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Having merely perused the headline on one of Peter Hitchens’ blog offerings, it has inspired me to this article that asks one of the great unanswered questions of our time. How did the left go from despising the military to being obsessed with military interventions. These are just the meanderings of an old man’s mind and it is certain many will have different and undoubtedly better explanations than are offered here.
Having been a youngster in the fifties and sixties, I used to read, with difficulty, the newspapers when I was 7 years old. I can remember the opening of Calder Hall and its promised bright new future. I remember the big milk scare when Windscale (quickly renamed to Sellafield) leaked radiation all over us. I also remember the left railing against all things military, odd because many of the Labour people then had served in WW2 but maybe they were dead set against having another one and didn’t subscribe to the “big stick” theory or maybe they wanted their beloved Soviet Union to have an easy approach to the UK.
There were more than enough Colonel Blimp types for them to mock, David Stirling had described them as layer upon layer of fossilised shit when trying to get the SAS approved. There must have been many competent officers as well. It was the time of the Suez debacle, thanks to the yanks, followed by us slowly withdrawing from east of Suez. The Empire was shrinking and disappearing.
There was little call for us to go on foreign adventures and probably thanks to this sentiment Harold Wilson achieved the one sensible decision of his career and kept us out the Vietnam War. We dodged more than a bullet there.
We end up in 1982 where a very unpopular Maggie Thatcher was faced with the Argentinian invasion of the Falklands Islands. Having single mindedly pursued her War on Inflation as it was called, we were not doing very well. I remain unconvinced that it was the right war to wage; since then most people seem convinced that inflation is caused by the Government itself rather than the people, this was spoken as gospel at the time and we were all supposed to feel guilty for being greedy buggers.
Whatever the situation at home, Maggie decided to kick the Argies out of the Falklands and out they were kicked. The how’s and why’s are not relevant to this article, what is relevant is that she went to hero status overnight. What politician would not notice that particular miracle and duly noted it was especially by potentially John Major and especially Tony Blair and even David Cameron. Punching Johnny Foreigner on the nose was quite popular 40 years ago and it probably still is with many of us.
John Major was actually in power during the first Gulf War even though Maggie had been one of its prime instigators. She allegedly had to put some spine into daddy Bush to get him involved. After Storming Norman took most of the credit for the victory, how many noticed that very little rubbed off on John Major who was rather busy getting back to basics, especially with Eggwina.
Fast forward to Satan’s spawn, Anthony Charles Lynton Blair. A man of no principles but who had an agenda and wanted to get rich. His agenda was to sow the seeds for the destruction of his own country and we all know he is not short of the odd house or three.
The very evil Blair ordered our troops into harm’s way five times, more than any other Prime Minister in our history. The list of shame is ….
- 1998 Iraq
- 1999 Kosovo
- 2000 Sierra Leone
- 2001 Afghanistan
- 2003 Iraq again
I could easily write WTF has it got to do with us after all of those and do the same with the Libyan nonsense Cameron dragged us into for his mate Sarkozy who had accepted a 40 million undeclared donation from the mad Ghadaffi and needed to keep it quiet. I once met a German who had done business with Ghadaffi and he told me that if you looked into his eyes, you could see he was raving mad.
Not only did the bastard Blair send our troops abroad, he sent them with some rubbish equipment. Who can forget the dodgy body armour and Land Rovers that were as much use as a Morris Minor. Then there were the stories of troops buying their own kit because the standard issue was so bad.
After Blair we had the Caledonian Cyclops who avoided the trap but then came David Cameron with his Libyan obsession. Without that we may not have had the Manchester bombing and 22 people would still be alive without counting the wounded, many of whom are probably still suffering.
Why did they do it. My simple explanation is that they had seen Maggie raised to hero status by her Falklands victory and craved the same. The exception may be the 2001 Afghanistan intervention when Blair was sliding up Dubya’s backside. The jury is out on the 2000 Sierra Leone action.
I have long wondered about this, it only took Mr Hitchen’s blog to raise the question a level but maybe other puffins have other ideas. It will be a joy to read any other theories because I have been convinced of my conclusion for a long time. The left are just as duplicitous and evil as the Tories, they just spent an awful long time hating our military but were forever finding dirty jobs for it.
© well_chuffed 2021