British troops have been closing to bayonet range in fights against company sized units of Islamist militiamen in Iraq:
Scottish troops fixed bayonets and fought hand to hand with a Shi’ite militia in southern Iraq in one of their fiercest clashes since the war was declared more than a year ago, it was reported last night. Soldiers from the Argyll and Sutherland Highlanders mounted what were described as “classic infantry assaults” on firing and mortar positions held by more than 100 fighters loyal to the outlawed cleric Moqtada al-Sadr, according to military sources.
And in support of Britian’s soldiers, some Members of Parliament have called not for rapid reinforcement to be sent but rather for a vote to decide if the Blair government should send any additional troops at all.
It is one thing to oppose British involvement in Iraq in its entirety, it is quite another for politicos to take positions which places UK forces in danger by denying them support without having the courage to just come out and say that Britain forces should just be ordered back to the UK in order to allow Tony Blair to be deposed by more suitably leftward statists. It is unedifying to see the likes of Robin Cook playing political games in Westminster when people are fixing bayonets in Basra and calling for support.
Either support and reinforce the army or (bizarrely) declare defeat and withdraw them.
There are lower forms of life than Labour politicians………….but
The picture sums it up. It’s one thing to disagree with a war, another to risk soldiers lives as an means to scupper it.
In the meantime, go Tommy Atkins!
It looks like Cook is trying to do to the Army what he did to his wife.He is a small man.
Thanks for the photo. It’s worth a thousand comments. But it’s not just Cooke. It’s every posturing, pius, simpering socialist politician – with the honourable exception of Ann Clewyd in this particular instance.
This may as well be a pre-mediated policy, as opposed to forgetfulness or sheer idiocy. Ask yourself if there is anyone in the British politics who would profit from UK soldiers being brutally massacred so that Blair would have to order a complete withdrawal. Stalling and blocking is the way to make this happen. The defeat must be absolute.
And then there will be a regime change on Downing St. 10 few will celebrate.
More British troops for Mesopotamia?
“Never reinforce failure” (old army saying).
“Ninety percent of politicians give the other ten percent a bad name” (Henry Kissinger)
WJPhillips: taking a historical perspective, it is hard to see how the situation in ‘Mesopotamia’ is a failure. Sure, friendly casualties are regrettable but militarily speaking they are trivial. Unless having an Iraqi population which does nothing but throw roses at the sight of a British soldier is your only definition of what does not constitute failure, sending reinforcements is hardly reinforcing failure. If the UK or US has just suffered a Dien Bien Phu, I must have some how missed that, because that is what failure looks like. Realistically the only place the US or UK militaries can actually be defeated by its enemies is in Congress or Parliament, not in Iraq.
Perry, thanks for that.
Like most nostrums, “never reinforce failure” must be taken with a grain of perspective. Otherwise, it becomes indistinguishable from “never send a relief expedition” or even “never reinforce the troops” (successful troops don’t need reinforcement, do they?).
I keep catching sight of WJPhilips having a fit of the vapours on various sights.If WJ can’t take this, wait till the shit reaches escape velocity.
Labour pols have no say over troop deployments, except through supply votes (I could be rusty here) Cookie shows up his own impotence instead.
There is an argument that Parliament should obtain the power to declare war but that’s another matter.
No vapours, Bocking. I would never have wasted one penny of British treasure or shed one drop of British blood in Mesopotamia or any other foreign snakepit. I don’t give a tuppeny damn whether the poor dear Iraqis have a “democracy” for a few years in between dictatorships. Western crusaders, Islamic nutters, crooked bankers, muttering mullahs, neocon liars– screw the lot of them.
“I believe in adequate defense at the coastline and nothing else. If a nation comes over here to fight, then we’ll fight.” (Gen. Smedley Butler, ‘War is a Racket’)
According to today’s news, we’ve already pissed away as much on this folly in one year as the government pays to our old age pensioners in seven.
…which just shows how much money is wasted paying state pensions when private pensions are the only economically rational way to go.
Perry: I agree. When I was younger I assumed that any promise to hand back part of my taxes when I was too decrepit to work was as trustworthy as most of what the State tells you, and so I saved hard and long to avoid being dependent on its bounty. But an unregulated private pensions market has produced abuses which throw many back on the State’s dubious mercies.
If we weren’t paying so much for “defence” and for shoring up the consequences of social liberalism at home, none of us would have a good excuse not to provide for our own old ages. But the warfare/welfare state doesn’t want you to keep too much of your own money, and would rather force you to travel in its creaky old bus than provide a proper system of traffic regulation for private motorists.
Crusading abroad, swindling at home– two facets of the same racket.
Isolationism is, frankly, the only honest foreign policy, and the only truly ethical one, as intervention is, by it’s very nature, unethical.
Sorting out other people’s problems always ends in tears.
I don’t give a “tuppeny damn” either.