There will be no memorial in Camp Bastion

"All over the world, from Vimy Ridge and El Alamein to Rangoon and Rorke’s Drift, stand memorials to British war dead, most of them places of pilgrimage for descendants and tourists.

Future travellers, however, will find no such proud relic at Camp Bastion in Afghanistan. When the Army lowered the Union flag there on Sunday, our memorial — etched with hundreds of names of the fallen — had been dismantled and flown home.

Had it remained in war-torn Helmand province, it seemed certain to face desecration and destruction. There could be no more vivid manifestation of the failure of Britain’s Afghan mission."

Cracking stuff from Max Hastings. 

Later on in his piece, he says this: "In just two months this summer, 500 people died in fighting in Sangin, half of them civilians. That is how stable Helmand looks as we pack up and go home."