financeguy
ONE love, blood, life
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/article/0,,2088-2014614,00.html
This article neatly describes the problem with putting politicians with no military experience in charge of wars and post-war planning.
"Intelligence reports suggest that Taliban activity in southern Afghanistan will increase drastically in the summer. Money is pouring into its coffers and those of its Pakistani allies, mostly from opium but also from Saudis and Gulf states. People are “insuring” themselves against future trouble. To imagine that a mere 3,300 British soldiers can have any impact on such swirling forces is spitting in the wind. Britain is covering what in truth is an American withdrawal in the face of an emerging Karzai-Taliban-warlord coalition.
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In Iran Britain has followed a sensibly cautious path in collaboration with the rest of Europe. But having stupidly failed to support the moderates the West must now tread warily with the extremists. It must contain the laptop bombardiers emerging from the swamps of the Potomac and crying for yet another war. Extending the Bush/Blair doctrine of military pre-emption by bombing Iran would be Allah’s gift to the crazies around Mahmoud Ahmadinejad.
Such a confrontation would mean engaging Iran in a real rather than a rhetorical conflict, a slaughter beyond anything justified by facts on the ground. It would mobilise pro-Iranian militias inside Iraq and activate suicide cadres across the region. Hamas’s hardliners would cheer and Israel’s security be ever more threatened. And for what? Is all this the best diplomacy can offer the 21st century?"
This article neatly describes the problem with putting politicians with no military experience in charge of wars and post-war planning.
"Intelligence reports suggest that Taliban activity in southern Afghanistan will increase drastically in the summer. Money is pouring into its coffers and those of its Pakistani allies, mostly from opium but also from Saudis and Gulf states. People are “insuring” themselves against future trouble. To imagine that a mere 3,300 British soldiers can have any impact on such swirling forces is spitting in the wind. Britain is covering what in truth is an American withdrawal in the face of an emerging Karzai-Taliban-warlord coalition.
......................................................................................
In Iran Britain has followed a sensibly cautious path in collaboration with the rest of Europe. But having stupidly failed to support the moderates the West must now tread warily with the extremists. It must contain the laptop bombardiers emerging from the swamps of the Potomac and crying for yet another war. Extending the Bush/Blair doctrine of military pre-emption by bombing Iran would be Allah’s gift to the crazies around Mahmoud Ahmadinejad.
Such a confrontation would mean engaging Iran in a real rather than a rhetorical conflict, a slaughter beyond anything justified by facts on the ground. It would mobilise pro-Iranian militias inside Iraq and activate suicide cadres across the region. Hamas’s hardliners would cheer and Israel’s security be ever more threatened. And for what? Is all this the best diplomacy can offer the 21st century?"
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