The threat of roadside bombs is constant, Afghan soldiers are turning their guns on their NATO trainers and Obama and Cameron say they are going to "stay the course".

“The overall image of this war is of US troops mired in quicksand and getting blown up and arbitrarily waiting until 2014 to come home. Of course you’d be against it.”

Responsibility for the deaths of these two soldiers lies with phttp://www.youtube.com/watch?v=r8lP_OCvHe0oliticians who continue to wage an unjustfied war, knowing it to be lost, and knowing that it is opposed by most people in this country.

The victims of Staff Sgt. Robert Bales have become an anonymous footnote, just the number 16. No one bothered to ask their ages, hobbies, or, worst of all, their names.

If he was entirely deranged, wouldn't US Marine Staff Sergeant Robert Bales have killed 16 of his fellow Americans, slaughtered his mates and then set fire to their bodies?

"I know what these boys were told by the recruiters," says ex-soldier Joe Glenton. "I held in my own nervous hand the same brochures they were shown and I took the oaths they took."

After the massacre of 16 civilians in Afghanistan, the US Army has released a new video to restore the true image of US marines as dedicated servants of humanity opposing tyranny and injustice.

Brutalised soldiers, pumped up with racial and cultural superiority, sent on imperial missions, take revenge for resistance, real or imagined, with terror and savagery.

Wiping out women and children is part of the war, says Tariq Ali, and helicopter gunships, bomber jets and drones are more effective killers at doing that than 'lone' gunmen.

The latest poll shows that seven in ten people believe that the Afghan war is unwinnable and even the media is beginning to catch up with what has long been obvious to the British public.

When Obama and Cameron meet in Washington on 13 March, whatever they say publicly, they will certainly be discussing whether they can bring forward the exit date.

David Swanson agrees that the troops must stay in Afghanistan "to get the job done", but he has somewhat different reasons from the politicians and generals waging the war.

As six more British soldiers are killed, a bereaved mother writes to the prime minister, "I beg you to end this bloodshed. No more young men and women should die in this conflict."

It's getting more difficult for the apologists for war to insult our intelligence with their talk of "success", because too many soldiers are coming home to expose the sham.

6 more UK soldiers have been killed in Afghanistan, bringing the number of British deaths to 404. No more lives must be wasted in this doomed enterprise. NATO must get out now.

As actual power is visibly slipping away from the United States, American officials are already talking about not panicking (which indicates that panic is indeed in the air).