A bridge too far
You know, as much as I’m against the war in Iraq and as much as Euan Blair’s privileged progression through life gives infuriating lie to his father’s ridiculous claims that we all live in a meritocratic society, I can’t help but wonder what the point of the likes of this is:
Pte Phillip Hewett was the same age as Euan Blair but while the Prime Minister’s son was celebrating a 2:1 at Bristol University, the 21-year-old soldier was returning home for his funeral.
Phillip Hewett’s death is a terrible thing, that goes without saying. But the last time I looked the army was staffed by volunteers. It’s not like Euan’s daddy pulled some strings so the boy could dodge the draft, is it?
And we wonder why the anti-war movement is shafted. I never really got the “why don’t these warmongers send their children to fight?” schtick. Instead of asking why rich boys don’t go to war, wouldn’t we be better served by asking why poor boys do go to war (the clue’s in the question).
I’m not sure suggesting that the Prime Minister’s son should be shitting bricks on the streets of Basra elevates the argument in our favour. Wishing death or injury on our leaders’ children certainly isn’t a cable car to the moral highground.
Update: John Harris in The Guardian…
His first spell in the army, including tours of duty in Northern Ireland and Kosovo, lasted until March 2004, when, after a spell in Basra, he decided to leave. He had met Sarah McLaren, a local girl who was now pregnant, and he had resolved to stay in Glenrothes. “He left to be with her,” says Martin. “He was a young guy, maybe a bit paranoid, thinking, ‘What will she be up to if I’m in Iraq or wherever?’ But as soon as he was out, he thought, ‘Why did I do that?’”
…
After three months living on benefits, he decided to return to the army. “He knew he was going back to Iraq,” says Martin. “I said, ‘Scott - why are you doing it?’ He said, ‘I’m fed up not being able to get a job that’s satisfying.’ Sarah was pregnant, and they were planning to get married, and they wanted to have a financial future for the kid.
“As strange as it might sound, I had an inkling he was never coming back that day, when I said goodbye to him. I was never emotional with him, and that day I was. He never had much money, ‘cos he was living off the dole. So I gave him money for him and his missus to go and have a meal and make his last night a night to remember. And I said it to someone that evening: ‘I doubt we’ll see Scott again.’”
Posted on February 1st, 2006 at 10:47 pm
| See also • Basra: testing to destruction • Welcome to Britain • Iraqi Employees - still dying |
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Filed under Iraq, Miscellaneous misanthropy |
why poor boys do go to war
I’m waiting for enlightenment. Hello? Hello? Many “rich boys” go into the army. Don’t be an idiot.
DK
Come on. If we’re going to start tearing into each other every time one of us employs a little hyperbole I doubt you’d last very long.
Surely, you’d agree that historically and, if this kind of thing holds true, contemporarily, the vast bulk of cannon fodder has always been sourced from the lower social groupings.
Of course, you’ll get the odd Prince Andrew “being a decoy for exocets”.
Justin, I agree that the point in the article is a bridge too far. There is no reason that Euan Blair should sufer because his dad is a …..
The important point is that Tony Blair as PM has a responsibility to the young men who he sends to fight in his squalid war, men who are just as precious to their parents as Euan Blair is rightly to his parents. In exercsising that responsibility, Tony Blair has failed abysmally but I guess on that we are in total agreement.
I was under the impression that the Army was mainly staffed by people from the less impressive public schools. Isn’t that what they’re for?
TC, I think everybody on the anti-war side would agree that Blair and Bush have been cavalier with the lives of everything on two legs in Iraq.
And I imagine there aren’t many left on the pro-war side who would disagree.
What, the pro-war side have begun agreeing with rational propositions, have they? In which parallel universe did that take place?
Spot on about the Blair child. I wish him no ill, indeed all I wish him is privacy - viz, I do not wish to hear about him.
This sycophantically reported faux royalty progression through life is quite nauseating.
ejh: What I mean is that, while the pro-war left may still be in favour of armed intervention in theory, I can’t see how any could see how “liberation” was done in practice in Iraq as anything but a criminally incompentent disaster.
Well, by blaming the disaster on anyone but themselves, of course.