Recent fighting has been the bloodiest in the history of the conflict
The people of Afghanistan want to run their own country, and always have.
Who can blame them? We take our independence for granted.
They can't, not least because of the involvement of foreign powers in their internal affairs.
Their history in the nineteenth century was dominated by the so-called "Great Game" between the Russian and British Empires. Both Russia and the UK believed that unless this landlocked country was "made" friendly, the rival empire would gain an advantage.
Three violent wars with the British were fought. It was not until 1919, in the aftermath of the First World War and the third Afghan war that Afghanistan finally achieved its full independence from the United Kingdom.
“Those of us responsible for deciding on behalf of the British people, that we should be there, need continually to explain what we're doing, and check and check again that we have the consent of the British people, not least because the morale of our troops so depends on that consent.”
But part of the price which it had had to pay was that its borders were pushed back west behind what was called the "Durand Line" to divide the Pashtun area between Afghanistan and what in 1947 became Pakistan.
This (and other factors) sowed the seeds for inherent division between these two countries which still continues today.
After 40 years of relative stability after independence Afghanistan has spent the last 35 in turmoil.
A coup to install an Islamic republic was followed by the 1978 Soviet Invasion, with the United States and the west arming and training the anti-Soviet insurgents (some of whom later became Taliban).
After the atrocity of Sept 11th 2001 the then Taliban government were given an ultimatum by the United Nations, to yield up Al Qaeda terrorists and stop providing a safe haven for them. They refused, so foreign forces invaded and have been occupying the country under a UN mandate ever since.
That's the short story, on paper. The human cost has of course been intense, not least in the blood of British service men and women.
Altogether 187 of our troops have lost their lives, with last month the bloodiest since the conflict began. What is less well publicised is the thousands who over this period have been injured. Many thankfully recover; some do not.
Is it worth it? Should we be there? If the Afghans do not like foreign domination any more than we would, why don't we leave them to it?
These are really important questions. Those of us responsible for deciding on behalf of the British people, that we should be there, need continually to explain what we're doing, and check and check again that we have the consent of the British people, not least because the morale of our troops so depends on that consent.
My answer to the first two questions is that it is essential that we do stay to complete the job. That job is the creation of a more stable, more democratic country which can secure its own borders and territory. And, for all that the Afghans would prefer to see the back of all foreign troops, they (and we) are only there with the full consent of the elected Afghan government.
If we walked away, the grave risk is that chaos followed by worse - much international terrorism, and further instability across that porous border of the Durand line with Pakistan would follow.
A year before the Second World War, then Prime Minister Neville Chamberlain washed his hands of intervention over Hitler's invasion of Czechoslovakia, saying it was "a quarrel in a faraway country, between people of whom we know nothing".
We paid a very high price for that complacency then, and it's a lesson for us now.
