Not More Targets?

.
Gordon Brown has announced that the Afghan President will be set targets for training Afghanistani military and police forces and for tackling corruption.

Targets? In Afghanistan?

He is surely joking!

Hooray For The Territorials!

.
On Sunday, Rifleman Andrew Fentiman was shot dead in Helmand Province just two weeks after arriving in Afghanistan.

One’s heart goes out to the family of Rifleman Fentiman and also to the families of the other soldiers killed or maimed in recent conflicts.

Mr Fentiman’s death carries a special significance. For he was in the Territorial Army whose members agree to serve their country by committing at least 27 training days a year, including a fortnight of continuous training or attachment to a regular serving unit.

The Territorial Army, it must be borne in mind, is the same band of young men whose funding Gordon Brown announced last month would be cut by £20 millions with all future training suspended. Until, of course, another of his spectacular U-turns!

While politicians play politics and tinker with budgets, men are being killed. Including men of the Territorial Army whose worth to this country should not be undervalued.
.

In Defence Of Gordon Brown

.
I am not a fan of Gordon Brown but I have some sympathy for him following an outburst of bad press concerning the letter of condolence he sent to the mother of a soldier killed in Afghanistan in which he spelled his surname incorrectly.

Regardless of the rights and wrongs of the war in Afghanistan, it seems to me that the mistake was unfortunate but hardly ‘disrespectful’ or an ‘insult’ as described by his grieving mother. It was a mistake for heavens sake.

Brown has to be given credit for taking the time out of what must be an horrifically busy schedule to sit and write by hand such letters as this.

So, maybe, he could be forgiven for making a mistake now and again.
.

Pull Them Out!

.
I don’t know what the answer is to the current problems of Afghanistan, and I seriously doubt that anyone has in reality. If they do, they have signally failed in getting the message across to the average man in a British street.

Because of its location, the area has been the centre of strife of one sort or another for centuries during which hill tribesmen would descend upon invaders and others they took issue with and kick their butts. Even in Victorian times during ‘The Great Game’, British forces were to learn just how warlike and deadly the tribesmen could be.

Since the 1960s the country has been effectively in continuous civil war in addition to being subject to the interventions of the Soviet Union in 1979 and a US invasion in 2001 that did away with the Taliban regime and which was then replaced by NATO troops acting as the so-called International Security Assistance Force of which British troops were a part. We now have around 9,000 British troops in Afghanistan and, since 2001, 207 of them have been killed.

Gordon Brown has just been on his fourth visit to the area in a year and has suggested that yet more British troops will be sent to Afghanistan. He has also promised more unmanned surveillance aircraft, better protected vehicles and 200 trained specialists to deal with roadside bombs. It remains to be seen whether these promises will be fulfilled.

My father was in army bomb disposal in WWII and, like any other serving soldier, accepted the risk that he might be killed at any moment. But he had a very clear idea of what he was fighting for, which was freedom from Nazi oppression. But does any serving soldier unfortunate enough to be sent to Afghanistan have much idea of what that is all about? I very much doubt it.

They probably don’t have a much better idea as to what it’s all about than does the average man in a British street. And it is my view that the average man in a British street wants to see our troops pulled out as soon as possible and regardless of anything Gordon Brown or any of the other politicians might have to say on the subject.

And I agree. Don’t increase troop numbers, just pull them out!
.

'Winnable'?

.
Defence Secretary Bob Ainsworth has said that be believes the ‘mission’ in Afghanistan is winnable. Tell that to the relatives and friends of the 204 soldiers who have now been killed in this war.

Shadow Defence Secretary Dr Liam Fox has called on Mr Ainsworth for clarification of the UKs mission in Afghanistan. We’d all like to hear that!
.

Why Are We There?

.
The incoming head of the British army says that the UKs commitment in Afghanistan could last for up to 40 years and that ‘nation-building’ would last decades. Good grief!

The British army death toll in Afghanistan has now reached 195 and one has to ask whether anyone in government has any clear idea as to why, despite more than a century of unwinnable wars in the region, we and NATO are still there and what is trying to be achieved.

While the politicians may theorise and discuss the pros and cons of numbers, tactics, equipment and why some members of NATO provide less support than others, British men are being killed.

