Brown plays politics over troop numbers

Short the UK

The sooner "our boys" are removed from the graveyard of Afghanistan the better. The Yanks & Brits have now caused immense blow-back into Pakistan.

I just don't understand why no one saw this coming. The history books don't lie.

What a cock-up.

P.S. The Tories should start working on an exit plan.

Minnie Ovens

I really would be grateful if the bods at The Spectator stopped telling us of yet another lie or incompetence said or done by Brown.
It sends me into a great rage as to how this once great and good country can have been so effectively castrated in twelve (long) years.
It also does no good to my blood pressure!

Slim Jim

Minnie, it seems to me that the Speccie, along with the rest of the MSM should be shouting from the rooftops the actions of this disgraceful and pathetically partisan politician. After all, they've got a lot of catching up to do.

TGF UKIP

And given the lame, tame, part time opposition he has to face, why shouldn't Brown believe he can get away with anything?

Liz Brown

Can we ask Afghanistan to keep gormless - we don't want him back here........

Hereford

Can I add a request to Minnie's. Can we stop having photos of him. I keep getting this urge to stab my laptop screen with a fork.

Jane

"Spins it far further than it should go"- what, telling lies you mean?

Forlornehope

The British in India eventually learned that the only way to deal with the Afghans and Pathans was to leave them to get on with their own business. Then, if they caused any problems for anyone else, to go and kick the shit out of them and get out. They then stayed quiet for a bit; when the forgot the lesson it was repeated. As a policy it worked quite well.

The Bellman

This is yet another example of Brown's psychopathic temperament - his inability to understand the human side of any issue. As far as he's concerned, '1,000 extra troops' is an abstract statistic, perfect to be pressed into service of his party political interests, not 1,000 people with families and loyalties whose lives and expectations were being exploited in order to make him look good. (Regrettable in anyone in a position of responsibility, this is perhaps still more surprising when you consider the disproportionate number of Scots in the British Army.)

No doubt the Commitments Staff will rummage around and pull an emaciated, myxamotosoid rabbit from the threadbare Defence hat to save Brown's blushes, probably by deploying the Spearhead battalion (and having to reconstitute it, messing an extra 600 people around unnecessarily).

But sadly I suspect an Afghanistan 'surge' is the dog that didn't - and won't - bark: there will be no 'proper' surge in Afghanistan because there is nothing left in the locker. Like the banking recapitalisation, withdrawing from Iraq might stop the wheels coming off completely, but there is still a crisis in Defence.

Silent Hunter

There really are no depths that this dithering oaf of a PM won't plumb for a few political points.

He was happy to double the tax of the poorest with the 10p tax band removal just to score a cheap political point over the Tories at PMQ's and now it seems he's more than happy to sacrifice more soldiers lives for the same objective.

No wonder over 15,000 have so far signed the Downing Street petition calling upon him to resign.

Silent Hunter

The Bellman.

Excellent post - articulated what most of the country probably thinks about this despicable PM.

Tigris

Mind you, Blair did something similar at the 2004 NATO Istanbul summit. He announced at a press conference that the UK would be reinforcing Afghanistan with minimal prior consultation with the Service chiefs. The way they subsequently attempted to square the circle was the attempt to withdraw from Iraq and reinforce Afghanistan. The problem was that conditions in Basrah did not allow for such a strategy however appealing it was on paper - leading to the debacle so accurately reflected by Michael Portillo in your pages recently.

Dannat, now head of the Army, played his part too. Then Commander Allied Rapid Reaction Corps, he recognised that unless the British Army used the 3* HQ in Germany operationally it would be cut. So he pushed for the reinforcement as much out of internal MOD politics as coherent strategy.

The consistent problem with the way this government has managed its two wars is the failure to develop any effective decision-making architecture or indeed ever sensibly articulate its strategic goals. The default decision-making process has lain with the MOD and its weekly ministerial briefings. Focus has therefore tended to be on those areas of Iraq or Afghanistan where troops are deployed rather than broader judgements about what a future Iraq might look like, or the impact of western intervention in Afghanistan on neighbouring Pakistan or Iran. The PM's gnome-like focus on troop numbers reflects his inability or unwillingness to comprehend the complexities of the campaigns in which his government has indulged.

