Wars Not Worth Winning

Afghanistan, Round 4, is one of them, history and common sense both teach. It's impossible to add anything useful to the following, coruscating tour of force from posh DT scribbler, Gerald Warner:

We did not need Eric Joyce to tell us we are in deep doo-doo in Afghanistan. In that far-off country of which, over the past 170 years, we have come to know too damn much, Britain has previous. For us, this is the Fourth Afghan War and it has turned into every bit as much of a resounding success as the previous three. If there is one thing in which the Ministry of Defence and the British public can claim expertise, it is getting cuffed in Afghanistan.

Tony Blair could not have been expected to know that, with an historical hinterland in which Hugh Gaitskell belonged to the Bronze Age (”Hey, look – come on – I mean – this is a young country”…), but brooding Gordon should have seen nemesis coming. The war is lost: end of story. Even post-neocon America is waking up to the fact, as evidenced by General Stanley McChrystal’s recent remark that “time is not on our side”. Among the American public, support for the war is melting faster than a polar ice-cap in Al Gore’s imagination.

So, how many more young men’s lives are we going to sacrifice on the altar of New Labour vanity, in addition to the 212 already scandalously squandered? Now Brown has given us the alleged justification of the war: to preserve security in this country. What neither he nor any other apologist for this cretinous conflict can explain is precisely what atrocity against Britain can be plotted in Helmand that cannot be equally effectively planned over the border in Waziristan? This echoes the long-established cliché trotted out by red-faced saloon-bar warriors: “Would you rather fight them on the streets of Britain?”

Well, actually, yes. Because the odds would be more stacked against them, despite mass immigration having to some extent provided jihadists with “the sea in which the guerrilla swims like a fish”, as Chairman Mao phrased it, by establishing large Islamic communities. There is no more favourable terrain for Muslim militants than the irrigation ditches and mountains of Afghanistan. So, why do we send our soldiers there, inadequately equipped, to provide them with target practice?

The significance of Brown turning to the “keep terror off British streets” claptrap is that he realises the previous claptrap, about “building democracy”, has even less plausibility after the spectacle of the Afghan elections rigged by the corrupt Karzai regime. Is that what young Britons are dying for? It is time to up sticks and exit. We know the way – we have travelled it three times before.

I'll add something anyway, though (however useless): pointless wars are not worth winning. They're certainly not worth ignorant Bliar's "blood price". And wars prolonged just to keep a man like coward Brown's image on domestic political life-support are just evil. Afghanistan is that war.

How much more of our nation's best blood must be spilled before Brown makes his inevitable exit next year? One more drop is too much. We could win, if we had the need, the will, a general call-up and, subsequently, 20 heavily armed divisions to prosecute it. Costly, but the "way".

If it really was for Britain, then maybe we could and should. But for Brown! It's just not worth it. Nothing has ever been more clear in British history. We must kick Brown out and then finish the "job" in Afghanistan, one way or another. Or bring the troops home - right now.

I think that's what Warner is basically saying. And if I'm right, then he is!

The Sunday Times Weighs In

As if the smearing of General Dannatt were not bad enough, the true nature of this government's attitude to the armed forces has now been revealed. Aside from the terminal incompetence, the cynicism of Labour's parliamentary leadership simply takes your breath away.

Perhaps the Sunday Times, an erstwhile pro-Labour rag, sums it up best in its fresh leader on the subject (although it fails to mention one of the most extraordinary statistics - that the last four years of fighting have led to 14 thousand UK casualties). No wonder Labour tried to bury it. I've lifted the most damning part of the column. You can read the rest here.

Although governments can get away with such political cowardice for a while, taking no decision can be just as bad as taking the wrong one. Eventually, inevitably, the issues will return and the earlier failure to take a decision and look to the future will have damaging consequences. That is where we are now in Afghanistan. The failure to provide our troops with adequate equipment is the direct responsibility of a government that buried its head in the sand for more than a decade.

No government can predict specific circumstances. But what they must do is regularly take a panoramic view of defence needs. The last strategic review was conducted in 1998. “In corporate life no enterprise would persist with a 12-year-old strategy without at least re-evaluating it fully on a regular basis,” Mr Gray writes. “Few who would expect to prosper would even try to do so.” With the sole exception of John Hutton, who commissioned the Gray report, every defence secretary since 1998 — Geoff Hoon, John Reid, Des Browne and now woeful Bob Ainsworth — should hang their heads in shame. They are responsible for the situation in which failure at the Ministry of Defence is, according to Mr Gray, “endemic”.

Above all, this is the responsibility of Tony Blair and Gordon Brown. Mr Blair took us into war without ensuring that our troops were backed by a defence administration and equipment suitable to their needs. In his liberal interventionist foreign policy he willed the ends but not the means. As for Mr Brown, his behaviour has been cynical in the extreme. His response to the warnings of shortages given by Sir Richard Dannatt, the former head of the army, was not to take heed but to allow a defence minister to attempt to smear the general over his expenses.

In 2002 the Dutch government resigned when a report found it had sent soldiers into combat without the necessary equipment. It says much about the prime minister that his only response has been to suppress the report.

Brown's government of all the smearers is falling apart - and he's on holiday. The storm clouds have been gathering for him for ages. I think that storm has just broken.

Swimming In Smears

"Medic!"

