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The war in Afghanistan and the broader "war on terrorism" are being fought in the name of democray, which flourishes where there is popular consultation and consent. But consultation is only worthwhile if it is candid, open-minded, and continuous. Consent is only legitimate if it is informed. Thus Mr Blair is right to warn of the risk of British casualties, as he did yesterday, if he believes that to be a likely result of his policy. But he is wrong if he believes that by admitting this possibility, he is absolved from an ongoing responsibility to explain why such sacrifices are necessary and why, in his view, there is no alternative now or in the forseeable future. Nothing is ever absolute. It is true that a liberal democracy runs best when the voters are informed about what the government is doing. However, there are times when the voters have to trust the government to do the right thing, because revealing what they are doing would be even more harmful than keeping it secret. War is such a time. It is essential in war that your opponent not know what you intend. Surprise is a force multiplier because it permits you to achieve local preponderance of force. It is nearly always the case that if your opponent knows what you intend that he can either prevent you from achieving it or at least blunt the attack. If the government was forced to reveal its full knowledge to its voters, it would be impossible to prevent that information from reaching the enemy, and then it would be as if you were playing cards with your hand exposed (and your enemy's hand hidden). At the very least this would result in a drastic increase in casualties on your own side, at the worst it could be the difference between victory and defeat. Democracy is an imperfect situation and this is one of the places where imperfection shows itself. That said, The Guardian presents a series of rhetorical questions which they seem to think demonstrate things which are being concealed. The only problem with them is that I know the answers to all of the questions. I won't go into them all (for fear of belaboring the point, and also because all of them have been dealt with here in the past couple of weeks) so I'll simply take the first five. The primary objective (and justification) of military action is said to be the capture of Osama bin Laden. Mr Bush has ordered the CIA to kill him if it can. Mr Blair does not envisage putting him on trial. Donald Rumsfeld now suggests he may never be found. After all that has occurred, are the US and Britain any closer to catching Bin Laden? Do they have any better an idea where he really is? And do they really want to catch him? Is killing him the best way of ensuring justice for the September 11 victims and of upholding international law? The Guardian starts out with a false statement and goes downhill from there. The capture and punishment of bin Laden was never the primary goal of this war. While it is intended that he be killed or captured, the primary purpose of this operation is to defang al Qaeda by killing their members, destroying their training camps and seizing their assets. Because the Taliban protect them, the Taliban must be removed. Moreover, this isn't about justice, nor is it about international law. We are not attacking al Qaeda to retaliate for the September 11 bombing, we are attacking them so as to prevent them from launching any further attacks, or to make any such attacks as rare and undestructive as possible. On that basis, it isn't necessarily important that we kill or capture bin Laden. If he escapes but is not capable of any further mischief against us, that is sufficient. And obsessing over bin Laden directly could seriously jeopardize the larger goal of neutralizing al Qaeda. If Bin Laden is the objective, why has military action so far focused on the Taliban, whose overthrow is not a stated war aim? Despite their alliance with al-Qaida, is it sensible to persist in widening the war into a possibly unwinnable campaign of national conquest? Since bin Laden isn't the objective, this question is meaningless. We are attacking the Taliban because they are allied with and provide political and physical protection for al Qaeda, and attempts at diplomacy with the Taliban have been utter failures. They won't negotiate in good faith, and there is no longer any point in trying. So there is no choice but to widen the conflict to include the Taliban because no narrower objective can remove the danger of al Qaeda. It is not disputed that high-altitude bombing and missiles have caused many civilian casualties. But it is not forgotten that precise and proportionate attacks were promised. Three weeks into a supposedly "new kind of war", is it still appropriate to be using such tactics? Yes, unless you had the unreasonable expectation that this war was going to be won in 10 days. Bombing is a long term process which progressive 
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