The right sort of attitude

David Aaronovitch, writing in the Times, makes some good points about the Afghan war.

As I read Christina Lamb’s extraordinary account in The Sunday Times of being ambushed in Helmand my thought was not “too much”, but “not enough”. More helicopters, if they’re needed. More of everything, if that’s required. We should be doing it for Nooria, the 12-year-old girl interviewed by Newsweek in February. A dozen or so gunmen had entered her school, beaten the watchman and then burnt the place down. Then the written threats started.

So classes took place under the trees in the courtyard and other schools lent some of their own books. Nooria, whose ambition is to teach, told the magazine’s reporter that she wasn’t afraid of being beaten or mutilated. “I want to keep studying,” she said.