Letters | 29 January 2011

The scale of the loss

Sir: You state that ‘the British army was defeated in Basra’ (leading article, 22 January) as though it were a re-run of Alamein or Waterloo. Would it not be more true to say that the undermanned and under-resourced segment of the army in Basra was insufficient to cope with the task it was given? Had it been able to deploy force on the same scale as the Americans, perhaps the result would have been different. It has been suggested that the government couldn’t face the possibility of heavy casualties in such a scenario, but unavailability of troops must have been an overwhelming factor.

All deaths in action are terribly sad. But we now seem to be unable to accept any losses. Every fatality being read out before PMQs, which I understand the army hates, and TV footage of every funeral cortège passing through Wootton Bassett, greatly exacerbates the situation. In reality, against such a resourceful enemy at the Taleban, our losses have been remarkably light. (To add a little perspective, during the first world war our average losses were about 500 dead every day for four whole years. In the second world war, about 120 daily for six years.)

Incidentally, is the fact that the Americans are now taking over the responsibilities of the British in Helmand a repeat of the Basra process?

Geoff Peters
Blandford Forum, Dorset



Leave out the ladies


Sir: Your High Life correspondent commends Ciano, who ‘never once mentions [his] women in his writings’ (8 January). Could you urge him and his Low Life colleague to put this excellent principle into practice?

Patrick Pender-Cudlip
Somerset



Scotland’s Jews


Sir: Charles Moore (Notes, 22 January) is quite right in assuming that religious affinities played a part in Jewish affection for things Scottish, but it is not the whole story.