More Gallant Than We Recognise

There could be a lot more recognition of bravery of our troops in Afghanistan than is currently the case. But currently the chests of our brave men and women in the field are being kept emptier than their commanding officers would like by over 50%.

The issue is a Whitehall quota system that restricts the number of medals to a certain number per tour based on the number of troops in each brigade deployed. Colonel Richard Kemp, former commander of British forces in Afghanistan says:

"The way the quota is used at the moment is very strict, the rules are very inflexible. Commanding officers are lucky to get a 50% strike rate for their medal recommendations due to the conservative nature of senior officers who sit in London and decide these things."

For example in every six months:

• Only two or three Distinguished Service Orders for outstanding combat leadership are now usually awarded to officers in each brigade.
• No more than 19 Military Crosses for bravery in each period.
• Just two Distinguished Flying Crosses for bravery in the air have been awarded.
• The only Victoria Cross awarded in Afghanistan was awarded posthumously to Para Corporal Bryan Budd who was killed in August 2006.

The same ratio was allowed for troops in the first Gulf War but the actual conflict lasted a matter of days. In Afghanistan there is year round bravery since 2003 a period that is longer than either World War, with all the troops deployed constantly on full alert.

One senior officer back in London defended the process saying:

"The fear is we will end up like the Americans and people will get a medal for putting their boots on in the morning.

"We study recommendations very carefully and always err on the side of caution."

But Colonel Kemp counters that by saying:

"Medals are good for morale. They encourage people to go that extra mile. The army is too precious.

"The opinions of regimental commanding officers and brigade commanders on the front line should carry more importance than at the moment."

So even our awards for gallantry are tied up in red tape over the individual merit of each action. What may have earned a medal in another conflict is not maybe not enough if that quota has to be factored in.

People of Witney Your Attention Please

People of Witney, your attention please.

As you are no doubt aware, there is a great danger threatening your planet. If you don't act on that your planet will be good for nothing but demolition to make way for a hyper-space bypass.

So what are those seeking to represent you after the next General Election doing about it people of Witney?

Well you Lib Dem PPC Dawn Barnes was telling the people who are going to discuss this great danger to go ahead and do something, a big something. Think of something really big, then double it, multiple by 10, and double again kind of big. Below is a picture of her with a leader who also believes this was the most important thing to be doing yesterday.



However, the man who would be your Tory MP after the general election thought it was more important this weekend to fly to the other end of the world almost. And tell people what he couldn't do.

"There will no reduction in troop numbers."

He said of the troops he was visiting in Afghanistan. The leader of the free world Barack Obama has stated that July 2011 is the target date to start US withdrawal of troops from Afghanistan.

Of course he's not alone the Defence Minister Bob Ainsworth earlier in the week had gone further than Dave. Saying:

"You can’t put a time on it. You've got to look at conditions."

Something that Cameron has agreed with he is also disquieted about putting artificial deadlines on it. Yet even his one year of no is in effect an artificial deadline in the other way. With so much going against the views of the USA the biggest defence force in the alliance could see us going alone in Afghanistan.

Maybe everyone need to remember a bit of history and the fate of Elphinstone's Army in the First Anglo-Afghan War from 1839-42. When William Brydon and he alone of the 16,000 emerged out of the Khyber Pass.

The Enemy Within

One common thread links the shooting of 5 British servicemen in Afghanistan and 12 13* Americans at Fort Hood in Texans all seventeen were killed by an enemy within. However, there the similarity ends.

In Afghanistan Guardsman Jimmy Major, Warrant Officer Darren Chant, Sgt Matthew Telford, Cpl Steven Boote and Cpl Nicholas Webster-Smith were shot by a rogue policeman they were training. The Taliban have claimed responsibility for the incident in what was clearly an act of terrorism against the occupying forces. The American incident was carried out by US Army psychiatrist Major Nidal Malik Hasan who had been fighting his impending deployment to Iraq.

While Major Hasan is of middle eastern ethnicity that shouldn't make his case a reason for anti-Muslim sentiment. He appears to have been struggling possibly from pre-traumatic stress disorder. The man had treated those who have returned from the battlefields in Iraq and Afghanistan and didn't seem to want to face the psychological conditions that those that had returned had gone through.

