I’ve been astonished by a string of news stories in recent days that seem to suggest we haven’t a clue how to deal with terrorism. Click on each item to read the full report.
How goes the war on terror? A round up of recent news
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Author Archives: Mark Griffin
What part of “We’re at war” do you not understand?
The release of dozens of convicted terrorists coupled with cutbacks in the defence budget indicates the government have a fatal misunderstanding of the peril we are in. Al Qaeda is at war with us, they seek to destroy us absolutely and impose their especially brutal version of Sharia law worldwide. The government are certainly aware of the threat and are devoting significant resources to combating it. Yet it seems that threat has to be offset against competing needs on the purse strings. Shall we build a new warship or shall we fund the Tyne and Wear Metro? Shall we have combat aircraft on the new carriers or shall we let Vodafone keep several billion pounds in unpaid tax?
The most glaring evidence of our disconnect from reality is our treatment of enemy combatants. We treat them as civilians, which they are most certainly not. To appreciate the absurdity of this, imagine treating Argentine troops the same way during the Falklands War. We did not haul them before the local magistrate and charge them with trespass, or being in possession of a 155mm Howitzer without a firearms license. They were not given suspended sentences with warnings to their future conduct and they were not sent back to their units to continue fighting.
Captured enemy combatants are prisoners of war. They are held in detention for the duration of hostilities. They are accorded all their rights under the Geneva Convention.
Losing two wars at once
There are two wars going on in Afghanistan at present, not one as is generally perceived. The first is a war of choice against the Taliban in which we seek to build a stable, peaceful democratic Afghan state. The second is a war of necessity against al Qaeda who we seek to eliminate as a terrorist threat.
Neither war is going well. There is no conceivable hope that we can eliminate the rampant corruption at every level of the Afghan government, and therefore no hope that we can bring peace and stability to that country. But we continue to prop up Hamid Karzai while we try to win hearts and minds amongst the populace. To that end we go out to remote villages, find the village elders and sit down and talk with them. We offer education for their children, medical aid for their community, trading opportunities and financial support, and even weapons so they can defend themselves from the Taliban. The Taliban have a much simpler approach. They go to the remote villages, find the village elders and kill them. Their approach is going to trump ours every time because we can’t occupy and defend every village in Afghanistan and the Taliban know that what the Americans were fond of saying in Vietnam is true, “if you have them by the balls, their hearts and minds will follow.”
So why don’t we cut our losses and just pull out? The problem we have is with the second war, against al Qaeda. We were on the verge of completely defeating them back in 2003 when we shifted our attention away and invaded Iraq instead. The war in Afghanistan suddenly became the forgotten war, starved of resources, devoid of leadership, and out of the public eye. Al Qaeda used that respite well. They have regrouped and organised a network of training camps not just in northern Pakistan, but in other regional hot spots around the world. Afghanistan is important to us because it is the only land base close to their heartlands from which we can operate. If, or when, we lose Afghanistan as a base, operations against al Qaeda can only be conducted by air across what will then be a very hostile Taliban controlled Afghanistan, or an already hostile Iran, or an increasingly hostile Pakistan. If we lose Afghanistan, we may lose any hope of defeating al Qaeda in Pakistan.
The consequences will be severe indeed. We will leave al Qaeda free to operate against us from a secure base, immune from attack by us. They will continue to destabilise Pakistan and will in a few short years take possession of Pakistan’s nuclear weapons. We should then reflect on the lie of WMD’s that took us into war with Iraq and which gave al Qaeda this unprecedented opportunity.
Should economic reality trump military necessity?
These have to be the happiest of days for pacifists. With a growing sense of disillusionment with our wars and our ability to fight wars, the Strategic Defence and Security Review just heaps joy upon joy for them. Now the Royal Navy is to be saddled with two massive aircraft carriers, useless without aircraft and which the Navy must scrap much of its surface fleet to pay for. The Army and the Royal Air Force, both apparently clinging to the need to defend Northern Europe from a Soviet Pact invasion, a threat that vanished decades ago, have sacrificed everything else to keep that dream alive. All of which leaves brave men and women fighting in the front line to pay the ultimate price for years of neglect.
