David Kirwan

Prospective Independent MP David Kirwan reiterated his call today for the “madness of Afghanistan” to end.

With eight British soldiers being killed in a single day last week and the death toll standing at 184, the time has come for our soldiers to pulled out of the war torn country.

David said: “People are inevitably asking when the death toll will reach 200?  That would not be much short of the 257 deaths suffered in the Falklands campaign – a campaign in which our sovereignty and citizens’ lives were at stake.

“Army commanders no doubt at the behest of the MOD appear on our television screens to reassuringly offer platitudes about restoring ‘governance’ to the people of Afghanistan and repelling the threat of terrorism .

“The Afghan peoples have lived happily under the shifting loyalties of a tribal system that has changed little in 500 years. There is more of a threat to us in terms of terrorism from within the countries of Western Europe and here at home in these islands than chasing the Bin Laden phantom in the hills of Waristan.

“When will this carnage of our young men and now increasingly experienced officers end?

“I continually ask myself the question whose war is this and for what purpose? To neither question can I elicit from what we are fed by the Government any justification for spilling British blood any longer on this distant and foreign soil.

“Let us not forget that in addition to the weekly pictures of flag draped coffins unloaded from planes and carried solemnly to rest there remains the legacy of hundreds of wounded service personnel whose torn bodies will remain a poignant reminder to us all of this futile conflict.”