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After the murder of five soldiers by the renegade policeman Gulbuddin, Gordon Brown is today making another speech to explain why Britain is in Afghanistan for the long haul.
Yet sympathy is swinging towards Kim Howells in his stated belief that enough of our men and women have died for an ill-defined cause in Helmand, and it is time to bring the troops home.
The deaths of the soldiers - and one more has been killed since the five on Tuesday - are grievous. But this isn't sufficient ground alone for abandoning Afghanistan.
The UK has a vital interest in the region, and in tackling the inroads of nihilistic jihadism here. The Howells view that we should pull up the drawbridge and fight threats at home reads like a text from the scary version of The Wizard of Oz - and is about as realistic.
British troops and aid groups can bring some security to at least some of the country. The UN's senior envoy Kai Eide has been correct in spelling out to the re-mandated president Karzai that the international community cannot offer him an open-ended backing.
Mr Brown's message of hold the line must be right, in narrow and broad perspective. A rush to the exit by the British and their allies would have global impact. One of the successes since the Taliban were ousted in 2001 is that six million Afghans have received schooling who otherwise would not. Quitting would be a betrayal, not only of them but of the 230 British troops who have laid down their lives these past eight years, and the thousands who have been wounded.
