100 dead soldiers

Followingthe death on December 7th of yet another soldier in Helmand province, British army casualties in Afghanistan have reached one hundred this year, making it the bloodiest since the engagement began in 2001. Photos of this year’s slain fill the front page of today’s Daily Telegraph, with a quote from British army Chief of staff, General Sir David Richards, enjoining the British public to remain “resolute” and to “steel” itself. “As soldiers we tend to give less weight to such milestones,” the General reveals in a further interview for the London daily. But “Each death hardens our resolve to get the job done”. What exactly this job consists in remains none too clear a week after the Obama adminstration’s decision to post a further 30,000 US troops on the country, only to leave it in 2011.