Category Archives: Global Conflict

A Comfortable War in the Middle East

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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

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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/

The Sikh Regiment – has the time come?

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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:

Another skirmish in the race relations war

Remembering the brave boys of Bomber Command

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War is an ugly, horrible business as anyone who has been involved will tell you, whether combatant or civilian. And while time heals all but the deepest wounds and former adversaries can meet again in peace, that’s not to say we should forget those wounds because I can’t think of a single war fought between two sides who were both the “good guys”. Inevitably, wars are between good and evil and in the interests of celebrating the triumph of good over evil, the good guys should be remembered and they deserve to have their sacrifices honoured.

That doesn’t always happen, and it hasn’t happened yet in the case of 55,000 courageous young men who made the ultimate sacrifice and gave their lives for our freedom. They served in the RAF’s Bomber Command and had a worse chance of survival than a world war one infantry officer. 55,000 killed out of 125,000 aircrew is a devastating loss ratio, yet those who survived one raid went back out on the next one. They received no Campaign Medal for their extraordinary bravery, and they still do not have an official memorial. Dresden is often cited as the reason.

This weekend marks the 65th anniversary of the bombing of Dresden. Over the course of two nights, 1300 heavy bombers dropped 3900 tons of bombs resulting in a firestorm that claimed up to 25,000 mostly civilian lives, and it remains one of the most controversial acts of world war two. I lament any death, but what is special about Dresden? Other cities had a worse pounding, don’t their dead count for anything? Or is it okay if civilians are only killed in ones and twos? Is it because they died in a firestorm and some other method of killing them would have been okay?

We should remember the loss of all civilians killed in the war, and not single out the unfortunate residents of Dresden and forget the rest. So why do we do that? Quite simply, Dresden remains controversial because of the enduring effect of Nazi propaganda during the war, and Soviet propaganda after it. The Nazis and the Soviets both wanted to demonise us. Würzburg was bombed a month later and suffered more devastation, even though far fewer bombers were involved in one brief air raid. Why do we not remember those poor victims the same way? Is it because “only” 5,000 residents were killed? No, it’s not about the people, Dresden is a touchstone for pacifists while Würzburg didn’t have the benefit of Soviet propaganda.

The propaganda machine continues to crank away, only with different hands working the handle. War is an ugly, horrible business; there is no “nice” way to kill people. But sometimes it is necessary and all that had to happen to prevent Dresden was that Germany had to stop fighting. Yet even children were put into uniform and armed and sent to fight the advancing allies. Is there a practical pacifist response to a ruthless and desperate totalitarian system? The war against the Nazis was necessary, and pacifism was tried first, sincerely and earnestly.

We didn’t choose to go to war lightly and frivolously. We were still weary after the first world war, “the war to end all wars.” But we were confronted with a ruthless, aggressive Germany the Nazis had motivated ready to fight a total war. That included purging Germany of all Jews, Gypsies and the mentally and physically disabled. The good burghers of Dresden were as thorough as any other town or city in sending all their Jews and others to the concentration camps.

Here is the eyewitness account of a Jewish slave worker:

Roman Halter, now 82, was working as munitions worker in Dresden at the time of the attack. A Polish Jew, he had survived the Lodz Ghetto and selections at the death camp of Auschwitz-Birkenau.

He says, “There were cartwheels of fire chasing oxygen and we had to throw ourselves down on the tarmac. The tarmac was already hot. And as we went through people were jumping from buildings.

“People were jumping around with flame. It was horrendous this vision. We had more sympathy for these people than the SS who only cared about guarding us.

“But we felt really that they started the war. We knew that England was bombed, that Coventry was bombed and they deserved whatever they’re getting.”

After the war, Mr Halter came to London and received schooling from former Bomber Command pilots. Inspired by the beauty of Dresden, he became an architect. He says, “Fifty five thousand of them were killed. Everyone of them should have been honoured because they did their duty.

“They didn’t protest; they felt that if Hitler wins, Europe and the world will be thrown into a darkness for a thousand years. And if it had not been for Churchill and the RAF boys we would not have won.”

