ALEXANDER the Great gave up, the British fought over it more than 100 years ago and the Russians retreated in 1992, after 12 years of fighting.

Yet Afghanistan has never fully been conquered. So why are our troops still there, with 100 killed in the last year?

It is a barren country with 90 per cent of it mountains, well suited to guerilla warfare, where 80 million tonnes of poppies are grown each year for the legal, and illegal, drug trade.

Yet instead of sending more troops there to die at the hands of the Taliban, there is a simple and cheaper solution.

To fight any war both sides need military arms and these need to be bought. Basically the Taliban are a private army, so where do they get their arms from and the money to buy them?

It’s not all from the drug trade: someone, somewhere, is supporting them – someone with a vested interest.

The intelligence agencies in the West are quite capable of finding this out if they don’t know already. If other countries are supplying arms to the Taliban, then economic sanctions could be applied. Stop this supply, then the war is over.

However, do the Afghans really want democracy? The present ‘elected’ government is rife with corruption and still led by rival warlords with a personal financial interest. Many countries do not understand democracy and don’t want it.

Some prefer a strong man at the helm, be it a royal family or a despot. Saddam Hussein was once supported by the West because he kept the various tribal war lords under control.

Now Iraq is without a strong leader and the various sections are fighting for control. The real reason we went to war in Iraq was not the non-existent WMDs, but to control its oil. This has been achieved, for most production now is controlled by American companies.

At the time many people wondered why we went to war over the Falklands.

Like Afghanistan, it is a barren country where sheep outnumber the population. There were rumours at the time that there could be oil there. Now recently it has been stated that there is indeed a large oil field off the coast. It takes years, if not decades, to establish this, but did the British Government have intelligence of this at the time?

Is this the real reason we and the Americans are in Afghanistan? After all, it is close to oil-producing zones.

DEREK HONEY, Queen Emma’s Dyke, Witney