Brit soldiers 100 British soldiers were killed in one year – for Afghanistan. One cannot but wonder at the grief of the families of the fallen; the widows who have had their hearts ripped apart with grief; the children who will grow up without fathers; the eternal loss to the world of their love, their vibrancy, their humanity. The 100th soldier to die in the Afghanistan campaign is, we are told, a ‘grim milestone', a ‘bloody milestone', a ‘stark reminder', a ‘dreaded landmark', an ‘important moment'. He makes front-page headlines across the newspapers, and is the BBC's lead story for the day. The truth is that the 100th death is no less tragic than the 99th, and the 99th no less worth remembering than the 100th. Real people occupy those places, and they were no less loved and their lives promised no less hope than the (presently) unnamed soldier who died in the 100th place. And that is just this year. The total British loss since 2001 is 237. Each gets his or her mention in Parliament before normal service swiftly resumes. We are assured by our political leaders that their thoughts (and occasionally prayers) are with the family and friends of the latest British fatality. But it is a transient thought, a momentary vision, an ephemeral eulogy to someone who gave their lives so that we might be free. The passing of Ivan Cameron was marked with greater heartfelt respect. We repeat each year that we will remember them. But we do not. As the families and friends cry themselves to sleep and wander aimlessly as their empty rooms are filled with grief, the dead are but numbers and statistics to the politicians; pawns in politics of power play. – archbishop-cranmer.blogspot.com Indian PM Steve Coll makes the case that Manmohan Singh, prime minister of India and formerly minister of finance, is one of the great underrated statesmen of our time. It's a very convincing case. Singh brought economic growth to India, has fought—and won—against destructive Hindu nationalism, made efforts at peace with Pakistan, and done an admirable job of urging restraint in the face of provocations from terrorists. That last is, in particular, something I think American political leaders could learn a lot from. Among other things it reminds me that it's always difficult to really keep the sheer scale of India and China in mind. Thinking about the global economic crisis, for example, it's worth recalling that those two mega-countries have kept on growing right through the developed world's downturn. So for over two billion people, 2009 is actually the best of times, economically speaking. And that's many more people than live in the US/Europe/Japan depressed era.