Who should the finger of blame point towards? The last government appointed some of the most breathtakingly incompetent ministers in our history, but if they are given no leadership from above, and they are never held to account in Parliament, is it their fault for being useless or ours for letting them get away with it? And if the Ministry of Defence is run by clowns, have our top generals and admirals been moulded by their environment or are they equally culpable for the mismanagement of the department over many years? It’s hard to imagine how any senior officer who puts the case for military need above that of political expediency can further his career.
And that is a large part of the problem. We have far too many senior officers scrambling up the greasy pole to collect more stars before retiring to a comfortable job in the defence industry which is milking and bilking the defence budget. We already have more admirals than ships even before the planned round of cutbacks. But the bloated empire that is Whitehall will not be scaled back accordingly. It will be the soldier, the sailor, and the airman who will again bear the brunt of economic cutbacks. There will be fewer of them, with poorer equipment, and less of it. All of which ignores the fact that we are in a hot, shooting war with al Qaeda.
We need to confront terrorism everywhere. We need to tackle its radicalising influence here in the UK, and we need to be capable of responding to terrorist incidents or preferably of detecting and preventing them beforehand. We need to be tracking them down to their training camps and flushing them out of their safe havens, worldwide. That’s why we were in Afghanistan originally, that’s why we should be in the North West Provinces if the Pakistan government won’t assist. Hot spots of radial Islam in Yemen, Somalia, Indonesia and elsewhere also need to be brought into the equation and we need to deal with those politically if at all possible but militarily if not.
To do this we need more military resources, not fewer. We need more armed police or territorial army manpower ready to deal with a Mumbai-style attack wherever it might occur. That means more soldiers and army camps across Britain. We need sufficient emergency resources to cope with casualties after a bomb attack, again wherever it might occur which means more ambulances, hospitals and medics across the country. And we need intelligence gathering to tell us what the terrorists are planning. We also need to engage with moderate Moslems, to counter the extremist views being put across by radical clerics, and to reassure them that this isn’t a war against Islam.
But we also need to be able to deploy an independent army to any location in the world. Fully equipped, fully trained, and fully supported on land, sea and in the air. We should not require support from any other country to do this, but we should be ready and willing to support others should we be called upon to do so. Finally, and most important, we need the political will. Defence expenditure is not something to be weighed against other peace-time budgetary considerations. It’s not a choice between a new warship or a cross-rail link. We either spend the money and defend ourselves adequately, or we have no need for budgets for anything. This is a matter of survival, plain and simple. We are at war.
These may not be happy days for pacifists after all. White Poppy, anyone?
A Comfortable War in the Middle East
The problem with where we are in the Middle East peace process is that both sides are still operating within their comfort zones. The situation can be contained. A peace flotilla here, a rocket attack there, and activists on both sides have something to shout about. It keeps them happy; they feel they have something to do. Add in a bit of global condemnation and give the bloggosphere something to rage about too. Then, six months later, mix the ingredients and repeat the process.
Abbas and Netanyahu can carry on with this game indefinitely, and it’s easy to understand why. The reward for bringing about a lasting peace is not worth the pain of bringing their own extreme elements face to face with reality. It’s just too difficult. Netanyahu is dependent on his settlement-building religious right, while for Abbas, Hamas are about as hostile towards him as they are towards the Israelis, so he’s going to get precisely nowhere with them. In fact, Hamas are in their own comfort zone too. They have a low-key war to manage, with ample money and weapons coming in from their friends in nasty places. “Managing” the situation is easier than fixing it.
All that leaves Obama high and dry. He can say all he wants to say to the Israelis about the settlements, which is the issue of the moment, but to them it is all just so much noise, and compared with Hamas’ rockets, it’s not much noise at all. Obama needs to move all parties out of their respective comfort zones because none of them have a vested interest in ending the stalemate. If Obama fails to stir them to action, then sooner or later the Iranians will. That’s the real danger. It’s like that urban myth of the frog in a pot of cold water, remaining there while a fire underneath raises the temperature to boiling point. It doesn’t realise the danger until it’s too late. Doing nothing in this situation is not an option.
