ME thinks a strange malady has overcome the corridors of power. Don't I remember the headlines during the Cold War when America and Russia were jostling for strategic advantage by invading Afghanistan with dismal success?

The poverty of the country and the wildness of all those mountains and prolifery of caves and hidden passages defeated them both and economic viability came into question.

Then why are Tony Blair and Gordon Brown et all spending our money on a similar hopeless exercise? Not to mention the waste of more lives. This must be added, surely, to the debacle of Iraq during which we handed over the remnants of our car industry to Germany, the Japanese had the rest, our shipping lines went to the Americans and thanks to them our shipbuilding to Germany!

JOHN WEBSTER, Holbury.