With the shootings in Fort Hood taking place at a personnel and medical centre where troops go for last minute checks before deployment it could well be that this was a last ditch attempt for one mant to avoid his own deployment. Sadly there are twelve thirteen* fatal victims of his selfish act and a further 31 30 injured.

The most sad thing about the involvement of Major Hasan is that if even those that are trained to deal and help others cope with the mental pressures of living on the front line of these conflicts, how are others meant to cope. We now recognise post-traumatic stress disorder, and though it is not clear if Major Hasan had partaken on a previous tour of duty from reading the reports his mental state may indicate an anticipatory disorder. But I've already mentioned one Star Trek episode in the title there is need to use another 'Who watches the watchers?'.

Who was looking out for the psychiatric well being of Major Hasan? Who was making sure he was in a fit mental state to be shipped out? Had there been signs of a shift in his mental state that could have forewarned this? Or as someone who is trained to spot such signs had he masked any signs?

The strains of these conflicts are really telling in our troops, not just in the body count or visible injuries that they carry back. Many of the young men we are sending off to fight will no doubt come back with mental conditions, many of which may not surface for years to come. This may not be the last such incident of this kind, that is something that is a worry.

*Just as I pressed publish the official death toll was increased.

Joyce Tells Gordon Get a Grip....On Defence

Eric Joyce has chosen the 70th Anniversary of the declaration of War on Hitler's Germany to resign as the parliamentary private secretary to Defence Minister Bob Ainsworth. In his

he tells the Prime Minster to get a grip. Not actually in those words but he concludes saying:

"I believe the next election is ours to win, thanks greatly to your personal great economic success. But we cannot win unless we grip defence. Above all, Labour must remember that service folk and their families are our people. We say that we honour them for their risk, bravery and sacrifice and we must at literally all costs continue to show by our actions that we mean it."

His letter is a strong rebuke on the war senior members of his own party are attacking senior military personnel while keeping those very experienced voices silent.

"Behind the hand attacks by any Labour figure on senior service personnel are now, to the public, indistinguishable from attacks on the services themselves. Conversely, in my view we should allow our service personnel greater latitude to voice their views on matters which make distinctions between defence and politics pointless."

No doubt the man who resigned his commission as a Major just 10 years ago has like that other former soldier 70 years ago kept his ear to the ground with his former colleagues. Like Churchill he is saying that something needs to be done, something that he feels cannot be done despite his experience from inside the MoD at the moment.

He also says that he does not think that "the public will accept for much longer that our losses can be justified by simply referring to the risk of greater terrorism on our streets." Going on to talk about the uncertainty about British forces continued deployment in Afghanistan.

However, he does note that a British withdrawal leaving the USA to fight on alone "would mean the end of NATO as a meaningful proposition" all the while acknowledging the proud tradition of British forces punching well above their weight.

It is an interesting time to go, although he said that the decision was made some weeks ago. The choice of today seventy years on from when Neville Chamberlain announced to the nation, "I have to tell you now that no such undertaking (withdrawal from Poland) has been received and consequently this country is now at war with Germany," can surely not have been overlooked by a military man.

Consequence? I think not. I mean the man is a mature* Sandhurst Graduate and was commissioned into the Royal Army Educational Corps.

Update: Subrosa has asked me to point on a couple of occasions in the comments to point out that Eric started as a private in the Black Watch at 18 before leaving to get a degree at 21, entering Sandhurst and becoming a mature 'cadet' at 27. As this does point out that he know live in the ranks, officers' mess and the difficulties being a mature officer cadet can bring, I have decided to add the detail, as it shows the mans possibly unique grasp of Army matters even further from the current green benches.

Eric Joyce's Resignation Letter

Hat tip to Channel 4 News

Gordon Brown MP
10 Downing Street
LONDON

3 September 2009

Gordon

As you may know, I told Bob Ainsworth some weeks ago that I intended to step down as Parliamentary Private Secretary (PPS) to the Defence Secretary before the start of the new parliamentary term. This seems to me the least disruptive time to do that. I have been privileged to work as PPS to four senior Labour ministers in four government departments and now feel that I can make my best contribution to the Labour effort in parliament by concentrating on helping, as a regular back-bencher, to show that Labour remains sound on matters of Defence.

