Brutalised soldiers, pumped up with racial and cultural superiority, sent on imperial missions, take revenge for resistance, real or imagined, with terror and savagery.

Wiping out women and children is part of the war, says Tariq Ali, and helicopter gunships, bomber jets and drones are more effective killers at doing that than 'lone' gunmen.

The latest poll shows that seven in ten people believe that the Afghan war is unwinnable and even the media is beginning to catch up with what has long been obvious to the British public.

When Obama and Cameron meet in Washington on 13 March, whatever they say publicly, they will certainly be discussing whether they can bring forward the exit date.

David Swanson agrees that the troops must stay in Afghanistan "to get the job done", but he has somewhat different reasons from the politicians and generals waging the war.

As six more British soldiers are killed, a bereaved mother writes to the prime minister, "I beg you to end this bloodshed. No more young men and women should die in this conflict."

It's getting more difficult for the apologists for war to insult our intelligence with their talk of "success", because too many soldiers are coming home to expose the sham.

6 more UK soldiers have been killed in Afghanistan, bringing the number of British deaths to 404. No more lives must be wasted in this doomed enterprise. NATO must get out now.

As actual power is visibly slipping away from the United States, American officials are already talking about not panicking (which indicates that panic is indeed in the air).

At $10bn a month, and an increasing number of US casualties, the American people need to ask whether staying in Afghanistan until December 2014 is worth it.

Afghans themselves are making clear that this latest episode is but the trigger for underlying grievances about a decade-old, extremely violent foreign military presence in their country.

The end of a war that is in its eleventh year and that has brought nothing but mass slaughter and destruction could be brought nearer by US soldiers burning copies of the Koran.

After 10 years of at least $3.5 billion of humanitarian aid and $58 billion of development assistance, how could children be dying of something as predictable and manageable as the cold?

In one mission in Afghanistan the US dropped 19 bombs and fired two Hellfire missiles, 205 rockets and 500 rounds of cannon shot. Number of Taliban fighters killed? One.

"Where were the rights for these children who have been violated?" asks an Afghan MP. "Did they have rights or not? Did they have rights to live as part of the world community?"

If the public had access to these reports, says Lt. Colonel Daniel Davis, they would see the gulf between what is said in public by our senior leaders and what is actually true behind the scenes.