The contribution of Bomber Command to the war effort was fully understood by the Nazis too. Albert Speer, minister of armaments wrote this after the war:

“The real importance of the air war consisted in the fact that it opened a second front long before the invasion in Europe … Defence against air attacks required the production of thousands of anti-aircraft guns, the stockpiling of tremendous quantities of ammunition all over the country, and holding in readiness hundreds of thousands of soldiers, who in addition had to stay in position by their guns, often totally inactive, for months at a time … No one has yet seen that this was the greatest lost battle on the German side.”

Roman Halter and Albert Speer are both right. And Bomber Command should have its memorial, for without their sacrifice the Nazis would have given us a thousand more Dresdens.


History repeats itself in the Gulf of Aden

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I lived in Aden as a child in the 1960s. I have very fond memories of the place and a clear understanding of how and why we, the Brits, came to be there, and how and why we left. History is full of little ironies, and Aden highlights several.

A period postcard

The first irony is why we were in Aden in the first place. One of the main reasons we went there over 170 years ago, was to combat piracy from Somalia and from along the southern tip of Arabia. It was seriously disrupting global shipping trade passing up the east coast of Africa and across to India. As most of that trade was ours, it was our job to deal with it. We dealt with it by established a naval base at Aden from which to patrol the Gulf of Aden and suppress piracy from Somalia, and by afterwards signing peace treaties with the various sheiks and sultans along the coast. They agreed not to allow piracy from their territories, and we agreed not to invade them. They became known collectively as the Trucial States. It’s a sign of the times that it now falls to the American and Chinese navies, amongst many others, to deal with modern-day Somali piracy.

The second irony is that having once kicked us out, Yemen has applied to join the Commonwealth. Aden in particular wants to break away from Yemen, which it became part of after independence, and has a specific goal of joining the Commonwealth. Yemen as a whole has already applied for membership so it’s not a contentious issue there. Similarly, Somaliland, a British Protectorate until 1960, wants to break away from Somalia, which it became part of after independence, and it too wants to join the Commonwealth. As much as I am a fan of the Commonwealth, I don’t see it as a “magic bullet” solution for failing states. Being a member of the Commonwealth hasn’t ensured that Pakistan, for example, has been able to deal with its own troubles in the North West Provinces. If anything, it has been a conduit that has eased the spread of al Qaeda to the UK, a route they have already started using from Yemen.

Third, the reason Yemenis wanted us out was to assert Arab nationalism, encouraged by Gamal Abdel Nasser who was in turn supported by the Soviet Union with money, weapons and ideology. Neither of them are around any more, but there is a more virulent and dangerous threat now in the form of al Qaeda, who have established a large base of operations in Yemen and thrust Aden back into the news headlines. Bin Laden has a more radical and dangerous agenda than Nasser ever had and, since the Cold War has ended and we have dropped our guard, he doesn’t need the resources of a superpower to back him up. Our own resources, such as the Internet and ease of travel, serve him well enough.

Fourth, the circumstances of our withdrawal from Aden have been, and may be, repeated in Iraq and Afghanistan. We were fighting a rear-guard action against two rival factions vying with each other for domination after we were gone – they had to be seen to be kicking us out. As well as fighting amongst themselves, they continued attacks on British troops even after we had begun to pull out. Bringing the warring Sunni and Shiite factions together has been the biggest challenge for the post-Saddam regime in Iraq. Afghanistan may be a different story unless the warlords can combine to challenge the Taliban.

Fifth, we had the support of Adenis loyal to the local sultans and they suffered vicious retribution afterwards. That pattern may well be repeated in Afghanistan, making anyone – police, army, civilian workers – associated with Hamid Karzai or the UN or Nato likely targets for the Taliban. In Aden, they remained loyal to their sultans and on our side until the end, will that be the case in Afghanistan?

Sixth, while we allowed the sultans to run their own areas outside the port of Aden itself, they were corrupt, autocratic and incompetent. It was as much to get rid of them that the insurgents, as they would now be called, were fighting. That is certainly true in Afghanistan today.