Labour was returned to power in 1997 on the back of your great success in turning the Economy from a weakness into a strength for Labour. Our continuing success in helping people from all parts of society become more prosperous, while helping the least well-off most, is built upon that. More quietly, during the 90's, Labour's then shadow defence team showed how Labour had become, after the disaster of the early 1980s, 'sound' on Defence. It seems to me that your personal success on the economy won the deal in 1997, while colleagues at Defence sealed it.

We are now, I think, once again at a critical time for Labour and Defence. The Conservatives, of course opportunistically, think they can convince the public that we have lost our empathy with the Defence community. We must not allow this to happen. I know that you have great commitment to our armed forces and this was clear when you visited Afghanistan this week, yet there seem to me to be some problems which need fixing with the greatest urgency.

As you know, two Black Watch soldiers gave their lives during your visit. I do not think the public will accept for much longer that our losses can be justified by simply referring to the risk of greater terrorism on our streets. Nor do I think we can continue with the present level of uncertainty about the future of our deployment in Afghanistan.

I think we must be much more direct about the reality that we do punch a long way above our weight, that many of our allies do far too little, and that leaving the field to the United States would mean the end of NATO as a meaningful proposition. The British people have a proud history of facing such realities. They understand the importance of the allied effort in Afghanistan/Pakistan and I think they would appreciate more direct approach by politicians. We also need to make it clear that our commitment in Afghanistan is high but time limited. It should be possible now to say that we will move off our present war-footing and reduce our forces there substantially during our next term in government.

We also need a greater geopolitical return from the United States for our efforts. For many, Britain fights; Germany pays, France calculates; Italy avoids. If the United States values each of these approaches equally, they will end up shouldering the burden by themselves. The first place to start is an acceptance this week by them, and by the Afghanistan electoral authorities, that there must be a second round in the elections there. I do not think the British people will support the physical risk to our servicemen and women unless they can be given confidence that Afghanistan's government has been properly elected and has a clear intent to deal with the corruption there which has continued unabated in recent years.

Most important of all, we must make it clear to every serviceman and woman, their families and the British public that we give their well-being the highest political priority. Behind the hand attacks by any Labour figure on senior service personnel are now, to the public, indistinguishable from attacks on the services themselves. Conversely, in my view we should allow our service personnel greater latitude to voice their views on matters which make distinctions between defence and politics pointless.

I believe the next election is ours to win, thanks greatly to your personal great economic success. But we cannot win unless we grip defence. Above all, Labour must remember that service folk and their families are our people. We say that we honour them for their risk, bravery and sacrifice and we must at literally all costs continue to show by our actions that we mean it.

I intend to do what modest amount I can to help from the back-benches.

Yours sincerely

Eric Joyce MP

****Breaking**** Eric Joyce Resigns as PPS to Defence Secretary

Former Army major and MP for Falkirk Eric Joyce has resigned as the parliamentary private secretary to the Defece Secretary, Bob Ainsworth. In his letter he is critical of the Government and particularly the Labour Parties handling of Afghanistan. His army career started in the Black Watch who have recently lost two of their number in Afghanistan.

More to follow.

Young Soldier - In Memorium

Reading today that eighteen year old Rifleman James Backhouse was about to return home when he was one of the five soldiers killed in Helmand Province on Friday cast my mind off to Wilfred Owen. Owen the First World War soldier and poet was killed in the Battle of Sambre on 4 November 1918, a week later that war ended on Armistice Day.

Of course Rifleman Backhouse and other nine in the last fortnight who have lost their lives may not have been reaching the end of their days of war. At eighteen if he’d survived he would have faced several more tours in whichever war zone the 2nd Battalion of the Rifles found themselves. However, he was close to some much needed reprieve of the ravages of war. Some time with his loved ones in the normality of life.

You may know that Owen was sent away from the front with shell shock but Scottish, and indeed other, readers may not know that his recuperation took place in Edinburgh at Craiglockhart War Hospital. Here it was that a chance meeting with Siegfried Sassoon which shaped some of his later work. However, after recovery of course he was back at the front from where news of his death only reached his mother as the Armistice was being declared.

