Blood on all their hands

Gordon Brown's announcement that Britain is to send another 500 troops to Afghanistan shows the direction he and the leaders of the other main parties are going where the war is concerned. Despite a groundswell of opinion against the war both in Britain and internationally, the politicians are united in demanding more of the same.

It is breathtaking that he chooses the same date, time and place to announce this as he did to read the names of the dead soldiers, 37 of whom were killed during parliament's summer recess. While MPs returned obsessed with their expenses and moaning and groaning about having to pay any of them back, they hardly raised their voices in opposition to a war which all but the most dense and deluded of them know is failing.

There is an eerie unreality about all this. The last three months have been the worst in terms of Nato troop casualties in Afghanistan. The arguments of those defending the war have become more threadbare. Even the military strategy now admits that the occupation has failed to reconstruct the country and win hearts and minds.

That phrase was best known from the Vietnam war, when the same path was followed. Send in more troops, train local troops and back leaders who purport to represent the population. That's what's on offer now, plus calls for other countries to 'shoulder the burden'.

In Vietnam they defended this strategy until it collapsed, and that will happen here.

Peter Brierley, who famously and courageously last week refused to shake Blair's hand because it had blood on it, lost his son in Iraq. He is one of the many who has suffered directly because of the war on terror. While Brown solemnly read the names of the dead in parliament, he was preparing for more troops _ with more deaths, more bereaved families here and in Afghanistan.

There's blood on all their hands.