A few more insane prosecutions like this and we won't have an army because no honourable man will serve in it.
Tuesday, 7 February 2012
Rules of engagement
A few more insane prosecutions like this and we won't have an army because no honourable man will serve in it.
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2 comments:
Having known a few American "paras", I suspect that if the suspect had suffered all the abuse he claimed, he'd have had a bit more than a split lip and a couple of bruises consistent with sitting down abruptly.
The reaction of our Western "enlightened elite" to our enemies is reaching Douglas Adams level of inanity. (The difference being that Douglas was being intentionally absurd in the way of sarcasm.)
Rather like Ford and Arthur mistakenly assumed vs. Prostetnic Vogon Jeltz, our "enlightened leaders" believe that deep down, our enemies just want to be loved. In fact, those enemies just want to throw their mean, callous, heartless exteriors into sharp relief, to make it clear to the rest of us that they are the ones destined to rule the world. (In their own minds, that is.)
An article from Armed Forces Journal linked on Real Clear Politics today ("Truth, Lies, and Afghanistan" by LtCl Davis) states that the situation in AFPAK is worse than we've been told, mainly because the political leaders here don't want to hear bad news in advance of the pullout- or let the public learn about it, either. I'm wondering if this auto-da-fe' for an actual soldier isn't at least partially motivated by similar pretensions in Whitehall.
cheers
eon
Difference being, back then I think it was understood that Ford and Arthur were making fun of a certain, extreme, attitude---by exaggerating it. Now if anything, it might be thought that they didn't go far enough. I've thought similar things about Monty Python: it's all right if it's some jokers sniping at a mostly healthy establishment, but different if a sizable chunk of the population takes its attitudes from Jon Stewart.
I imagine it's not the luck of the draw that put Chamberlain into office, back in the day. Or that made Attlee Churchill's successor. There must have been a lot of people who thought that now that the Great War was over, history had also ended. Will the present generation be up to fighting the next war? Maybe. Fashion seems to be about extremes, rarely the middle ground.
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