Tom and Collin

We were still in that most remote of places, an island in the future. We couldn't be at peace because there was nothing to confirm. If the anchors were old times and old groups; then stranded here we were as nothing. Scheming and scamming; that hadn't stopped. They came by with other missions on their minds. They thought they were being smart and weren't being smart at all. Rip me off, go on, see if I care. These were taudry days that were gusting out from the past chaos; the houses we all used to live in; pointing them out as we drove around; I used to live there, I used to live there; the dank decaying smell coming out of rain and uncombed gardens; the giant terraces which all represented whole stories in themselves.

There had been countless other tribes pass through these dwellings since we had been here. Colin, rocking and rolling, has declared that he is going to the doctor for a chat next week; that he wants to get things together; that there will be no more medical intervention. Taken a dive, honey? I ask; and he nods; dramatising the situation as best he can. We are all preparing for death, but in your case there is wind under the wings; a viral load that threatens to destroy. What's brought this on? I ask. Sick of the pills, sick of not feeling right, and he winces is pain; tells me he's pissing blood.

What was it all about, that visit? I didn't know; didn't, deeply, want to know; wondered why so fractious? Were they blaming me now? Did the only adventures that made any sense finally lodge into place? Repeat after me, I am dying my son, he said, time and again, while the rest of us prepared for uncertain futures. It wasn't the end that we had predicted. He went white with pain again. I couldn't connect; expressed sympathy and confusion; and in the wake of everything he sought out new knowledge and new purpose. These times were so illusory. Prime times, when what we were doing made sense; old friendships long maintained. Outrageous love and outrageous sex; here at the end. We laughed, but there wasn't much to laugh about anymore. It was all about Quality of LIfe.

1,000 more troops to fight TalibanBy Thomas Harding and Christopher Hope
Last Updated: 1:10am GMT 24/02/2007
Plans to send an extra 1,000 troops to Afghanistan were condemned by senior officers yesterday as "unlikely to be enough" to deal with the expected Taliban onslaught in the spring.

Rose Gentle, whose son was killed in Basra in 2004, launches the ‘peace camp’ protest
Commanders questioned whether they will be able to contain the violence in Helmand province and say thousands more may be needed.
The mission is a "troops intensive business", defence sources said last night, adding that it "remains to be seen if this reinforcement is enough".
Des Browne, the Defence Secretary, is expected to tell Parliament on Monday that the next six-month deployment to Afghanistan will be reinforced by an additional regiment and other elements. This is in addition to a further 800 men, mainly from the Grenadier Guards, who are being sent to boost 12 Mechanised Brigade when it deploys to Helmand next month. The total British force there will number more than 5,000 with the extra deployments but this is still not regarded as enough.
and
UNDATED In a largely invisible cost of the war in Iraq, nearly 800 civilians working under contract to the Pentagon have been killed doing jobs normally handled by the U-S military.That's according to figures gathered by The Associated Press. Those figures also show more than 33-hundred civilian contractors have been hurt doing these jobs.
Exactly how many of these employees doing the Pentagon's work are Americans is uncertain. But the casualty figures make it clear that the Pentagon count of more than 31-hundred U-S military dead doesn't tell the whole story.
The U-S has outsourced so many war and reconstruction duties to contractors like Houston-based Halliburton that there are almost as many contractors at 120-thousand in the war zone as the 135-thousand U-S troops.
The insurgents in Iraq make little if any distinction between the contractors and U-S troops.