However, doing nothing is precisely what they’re doing, and settlement building is being used as an excuse by both sides with well-briefed media teams spinning the story and keeping their own supporters on-side. Netanyahu and Abbas are not partners in peace, they are partners in a charade. If they really want peace, they have to negotiate, they have to get out of their respective comfort zones. They cannot hold each other responsible for extremists they cannot control.
Dresden: Bomber Command Memorial
That there are no memorials to Adolf Hitler is due to the heroic contribution of Bomber Command crews to the defeat of Nazi Germany.
Without their sacrifice, we might today have memorials in cities like Dresden to the “brave concentration camp guards” who gassed millions of Jews, for example, or the good burghers of Dresden might be celebrating “Joseph Goebbels Day” with marching columns of SS troops and concerts in the evening.
Nobody cannot but feel great regret over the loss of so many lives, young and old, civilian and military. But all they had to do to avoid Dresden being bombed was to stop killing our troops, to stop supporting Hitler and the war effort. They have to reconcile their fate to their conduct during the war because they brought it upon themselves.
In the meantime, we have a long-standing debt of gratitude to the brave airmen who suffered the highest casualty rates of any of the armed forces. 55,000 killed out of 125,000 aircrew is an astonishing loss rate and would have been well known to the crews each time they took off for a mission. Albert Speer, Hitler’s armaments minister, wrote that the air war was their greatest lost battle, citing the massive resources of troops and weaponry diverted from the front line.
Bomber Command played a major role in winning the war against tyranny, in preserving freedom not just for us, but for Europe for generations to come. They are themselves a lost generation, young men who never came back, who left grieving families at home, who made the ultimate sacrifice. They must have their memorial.
I very much regret that Helma Orosz, the mayor of Dresden, is in Britain today campaigning against that memorial. She is in effect acting as an apologist for the Nazis, and she and the rest of the citizens of Dresden have to reconcile themselves to their past and their support for everything that Hitler did.
I wrote more about this earlier this year if you are interested:
http://didcotman.wordpress.com/2010/02/13/remembering-the-brave/
Car Park Tax – A Jobsworth’s Dream
Just when it seemed likely that a few out of countless thousands of civil servants might lose their jobs so councils can balance their budgets, along comes a hare-brained scheme straight out of New Labour’s play book. The complications involving a work-place parking tax are quite possibly too many to enumerate, meaning that legions of civil servants would be required to manage it. Or it would be contracted out at great expense leaving nothing for the public purse. And for what? Yet another burden on the hapless taxpayer.
For starters, this is a tax on jobs. This is a pet topic of mine, the extent to which we put barriers in the way of anyone who wants to employ people in this country. We tax them through Employers NIC, a direct tax on jobs, and we burden them with endless red tape, an indirect tax on jobs. No wonder it is easier to export jobs and cut costs. This has to be the killer argument against a workplace parking tax, it’s yet another burden at a time when we desperately want to see more jobs being created.
Then we can start to think of all the practical implications, the million little complications that somebody has to deal with.
Does a company pass the cost on to its employees? Or does it just swallow the charge? Indeed, does a council have to pay the charge to itself or does it charge its own employees? Does a charity have to pay? Does the owner of an empty office block have to pay? Can a company eliminate all of its parking spaces to save the charge, perhaps by grassing them over and turning them into lawns and flower beds? Can a company install parking meters so they are no longer providing free parking? Would that be valid even if they charged only a penny per day? Or a pound per day? Would the council have to employ inspectors to go round and ensure companies were enforcing parking charges? If you are self-employed and you normally work from home, do you have to pay a charge for parking on your own driveway? Or would you have to put up a parking meter as well? Do visitor parking spaces count? Do hospitals and fire stations have to pay for parking places for emergency vehicles? If not, what counts as an emergency vehicle?
If a company does pass the charge on to its employees, do they have to pay if they are on holiday? Or sick? What if they start at the company part-way through the year? Or leave part-way through? What if they belong to a car pool, do they pay a proportion or does each employee pay the full charge? What if an employee is paying the charge but there frequently isn’t anywhere for them to park? Or they only occasionally bring the car to work? What counts as occasional use? What if there’s a transport strike and more employees have to use their cars temporarily, will they have to pay? But if they don’t, will regular car users still have to pay? What if the transport strike only affects one group of employees, for example those who normally travel to work by train?