Seventh, the other reason we were in Aden was to establish it as coaling station to service the Royal Navy and our vast merchant fleet. In the post World War Two trade boom, Aden became the second busiest shipping port in the world and in 1958 only New York had more ships per day. But coincident with us pulling out Nasser closed the Suez Canal in 1967 following the Six Day war with Israel, and at a stroke wiped out Aden’s economy. It remained closed until 1975 and pushed South Yemen, as it had become, even further into the hands of the extremists. Afghan villagers have one cash crop – opium. We can’t just wipe that out, we need to ensure they have a viable alternative economy or the effect will be the same, to force them to support their own extremists, the Taliban.

We should try to learn from our experiences, positive and negative, in Aden (1960s), Iraq (1920/30s) and Afghanistan (1840s, 1870s, and again in 1919), as well as in other parts of the world where we have had to deal with insurgencies. Malaya (The Emergency), Kenya (the Mau Mau), and Palestine (Irgun, the Stern Gang) are just three more recent examples of many. We’ve got it right in some places, and dreadfully wrong in others.

History repeats itself because the people and the issues are always the same.

A lesson in accountability from America

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What a contrast we see in the way the military is run in this country compared with the USA. Here, General Dannatt is being praised for his bravery in first speaking out about the abysmal housing our servicemen are expected to live in, and now for the near-poverty levels of pay for those in the lower ranks. He is holding his political masters to account. Over in America, however, the hobnailed boot is on the other foot. Secretary of Defense, Robert M Gates, has just sacked the four-star Air Force Chief of Staff and the civilian Air Force Secretary for “a pattern of poor performance” over control of nuclear weapons and parts. Last year he sacked a two-star general and the civilian Army Secretary over the shocking standards of accommodation at a top US military hospital.

Here’s what the head of the Senate Armed Services Committee had to say: “Secretary Gates’ focus on accountability is essential and has been absent from the office of the secretary of defense for too long.” Contrast that with our own part-time Secretary of State for Defence who is also the Minister of State for Scotland. Accountability is not a word he is familiar with. He has presided over a regime where increased demands on the armed forces have not been matched with increases in resources. The thin desert-pink line has been stretched to breaking point and it is no surprise that under the circumstances more and more servicemen are abandoning the armed forces.

Gates has made it clear that the American air force had suffered for years from a loss of expertise in handling nuclear materials. Is that what is in store for us? Are we going to have our own “nuclear incidents” caused by lack of experience or lack of resources? Two incidents hit the headlines in America. One happened last year when a B-52 flew across America with six armed nuclear cruise missiles, which was completely against regulations, but what’s more, the crew didn’t even know they had them on board. The more recent incident, which resulted in the sackings, was when four nose-cone fuses for Minuteman nuclear warheads were sent to Taiwan, instead of some helicopter batteries that should have been sent.

The problems in America are certainly not due to resources, they are more symptomatic of complacency. Over here we have a dedicated, motivated, and professional armed services, but which is underpaid, poorly resourced and seriously overstretched. As a consequence ours are also haemorrhaging skilled men and women. Never mind the injustices that are being done to those who serve, and let’s not even get started on how shamefully the wounded are treated, where is the political will to see defence as nothing more than a part-time job? When will we get a secretary of state for defence who will focus on his job? When will we get some accountability?

Another skirmish in the Race Relations war

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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.

The Falklands War, the teachers’ reaction

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Twenty five years after the Falkland Islands were freed from a military occupation, teachers in Scotland have voted for a ban on recruiters visiting schools to talk about careers in the army. Apparently these despicable people were handing out t-shirts and even pictures of helicopers. Okay, so I realise the teachers are probably more upset about Blair invading Iraq than anything else, but it demonstrates to me how morally enfeebled we have become because of political correctness and even class hatred. I wish we hadn’t been lied to over Iraq as well, but the response should not be to punish the armed forces over it.

Service in the military is a service to the country and is something to be proud of.

Read the BBC Scotland report here