Lessons Never Learned

The photograph is Captain Lisa Jade Head, 29, of Huddersfield, who was an officer in the 11 Explosive Ordnance Disposal Regiment, Royal Logistics Corps.

She is dead.  She was seriously injured by an explosion while clearing IEDs in Helmand province, Afghanistan.

Cpt Head was taken immediately to Camp Bastion Military Hospital then medivaced to Queen Elizabeth Hospital, Birmingham, where she died of her injuries on Tuesday.  Her death takes the number of British military personnel killed in the Afghanistan war to 364. She is the sixth member of the regiment to be killed by these explosives.

Some may say clearing IEDs is not a job for a woman.  I disagree. Women are just as capable of clearing IEDs as men.  But why aren't we using a system such as the one suggested by this blogger?

Where I do disagree with our lords and masters is that we should not be in Afghanistan.  The Afghanis' problems are for them to resolve and not for us to inflict our interpretation of democracy upon them.  We should be using our influence to highlight the atrocities of female genital mutilation, forced marriages, ritual killings - but these issues will never be solved by the gun anywhere in the world.

The Taliban are shrewd and not primitive warriors.  They understand the mentality and characters of their countrymen, something we will never learn in a war situation.  IEDs are there to blow up 'the enemy' as the Taliban see us as invaders.  If the west withdrew from this hell-hole, the placing of IEDs would no longer be required and civilians would be safer.

I've written much over the past couple of years about this war and am aware I've repeated myself on many occasions.  I've listened to our politicians say 'lessons will be learned' but they never are.  If they had been then we wouldn't be involved in Libya's internal uprisings.  But we are and day by day David Cameron seem immerse us more and more into their civil war.

As yet we've seen little retaliation for our involvement in Afghanistan, but if Gaddafi manages to stay in power - and it's looking as if he has as strong a hold as ever - his revenge will be speedy and brutal.  Let's not forget we are now his main enemy, along with the US, rather than his best friend: our security has been threatened since the Iraq war, but we're in far more danger now.

My condolences to the family and friends of Cpt Head.  May they be supported by each other in their grief.

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Yet Again

Yet again another of our armed services has been killed in Afghanistan, while politicians decide how much of our money they will distribute to the cause of interfering in another country's politics.  Why can't we leave countries to sort out their own problems?  History has proved that we cannot impose our values upon others without too many sacrifices of life and we have no moral right to do so.

The MoD named the soldier as Acting Cpl Barnsdale, from 33 Engineer Regiment, who was clearing improvised explosive devices when one detonated in the area east of Gereshk on Tuesday.  It was his second tour of duty in the country.

A total of 341 British troops have died in Afghanistan since 2001.

More and more information is becoming available about the Afghanistan war and this gives an insight into this dirty war.

In Africa on Friday, a British civilian explosive expert was killed in South Sudan while clearing mines near the town of Kapoeta.  Most recently he had been leading teams of trained Sudanese mine clearance workers in removing landmines threatening communities in and around Kapoeta.  IEDs are responsible for thousands of civilian and military deaths around the world yet we have not invented a method of destroying them quickly and safely.

A referendum on independence for South Sudan is scheduled to be held in January 2011 but, regardless of the outcome, the country will have to spend decades ridding itself of these deadly weapons left from Africa's longest running civil war.  Many thousands of innocent people will be killed in the meantime.  There's no glory in war but for some there is so much financial reward that they consider the loss of lives a cost worth paying.  They are the real warmongers.

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