Steele: Afghanistan: The west has to accept that there is no military solution

Kabul -- The team that wrote President Bush's Prague speech on democracy this week have clearly never visited Afghanistan . Otherwise they would not have had the president quoting a Soviet dissident who compared "a tyrannical state to a soldier who constantly points a gun at his enemy". The guns that most Afghans see pointed at them are held by Americans, and they are all too often fired. At least 135 unarmed civilians have been reported killed over the past two months by western troops, mainly US special forces.

The deaths by ground fire and US air strikes have become so frequent that last month the upper house of Afghanistan 's parliament did something it has never done before. It called on the Nato-led forces to cease taking offensive action against the Taliban and asked the Afghan government to talk to the insurgents, provided the Taliban accept the country's new constitution. It also asked for a timetable for the withdrawal of foreign troops. The upper house is not normally a radical body. More than half its members were appointed by Bush's friend, President Hamid Karzai. Its speaker is a moderate former mujahideen leader who was driven from power by the Taliban a decade ago. That men with this background should now be expressing doubts over Nato's tactics and even over its presence in Afghanistan sends a powerful signal.