However, as the unfortunate soldiers in Antrim learnt, earlier in the year, life in a DMZ isn’t always a more secure place than facing the daily dangers of the job you have trained for. For them it was the eve of departure to the war zone for Backhouse almost the eve of returning. War is no respecter of anyone’s own personal timetable. Many on the D-Day beaches fell to the first angry fire they had ever encountered.

The Telegraph today also published excerpts of the all too short journal of Lieutenant Mark Evison who was killed four short weeks after his arrival in Helmand. In it he say:

'It is disgraceful to send a platoon into a very dangerous area with two weeks' water and food and one team medics pack. Injuries will be sustained which I will not be able to treat and deaths could occur which could have been stopped. We are walking on a tightrope and from what it seems here are likely to fall unless drastic measures are undertaken.'

So in honour of Rifleman Backhouse and Lieutenant Evision and all the soldiers, young and old, who have lost their lives here is Wilfred’s poem The Young Soldier as a reminder of the absurdity at times of war.

It is not death

Without hereafter

To one in dearth

Of life and its laughter,

Nor the sweet murder

Dealt slow and even

Unto the martyr

Smiling at heaven:

It is the smile

Faint as a (waning) myth,

Faint, and exceeding small

On a boy's murdered mouth.

Paddy Ashdown: The World Will Never be the Same

Yesterday evening Paddy Ashdown gave a lecture at Edinburgh University entitled The World will never be the Same.


There was poetry, a song, accents of Northern Ireland and Somerset, an Afghan war revisited, Bosnia and Herzagovina, China, Obama, India and Africa all visited. Plus the introduction of Ashdowns 3rd Law*. There was also a look at the cover (the inside is embargoed) of his new Autobiography A Fortunate Life which two lucky people will be winning a signed copy of. However, after retiring from the campus to a Indian meal with the man himself, some of the students, Fred Mackintosh and Simon Clarke, then moving on for a few drinks after Paddy had left I didn't get around to writing this up until now.

The Scotsman reporter who was present gave a brief overview. This is my recollections with the aid of my copious notes of what was said.

On the idle hill of summer,
Sleepy with the flow of streams,
Far I hear the steady drummer
Drumming like a noise in dreams.
Far and near and low and louder
On the roads of earth go by,
Dear to friends and food for powder,
Soldiers marching, all to die.

From On the Idle Hillside A.E. Houseman 1896

Paddy started by telling us that after periods of stability we often tend to end up in periods of conflict and blood. (Well actually he started with some light hearted banter about introductions but the crux of the matter was as stated). There is a shift of power from the West to the East that is coming. There are things in the economic instability in the West that mean a that the West cannot achieve a solution by themselves.


There is the beginning of a sea change of economic power. China will be going through the turmoil from being a Liberal Economy to being a liberal society. China has gone through such changes in the past and to ignore the possibility that they are capable of doing so again in disingenuous. India and others in Asia will also rise up as economic powers as the West lies helpless from its own excesses.


Some will say that the American economy has gone past its zenith and is in decline. But those that show resistance to change are those that have past their zenith. America over the past 40 years has shown that that they are still open to change but Europe is faltering on this score. For the next 10-15 years Paddy said he sees the USA as still being the most powerful nation in the world, but after then what?


We're moving away from the premise of having a single Super Power to having different centres growing, more in line with Europe’s 19th Century Concert of Power. When there five great powers who between them, mainly because of the UK, kept the peace more or less in tact. The European existence as a prime mover on the world stage is also something that is liable to be diluted as the new powers come to the fore. You only have to look at how the Obama regime started out with its foreign policy. Paddy said they looked across the Atlantic [sic] to Japan and Hillary went to China these are relationships that are seen as important to the USA now. Of Europe of course Britain is still the pre-eminent but what of the rest. They are losing their significance as Obama and America are looking at how best to effect the change that the world can believe in.

Of those emerging there is an assertive Russia, a rising China and a prospering India. Of these Russia's strength is also their biggest weakness. Paddy said that their criminality and acceptance of criminality was potentially their undoing. They also don't have the population to man their domain, let alone defend it and are heading back to be like the 19th century feudal Russia.

