Supply and demand in Afghanistan
You know, I can understand why soldiers weren’t fully and properly equipped in the early days of the Iraq war. A political decision was made not to order kit and equipment too far in advance in case it tipped people off that the decision to go to war had already been made while the charade of consulting Parliament and the United Nations was still ongoing. Those soldiers died to save political careers and pensions and we honour them for that. That is, after all, what sacrifice in wartime is all about.
The thing is, we’ve been in Afghanistan for seven years and our soldiers still aren’t properly equipped.
[SAS commander] Major Sebastian Morley claims that Whitehall officials and military commanders repeatedly ignored his warnings that people would be killed if they continued to allow troops to be transported in the vulnerable Snatch Land Rovers.
What’s the reason for the delay in equipping troops in Afghanistan properly? Did the invoice fall behind a filing cabinet or get left on a train by a feckless official? I mean it’s one thing to send men to their needless deaths when you’re trying to give political cover to a war crime but this is inexcusable, surely?
It suggests that political attitudes towards soldiers haven’t changed much since the Battle of the Somme. Do you think they still have those big maps on tables at the Ministry of Defence where they push toy divisions around with big sticks? It’s the best way to avoid seeing soldiers as human, I suppose.
Posted on November 1st, 2008 at 10:10am under Afghanistan, Iraq, New Labour
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• 3 Comments |
The maps are probably computerised, with little figures that march about and say aaargh (our boys) or aieeee (Them) when they get killed. This is doubly advantageous in that the regrettable and/or laudable detrimentations not only don’t seem to affect real human beings, but are actually rather amusing.
It’s been known for ages that the MOD is unfit for purpose. This piece from Standpoint last June: http://www.standpointmag.co.uk/node/53/full also referenced at KOW: http://kingsofwar.wordpress.com/2008/07/14/uk-ministry-of-defence-unfit-for-purpose/#comments explains it best.
It’s over 30 years since i left the army.
Yes, we had our problems in those days – where all tyhe money went on big fancy whiz-bang hardware and a squadron of 150 squaddies had to put up with a Regimental stores that only had sufficient funding for 2 pairs of socks per squadron per month.
And because of the exchange rate changes and the pound floating about you’d get a pay rise and end up with less German marks in your pay at the end of the month because the exchange rate had gone done as you were paid in sterling.
However, things worked better than today- and bear with me here – because by and large the MOD and the government WAS run mostly to the Civil Service ethos of professionalism (if not Civil Servants) which is being blamed in some quarters – particulalry on the site link supplied by PhilD.
The problem is NOT that the MOD and government – whether its education or health or whatever – is being buggered up by civil servants and the Civil Service ethos of professionalism of some kind of by gone age as is argued on that link. The problem is that the civil Service ethos and the Civil Servants and the Civil Service way of doing things went out of the window years ago.
The problems identifed are a result of Privatisation and the imposition of private sector management thinking, processess and its ethos into government and the MOD. Shed loads of cash is being thrown at military equipment and systems built and provided by private sector companies who have placements in government through the revolving door.
Lots of thjese systems don’t work; are not fit for purpose; run over budget; don’t get delivered etc. etc. Example after example could be sighted from the SLR replacement which did not work properly and was foisted on a reluctant military as a result of private sector placement that were allowed through the doors of government to lobby for the interests of their parent companies and the private sector way of doing things.
A back trawl through some of Alex’s musing over at the Yorkshire Ranter blog is worth some time and effort to demonstrate some further examples of this.
We’ve have gone backwards to the era of the Somme, where squaddies were regarded as cannon fodder to enable arms manufacturers to make huge war profits from shite equipment at the expense of both peoples lives – those who joined up and the taxpayer who was fleeced by it.
Things were not as bad during WW2 when the Civil Service ethos some would wrongly and inaccurately try to blame was running things.
If the private sector and its managerialist ethops had been running things then – like they were in WW1 and today we’d have been up shit creek.
It was the same with all the private sector oprations – telephones, raliways, schools, electricity, gas etc. etc. They all had to be nationalised for the public good and the national interest because the private sector and its way of doing things were only interested in providing services for those who could provide sufficient profits for its satisfaction. those who could not did not get any service.
War has always been a more profitable business then peace. I mean, look at the huge profits being made in Iraq from companies ripping off the US military and ultimately the US taxpayer.
Trying to blame an approach and an ethos which is no longer there is just sticking ones head in the sand. Its an argument based not on reality but personal prejudice. Good Daly Heil style comfort food but it gets nowhere near resolving the problem because it refuses to recognise what the problem actually is.