Hello everyone, this is my first attempt at a serious blog. While I have only been on this site for a short while it has come to my attention that there is a lot of support for our troops in Iraq. Im glad that there is, as I think they are incredibly brave young men and women doing a great job under incredibly difficult circumstances.
That said I myself am opposed to the war in Iraq. That is not to say I think we should pull out now....that would be disastrous....but I do think we need to question our leaders judgement in sending our troops there in the first place. It would seem that over time it has become clear that we were all, or most of us "hoodwinked" into believing we had to send troops to Iraq. At a time when we still hadn't finished in Afgahnistan.
I believe we were right to tackle Afgahnistan. They have supported and harboured terrorists both before and after 9/11 and as such needed to be brought to account. Iraq however is different. While we all would no doubt have been glad to see the back of Saddam one has to question our leaders true motives in invading the country. Haven't we just stored up more problems for the future in doing so? How many of our troops lives could have been saved if we had resisted the temptation to invade? Our troops (British) are stretched so thin, resources are not sufficient to complete the tasks assigned to them. Recently "blue on blue" friendly fire film was shown at an inquest of a British soldier who died in the incident. What it showed was that the American aircrew were not gung-ho as so many of we British like to believe. They repeatedly asked for confirmation that their target was hostile and repeatedly were told it was. The remorse shown immediately afterwards by the crew was palpable and heartfelt. Our troops, attacked in this accident were in a vehicle which has (as all allied vehicles do) a special transmitter that tells pilots of allied aircraft the vehicles are friendly. In this case the transmitter was faulty as I am led to believe are many others. British troops like their American counterparts are among the bravest in the world, but we sell the short sending them to fight and in many cases die, poorly equipped, in needless wars.
My reason for writing this blog is to of course show my support for our troops, also to protest about the war in Iraq and finally to register a concern for the escalating situation with Iran. Is this our next mistake? What do you think, about any or all of the topics I have covered? Comments from all sides of the argument are welcome. Debate is one of the underpinning values of a democratic society. I dont want this to turn into a pissing contest, our troops dont deserve that...they deserve our respect, our heartfelt thanks, our loyalty and they deserve to know that we, the people they protect, will protect them from needless warmongering. Thank you.
sublissa