Now as never before power is shifting not just laterally but also vertically. Out of the institutions. Unto the global space. But the global space is a lawless space we do not have the means in place to control what happens in that global space. Lawless spaces always help the powerful for a bit. Our multinationals have taken advantage of this but eventually the lawless space becomes more helpful to the destroyers. International terrorism, international criminality these are things that use the prosperous for their own devices then retreat back into that lawless space where they cannot be touched. As Paddy pointed out 89% of the funds that went to fund the 9/11 attacks had passed through the institutions that had offices housed in the Twin Towers.

We are heading to another time of change like in the middle of the 19th Century. The Liberals in Britain foresaw that and brought in the 1832 Reform Act to allow for that power shift in the UK. Unlike our European neighbours, this ended up resulting in the 1848 revolutions. Governance of that global space is the challenge of this age. We need to establish institutions to bring law to that global space. If we fail the consequences are going to be like nothing never seen before.

However, it may not happen through the UN institutions. Good though it has been in maintaining some semblance of peace over the last 50-60 years is it not good at taking executive and swift action. Treaty based organisations may be the way forward. Organisations like the World Trade Organisation working for trade, Kyoto working for the climate, the expansion to the G8 to the G20, the World Bank and International Monetary Fund. All of these are treaty based organisations that have and are seeking to make a change.

(Personal comment here)

Next week as the G20 meets in London the anti-globalisation protestors are going to argue that the big businesses move into the global space, which Paddy has talked about, has been a bad thing. They are ignoring that fact that many of our issues are no longer confined to national boundaries and therefore there is a need to work across those arbitrarily draw lines in the sand. But more of that is a bit back to Paddy.

(Go on Paddy)

Not just is our power globalised but so are our problems too. In Africa Oxfam say 16m people currently live in uninhabitable space. They rely on aid from those of us who have to allow them to carry on existing in those spaces. However, with the credit crunch how much of that aid will be cut leading to starvation. If global warming continues the amount of habitable space in the region shrinks many more will come to rely on those limited sources of aid. Worldwide there is estimated to be 50m people living in uninhabitable space.

We are living in a completely interdependent world. Lehman Brothers collapses and the world economy spirals out of control as a result. We are more connected now than at any time in history both internally and externally.

The world now operates as a network. The structures we have created thus far are vertical but the reality is that our connectivity in networked and interlinked. This is why those structures we currently have in place have been unable to cope.

Twenty or thirty years ago when you were talking about defence you knew who to turn to the MoD. But now the defence minister has to be interconnected. He has to talk to the Dept. of Health about the threat of a pandemic being released, the Dept. of Agriculture about the security of our food, Industry about our companies and businesses being infiltrated, the Home Office because of our connection to so many through immigration. The capacity of our country to make us secure depends on everything being able to connect.

Paddy asked us if we knew of Lord Roberts of Kandahar. There were nothing but blank stares. Roberts was the man who in 1879, some 30 years after the massacre in Kabul, led the British force in to Afghanistan. It was one of the few successful campaigns by anyone into the Afghan lands. But in those 30 years the preparation had been laid, mainly through working to bring together the tribal forces in the Helmand provinces.

Accounts of his exploits don’t mention the importance of the poppy fields. They were there but they weren’t the issue. No was there mention the need to suppress of mad Jihadists living in caves in the southern hill country, though there was also one of those the Wali of Swat. Nor was there concern of collateral damage, though there was plenty of that two, it wouldn’t get reported back home for 6 weeks.

The important lesson from that parallel to today in its not what you do that matters but what you do with others. This Paddy said was Ashdown’s third law.

The age of unilateralism is over, George W. Bush tried it and we have seen where that left him. We have a need to reach out for new allies and some of those will be uncomfortable, but we need to work with them, make compromises and work for the common good. One of those we will need to work with is Iran. The key to the solution in Afghanistan is not our western allies but moderate Muslims. 25% of Afghanistan is of the Shia sect so we will need to get moderates from Iran the epicentre of Shi-ites. The phrase that we use that we are protecting our values ignores the facts that Christianity, Judaism and Islam share many of the same values.

"No man is an island, entire of itself; everyman is a piece of the continent, a
part of the main. If a clod be washed away by the sea,Europe is the less, as well
as if a promontory were, as well as if a manor of thy friend's or of thine own
were: any man's death diminishes me, because I am involved in mankind, and
therefore never send to know for whom the bells tolls; it tolls for
thee."

