The Stewart article is a very learned analysis of all the problems and pitfalls associated with trying to "do something" in Afghanistan. It makes some of my points but is indeed very depressing.

The thing is that Stewart has no idea what should be done. He only sees problems and offers no solution.

He says that we should reduce troops from 90,000 to 20,000 and we could still try to do humanitarian work to help Afghans. Bollocks. Every time we build a water or power project now, the Taleban blow it up. Reducing troops cannot help anyone. The country would be so unstable that humanitarian aid would be totally impossible to deliver.

The only suggestion that emerges from between Stewart's lines is the one that he dare not write - That we pull out, secure the border with enough military hardware to keep the population locked inside with the Taleban drug-dealing tyrants and try to forget about what might be happening. That we should effectively be concentration camp guards.

And he implicitly proposes this for Sudan, Somalia, North Korea et al. I don't like that sort of murderous pessimism.