By William Spearshake. When I was young there was a type of British humour called “gallows humour”, although few of today’s school leavers have probably heard it called this.
Typically, gallows humour expressed a nonchalant cynical dismissal of death and its circumstances. A good example is that of an 18th century dandy-turned-highwayman being led to the gallows: halfway up the hastily-built rickety steps he asked “Are you sure this damn thing is quite safe?”
I mention this because, to my simple way of thinking, gallows humour seems to be the only way the ordinary British citizen can cope with the political shambles that is keeping our troops in Afghanistan.
I still firmly believe that, despite budget cuts and incompetent political management, the British armed forces are the best in the world. If only one could say the same thing about our inept and self-serving succession of recent governments!
In the face of David Cameron’s squawkings that he wants to reduce the number of our troops in Afghanistan to 9,000 by September 2012 and end all combat operations there by 2014, the Commons Defence Committee issued a warning that his plan could seriously undermine the international coalition’s strategy – in the real world, for “international coalition” read “the United States”.
The Defence Committee also thought it worth rubbing more dung in Cameron’s face by mentioning that, even now, they did not think we have enough helicopters in Afghanistan, and that firm assurances already given by the government that there are now sufficient helicopters have been proved hopelessly wrong.
In a manner which clearly belittles the Prime Minister’s ridiculously juvenile and limited comprehension of serious military matters as well as politics, they also patiently pointed out that his options were “necessarily limited” because a large-scale orderly withdrawal of our troops would have to include a complete battle group, which, they reminded Cameron, would be an extremely dangerous move.
Such a move could destabilise Afghanistan and possibly undo much of what may already have been accomplished, especially since it might well make the ordinary Afghan people feel we were abandoning them to the Taliban.
James Arbuthnot, the chairman of the Defence Committee, also saw fit to castigate the Ministry of Defence and the politicians who ran it in 2006, up to and including Tony Blair and his Defence Secretary John Reid (since inexplicably promoted to Lord Reid), because at that time British forces “…lacked the necessary numbers and equipment.”
Mr Arbuthnot states: “What happened here left our troops exposed and at risk in a way that was really unacceptable!” and his committee’s report contains the damning phrase that the British forces in Afghanistan at that time were “fighting for their lives”.
I cannot help being reminded by the Defence Committee’s assessments of Tony Blair and David Cameron, of the succinct summing-up of the British political management in the First World War – “Lions led by donkeys!”
Perhaps a classic example of this in the present time is the response of current Defence Secretary Dr. Liam Fox to the damning report of the Defence Committee, in which he amply demonstrates the confusion regarding vital national issues that is putting a fog-bank around Cameron’s government.
Where Cameron has specifically stated that British troops will be withdrawn from Afghanistan by 2014, Dr. Liam Fox has confused the issue by stating: “…we are on track to achieve our target of ending UK combat operations in Afghanistan by 2015.”
As an auctioneer would say, “Any advance on 2015?”
While the British public is left wondering whether Cameron, Fox, Blair and the rest of the “Cary On Government” team are all working to different scripts, or whether they are merely incompetent buffoons, we need to perceive their ineffective actions and confused mentalities against a background of stark reality in order to see the true price the British people are paying for such reprehensible leadership.
Readers need to see the updated list of British deaths in Afghanistan, kept by the BBC here, where, as Captain Aubrey puts it in “Master and Commander: The Far Side of the World” – the “butcher’s bill” is shown.
As Shakespeare said in “Julius Caesar”: If you have tears, prepare to shed them now.”
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