Uncle Bob has already blogged brilliantly about this latest piece of Labour filth, so I'll keep my scornful rant brief: New Labour are the most corrupt, twisted and morally empty group of incompetent wasters this country has ever had inflicted upon it. You still have doubts, after everything that's been written, blogged, proved and resigned over? Well, here's a bit more for you, this time from the ST. Read on...

A Freedom of Information (FOI) request submitted to the Ministry of Defence, and uncovered by The Sunday Telegraph, asks for publication of any correspondence between Gen Dannatt and Hadyn Parry, the chairman of the Help for Heroes charity.

It comes after Labour MPs and ministers were accused of using FOI laws to make trouble for Sir Richard by unearthing his expenses claims, after he publicly criticised the lack of resources given by the Government to the troops in Afghanistan.

Whilst the MoD would not disclose who was behind the Help for Heroes FOI request, which was submitted in June, Conservative MPs claimed it looked like fresh evidence of a smear campaign.

Liam Fox, the shadow defence secretary, said: "There is no target that Brown's bullyboys will not pick upon to protect themselves or divert attention from their catastrophic management of the military. New Labour is now the most corrosive and corrupting influence in British politics."

Whoever submitted the FOI request could have been seeking to find out whether Gen Dannatt had claimed expenses from Help the Heroes following his unpaid work on the charity's behalf.

Mr Parry described Gen Dannatt's work for the charity as "exemplary". He said: "Sir Richard has done a tremendous job for the charity. His work has been exemplary – beyond reproach.

"He has never submitted any expenses claims, nor have any of the other charity trustees, because we want as much money to be spent on charitable work as possible."

Last week it was revealed that, on a tip-off from inside government, several FOI requests were submitted to expose the 58-year-old general's expenses. Kevan Jones, the Veterans Minister, was named on political website Guido Fawkes as the figure behind it. But he dismissed the accusation as summer tittle-tattle and heaped praise on Gen Dannatt.

Mr Jones last night denied again that there was a smear campaign, saying: "I do not know anything about this Freedom of Information request, nor do I know anything about Freedom of Information requests that were put in as part of a campaign against Sir Richard."

When allegations of a smear campaign first emerged a month ago, Bob Ainsworth, the Defence Secretary, sent a note to all his ministers – Mr Jones; Quentin Davies, Defence Equipment and Support; Bill Rammell, Armed Forces; Lord Drayson, Strategic Defence Acquisition; and Baroness Taylor, International Defence and Security – warning them not to brief against General Dannatt and demanding "complete support" for military commanders.

But last week it emerged that a minister had discussed "chasing" Gen Dannatt over his expenses in an attempt to smear him. Requests were allegedly made under the FOI Act, with the backing of the unnamed minister, to find out the extent of entertaining by the general, who retires as Chief of the General Staff next week.

It was also alleged that a minister had called Gen Dannatt a "complete bastard" for making so many public statements critical of the resources given to the troops in Afghanistan.

Wow! That list of "ministers" reads like a who's who of utter Labourist mediocrity.

Not content with their usual, now-predictable, contemptible attempt at rubbishing anyone who dares to speak the truth, a method perfected by Alistair Campbell and Mandelson (the truth in this case, as Dannatt has bravely implied on many occasions, is that total Labourist incompetence and, one is forced to suspect, their underlying hatred of the armed forces, has cost the lives of many British soldiers in Labour's foreign adventures), now they are willing to drag into their appalling smear campaign a charity set up to help the ones who make it back from the front merely wounded, but who are then abandoned by their own country (another Labour triumph).

Who needs the Taliban when you have an MoD occupied by these uberhoons? Just when you thought they couldn't get any worse...

Randall: Voice of Reason

Jeff Randall's done it again. He's put into straightforward terms what we all want to say, this time about Brown's bloody responsibility for the deaths of young soldiers in Afghanistan. Randall's conclusions are inescapable:

...it is unthinkable for the mission to be run on the economics of Aldi. Defence is not like transport or housing. In a theatre of war, pinched pennies cost lives. If British forces are to be deployed as global policemen, they must not be undermined by Treasury bean counters, determined to put the brake on the state's runaway debts. The death of even one British soldier through lack of proper funding is a cause of national disgrace. Ministers responsible should be ashamed of themselves.

How Mr Brown can tell the Commons that recent losses had nothing to do with a lack of helicopters – and still sleep at night – is a mystery. The moral compass he was given at Kirkcaldy High School has gone with the spin.

Yesterday's report from the Defence Select Committee exploded the Prime Minister's self-justifying twaddle. Referring to the Army's capacity to protect troops while carrying out operations with current equipment, it concluded: "We are troubled by the forecast reduction in numbers of medium and heavy lift battlefield helicopters, which will make this worse."

Jack Welch, the legendary boss of General Electric, believed: "Insecure managers create complexity." This applies equally to political weaklings. Mr Brown would have us believe that the challenges defining our military presence in Afghanistan are devilishly difficult to understand. Actually, they could hardly be simpler. We must either pay up or pull out.

Brown is a liar and he has blood on his hands over Afghanistan. His punishment should fit his crimes. I leave it to readers to decide what form that punishment should take.

As for Randall: his column should be compulsory reading for Tory policy makers - and it should, as Randall says, make Brown Labour and its shrinking base of bovine support, thoroughly - utterly - ashamed. Of course, it won't - and that should tell decent people everything they need to know about them.

They must never be forgiven.