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It is generally asserted that our military are prefessional and competent but, and there are many buts, are they performing at their best? and are they protecting us and our best interests?
If we start with the army, we have to say that they have been doing a difficult job under some very strange circumstances. We should only be sending them into action to defend our country and our citizens and their best interests. This, however is not the case. When our soldiers are dying in wars that cannot be won it is disgraceful, and when they are dying because they are not given the best equipment, it is tragic. Our government have lied about our reasons for going to war, and what is worse, they are killing our young men in our small professional army. Unlike the Americans, our army is small in numbers and they are not well equipped. Even our main battle rifle is not held in very high regard. The soldiers friend (the rifle) should be the best we can give them, not something that has had to be re-worked so that it can function!
Body armour should stop bullets and armoured vehicles should offer protection to the troops. It is also a well known fact that armies are for fighting wars, not for acting as policemen or politicians.
What about our navy? - again, they are expected to do a difficult job under very constrained and strange conditions. Unfortunately, it seems that the "Nelson Spirit" does not exist in today's navy. This was demonstrated by the taking of British sailors by the Iranian navy. Professional sailors would have put up such a hail of fire that the Iranians would have had to run or die. Of course it does not help that among the sailors was an overweight female who claims to be a "mother" - she should not have been there! - and what about her child? You can't be a mother and be in the navy! The there was the embarrassment of watching the captives on TV.
The ships now rely entirely on "state of the art" electronics and missile systems. Unfortunately, when you are dealing with pirates and third world navies, you need guns. Our latest destroyer only has a couple of 7.62mm machine guns on deck. It should have multiple .50cal machine guns and several automatic cannon, and the very useful Phallanx systems.
Our aircraft carriers are actually classed as "through deck cruisers" and are ageing. We have no cruisers and to date our new carriers have not materialised.
An analysis of the Falklands War would show that the cruiser "Belgrano" had to be sunk because it was about to cause devastation amongst the inferior ships of our task force. Strange that a gun-armed 1930's cruiser should pose such a threat.
Our air force works under all the above restrictions and currently is being starved of aircraft. Many of the aircraft are of obsolete design and even the Eurofighter/Typhoon is a compromise being a composite of other types (i.e. Tornado)
We all know that our armed forces are only the acceptable front of our military. This said the rest of our military machine does not always seem to have our best interests at heart. The use of advanced technologies for chemical and germ warfare and the use of beams and microwaves is kept very secret, and experiments are carried out and then covered up by plausible deniability. The military regularly fly "advanced craft" and alien UFO's are blamed. As for actual UFO's, information that is held is suppressed and witnesses are ridiculed.
My conclusion is that trust in our military is at its best misplaced, and begs the question - will our forces be turned against us?
GR
