– Clive Stafford Smith is the director of Reprieve, the UK legal action charity that uses the law to enforce the human rights of prisoners. The opinions expressed are his own. -

As the British death toll climbed above 200 in Afghanistan this week, it became clearer that the politicians were betraying the soldiers who they were sending to fight and die.

The government talks about winning the battle for “hearts and minds” in Helmand Province – apparently oblivious to the loaded history of that phrase. This was the mantra of those who wasted 50,000 American lives in a futile battle to impose democracy at the end of a gun barrel in Vietnam.

Napalm never won an election, and nobody can expect an Afghan to warm to the rule of law when he witnesses his people being locked up in Bagram Air Force Base every day — abused and held without trial for years in Guantanamo’s evil twin. Bagram already holds three times as many prisoners as the Cuban black hole, and $50 million is being spent on a new prison that will add another 1,100 cells.

Captain Kirk Black, an American soldier I met in Guantanamo Bay, is now stationed in the dusty backroad of Afghanistan. He e-mailed, asking Reprieve to represent Gul Khan, a local sheep farmer who had been locked up in Bagram in error. He said that if we could bring justice to an Afghan peasant, then he and his platoon would be a little bit safer. Gul Khan is now back with his flock, and I hope Capt. Black gets credit for his release.

Conversely, British politicians are endangering the lives of soldiers when they conspire with their American allies to perpetuate injustice in Bagram. This, ultimately, is the headline of the latest litigation we announced yesterday.

The background facts show Britain’s complicity in another illegal act of rendition. In 2004, the British arrested two men in Iraq, and turned them over to the Americans, who took them to Bagram. The men remain there to this day, daily abused and divorced from the most basic due process.

This was kept secret for five years. Only in February 2009 did John Hutton apologize to Parliament, admitting that Britain knew about this illegal rendition at the time. The transfer to Bagram had been necessary, he said, because the two men were Pakistani: the implication was that there were no translators in Iraq since they spoke Urdu.

Assuming him to be sincere, I wrote asking for details about the prisoners, so that we could reunite them with their legal rights. Three months later, I finally received a reply: To tell us the men’s names would violate their rights under the Data Protection Act.

Here is a government that leaves your private details littered over the national rail network, but when they want to cover up a crime suddenly the Data Protection Act swings into action. (Presumably, next time the mafia kidnaps you, Don Corleone will assert a legal duty not to reveal where you are being held.)

It is not easy to identify someone who is in a secret prison like Bagram, but we have located a prisoner, recently released, who was able to fill in a few details. He recalled the two men coming from Iraq. He could not remember their full names, but the man he called Saifullah spoke perfect English. The other, Salah Din, spoke Arabic, but suffered from a serious mental illness thanks to the abuse he had been through.

But we can’t help them until we know their real names, and are able to contact their families for authorization.

Bob Ainsworth has taken over Hutton’s job. Now he faces a simple choice: He can do right, or he can do wrong. What he cannot do is tell young British soldiers to fight and die for the rule of law, while simultaneously stabbing them in the back by promoting injustice in Afghanistan.

Defence Secretary Bob Ainsworth came under criticism on Monday over a shortage of military equipment in Afghanistan, where 15 British soldiers have been killed in the past two weeks.

The deaths highlight the shortage of helicopters, especially Chinooks, which can carry large numbers of troops and equipment over long distances, say the Conservatives and Liberal Democrats.

The parties argue that the troops are in difficult circumstances and too vulnerable on the ground.

More helicopters and vehicles will be sent to the war zone next year, Ainsworth said. For now, helicopter flying hours have been increased.

Should the government spend more on equipment for British troops in Afghanistan now, or should they wait until next year?

The death toll among British troops in Afghanistan is rising fast.  The soldier who died on Tuesday was the seventh to die in the last week and the 176th since the war began.

Last Wednesday, Lieutenant Colonel Rupert Thorneloe became the highest ranking British soldier to die in the conflict in Afghanistan when he was killed in Helmand. British commanders are quoted as saying things are going to get worse before they get better.

Not surprisingly, doubts are being raised about the price being paid in Afghanistan, about the nature of the mission itself and whether security can ever be made effective enough to rebuild the country after 30 years of war.

Defence Secretary Bob Ainsworth concedes there is gloom about the rising death toll but rejects comparisons with the Vietnam war that lasted over 15 years and says there is a "real sense of momentum" in Afghanistan.

Do you believe Britain should stay in Afghanistan?

-Tim Cocks is a Reuters correspondent based in Baghdad.-

For the U.S. military, it’s the million dollar question — or rather the $687 billion question, according to a recent estimate of the Iraq war’s total cost. Is Iraq now stable enough for them to take a permanent back seat?

The short answer is no one knows. The only way they were ever going to find out was to leave Iraq’s own forces to it and hope the whole thing doesn’t come tumbling down. They started doing that on Tuesday when they pulled out of Iraqi cities.

It’s been an encouraging start. A big bomb in Kirkuk cast a shadow over Iraq’s celebrations of its new-found sovereignty, but since then things have been relatively quiet. Militants might try to take advantage by stepping up attacks, but for the moment they seem content with celebrating a “victory” over the occupation — and setting off the odd bomb, of course.

The United States’ coalition partners have for the most part long since departed. British forces handed over southern Iraq to the Americans in April, but since 2007 their 4,000 odd troops left had been largely confined to Basra airport anyway.

And one thing the crystal ball gazers have learned about Iraq’s hugely complicated, many-sided conflict is that the past is rarely a reliable guide to the future.

When optimists thought Iraq was poised to enjoy democracy after the fall of Saddam, it spiralled into years of bloody insurgency and sectarian killing. Later, just when it seemed all hope was lost and Iraq would have to be partitioned, things starting getting dramatically better.

The idea that Iraqi forces aren’t ready to take on the country’s security usually centre on claims that they are untested, not well trained or infiltrated with militiamen.

But few deny they look more professional and integrated now than anyone would have thought possible two years ago. They might still be full of militiamen, but those militiamen are no longer kidnapping or killing political rivals, as in the past.

And there are clearly some things the Iraqis do better. For one thing, they know the language and understand the culture.

When I was on a U.S. patrol in Iraq’s troubled Diyala province, a U.S. unit nearby accidentallly shot and wounded a civilian in Jalawla town, forcing them to vacate it because a public outcry would put other soldiers at risk of attack.

What they had done is fire a warning shot at a vehicle after the driver failed to heed a command — in English — to stay back. But few Iraqis in rural areas speak basic English.

The real test will be when U.S. pulls all combat forces out, under President Barack Obama’s orders, by September next year.

Many Iraqis I’ve spoken too seem convinced the insurgents are just biding their time, sharpening their knives and stockpiling explosives waiting to reignite the conflict.

But whether or not Iraq can look after itself, at some point the Americans have to say: Look, we’ve done our best to get the lid back on Pandora’s Box. Now it’s over to you.