We know what's best for you...

I'm worried by these reports that British and NATO troops are engaged in "winning the hearts and minds" of local Afghans in the areas they are taking back from the Taliban. The logic of us being there is that we are a liberating force, and if that were so we would have no need to win hearts and minds - they would already be ours. If the locals truly saw us as liberators, they would be on the streets cheering us. We didn't, after all, have to worry about winning the hearts and minds of the French, Dutch and Belgians when we invaded in 1944. The very fact that there is the need to do so in Afghanistan suggests that the Afghans do not see us as liberators at all - and if we are not, then just what are we, and just what is our purpose in being there? Regime change again?