Bluebottle

Wasn't Brown once heard to say something like, "You think I don't care about the Armed Forces? You're right; I don't f**king care!"

And we let this hoon (copyright Guido) be our Prime Minister.

13th spitfire

They are cutting the numbers in the Terretorial Army, yes?

What an epic fail this government is, through and through.

Fraser Nelson

Bluebottle, he told Blair there would be more money for health "if you didn't spend so much f**king money on defence" - that's in Rawnsley's Servants of the People.

john miller

Ahh, that Compass, so often defined by its omission.

I'm quite an easy going guy and have pitied Brown more than I have condemmed him.

But I now believe what the far right always have said about him.

He is the most cynical, opportunist, unfeeling, inhuman, manipulative brute I have ever countenanced.

A bit like Blair.

hadrian

Well, Fraser, now he can only rage at himself in some padded room, because the only one doing all the outrageous spending is Broon himself!
I also trust he uses such un-mansely expletives with which to berate himself! What would the good Parishoners think?!

hadrian

And as for being in such a hell-hole as Afghanistan, just what in the long run will all our men's bloodshed achieve? Bombing them into Western style toleration, respect of persons and democracy is a tad oxymoronic.

Bluebottle

Fraser, thank you for the correction. Your memory for and knowledge of quotations is obviously much better than mine.

My impression of the man is that he doesn't understand nor give a toss about Her Majesty's forces and if he thought he could get away with it, he would get rid of them tomorrow.

Whatever he said, it doesn't alter the fact that he is a hoon.

Peter Davis

Please do not sign the petition calling on the ghastly McBroon to resign - there is a better chance of Labour going down the pan with him at the Labour helm.

Steve.W

That picture above, Brown and Karzai, could be part of a make up a caption competition. So my entry is -

“I used to be in the Taliban”, “Really? I used to be a Socialist”

Richard

"Brown plays politics over troop numbers"

Brown plays politics over everything. That is why we are in such a horrendous mess. Every plan, every scheme, every initiative - it seems he has to try and get one over the opposition, the productive, someone ... anyone. The scrappage scheme is a mess just as bad as the help for homeowners that leaves them worse off in two years time. Seemingly plans are devised to help as few people as possible - as the Gurkhas have found out. The 10p tax rate was an utter waste of time. It would have been far, far simpler to increase personal allowances but Brown wanted to lay claim to introducing the lowest rate of income tax.

He's like some Arthur Daley or Del Boy character who thinks he's ahead of the game but is often completely mistaken. Yet it is always the taxpayer who loses, not him.

Glanfordiron

More Kabuls**t

Ronnie

Karzai looks like he is saying, 'Who is this guy?'

Michael Booth

This is from James Morris' "Heaven's Command", the chapter about the Retreat from Kabul in the 1840s. Morris was writing in 1973, six years before the Soviets sent their troops in.

"As for the retreat from Kabul, though largely forgotten in Britain it is vividly remembered in Afghanistan: when in 1960 I followed the army's route from Kabul to Jalalabad with an Afghan companion, we found many people ready to point out the sites of the tragedy, and recall family exploits. I asked one patriarch what would happen now, if a foreign army invaded the country. 'The same,' he hissed between the last of his teeth"

Twas ever thus...

Der Whigphilosophie der Geschichte

Michael,

Actually, it wasn't, as the history of the rest of the First Afghan War indicates. You know, the history of the force at Khandahar and then the 1842 invasion and taking of Kabul, followed by a return along the same route. These events tend to get airbrushed out of history because they don't meet the requirements of the 'invincible Afghan tribesmen' propaganda.

Hadrian, I for one don't want to sit around waiting for the next jihadi attack from the Afhgan/Pakistan border. I want the local moderates to deal with the local extremists. But that requires western intervention to start with.

The Laughing Cavalier

He may have said to Blair what ou quote him as saying but on another occasion he also said what Bluebottle refers him as saying.

Michael Booth

Thanks Whig... and you make a good point, but I still think Afghanistan has proved itself to be a 'quagmire' for invading armies in the past and not worth the life of a single British soldier... but that's just me. Will go back and look up Kandahar etc.