Low&Slow,
All good points. But if (and I stress, 'if') the current pace of ops is too slow, and if dragging on is a bad idea for all the reasons alluded to above, then what was the rush. Why didn't we wait until we could do something more effective at a greater scale and faster pace. That might even have given more time to get shaky members of the coalition more firmly on board?
Roll roll,
I'd be amazed if a Montenegran Super Galeb pilot agreed with a NATO Wing Commander's analysis of the historical and political background in the former Yugoslavia, but how refreshing and welcome that you should contribute to this debate! I just wish you'd been more specific in detailing which facts you felt had been 'manipulated'.
Reichman,
On this occasion, at least, I don't pretend to know the answers. I just read the piece and thought "By golly, this all seems familiar".
That's why I began with a question:
If Kosovo's mistakes were.... are we not repeating those same mistakes in the current operation?
A question.
With regard to the footage of the 'Fitters', I'm guilty of believing what the Pentagon described it as, and believing my sources - some of whom are actually in theatre, and even on the boats involved. And even then, the comment was a genuine question. People have carped on about there having been insufficient targets to go after, so surely it's legitimate to ask "Shouldn't these have 'gone up in smoke' on Day 1 or Day 2?" But if I thought the answer were blatantly obvious I wouldn't ask the question. Personally I've wondered whether a shortage of recce assets may have driven the pace of ops (why else would they need the PR9s?), and wondered what other explanations there might be.
With regard to the Radio 4 journalist, he's a specialist defence chap, with a good reputation, and I made it clear that this was merely a bit of anecdotal evidence - stressing that it was 'opinion'.
And I think that it's both valid and interesting to question whether a shorter duration application of greater force might have been better, in terms of keeping a fairly fragile coalition together, and even in keeping our own domestic public opinion on-side. Pictures of starving Afghan babies and Israeli and Palestinian atrocity and counter atrocity are beginning to threaten things now, and I think it's valid to ask whether the modest sortie total so far could (and even should?) have been achieved very much more quickly by using a larger force?
I'm disappointed that you should choose to talk about 'Brave words from a man sat in the comfort of his own safe study'. Anyone who is not actually out there doing it is inevitably open to that kind of cheap jibe. And again, I was asking a question (Why not larger forces...) rather than pressing for a bigger effort. And that question is surely legitimate, if only because the politician's language before the op began suggested that this was going to be a massive, rather uncomfortable, enduring crusade against terrorism. Naively, perhaps, many of us took this to indicate that a much larger military effort would be launched.
And I'm not being in any way triumphant, and unlike "that whining ar$e Jeremy Bowen", I haven't actually formed a definitive opinion yet, because I don't yet feel that I've had sufficient input to work on.
You urge me to "Be a good journo..." and to "Observe, report, and, when it's all over, then stick the knife in/pat us on the back."
A good journo reports news as it happens. I generally don't (not a Daily hack), and won't be doing on this occasion. But I will be asking questions and doing my research now, in the confident expectation of kicking the usual @rses, and patting the usual backs, when it is all over.
And the @rses are, I suspect going to be the politicos' and the less vertebrate senior officers, and the backs will be those brave souls who actually have to go out there and do the job (and those who support them), however well conceived it may or may not have been.