it's not Imperial adventure. The police/intelligence services state that over 90% of the terrorists plots they are aware of start off being planned in the border areas of Afghanistan and Pakistan. The reason the US, the UK, and others, went in was that those doing so were doing with impunity and running full time training camps as well.
The recent problems of the Pakistani government should amply show that it is a growing active fundamentalist Islamist threat not only to the West, but also to the neighbouring states.
If we pull out the Pakistani government could well fall into the hands of the Islamists, including their nuclear weapons. Those then at risk would not only be India, because of Kashmir, but also the West.
The idea that the threat will go away or that we can "fight the threat" from back here at home is a fantasy.
The danger is that public opinion will demand a withdrawal. it would seem that the the lack of rigorous support from the government, backed by a full review and rigorous review of the options, is also sapping morale in the forces.
With the apathetic support being provided by Brown and Obama it is hardly surprising that the press is starting to debate the subject and mould public opinion.
Public opinion is formed and expressed by machinery. The newspapers do an immense amount of thinking for the average man and woman. In fact they supply them with such a continuous stream of standardized opinion, borne along upon an equally inexhausible flood of news and sensation, collected from every part of the world every hour of the day, that there is neither the need nor the leisure for personal reflection. All this is but a part of a tremendous educating process. But it is an education which passes in at one ear and out at the other. It is an education at once universal and superficial. It produces enormous numbers of standardized citizens, all equipped with regulation opinions, prejudices and sentiments, according to their class or party.
Winston Churchill 1925.