A country at war

Having been in Britain for a fortnight now it has really begun to sink in that I am living in a country at war. My views on the 'war' aside, it has been interesting (and a little disconcerting) to watch the media coverage of the goings on in Afghanistan. On a day-to-day basis you wouldn't know that there are hundreds of British troops engaged in on the ground fighting overseas. In fact, I looked on the Guardian Newspaper website this morning and was totally unable to find any mention of the war or its latest victims. This despite the fact that another two soldiers have been killed in the last two days.

Watching the news at night and updates at various times throughout the day, a news flash will pop up on screen stating that another young Briton has been killed. It is a 10 second flash of information and then its back to the news, which is often focused on community bike rides and workers strikes. A strange juxtaposition of information really.

I read today that a family has written an open letter to Gordon Brown criticising his role in the so called "war on terror" and blaming him for the death of their son. I have not yet read the letter itself but was surprised to hear the news reporters shock that this was the first letter to be written on behalf of the 200 plus soldiers who have died. Can this truly be the case?

Now I am the first to admit that I am no expert on the British role in Afghanistan and Iraq but I do have firm views against the fighting there. Being a student at the Peace School at Bradford University does not mean that I have to have rose-tinted glasses and be totally against the use of force, but it does I'm sure, mean that peaceful solutions are advocated over going in all guns blazing.

I would say that it makes me glad to be a New Zealander but given the SAS recent deployment to Afghanistan I'm not so sure we can be as self-righteous as we once were on this front.