It’s not just a local council issue either as central government must surely become involved. Will the charge, if levied on the employee, be tax deductible? If it is not tax deductible and it is not passed on to the employee, is it a taxable benefit in kind? Is National Insurance payable on it as well? Is the charge liable to VAT?
Seriously, this is another ill-thought out gimmick like the Robin Hood Tax.
The hypocrites that used to be our government
So Alun Milburn may be joining the Coalition government. I’m not really surprised by the reaction of some of his former colleagues. Instead of seeing this as a PR opportunity to crow that only Labour could represent the poor and disadvantaged, these selfish individuals, who actually could not care less about the poor and disadvantaged, are screaming that he is a class traitor. A “collaborator” says John “Two Jags” Prescott, who would doubtless be overjoyed if the poor and disadvantaged suffered even more. Milburn’s critics, remember, are the people who imposed extra taxes on the poor while cutting them for the super-rich.
Frankly, I am dismayed at his appointment. I am convinced a true believer in free markets and the enterprise economy would have a more significant and longer lasting impact than he possibly could. But I don’t doubt that his heart’s in the right place, I’m just once again reminded of one reason why the last Labour government were a disaster for this country, rich and poor alike.
The Sikh Regiment – has the time come?
I posted this on MyTel about three years ago, but with a Coalition government now in office and Cameron visiting India at present, I wonder if it’s the right time to raise the issue again?
The MoD liked the idea then, do they now? The CRE hated the idea then, isn’t it about time they were told where to go?
The original post:
I love the Sikhs. Of all the troubles we read about in today’s religion-obsessed world, none of them are caused by Sikhs. To my knowledge they stand for principles, loyalty, honour, family values and service to the community, plus whatever other qualities you can think to name. They have also served the British Crown loyally and valiantly for more than a century. You would think the Ministry of Defence would be delighted to be approached by leaders of the Sikh community with the suggestion
of forming a Sikh regiment and the assurance they would have no trouble finding 700 willing volunteers. And the MoD were delighted. Delighted that is, until they spoke to the Commission for Racial Equality who vetoed the idea.
- Sikh soldiers in the Indian Army
The CRE, which itself has a dreadfully racist record of employment, has a vested interest in perpetuating the race relations industry and saddling this country with insane policies. It is also highly selective in its approach. Saying “the creation of a separate regiment according to ethnicity would be segregation, which amounts to discrimination under the Race Relations Act” is to defy common sense. The British Army has for centuries formed regiments along ethnic lines, and why? Because they work. Society is entirely happy with the idea of the Irish Guards, the Scots Guards and the Welsh Guards. They take recruits on ethnic grounds from all across the UK. There is no conceivable reason why the Sikhs cannot do the same.
I hope common sense will prevail and Sikh leaders and the Ministry of Defence will decide to ignore the CRE and go ahead with this inspiring proposal.
I’ve copied my post above to save you all a little trouble and to start a fresh stream of comments, here is the link to it:
Stars and Strops
Somebody needs to remind that arrogant and useless talking shop that is the US Senate that we achieved independence from the United States back in 1776. On July 4th to be exact. And while David Cameron may be keen to point out that we are the junior partner in the “Special Relationship” it is nonetheless that: we are a partner not a colony.
So if the Senators think our contribution would help their enquiries and they wish to have input from British and Scottish ministers, they should get off their backsides and come over here. Throwing their toys out of the pram isn’t going to get them anywhere and nor should it.
UPDATE 30 July
Seems Sentor Menendez is now considering sending someone over here to conduct interviews. I think that’s the right thing to do, and I hope the government might extend the courtesy of offering the use of a committee room in Westminster. That would avoid the obviously awkward symbolism of witnesses having to turn up at the American Embassy.
And on a related note, the same “We are now independent of you” message needs to be sent to Alex Salmond who is quoted as saying there’s no way on Earth the senate committee is going to hold a hearing in London or Scotland. You can say that about Scotland, Mr Salmond, but not about London.