What A Mess

Yesterday a Royal Marine was killed south of the Afghanistan capital Kabul. He was fatally wounded after the vehicle in which he was travelling was caught in an explosion.

He is understood to have been serving with Special Forces and the MoD does not comment on Special Forces deaths.

A total of 392 British troops have died since the start of the Afghanistan war in 2001.

This week David Cameron indicated he was planning further withdrawals of troops from the country in 2013 after the 500 due to be pulled out in 2012. He refused to give exact timescales for how Britain's deployment would be withdrawn ahead of his deadline for all combat troops to be out by the end of 2014.

Why he refuses such a request baffles me. His boss, Obama, has withdrawn 10,000 US troops this year and very publicly declared he intends to withdraw another 23,000 by the send of next summer. Currently there are 91,000 US troops deployed in the war. The Taliban need wait only another three years at most before they resume their hold on the country now they have a reasonably comprehensive calendar of withdrawals.

Karsai expects the international community to support his country for at least another decade. He wants the money and knows NATO will provide it, yet most people know that no matter how much money is given to Afghanistan, the country will never rid itself of the Taliban.

What a mess. This war is one that future generations of our young people will be paying for throughout their lives. One which is the responsibility of politicians such as Bush, Blair, Brown, Obama and Cameron.

Our PM isn't deterred by military deaths or the financial costs of war. His new year resolution suggests he rather enjoys being a warmonger and the London summit he has convened for February will confirm his determination. This could be the next war. Iran appears to have been put on the back burner, probably because the timing would be too close to the US elections, but not to be outdone the PM has found another country which is 'a failed state that directly threatens British interests'.

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Yemen and Somalia

In the past couple of days I've read a few blogs which have posts regarding the Yemen. Two I found most interesting were whollyrude and Leg Iron.

One of my erudite readers sent me this by email. I consider it an opinion worth sharing (I have the writer's permission to publish):

Oil is in Somalia and the Yemen. So is the USA.There has been a covert war going on there for at least 30 years, in one form or another. The yanks see oil as vital for their survival and will do what is necessary.

As for Broon, O'bummer and co moving into Yemen, can I suggest that a build up, slowly in Oman, a crack down on Somalia due to piracy and then if the Yemen govt plays along, stabliise Yemen properly. That would give them defacto control of the gulf of Yemen, which could be useful. The yanks already sling in the odd cruise missile to the region.

And with the cooperation of Oman you could have effective control of the Gulf of Oman, which would make it interesting for Iran, and would make it easy access to Pakistan and Afganistan, which may explain a few hints as to why we will be in Afganistan for 40 years.

Of course Russia may be unhappy, but the attitude there may be changing and agreements for mutual benefit have happened before....!

The big problem is Islam. It works on religion before country so the effect of doing anything dire may be to unite all Islam against the west.

And of course, the old cynical question, what is happening around the 28th of January they don't want us looking at!! I don't trust any of them.

As the old Chinese curse, may you live in interesting times!!

Anon

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