John Dunne from Devotions upon Emergent Occasions 1624

Paddy then moved on to talk a little about what he is currently doing in Northern Ireland. He’s working with Sinn Fein and the DUP and others in trying to resolve the contentious issue of parades. The thing about what is happening in Northern Ireland that is different from the Israeli/Palestinian issue and the fundamentalist Muslims and the West is that both parties have realised they have a shared destiny. There is something there they need to work at. Israel need to realise that and progress will not be made until they remove the occupation settlements from Palestinian territory which make it impossible for a Palestinian state to operate even if other things weren’t in its way. Cross all the main roads and access points is a mean of subverting that ability to reach for a shared destiny.

He finished he talk near the heart of Midlothian quoting the words of another great Liberal spoken not too far away in Dalkeith during his 1879 Midlothian Campaign.

"Remember that the sanctity of life in the hill villages of Afghanistan
among the winter snows, are as sacred in the eye of Almighty God as are your
own. Remember that He who has united you together as human beings in the same flesh and blood, has bound you by the law of mutual love, that that mutual love
is not limited by the shores of this island."

William Ewart Gladstone

*Nobody in questions afterwards dared ask about one and two.

Government Start to Come Clean on Rendition

Almost three years ago Tony Blair's normally calm persona at PMQs took a serious knock when he fumbled out an answer that there was nothing new on rendition flights. Even Iain Dale was impressed with how Ming had got the then Prime Minister on the ropes.



Then the Prime Minister said there was nothing new to from the Council of Europe's report that Britain had colluded with the USA on extraordinary rendition flights.



To be fair to Tony Blair it now appears that collusion is indeed the wrong way to describe it. The Labour government appear to have actively handed over suspects to them to catch these flights. Far more than even Sir Menzies Campbell hinted at on that particular Wednesday when it was only assumed that our airspace or airfields were being used.

US Use of Bully Boy Tactics

It's the sort of threat used by paedophilic abusers, "Don't tell or we leave you exposed," threatening worse than is already experienced. But it is just the sort of thing that the USA has apparently be doing to the UK.

That would be the country that somehow has stood unwaveringly with the US on its war on terror every step of the way. Yet apparently if the UK reveals the alleged torture that Binyam Mohammed underwent at Guantánamo Bay the US have threatened to take away their intelligence sharing which would leave the UK heavily exposed. So like a victim clinging to its abuser because somehow there is a need the UK Government is keeping mum (mom) about the US's abuses because it can't afford to live without what it gets from the relationship.

If this is true what exactly has the US got to hide? Of course the use of torture on Prisoners of War is outlawed in the Geneva Convention not that the USA seems to pay much heed to that at times. If it is true why is the UK protecting the US? Is there some sense of self preservation?

Maybe David Miliband's statement that, "We never condone or authorise the use of torture," isn't all that close to the truth. If that is the case we need to know just what the UK did know, and when they knew it? Did we know before, during or only find out after? Who knew anything and what was their reaction?

The fact that the US are trying to suppress makes it all the more important that this does get an airing. Even if that means a trip and stay in the Netherlands for a few high profile people.

Carry On Upping Khyber Troop Numbers

George W. Bush is in the UK, possibly seeking sanctuary from the attacks from John McCain and Barak Obama. However, with the American President in the area Gordon 'Tim'rous Beastie' Brown took the opportunity of his moral support to announce an increase in British troop numbers in Afghanistan; as is typical of such announcements under Labour the House of Commons will only get their announcement from Defence Secretary Des Browne later at 15:30.

The announcement will take UK troops in Afghanistan to their highest since deployment following 9/11 and shows a sort of pendulum effect as Gordon Brown has been cutting numbers in Iraq. However, it doesn't make it any easier on our forces who will still be being deployed with regularity between the two theatres of conflict. As the commander of our troops in Helmand province said last year we are facing a 30 year marathon mission in Afghanistan.

When you consider that both World Wars took a total of ten years and not even Northern Ireland took 30 years to come to a peaceful settlement it makes you wonder just who is winning this so called war on terror.