I am generally pretty sympathetic to those in uniform as one might expect but blaming the woes of the British Armed Forces on a lack of cash or lack of political moral courage just seems like getting your excuses in early.
I am also, in general, less sympathetic to politicians, as I am sure we all are.
In the Sunday papers we have a raft of headlines around the publication of General Sir Richard Dannatt’s new book, Leading from the Front.
Some of the headlines include;
I haven’t read the book so base these comments on the extracts in the press.
Of course we know it is simply not politically correct to question anything anyone does whilst they wear a uniform, decisions are always the correct ones, motivations are always honourable and when things go wrong it is always someone else’s fault.
Whilst we are talking about moral courage, perhaps some of the grown ups in the MoD Main Building, military and civilian, might like to bare their souls as well and own up to their own failings.
The UK does not have a small defence budget but we do have insidious inter service rivalry and a long and none too distinguished track record of acquisition incompetence on a truly biblical scale.
No doubt the media, bloggers and politicians alike will seize on this as yet another stick to, quite rightly, beat Gordon and Tony around the head with, but they should also stop and pause, because whilst they ride the wave of righteous indignation they should stop and question the decisions and outcomes of those decisions made by the military professionals, the good General included.
Just saying.
When its all said and done, the higher ups sacrificed their men not their jobs.
Wasnt a Colonel the highest ranking officer to say “**** this its wrong and I’m out”
All the Generals kept on cashing those pay cheques
Isn’t this the bloke who grandly declared that the British Army “exacerbates violence from those who want to destabilise Iraqi democracy” and “We are in a Muslim country and Muslims’ views of foreigners in their country are quite clear”.
Unfortunately, it turned out that that supposed idiot Bush was right, and a large influx of infidels resulted in the defeat of Al Quada in Iraq and a drop of violence of 90%, even in those supposed places like Ramadi where those Yanks were especially “hated”. All of this within the next 12 months. Richard’s military opinion clearly ain’t worth much.
From his later behaviour leaking about helicopter shortages etc (however justified in this instance), it’s clear from this pattern of behaviour that Dannatt sees himself as more of a politician than a soldier. The fact he didn’t resign and then go public says more about his moral “courage”. Servicemen can only have authority with public and the politicians as long as they are willing and trusted to criticise in private and are seen as above politics.
Since the ‘Bravo Two Zero’ work of fiction I’ve had a tendency to avoid action books by ex-military.
If you want to hear a squaddie tell a tall tale, buy him a beer. If you want to hear a taller one, buy his book……
Are you talking about the more “glamorous” special forces type of book?
Or being more general?
“a large influx of infidels resulted in the defeat of Al Quada in Iraq and a drop of violence of 90%”
Rupert, it was the large influx on infidels that invaded Iraq in the first place that triggered the surge in Al-Qaeda numbers.
I believe the defeat of Al Qaeda was more to do with the creation of the ‘Awakening Councils’, and paying/bribing insurgents to turn on Al Qaeda instead of shooting and bombing allied forces.
X, generally anything with ‘flames’ on the front I tend to leave on the book shelf. Its not that I don’t trust ex-soldiers who become authors, its more to do with publishers sexing up the finished product.
Servicemen are pretty clued up and switched on when they’re in their element, however, I tend to think quite a few of them can be quite naive when it comes to the media, especially in relation to journalists and publishes.
Thanks Richard; it was a sincere genuine question on my part.
I will admit to having a copy of B-2-0. Sorry.
You will find General Sir Rupert Smith’s Utility of Force has flames on its cover too………
Richard
I would aver your first point lacks validity for two reasons:-
Firstly, Al Quada existed long before the Iraq war and will exist long after. Before Iraq, they declared that the “occupation” of Saudi was their primary motivation. Now Iraq is winding down, it’s Afghanistan. After that, who knows? All of these are nonsense, and always have been; their problem is not with *what* we do, it’s *who* we are. The backwardness of most of the Islamic world and their inability to defeat Israel that really gets their goat and drives their recruiting. As with the communists before them, they will always think of another reason why it’s all your fault, and it’s pointless to play their game.
Secondly, AQ was defeated in Iraq; it failed to retain the areas it controlled, it’s manpower was decimated and not replaced, and it’s reputation as a infidel slayer and protector of Muslims was destroyed. It’s hardly surging now; result!
