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  Commonwealth War Graves Commission Howard. (you have to learn to speak Brianish).
  
  I must agree here with Sid and Ian on the troops and Barry on the real reasons for hanging on until 'the job's done. However as to when that will be is questionable. Iraq is three countries being held together by military presence when it would have been more sensible to support three semi-autonomous regions (Kurdish, Sunni etc.) with a central governing structure. Afghanistan has a more complex system of tribal and warlord regions that make it difficult to hand over to any one regional control. Winning 'hearts and minds' was a strategy discredited in Vietnam when the Americans tried to win over the Vietnamese with Coke and toothbrushes (I'm not joking). Reason would say that you could win them over by restoring and improving the physical infra-structure but there are too many armed factions with a vested interest in seeing that such a thing does not happen.
  This war can only end when there is no chance of it spilling over into other Islamic nations and that is a very long way off.

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