The high cost of defeat will be due to stubborn stupidity and a lack of real responsibility

Iceland has the right idea - put your former prime minister on trial for the mistakes he made.

As we head for the Saigon Embassy rooftop stage of the Afghanistan campaign, loses are getting as hard to take as those of soldiers in the last few hours before the armistice. We know where all this is heading. We know that Afghanistan will return to the medieval brand of vicious Islam that's waiting in the wings. Some analysis shows that eventually even this order will break up and the usual tribal culture will reassert itself. Whatever the future - its nothing that young men from England, Ireland, Scotland and Wales should be asked to die for.

As I've said before the sunken cost fallacy is in play - not one can admit to the obvious as they would then have to explain how futile the deaths of the young men before 11am on the 11th have been, and perhaps ask why the politicians and generals put those young men in harms way.

The long term solution here is to make our leaders liable in the future - after the campaign. Iceland has the right idea - our leaders should be available to stand trial, just as the CEO of a company would be liable for their decisions for years after they retired.

More care would then be taken by career politicians with the lives of other people's sons.

PS See my blog posts on Afghanistan here ( few and far between - but you'll see a theme that the MMS is finally coming round to. )