The age old conundrum with fighting body count wars that probably shouldn’t be fought in the first place. When one side has to obey the ‘rules’ and fight with one hand tied behind their backs, but the other can, and will, do what the hell it likes. Probably being deliberately brutal to illicit a brutal response that is a PR disaster for the side that actually has to answer to someone. No army to fight as such, no line to break or territory to ‘win’ as such.
If any British soldier is found to have committed a war crime, he will, most likely, face some consequences. That is just and right. But what about the afghans who (certainly in the days of the Russian misadventure) would skin their prisoners alive, probably after using them as concubines for a few months? The fact that they were aided and abetted by the west at that time is irrelevant before anyone obviously mentions it. Many afghans have committed heinous crimes, where is their court martial?
Two wrongs don’t make a right, but I for one would be very wary of being critical of anyone who has served in that vipers nest that is Afghanistan. Very easy to take the moral high ground when you haven’t spent months not knowing if the next person you see might just shoot you in the back.