A very good BBC Wales programme tonight debating Afghanistan was let down by some poor political comment, in particular by the abysmal Wayne David.

So few links were made, or understood, about the need to relate defence and military action to political objectives and diplomacy.

I’ve banged on about this for ages: War is Diplomacy by violent means.

It only buys time for Politicians to seek a negotiated settlement. It was therefore refreshing to see Elfyn Llwyd articulate the need to open diplomatic efforts of a non military kind. Even more refreshing was the quiet support from the military men in the audience.

Diplomacy is the only way to enduring solutions. Politicians need to understand this and understand this soon.

I was amused today to hear Bob Ainsworth on the lunch time news talking about his trip to Afghanistan over the weekend. All the right messages about the need, the timing and of course the value of showing support. But the bit that really made me smile was his comments about the timing.

If I caught it correctly, and I was driving so may have made a mistake, he said that there was no relationship between the PM’s visit the day before and Brown’s appearance at the Chilcot Inquiry. He suggested that these visits were planned a long time in advance and suggestions about political gamesmanship were abject nonsense.

Directly after making that point he did admit that his own trip had of course been re-arranged a few times, and you’ve just got to wonder he was pulling the strings on that one. Why did it need the Prime Monster to visit Afghanistan to announce new vehicles for the Army, surely that is the role of the Defence Secretary, isn’t it?

Just like buses, you wait for ages for a Minister to turn up in Afghanistan and all of a sudden two come along in quick succession. And like some buses they are Bendy Buses: bending to fend off the growing sense of revulsion at the ongoing lack of support to the Military in prosecuting hugely unpopular wars.

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History has a habit of repeating itself and I can’t help but remember how it was in 1982 when the last Argentine threat to the Falkland Islands materialised.

We faced a Defence Review, or certainly serious discussions about the role of the Royal Navy in particular, and we had a Prime Minister who was definitely  ”under pressure” in terms of relationship with the country.

There can be little doubt that the 1982 invasion of the Falklands by Argentina helped transform the popularity of Margaret Thatcher and it also saved efforts to cut the Navy. Please let us not see a repeat of either again this year.

“You’ve got to have surprise, and it’s binary: you’ve either surprised your enemy or he knows you’re coming. You can’t have a little bit of surprise.”

That was a key message during my early training in the Army: so why oh why have we heard all this week about the impending massive assault by Allied troops in Afghanistan? Surely the Taleban read the Telegraph and watch News 24 and might just have got an inkling we were on our way.

The world of war fighting has changed. Gen McCrystal, the US commander in Afghanistan has recognised that to win in Afghanistan it is probably better not to fight as that endangers innocent by-standers. Instead we are seeing a war that is being fought to win the ground and then through having enough local troops to stay on that ground, win the hearts and minds of the population.

The warnings of the build up to the attacks were, in my opinion, an attempt to avoid any fighting, they were designed to encourage the Taleban, or some of them anyway, to withdraw. This avoided civilian casualties as the territory was won, but it will also have given two critical additional benefits.

First: the Taleban were forced to move. This is disruptive and whilst in itself not critical will have lead to the second benefit which was opportunity for ambush of withdrawing enemy. It would be very surprising if there were no attacks on withdrawing fighters as they sought refuge elsewhere. Don’t however expect to hear much about these operations as they would have been conducted by elements of the military who don’t want to be in the papers.

In this new era of war fighting, it is clear that the old rules don’t apply It is to McCrystal’s credit that he sees the value of peaceful operations in order to generate peace in the long term. The locals are more likely to talk to you if you’ve not been shooting at them.

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I’m an ex Army man – so I’m probably a bit biased, but the message from the First Sea Lord this week about our future defence cannot go without comment.

And the comment is simple: where the bloody hell is the Royal Navy in support of the disaster in Haiti?

If we’ve a need to project power globally, and all our current fighting in Afghanistan is about as far as you can get from water, why isn’t the Royal Navy doing something to support the efforts in Haiti?

There appears to be an obsession with the idea that 100 soldiers killed in Afghanistan is a significant milestone. It isn’t.

The number 100 is a man made construct, only relevant because we count in the decimal system. Just as a kilometre is a “milestone”, so too is a mile but in a different way to a kilometre. They are all units of measure, not importance.

The loss of any individual is hugely important to family and friends and the loss of the first, 10th 100th and no doubt the 101st will all be equally important in their own unique way and to their unique relationships.

We lost 253 servicemen during the 6 weeks of the Falklands War. This year we have sadly lost 100 servicemen in Afghanistan. We will lose more, possibly even this year, and those losses will be equally painful but they will be no less a milestone to the families impacted. Every death is a important milestone, but if we turn back then all the miles walked will have been for nought.

Poor old Gordon Brown: he means well and wants to do the right thing, but he just doesn’t do it right.

The latest example is the letter of condolensce he sent to the father of a soldier killed in Afghanistan in 2007. Whilst I am certain that he meant well, the letter was sent nearly 2 years after the soldier’s death and was accompanied with a staff written apology about the timing.