Regarding point two, the Awakening was an mostly Anbar event prior to the Surge, which extended the model to Baghadad and beyond. Much of the sucess of the surge was indeed down to bribing locals to swap sides, but no amount of money can cause a large number of people to move unless they have confidence your side will be around long term to protect them. Bush, by insisting, against the teeth of opposition from the majority of US legislature, the media and even the electorate that he was ignoring the Iraq report, increasing combat brigades by 30% and refusing to set a withdrawal date, effectively swung the balance for the Iraqi power brokers that mattered.
X, please don’t apologise, I have a copy of Bravo Two Zero too! Although credit where credit’s due, it does have some great pictures inside.
Rupert,
You are correct, Al Qaeda did exist before the Iraq war, unfortunately not in Iraq. Before they went to Afghanistan I believe they were mainly based in the Sudan. I understood one of their other primary motivations was the removal of the Saud leadership, who they felt were far too liberal, although I may be wrong.
I accept your suggestion that its not what we do, but who we are, but I would add that our invasion of Iraq, whether its perceived as illegal or not, inflamed a significant number of moderate Muslims and was a far more effective recruiting sergeant for Al Qaeda than Osama Bin Laden ever was.
I disagree with your suggestion that most of the Islamic world is backward, as for the places that are I feel we in the West are partly responsible through our incompetent foreign policies. As a great number of Islamic countries produce oil, Western countries have interfered with their political leadership at sometime or another, and helped install despotic leaders in favour of moderate ones who refused to pass the oil wealth down to the poorest leading to low levels of literacy in a number of areas (it’s a well documented fact that extremism is generated in areas of illiteracy and poverty.) As most of our ancient technological advances and sciences, such as medicine and astronomy, were developed in the Middle East while we in Europe still thought a regular hygiene regime was a bad idea, I would argue that had the Middle East been allowed to flourish, it had the potential to rival Europe before the discovery of oil. Unfortunately for them our weapons technology and industrial capability advanced at a greater rate, the rest being history.
As for the Islamic worlds inability to defeat Israel, I believe that this has more to do with the USA’s support for Israel coupled with a lack of unity amongst Arab countries. I must admit that it makes me shake my head in disbelief when suicide bombers talk of the war by the West on Islam in their farewell videos. The Islamic world, left to its own devices, is more than capable of butchering Muslims in large batches without any interference from the West.
With regard to Al Qaeda being defeated in Iraq, one of the main reasons for the Iraqi’s turning on them was because they started targeting Iraqi’s instead of US forces. In addition to this, recent reports in the media would suggest that unless some sort of political agreement is made with the ‘Awakening Councils’, who many Iraqi politicians feel have grown too strong, there may be a return to the previous levels of violence now that the US has ended its combat role. If there is a return to violence in Iraq, then we may see a drain of Al Qaeda from Afghanistan back there.
One of the biggest problems for the West with regards to Al Qaeda is the membership franchise. Members don’t need to have direct contact with the Al Qaeda leadership, just proscribe and advertise the fact that they are and wage a war on the West or its allies. This creates a significant headache for Western security agencies and a seemingly invisible network for Al Qaeda.
Bush did make a success of the surge in the face of incredible opposition, but he did make an utter b*lls up of the country in the first place by invading.
Having contradicted myself several times over, lost my train of thought and probably ended up agreeing with you, I’ll leave it there……
Agreed.
I had heard that the Army’s leadership were very keen to commit to Afghanistan when asked if they could do it, if only to try out new toys like the Apache. As has been commented on by many observers over the past ten years, the Army’s, “can do,” attitude in getting involved in operations,(which is quickly followed, by, “we need some more toys because we’ve broken ours,”), do not leave the leadership entirely without blame. Certainly, it must leave some of the politicians wondering what on earth they have to do to get the three services to operate on a coherant and coordinated basis.
My own uninformed view is that an entire generation of leaders who spent their formative years in NI and BAOR have a case to answer, in repect of the way the Army’s thinking has been shaped. I suspect the next generation, who have seen their men being chopped in Helmund, may take a more forthright and robust view when their time comes – much as we’ve seen with US commanders who served as subalterns in Vietnam.
Moreover, I wonder if Options for Change, in which many good professional officers were given the heave also contributed. It seemed at the time that quite a few were shown the door because they were slightly, or indeed wholly, maverick in their thinking.
Just wondering.
The only terrorist group in Iraq before OIF was a group which was opposed to Saddam and resided in U.S.-friendly Kurdish region under protection of the U.S. No-Fly zone.
AQI was generated by OIF and is still active, albeit at a much lower level than in 2005/2006. It provided valuable lessons to AQ franchises all over the world.