There's a plan?
The beefcake that is Strangely Brown brought my attention to a piece on BBC online entitled: 'Mission change' for UK in Iraq which had inspired the comment of 'Ye gods, there was a mission???"
S.B is almost as good at International Law as me but I will grant him that he is rather better at implementing it. My opinion on Iraq has been that it is an illegal war, an unjust war, that we have no place being there and our troops should not have ever been sent there. I also doubt that there was ever any long term plan in place since the Americans don't exactly have much experience in peacekeeping and reconstruction and our government are a bunch of cunts who expect the MoD to compete for funding the same as any other department whilst seemingly forgetting that we are fighting two medium sized wars.
So as for 'change of mission', I can only think of the wit and wisdom that what Captain Edmund Blackadder:
Melchett: You look surprised, Blackadder.
Edmund: I certainly am, sir. I didn't realise we had any battle plans.
Melchett: Well, of course we have! How else do you think the battles are directed?
Edmund: Our battles are directed, sir?
Today, Gordon Brown said:
We would expect another fundamental change of mission in the first few months of 2009 as we make the transition to a long-term bilateral relationship with Iraq.
To which I would ask him; what was the original plan?
Bob: Oh sir, please don't give me away, sir. I just wanted to be like my brothers and join up. I want to see how a real war is fought....so badly.
Edmund: Well, you've come to the right place, Bob. A war hasn't been fought *this* badly since Olaf the Hairy, Chief of all the Vikings, accidentally ordered 80,000 battle helmets with the horns on the *inside*.
Well, quite.
Posts
6 comments:
1.) Strategically - Yes - they fucked up.
2.) Operationally - At times yes, but see (1) for the constraints. At times we were probably far too up our own arses about Northern Ireland and failed to see what progress the Spams were making in Baghdad with deploying small teams to live and work with Iraqi Army units.
3.) Tactically - very rarely. Every time the lads went out they won. It's just that you can't count casualties in a modern war. Everytime you do it favours those we are opposed to.
I'll leave the raison d'etre for us being there to the politicians and the public.
Am not faulting our troops!
My comment is with the people who took us into that war. One of the Downing Street legal advisors, who specialised in international law and the law of armed conflict left in 2003 when Blair and his cronies decided to ignore the rules and plunge into a country we did not need to invade.
And having just read the link (probably should have done that first) it's this kind of shit that annoys me:
""marked improvement" in conditions in Basra, with incidents of indirect fire on British troops down from 200 a month to an average of less than five a month since April."
Yes I agree that getting IDF'd in your shoebox accomodation at 4 in the morning isn't nice. But let's face it - we're there for that shit - the Iraqi people aren't, there's no mention in that story you linked to about improvements in their life.
Which if you actually look at it is pretty good.
Whose responsible for the change? 14 Div - Iraqi Army.
We've helped out with training but they've done most of the work. Painting this as the mission come good is just bollocks.
And when Brown goes out there, or any of these politicians, what do they really see? They fly there surrounded by yes men and journos, potter around, make a few facetious statements and then fuck off home again to piss off someone else.
I'm glad the Iraqi army are doing a good job. I'm glad the Afghan army are improving. I'm concerned with what I hear about the police forces but it's not troops training and working with them. And they're not being run by NATO.
Unfortunately I was there for his little dit last November when we all ordered to clap his speech.
About as much charisma as bit of roadkill on the fast lane of the M25.
Even if they see fuck all they need to do the visits just to keep the thing in the public eye but i agree it's a roadshow that takes up far too many resources.
Brown's charisma is not but you, Trixybell, are in my Dale Top Ten.
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