How many more must die before Brown comes to his senses?

The Herald [9/2/10] reported the number of British soldiers killed in Afghanistan has surpassed the figure reached in the Falklands war. This surely begs the question how many more must die before Gordon Brown comes to his sense?
Longstanding readers of this newspaper will recall that now infamous and ultimately hollow assurance given by the Defence Secretary John Reid back in 2001 that 'British troops will be home [from Afghanistan] by Christmas with barely a shot being fired'. His present day counterpart Bob Ainsworth by way of stark contrast warns us to 'hold our resolve' as a severe increase in casualties is anticipated from Operation Moshtarak, an assault on the Taliban stronghold of Marjin.
It is important to recognise that our 8 year occupation of Afghanistan has not only produced British fatalities. Some 50,000 Afghan civilians are also reported to have been killed.
Tony Blair's decision to invade alongside 'his partner in crime' George Bush was taken even though he knew the Afghans were no more responsible for the 9/11 bombings they were charged with than Saddam Husein was a year later.
The Taliban are odious Islamic fundamentalists it is true, but no more odious than the warlords who currently sit in Hamid Karzai's Government in Kabul 'wined and dined' by Gordon Brown at conferences in London. The Taliban are insular Pashtoun nationalists with no interests beyond Afghanistan and were no threat to us. Furthermore as the acclaimed journalist John Pilger has revealed, they offered to hand over Osama Bin Laden three times and were rebuffed on each occasion by a US administration intent on 'military solutions'.
The fact is Britain's occupation of Afghanistan against the express wishes of its people does not improve our national security one bit, rather it provides 33m Afghans with an incentive to run off and join the insurgency dedicated to 'liberating' their country.
A clear distinction emerged in British consciousness during World War One between the 'lions' in the trenches and the 'donkeys' in the high command. Today the professionalism, bravery and fortitude of British soldiers in Afghanistan is in start contrast to the deceit of the 'donkeys' in the political high command who shame the nation with their lies and political cowardice and shed 'crocodile tears' for young men who ought never to have been sent there in the first place. Our politicians at Westminster ignore the polls showing 70% of Britons want our soldiers brought back home and have themselves shown, just as they did whilst they were fiddling their expenses, that they are completely out of touch with public opinion in this country.