Of course he was trying to do the right thing, but the fact is that it was the wrong thing to do on this occasion. I would have expected the PM to have the nous to realise that it would make more sense to not write at all. Equally importantly I would expect his staff to be able to counsel him on a more appropriate course of action. The lack of awareness and the inability of the staff to influence are equally concerning.

Sometimes doing the right thing is the wrong thing to do.

When I served in the Army the total strength was just over 180,000 of which the Territorial Army accounted for 85,000. Today those numbers are much smaller, a shade over 100,000 in total, but in reality a TA of only 19,000 trained soldiers.

Meanwhile the civil service element of the MOD has grown to a bloated 85,000 and continues to deliver outstanding failures, especially in the areas of procurement. Cost over runs and/or late delivery is almost the norm. The only equipment that is delivered relatively successfully is via Urgent Operational Requirements (UOR) and anyone who has worked on the supplier side of UOR will tell you that they are a god-send. If something is “urgent” then cost doesn’t matter. Tidy mark-ups all round!

Today we learn that over 55,000 MOD civil servants are receiving bonuses. In principle I don’t mind giving  people an incentive to over perform. But to do so you need to accept that if people under-perform then they lose the most basic bonus of even keeping their job. So for some of those who have failed there should have been dismissal.  I can’t seem to have heard about any of that anywhere, even for the team that several years ago delivered 9 helicopters that sit in a shed in the West of England as they didn’t order the right software to be able to fly them.

For those who have achieved bonuses, I would dearly love to know what their targets were. If you accept that bonuses are a means of getting more out of people then you need to know how much more you are getting in return for the payment made.

As for the arguments about it all being within the salary budget: Rubbish! It all comes from the Defence Budget, the one that recently wanted to save £20 million by cutting all TA training for the rest of this financial year. Money can be re-allocated within the Ministry if there is will to do so.

Sadly though when it comes to will power we are lacking. Nobody is prepared to take on the over-sized civil element in the MOD. Nobody drives for true accountability and as a result we reward mediocrity without evening knowing how high the bar of mediocrity had been set.

One memory sticks in my mind about Remembrance Day and that is: Curry.

For some reason best known to army officers older than me, many regiments would hold a Curry Lunch after the annual remembrance service and what lunches they were. All the Regimental Silver was on display, all officers, wives, girlfriends and local big wigs were in attendance.  The chefs always laid on a great spread and we all enjoyed an afternoon of too much food and drink. And all on a Sunday too!

The memories that came close to the curry were of the parade, the need to be there on time and well turned out and the sense that we were looking back on great losses from wars that would never be repeated. The death total was beyond comprehension: 28,000 or more killed on the first day of the Somme for example. And it was all so far away. Even when we met old soldiers we could not quite understand what it was about. They often did not want to talk of the horrors of war but would only talk of the comradeship and missing mates.

But time moves on, and whilst I’m sure that there were many Curry Lunches last Sunday, the “age” has changed. Harry Patch, the last surviving soldier of World War 1 died earlier this year and with him went that close association with that savage era of tactical and strategic military lunacy. No longer do we see films of the trenches to remind us of the horrors of war. Yet the need to remember is still with us.

This last weekend was a period of sombre remembrance for me and I suspect many others. I couldn’t quite put my finger on it but my tear ducts tell me that this year was different. Even the annual Festival of Remembrance was quite different this year to previous years. For a start there were fewer servicemen and women in attendance, busy elsewhere no doubt. There were no uplifting displays of service dog teams or naval rigging climbing that many will have seen in the past, instead we were remembering with, I think, some confusion. What had been so long in the past, is now part of our present. And that is not comfortable and we don’t yet know how to respond.

On Sunday morning the ceremonies around the nation; London, Cardiff, Edinburgh, Belfast, with smaller parades in many towns. All with their own way of doing things, but all with one common aim: a sense of remembering. Some were remembering as they had done so for many years, certainly the Cenotaph was just as it always has been, but for some towns this was the first time in modern history that war and its consequences had come to their door. In Truro, the family of Staff Sergeant Olaf Schmid were supported by thousands as they remembered a young man killed only a week before. And that support was expressed in a very modern way with less sobriety, less sombreness and a greater feeling of love and affection.

As time moves on, so will our need to remember. Whilst Remembrance Day will always hold a strong link to those who have been killed in the Great Wars, for many the need to remember is increasingly the need to remember those who have recently made the greatest sacrifice and also to remember those brave individuals who are continually at risk in theatres of war.

The mood of the nation is changing in regard to current operations. Many no longer feel that the risks of war are worthwhile. Deaths are not acceptable, especially when the reason is less than clear. The naming of individuals killed personalises the loss and makes us all feel bereaved. And we now ask “why?”

This will see us change the way we remember. But whatever we change or whatever we do, we must ensure that we never forget.

Shell, international oil giant and owner of a chain of petrol stations in Britain, have banned the on-site collection of money in support of the Royal British Legion annual Poppy Appeal. This is particuarly insensitive when one recalls that their oil platforms were protected in the North Sea by Royal Marines.

It also appears to be an act of crass stupidity at a time when there is clear public support for the military and a groundswell of feeling around Remembrance.

To express my own “thanks” to Shell for this wholly unnecesary and objectionable act I shall refuse to buy anything from their service stations from now on.