THE recent vilification of a correspondent’s letter referring to British soldiers dying in Afghanistan, and the timing of the letter, just before Christmas, prompts my response.

People will just have to realise that not everyone gets behind the jingoistic support for wars in Iraq and Afghanistan that see our troops kill, or be killed with hardly a mention for the hundreds of civilian casualties – or collateral damage – to use the new term.

A letter in Friday’s Oxford Mail, stated that the majority of Afghan casualties are from Taliban or al-Qaeda attacks.

A US General just stated they estimate al-Qaeda figures at around 100, and it is now well known, though badly reported, that the Taliban are generally the Afghan people.

Coalition forces are directly, or indirectly, responsible for all casualties.Of course, one should blame the gutless politicians for sending troops there in the first place.

Now we see a radical Islamist group was trying to hijack the Wootton Bassett procession of British soldiers, killed in the conflict.

As an anti-war activist, that was one march I wouldn’t be joining.

Surely, the answer is to commemorate both soldiers and civilians killed in a war hugely unpopular with the British public, despite the inglorious campaign by our discredited media, unlike the poor souls who make the emotional journey through that Wiltshire town.

Don’t fall for politicians’ lies, like many did over Iraq. The Nobel prize winner President Obama is already telling us the Afghan attack had the backing of the UN; it did not. He also repeated another enormous ‘porky’ as if said by GW Bush that the US offered no attack if the Taliban handed over Bin Laden.

They tried on three occasions to do just that. The attack was pre-planned and ready to go. Remember Iraq?

Politicians don’t give a jot for us, or, more importantly, they give not a jot for our soldiers’ well being.

The ongoing Iraq inquiry had admissions from two senior military personnel. Former deputy chief of defence staff Vice Admiral Charles Style said of British forces in Basra: “We were foreign military people on the soil of another country and they wanted us gone.” General Sir Nicholas Houghton said it was “very evident we had become part of the problem.”

Should we wait for the Afghan inquiry that will, no doubt, say the same? How many troops must we sacrifice? How many Afghan innocents must be killed? How long before we say enough?

Bush once said: “If you are not with us, you are against us”. Can that really be said of the anti-war lobby that would long for our troops to be pulled away from this bloody conflict and returned to the safety of the UK.

I could think of two things we could spend the huge Afghan budget on. How about a £500 winter payment to all pensioners and perhaps a sprinkling of salt on our roads. And, of course, no more British military casualties.

Tim W Siret, Evans Road, Eynsham