One death amongst so may others.

I wonder if politicians ever pay any price when they get things wrong. We have watched both Blair and Bush insist that Saddam had to be removed because he possessed WMD. We saw this lie exposed as the falsehood that it was and we also witnessed that neither Blair nor Bush fell on their swords. The days of honourable resignations are truly over.

However, another case has come to light where a politician has made a claim that, in this case, has led directly to a man's death.

The man was Abdullah Tokhi. He was an Afghan who sought asylum in Britain on the grounds that if he was ever returned to Afghanistan that his life would be in danger. The British Home Secretary at the time, David Blunkett, claimed that - thanks to the actions of the British and the Americans - Afghanistan was now liberated and that Abdullah Tokhi's life was no longer in danger in liberated Afghanistan.

From today's Independent newspaper:

They shot Abdullah Tokhi dead at midday, in a crowded street in a bazaar. It was a very public "execution", a message to show that his killers knew they would never be brought to account for their crime.

The murder of Mr Tokhi is only one of the many that are happening almost daily in Afghanistan, but this one could surely have been prevented had David Blunkett not felt the need to stick so rigidly to the government's script about what is actually happening in Afghanistan.

Nor is the danger that Blunkett denied the family were in limited merely to Mr Tokhi himself.

A week after his father's death, 10-year-old Nasratullah was on his way to school when he was shot from a car. The bullets hit him on the arm and legs. "I was very sad about what had happened to my father," said Nasratullah. "I knew there were bad people who had killed him. But I did not think that they would try to attack me. It hurt a lot when I was shot. Now I am very scared, for myself, and also my brother and sisters. We would like to move away from here, but we do not know where to go ... I miss my father very much."

Today Mr Tokhi's widow, two sons and seven daughters live in fear at a farm in Paghman, south-east of Kabul. They say the police were complicit in the death and the suspected killers can be seen in the area, walking around with impunity.

So not only was Mr Tokhi murdered but his son has also been shot at on his way to school in "liberated Afghanistan".

Tokhi had made his way to Britain via Pakistan, arriving here at Dover in November 2002. He applied for asylum claiming that if he ever returned to Afghanistan that his life would be in danger.

Blunkett refused his application citing the government fantasy that life is different in "liberated" Afghanistan. Because of that decision, this man is now dead.

Does Blunkett regret the decision I wonder? However, even as I formulate the question, I know that I am asking for our politicians to accept a moral responsibility for their own actions that has become exceedingly unfashionable.

Bush and Blair do not regret invading Iraq on a totally false prospectus and continue to insist that it was "the right thing to do". Estimates of the civilian casualties of that conflict go as high as 655,000.

So perhaps I am being unfair when I ask if Blunkett regrets or feels any responsibility for the death of Mr Tokhi.

However, Bush and Blair will cloak their responsibility in the dreadful omelette analogy, claiming that a certain amount of eggs had to be broken to achieve whatever nominal result they feel they have pulled off in Afghanistan.

The case of Mr Tokhi is shorn of any such omelette cover.

This is the case of an individual who said, "If you send me back there I will die." They sent him back there and he has died.

But I do not imagine that Blunkett will feel any regrets. For, if he were to do so, he would be going against the political grain that Bush and Blair have established.

Both Bush's Republican Party and Blair's New Labour have stressed the need for individual responsibility whilst evading their own personal responsibility for the dreadful misjudgements that both of their governments have made.

Neither has fallen on their swords and neither has expressed any form of regret.

So it's probably unfair of me to expect any such regret from Blunkett. However, a man is dead who should be alive were someone in power to have told the truth about what is actually happening in Afghanistan.

His death is analogous of so many deaths in both Afghanistan and Iraq. So many people have died because the governments of both Britain and the US continue to insist that their lie is the truth.

I am sure history will hold them to account. But the punishment of history will not bring one dead body back to life. Nor will it, in any way, be commensurate with the punishment that should fit their crimes.

Abdullah Tokhi is simply one more dead man amongst hundreds of thousands of dead civilians in Bush and Blair's wars. But his death highlights the chasm between government rhetoric and the reality on the ground. It also highlights the hypocrisy of regime's that call for individual responsibility, whilst refusing steadfastly to accept any responsibility for the mistakes made by themselves.

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tag: Bush, Blair, Iraq, Afghanistan, war on terror