“We aren’t no thin red ‘eroes, nor we aren’t no blackguards too,
But single men in barracks, most remarkable like you;
An’ if sometimes our conduck isn’t all your fancy paints,
Why, single men in barracks don’t grow into plaster saints.”
Tommy – Kipling
Night after night in the 70s and 80s we watched on TV British soldiers reduced to the role of supine targets, while homicidal young thugs rained stones and petrol bombs on them . What, I used to ask myself, do they, their commanders, and our politicians think they are achieving that is worth the abuse they are suffering? Evidently it was called “peace-keeping” – an activity for which the British Army became renowned (we are constantly told, although I never heard any praise for them from the Americans during my tours in the USA). The waste of British blood and treasure was possibly excusable, to my mind, when the murderous hooligans they confronted were at least technically British.
I cannot see any justification for the use by politicians and Generals of our soldiers as targets for Iraqi thugs. The sole purpose of their presence in Iraq seems to be to indulge Blair’s vanity. Any pretence that that they are there to train and reinforce Iraqi security forces has been exposed by the Baghdad Provincial Council’s announced withdrawal of cooperation with the army.
I believe it is time the British authorities told the Iraqis that they will amend our soldiers’ Rules of Engagement so that they may counter any violence by Iraqi thugs, including stone-throwing, with lethal force. If the Iraqis object, or if our “bleeding hearts” lawyers and judges think that such action would be “disproportionate”, we should withdraw our cooperation and bring the troops home. Now.