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  PaulB. This is a very difficult one. Remember the reason we are there is because the Taliban regime helped and supported Bin Laden in carrying out the 9/11 attacks. Our troops are helping support a pro-Western regime in Kabul and without us the Taliban may well be resurgant and get control back. If that happened Bin Laden will be able to re-group under their patronage and plan and carry out attacks on the West unhindered. Indeed they will be encouraged by our weakness and spurred on.
  
  While we are fighting in Afghanistan and Iraq to resources of Bin Laden and the Taliban are focussed on these places and, perhaps, diverting them from attacks on USA and European targets.
  
  100 individual tragedies in Afghanistan may well be the price for not having 1,000 more tradegies from terrorist attacks on the West.
  
  I believe that the fighting in Afganistan is therefore achieving two things: It provides intelligence to defend against further terrorist attacks and diverts the terrorists attention from attacks on Western civilian targets, reducing the number of attacks.
  
  What the long term solution is I really do not know. Clearly we have to destroy the ability of the Taliban to defeat the pro-west Kabul Government and that means a hearts and minds operation. Likewise we need to kill and destroy Bin Laden's organisation.
  
  Pulling out would clearly be a serious problem for us. The opposite is probably the best route, get more troops into the front line and be more aggressive and active against the Taliban while making sure 'hearts and minds' projects among civilians are boosted.
  
  The way things are the other NATO countries wouuld have to provide the troops, we have none.... We must significantly increase our Defence expenditure and increase the size of our armed forces.

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