Saturday 5 June 2010

Afghanistan



Two more of our soldiers were killed in Afghanistan yesterday afternoon. They belonged to the 1st Battalion The Mercian Regiment serving as part of Combined Force Nahr-e-Saraj (South).

The 1st Battalion The Mercian Regiment is part of the 1st Battalion The Royal Gurka Rifles Battle Group and the soldiers were killed by small arms fire during engagement with insurgent forces.

The death toll now stands at 292 of our young.

More families will suffer the grief of loss for a lifetime and politicians will issue their platitudes at PMQs. There was a meeting at Chequers this week with the great and the good to discuss the Afghanistan war yet there has been little reported about it. I wonder why. Can't they make up their minds what to do?

10 comments:

joe90 kane said...

British people are being attacked, kidnapped and imprisoned in the eastern Mediterranean by a violent extremist fundamentalist organisation and its armed fanatical religious followers, flouting the UN and international law and order.

Yet the British military are fighting and dying in Afghanistan where there are no attacks on Britons and they couldn't care less about.

Cate Munro said...

No Sb . . .they can't.

It breaks my heart - and I am fortunate enough to date not to have any personal experience of loss through Afghanistan-unlike so many others.

However, there is someone very dear to me currently training with the Marines, and it scares me to death.

I wish I had the confidence to believe that this would end in the near future - alas I don't. Basically we're up shit creek without a paddle. And not one of 'em knows what the hell to do about it.

subrosa said...

Great point Joe. Too many don't know about that. If you do a post let me know and I'll link to it.

subrosa said...

We know what to do about it TT, bring our troops home and let them help policing this country.

But of course, for politicians it's all to do with America. We can't be seen to be letting down Obama, even though he has slated BP to death in recent days.

Would he treat a US company in that manner? No. Yet he knows full well none of the US oil companies could do any better than BP are doing at present.

Strathturret said...

It was rather scary that as soon as our 'new government' was formed the first calls they took; Cameron from Obama and Hague from Clinton. A bit like they were getting their orders from the real boss!

For the life of me I don't understand why anyone choses to serve in UK forces.

subrosa said...

Some joined the military pre- 1990 Strathturret and never realised we would have a couple of warmongers as PMs within a couple of years.

Yes, I too was uncomfortable with the BBC saying Cameron took his first phone call from Obama. Very uncomfortable really.

joe90 kane said...

Thanks for that subrosa.

Like every decent-minded person I care about the welfare and safety of British soldiers - I don't want to see them getting put in harms way or for anything to happen to them.

What they're doing in Afghanistan I've no idea. It is terrible they are deliberately put in harms way, and Afghans as well, for reasons the British Government is unable to give a valid reason for, and for which most of the British public don't support, if public opinion polls are anything to go by.

all the best

ps
Strathturret says,
For the life of me I don't understand why anyone choses to serve in UK forces.
- To escape their dead-end lives in Scottish housing scheme perhaps Strathturret mate.
As its a recession the military won't be short of recruitment material. I see there aren't as many British Army TV recruitment adverst as there once was.

subrosa said...

Isn't it strange Joe that there is never an account of the number of Afghanis who have been killed, most by IEDs which have been placed by their own people.

joe90 kane said...

I don't know how victims could be counted by the various Afghan resistence groups and how it could work in practice subrosa, given the nature of guerilla hit-and-run tactics.

I would have thought, under the circumstances, it was in the interests of the occupying American forces to give publcity to the fact that Afghans are killing Afghans, given the claims the US uses to justify its continuing presence in Afghanistan ie fighting terrorism.

The fact is, the conflict in Afghanistan is a long-running civil war with America taking the side of the anti-Pashtun forces. Of course then, Afghans are going to be killing each other in such a situation, but not for the half-garbled reasons coming out of the British Establishment.

All the best.

subrosa said...

Joe, great comment. Of course the deaths of Afghanis can't be counted because so many of them are killing their own folk.

But I firmly agree with you that the NATO PR ought to be pushing this fact far more.

In fact where is the NATO PR?

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