The generals must share the blame

14 October 2009

It’s fashionable for military top brass to attack politicians when things go wrong. But, says Paul Robinson, many of the army’s problems are of their own making

In recent years, failure to ‘support the troops’ has become the ultimate political sin. The Conservatives’ soon-to-be defence adviser, General Sir Richard Dannatt, blasted Brown a few weeks ago, letting it slip that his brave plea for 2,000 extra troops had been ignored by our callous PM. But has Gordon Brown really ‘betrayed’ the troops in the field? A good degree of cynicism is in order. In reality, both as Chancellor and as Prime Minister, Mr Brown has given Britain’s armed forces a lease of life which they had no reason to expect, while the country’s military leaders, including and especially Dannatt, a former army chief, must share the blame for the difficulties their troops have faced in both Afghanistan and Iraq.

Of course, it’s deeply unfashionable these days even to think of blaming soldiers for anything. The days of Kipling’s ‘Tommy’ being abused by the people are long gone. The temper of our times is more in tune with William Topaz McGonagall, writer of ‘The Tay Bridge Disaster’, widely considered the worst poem in the English language, and author also of some sparkling ‘Lines in Praise of Tommy Atkins’ (‘Then hurrah for Tommy Atkins, he’s the people’s friend/ Because when foreign foes assail us he does us defend’). But a McGonagall-like desire to help the ordinary serviceman or woman on the front line should not serve as cover for the senior officers who lead them. Nor should it prevent us from criticising the institutional culture in which they serve. One element of this culture is that professional soldiers tend to look at themselves as part of a select order, upholding the highest moral and professional standards, while seeing politicians as self-serving hypocrites.

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