Posted on 09/02/2007 9:49:28 PM PDT by bruinbirdman
~snip~
It is easy to say, as some have, that the general should have made his criticisms when he was still in office. I have no doubt he did fight his official corner. He fought inside the system when he was still on active service, and he has gone public now that he has retired. I can see nothing wrong with that. Retirement gives a man back his freedom of speech, and perhaps an even greater duty to speak out. Retired generals are right to use their authority to serve the welfare of the troops they used to command.
What do the soldiers themselves want? They would like their pay to be comparable to that of civilian servants of the State. Last week the prison officers went on strike because part of their pay increase had been delayed. They can make comparisons with the higher pay of policemen. But soldiers on active service are lower paid than prison staff or policemen: they are paid only a little more than £1,000 a month. However one looks at it, that is not big money for risking one’s life.
Fighting soldiers naturally want the best available equipment. That does not mean that they want nuclear submarines, which would hardly fit into the Basra Palace. It means the provision of armoured vehicles that will withstand mines and that do not brew almost to boiling point in the desert sun. It means the Army should have enough helicopters, both in Iraq and Afghanistan. It does require some bigger pieces of equipment, including sufficient Hercules and strike aircraft.
The US Air Force has the strike capacity to command the skies; the RAF has the skills but not the capacity. Our Army depends on US air support. As Brigadier John Lorimer, the commander of the Helmand Task Force, wrote yesterday; “We simply could not conduct operations without it.” There also needs to be attention to detail. US troops have more convenient equipment down to their boots, their gloves and their sunglasses, and a soldier’s convenience promotes his efficiency.
Fighting soldiers also want to be given sufficient leave. Even in the First World War, frontline troops were regularly rotated out of the trenches into billets behind the lines. Both in Iraq and Afghanistan British troops have been under fire for periods that could stretch into weeks. The need to fight the war on two fronts has overstretched the troops available for frontline action. After four years, it has been discovered that continuous stress over a long period greatly increases the incidence of post-traumatic stress disorder.
Fighting soldiers also want to be sure that their families are well looked after and have good housing. General Jackson has a comment on that: “Some of the accommodation we provide is still, frankly, shaming.” What more does anyone need to say? If you neglect housing for wives and children at home, you demoralise the soldiers at the front.
As a nation we send our soldiers to the risks of war. Nearly 250 British soldiers have been killed either in Iraq or Afghanistan. In Iraq, 3,100 have been wounded or evacuated on medical grounds. Currently, there are some 13,000 troops operating in the two theatres. These are quite high casualty rates. If we send men to war, we owe them the best possible nursing care. The last surviving specialist military hospital was closed in the middle of this war on the cost-saving argument that there would not be casualties to fill it.
The United States may have mishandled its occupation strategy, but at least the US Administration does have a strategy. Last year President Bush decided to reinforce American troops in Iraq and put General David Petraeus in charge of the “surge”. Soon the general will be reporting to Congress on the results of this strategy. Few people in England thought it had much chance of success, but the Petraeus report may be relatively confident.
General Petraeus apparently expects that the United States will have to keep troops in Iraq for nine to ten years. The US surge has been relatively effective in suppressing Sunni terrorism, but it has not been able to stop the war between the Sunni and Shia. Sectarianism has got worse.
Some American commentators regard the results of the surge as a military victory, but a political defeat. Certainly relations between the US Government and the Iraqi administration have deteriorated.
Relations between the British and American forces have also deteriorated. There is now a paper war of the generals, with the British generals criticising the American strategy, and the American generals criticising what they see as the British defeat in Basra. This damages Anglo-American defence relations, though Mr Rumsfeld himself is now criticised almost as freely in Washington as in London.
What Britain lacks is a defence policy. As General Jackson argues, this would have to be based on meeting the real needs of the soldiers – they are the foundation of everything else. If money was spent on pay, conditions, equipment, housing and hospitals, Britain would have a better basis for a defence policy. These are the preliminary issues, and the Treasury is the real enemy. If we paid properly for our Army, we could then have a strategy. Until we do, it is little use criticising the Americans; they are not going to take any notice.