Enough already!
.

A National Disgrace

.
The Civil Service mentality is often beyond comprehension, and their sense of timing appalling.

Quite rightly, the MoD has been roundly criticised for applying to the Court of Appeal to cut the compensation awarded to two British soldiers, amounts which had already been increased by the High Court.

Regardless of the outcome of the case, it is unimaginable that anyone with a brain in government sanctioned this court action, especially on a day when the bodies of four men killed in Afghanistan were brought home. What message does this legal action send to serving soldiers, their relatives and to those men and women thinking of joining the forces?

‘Bronco’ Brown should exercise his prime ministerial authority and order that this action be withdrawn immediately.
.

Unfair Criticism?

.
Three Labour MPs have emerged from the woodwork to blame ‘Bronco’ Brown for their party’s defeat in the Norwich North bi-election. Former Home Secretary Charles Clarke and backbenchers Barry Sheerman and John McDonnell have all roundly criticised the Prime Minister.

I thought that a bit unfair. After all, there were many factors at play in the run-up to this election - the economic situation, pensions, the government’s handling of MPs expenses and the sacking of the incumbent MP, our presence in Afghanistan and what seems certain to be a shortage of equipment for the troops there ...

Wait a minute! I’ve just had a thought. Wasn’t ‘Bronco', responsible for all of that? Maybe the MPs are right after all!
.

Something For Everyone

.
There’s an awful lot of tosh spouted in the media as a result of the win of Tory candidate Chloe Smith in the Norwich North by-election yesterday.

Most of the papers talk about a ‘blow’ to ‘Bronco’ Brown’s Labour Party. A ‘blow’? Hardly - was it not widely expected?

Brown (who wisely stayed away from the hustings) says the result was a ‘disappointment’, though his party takes comfort in coming second in the poll and not being relegated further. David Cameron talks about the result being a ‘historic victory’. The Liberals are happy to have maintained their position in third place, and UKIP are triumphant that they beat the Green Party into fourth place.

Considering the variants at place in this poll in which voters stayed away in their thousands - dissatisfaction with the present government, general unhappiness over the issue of MPs expenses (including those of the previous MP), the economic situation, Afghanistan and half a dozen other issues - the bi-election result was no surprise at all.

There was something for everyone in this poll! Including a very attractive new MP who is now the youngest in Parliament!
.

How Many More Must Die?

.
I’ve commented before on the stubbornness of ‘Bronco’ Brown when it comes to answering questions in Parliament, and Wednesday was no exception when he refused to answer specific questions from the opposition leader about the equipment supplied to troops serving in Afghanistan.

He adopted the same stubborn attitude on Thursday, when he avoided giving a direct answer to a Select Committee of MPs who had reported that our troops were under-equipped. In the face of their considered report, he insisted that the army had enough equipment and denied that they were short of helicopters.

I’m surprised that there isn’t some sort of Parliamentary procedure under which this prime minister can be forced to give an honest answer to the questions put to him. But this is a side issue.

In the meantime, it comes as no surprise that the retiring head of the army now says that our troops need better equipment to protect them from roadside bombs.

184 British soldiers have died in Afghanistan since 2001 - more than the 179 who were killed during the war in Iraq. How many more must die needlessly?
.

How Things Have Changed

.
In a period of ten days, fifteen British soldiers have been killed in Afghanistan in a service which the Foreign Secretary says is ‘about the future of Britain’. When troops were first deployed to there three years ago the then Defence Secretary hoped they would complete their mission without a shot being fired. Oh, how things have changed.

I know nothing about the war against the Taliban in Afghanistan, its tactics or the people involved - except that no country has ever won against the hill tribesmen. When Russians exited the country after their failed campaign there, I remember commenting to a Russian friend that I was surprised his government hadn’t learned from our experience there in Victorian times.

And yet here we are again, part of NATO and along with US forces, fighting Taliban tribesmen who seem more than competent to take on disciplined and well-equipped forces.

I don’t know what the answer is to what is undoubtedly a highly complex issue, but it sometimes seems to me that if, as reported, Afghanistan has 90,000 troops of their own then we ought to withdraw and let them get on with it.

Then we would be spared the pictures of British and American soldiers returning home in their coffins.
.