THE NEW YORK TIMES CALLS IT CORRECTLY!
Tuesday, August 14, 2007 at 10:24AM Now I have to admit that I am shocked at the above headline. The NYT is a foaming-at-the-mouth liberal rag, in my view, but even such a rag occassionally gets it right and so it has been saying that in regards to Iraq, Britain was now following “a tempting formula, reaping domestic political credit for withdrawal but without acknowledging that the mission has failed”.
Well, that's only half right. Under Gordon Brown, the drumbeat of surrender gets louder by the day. We can all hear that if we but listen. And yes, this is coldly calculated on reaping domestic UK kudos. But it appears that there are many within the British military that are now briefing the media off-record saying that our forces have failed in Iraq and that we need to get out. Such rank defeatism in the highest levels of our military is dismaying. In essence, senior commanders, off-record, are saying that we are beaten and that we need to get out. Similar concerns are also being raised about the mission in Afghanistan. Naturally the media laps this all up, loving the idea of the UK Political and Military establishment uniting to embrace defeat.
The thing is that it also sends a message to the Jihadi. Kill more Brits. Use them for target practise. Make them hoist the white flag. Our soldiers are brave, but some of their leaders are cowards. If we cannot beat Al Queda in Iraq, then they will be encouraged to come to our own land and see how brave we fight at home.
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Reader Comments (10)
Just a quick heads-up, David; your link is to the Times of London, not the New York Times.
Alan,
The article quotes directly from the NYT, a publication which needs registration before allowing a link to function correctly, or so I am told!
Yes, Mike, I can't even post the link to the original editorial here.
Britain is not fighting Al Quaeda in southern Iraq. It is the various shia militias, some sponsored by Iran, who are doing the killing.
My view is that Iraq is bound to be partitioned and the sooner the better. The US surge in the north has been a failure, but the US will need to keep a military presence for years to come, if only to protect the oil fields.
But Afghanistan MUST be prevented from falling again to the Taliban. That would be a victory for Bin Laden.
Ashamed yes. Shocked no. Our political masters rush our armed forces off to fight a war with no political will to see through what needs to be done.
They don't have the equipment they need or want.For example sizeable military contracts get issued to companies that are friends of this minister or that MP and NOT because its the equipment that'll do the job.
We have the best armed forces in the world even if they are under funded and under equipped. It is a shame that the top brass are into job protection rather than getting the job done
There is a recurring fallacy that we must fight them in Iraq or we will fight them here - as if various methods of international travel have somehow been suspended while the chaos in Iraq rages on. Of all the weak arguments in support of continued limbo in Iraq, that is perhaps the least convincing.
"saying that our forces have failed in Iraq and that we need to get out"
But should we have stayed in Arnhem and lost another 8 thousand men?
>>as if various methods of international travel have somehow been suspended<<
It also seems to suggest that the number of Jihadists in the Universe is constant, and the West only has a specific number to kill and then problem solved, and that there weren't, say, more Jihadists in 2005 than there were in 2002 even after the West had killed several thousand of them.
I wonder if you might have a few Scott Beauchamps in your military feeding the media bogus information.
Al Queda have declared Iraq their "front-line" against us. If we leave, we concede defeat. And if they can defeat us there, do you think that they will decide that the battle is ended. Or started?