British troops in Iraq

A serious blog !!!

My first in two months, unless you count the ones about my errant tooth.

Anyway, this country awoke yesterday morning to the sad news that another British soldier had been killed in Iraq, its unfortunately not as newsworthy as it used to be nowadays, except for the headline fact that this unfortunate combatant was the 100th British soldier to give his life for the Iraqi cause.

Compared to the American combatant deaths of around 2250 at the latest count, the number 100 pales almost into insignificance but the British media dined out yesterday on the number 100 and predictably called for troop withdrawals, or at least a plan for eventual withdrawals.

GMTV started the ball rolling with one of their mind-numbing Yes/No telephone polls - "Should British troops be withdrawn now" the question asked, I didn't even stick around to see the result as the poll was always preceeded by an interview with a grieving mother.

GMTV viewers vote for whatever option the producer has placed at the top of the list, in this case the option to vote for was clearly "Yes" and so I assume they got their overwhelming answer, GMTV polls are always overwhelming. it makes for good reporting, they can't really announce "well none of you can be arsed voting in our poll this morning, how are we going to pay for this TV station if you won't vote ?", its almost as if the reaching of 100 British deaths was the original quota, as if Tony Blair will sit before his cabinet today and ask "well chaps we've reached the 100 figure, are you going to vote for another 100 or do I get to pull the troops out"

If only it were a Yes/No solution, if only Tony Blair could ask GMTV to decide his Iraqi policy for him, or indeed any policy come to think of it, we could have a government policy vote on GMTV every morning, "Do you want to pay more tax, vote Yes or No, calls should cost no more than £1".

The sad, undoubtable and (we should be) proud fact is that the British Armed Forces have a reputation second to none in world armed forces rankings and we are the obvious choice when allies wish to put their "world policemen" theories into practice, whatever you think of those policies it is not an option for us to say "No thanks we don't want to come to this party this time".

And its probably a tad insensitive at the current time as 100 families are reminded of their loss today, but our armed forces are not exactly strapped for volunteers, young people who want to be a part of this extremely professional force, whether for patriotic or personal reasons (I'd like to come out with a good trade etc), despite the knowledge that they will invariably be placed into a combat situation during their contracted period of service.

And its an even harder statement to make but its a hard fact that as taxpayers we contribute mightily towards our armed forces, admittedly the sums are getting smaller in real terms year on year and the armed forces are screaming for more as a result, but still, our so called "defence budget" is huge, topping £30billion, and if our armed forces aren't going to be deployed to the worlds trouble spots, then what the hell do we need so many of them for and why do we need to equip them so expensively ?

There is no simple solution, Bush does not have a simple strategy, Blair cannot make any promises on Iraq other than allow murmurs to creep out of the Defence Ministry that we will start a withdrawal "sometime this year", maybe.

And in the meantime troops will die, like they always have done, there is statement issued every year in November by the British Legion that a British soldier died in conflict in every year in the 20th century, we are always in conflict, even as peacekeepers we are in conflict, its what our armed forces are there for and the crocodile tears of the media are frankly shamefull.