor Road, Radcliffe.

AT long last, common sense prevails: a transport body is recommending that elderly drivers should have a retest.

Ninety per cent of so called “accidents” are blamed on driver error. Since the first such death, (pedestrian, Bridget Driscol, in 1896) driver error has destroyed tens of millions of lives. Globally, hundreds of millions!

Targeting elderly drivers alone though, surely doesn’t go far enough: illness (alcoholism, obesity, dementia, multiple sclerosis, heart disease etc.) and injuries (from road crashes), invariably compromise driving ability at any age.

Doesn’t the law require a driver to notify DVLA of such conditions, and it’s against the law not to? Only on trust though, anyone not wanting to chance losing their licence, doesn’t have to.

Not only a risk then, but uninsured! What chance a victim of getting compensation? An injured cyclist, needing 24/7 nursing care, recently won his claim for £14m. Victims not getting adequate financial help won’t just suffer twice, but for the rest of their lives.

Just as there are safety measures in place to reduce the abuse of children from sex offenders, shouldn’t there be just as effective measures to reduce the carnage on our roads? An abused child can recover, a dead one can’t.

More pain at the pumps

From: Brian Mooney, Campaign Manager, Fair Deal for the Motorist Campaign.

DRIVERS are taxed five times over for the services we get. Despite practically record fuel prices this summer, the UK government plans to add around another 4p/litre worth of pain at the pump.

Successive increases don’t just hurt drivers and our hard-pressed hauliers, they feed through to rising prices at the shops for everyone.Yet the Government is already dropping hints that it has “helped drivers enough”and cannot hold back.

With last year’s 1p/litre cut outweighed by far larger rises, and most of the price consumed in tax, it’s more a case of the government helping itself?

With families everywhere feeling the pinch, the Chancellor must use his Budget on March 21 to scrap the planned rise.

A mockery of marriage

From: William Snowden, Butterbowl Gardens, Farnley, Leeds.

WITH a decided air of superiority, Brian Sheridan expresses his contempt for Cardinal O’Brien’s “asinine rant” and sneers at Dr Carey, whom he calls “intellectually challenged” (Yorkshire Post, March 10).

These senior churchmen incurred Mr Sheridan’s wrath by opposing the warped concept of “gay marriage”. Mr Sheridan claims that marriage tends “to disadvantaged homosexuals” and, therefore, should be redefined on “the basis... of love as much as gender”.

This is a curious conceit: love may, indeed, assume many different forms; but marriage is irrefutably the union of a man and a woman as husband and wife, and for the primary purpose of procreation. To contend otherwise, is to make a mockery and a ruin of it. Truly, we live in perverse times: an increasingly degenerate and amoral age of unbridled arrogance, ignorance and aggressive selfishness, in which cherished traditions are undermined.

We are subject constantly to the diktats of charlatans, and governance by fools.