Honesty is a virtue

And I'll tell you this, we are headed for a disaster. We are training for wars we will never fight with kit that will fail and we are going to lose one. We have got away with it so many times now, we are going to go up against some bastards soon who will have spotted our weaknesses and we are going to get a Somalia style stuffing. It will probably be the CSS elements that get it and people are going to die. And quite frankly, no thanks.

These are the words of a senior British soldier. They are relevant now that it seems that we can be taken into a war on the determination of our Prime Minister. There are many allegations flying around that Blair/B Liar is a liar or, at the most polite, has been economical with the truth. My take is that he was quite convinced that the smart thing to do was to follow Bush’s agenda. Once he got there, his political skills – and be not mistaken, they are great – were devoted to getting the result he wanted. It is too late to know whether his leadership would have overcome objectors even had they seen the full opinion of the Attorney General. I do not know if he did lie – what he did do was display an astonishing lack of judgement and he should be punished for that. Poor old Blind Pugh got involved with a woman who wanted him as a sperm donor and he had the morality to resign.

As for the opening quote, I can see it happening. The Falklands War was a damn close run thing – a major attack required the sacrifice of the CO 2 Para to be successful. The endurance of our troops in covering great distances into battle was all that got us home there. The resistance we experienced in the last Gulf War was quite serious at times. That was after the quite disproportionate violence of our Shock & Awe part of the campaign. The kit deficiencies we had would have been fatal had Saddam been able to find a quart or two of WMD.

Bottom line for me is that I cannot trust any system that would allow a commitment to war without full and proper examination of the facts. Relying on the traditions of Tommy Atkins is not enough for modern times.

We seem to have heard little in the campaigning about the environment. Kyoto and things. Wind power. Wave power. Nuclear options. In ‘normal’ times, we are bombarded with this sort of thing. Maybe it is because none of the parties have any real plans other than wait and see what happens as things progress. The idea that high pollution producers can buy credits from those who do not reach their quota encourages inertia. There is still a strong faction that discounts global warning as anything special.