They need to promote some commanders from the ranks, IMO. We could stand to see a few such promotions, too.
BTW, Britain certainly has the revenues to build their conventional military forces up more, too (more soldiers and air support), if they would do it.
“What our Army needs is a defence policy”
Cheer up. It could be worse: We could have a defense policy in need of an army...
Quite impossible. Building up the army to the required standards as outlined here would mean having to dissolve some of the most distinguised of our whitehall civil service units. Extra helicopters would certainly mean the “3rd Pencilpushers” battalion, gazetted FIFTEEN times for “inertia in the face of the enemy”, would have to go.
Providing soldiers families with proper housing might mean having to redeploy as many as one administrive brigade from glitzy high expense London to somewhere cheap and horrible like Newcastle. Only last month providing the army with new trucks and ammunition meant cutting back on the nearly two days supply of red tape for the Department of Paperclips and silly walks!
/sarc off
LOL. Good point.
‘And the Brit general blames Rumsfeld?’
No, the RETIRED Brit general WHO WANTS TO SELL HIS BOOK blames Rumsfeld. . . . . :)
good one. i have alot of respect for Sir Mike’s ability to run an army. his service record is second to none.
this is, as you say, as blatant book seller.
ah, but Britain has national health insurance.
With a top ten or twenty national economy, we still manage to be second in the world behind the US for defence expenditure.
Queen Elizabeth Aircraft Carriers
Type 45 destroyers
Astute Class submarines
Albion Class LPD’s
Mastiff trucks
Vector trucks
Possible Piranha purchases to replace CVR class of vehicles for Army
F35 JSF
Eurofighter Typhoon
These are some of the upgrades that the UK military has been making to all 3 services (air, land, sea). Each service has upgraded hardware, and this is especially the case with the Navy, which with the Astute Class, the Daring Class, the Albion Class and the QE Class, with give the UK a clear blue-water capability.
We dont need to compete with the US regarding spending, as I’m sure we wont come to blows for a few years yet. All potential enemies of the UK would get a battering...
First thing they could change the spelling to the American defense.
bwahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahhahahahahaha....an old joke never gets boring right???? No way, never. Not a chance. The oldies are the best...
Honestly, you guys think that if its not a private company then its a commie conspiracy...
yaaawwwwwnnnnn...
“First thing they could change the spelling to the American defense”
As its our language, as its named after the nation that invented it (England, just in case you didn’t figure it out...), I put it to you that we have in fact spelt it correctly, and that it is you, sir, who cannot cannot put letterz one after another to make a wurd.
If you meant your comment literally, then what good is a letter change going to do????????????????????
A fresh spelling, a fresh start. Defence is out, defense is the modern. Modernize and rejuvenate.
An old joke is generally a good one. Its survived the test of time.
One thing people on the right do know: national defense is the central purpose of government and that health care is not.
So, because the UK has a National Health Service, that means that it isn’t looking after the defence of the realm? Thats not an argument really is it? Dont get me started on the medi-care system in the US.
The point is your argument makes no sense to me!
If I take your comments with good nature then you seem to be a clever guy with a good sense of word-play.
You spell your way (American), I’ll spell mine (English).
Labour never did anything for the Armed Forces in the UK, even when I served over 20yrs ago. Nothing has changed
Now that he is out of power Rummy is everybody's tackling dummy. A safe target for the second guessers and those who didn't have the moral courage to speak up when it could have had consequences.
Those who disagreed with Rummy and said so at the time...have bragging rights.
“Labour never did anything for the Armed Forces in the UK.”
To be honest I was trying to get away from petty partisanship and politics. Every time I try to defend our armed forces in these threads I get a hammering from someone with a moan against a party, a leader, a nation etc. I frankly wonder if people are on these threads to learn something new or just pontificate till they’re blue in the face. Or Red, depending on your political affiliation.
In deference to your history with our armed forces, I will retire from the thread at this point.
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