Afghanistan: still asking questions

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• 1. At 7:19pm on 14 Jul 2009, jr4412 wrote:

  Robin Lustig.
  
  Alistair Burnett wrote "Journalists are often accused of oversimplifying issues like this..".
  
  oversimplifying? no, more like not presenting us with the whole story. there was no mention of the 'Turkmentistan-Afghanistan-Pakistan' pipeline in his blog then, there is no mention of it in your blog posts today.
  
  war. teenagers sent to die for no good reason.
  
  plus ça change, plus cest pareil.

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• 2. At 7:41pm on 14 Jul 2009, jr4412 wrote:

  oops #1.
  
  caught out by the ASCII char's.
  
  last line (in English): the more things change, the more they stay the same.

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• 3. At 8:14pm on 14 Jul 2009, Richard_SM wrote:

  
  
  Despite the advanced weapons systems, the devastating laser-guided missiles, the well-trained and equipped troops, the command-and-control systems using the latest satellite technology; it should concern everyone that the best officers West Point and Sandhurst can produce have been outwitted by sandal-clad tribesmen for well over seven years.
  
  If people are not against this war on grounds of humanity, they should at least be questioning how their taxes are being spent in Defence budgets.
  
  
  

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• 4. At 8:15pm on 14 Jul 2009, logica_sine_vanitate wrote:

  The following video features a letter written by an officer to his mother. Lieutenant Mark Evison was later killed in Helmand Province:
  
  http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/programmes/newsnight/8149633.stm
  
  Here is an extract from the letter:
  
  "As it stands I have a lack of radios, water, food and medical equipment; this with manpower is what these missions lack. It is disgraceful to send a platoon into a very dangerous area with two weeks water and food and one team medics pack. Injuries will be sustained, which I will not be able to treat and death could occur, which could have been stopped. We're walking a tightrope and from what it seems here are likely to fall unless drastic measures are taken."
  
  Would this man lie to his own mother in this letter?
  
  The answer is: emphatically not.
  
  So here we have incontrovertible documentary evidence that the government has not been supplying proper equipment to front-line troops in Afghanistan.
  
  Should the government therefore be prosecuted for manslaughter, on the basis of this indisputable evidence?
  
  They love to torment the rest of society with endless "health and safety regulations". So why should they not also be held to account themselves?
  
  I think they have a serious case to answer in a court of law.
  
  Is anyone listening??
  
  

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• 5. At 8:55pm on 14 Jul 2009, Richard_SM wrote:

  
  Ref 4. logica_sine_vanitate
  
  Extract from letter: "As it stands I have a lack of radios, water, food.."
  
  From this you conclude:
  
  "So here we have incontrovertible documentary evidence that the government has not been supplying proper equipment."
  
  That suggests to me there's a problem with Officers - not Ministers. If Officers cannot even organise food and water, or are sending people out on missions knowing they don't have food and water, that responsibility lies with Majors and Colonels.
  
  You then ask: "Should the government therefore be prosecuted for manslaughter, on the basis of this indisputable evidence?"
  
  No - seems more like incompetence in the military. See my post #3 above; people should be asking how the military spend the huge amounts given to them year after year.
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  

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• 6. At 9:09pm on 14 Jul 2009, logica_sine_vanitate wrote:

  #5 - Richard SM
  
  Point taken, but, as with health and safety regulations in any organisation, the buck stops at the top.
  
  Whoever is guilty of gross - and I would say, criminal - incompetence, it is the responsibility of the Ministry of Defence to sort it out.
  
  But, alas, we hear these reports, think how sad it all is, and "life just goes on..."
  
  From the testimony of Lieutenant's Evison's letter, someone is guilty of manslaughter, if the term "manslaughter" means anything at all.
  

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• 7. At 9:18pm on 14 Jul 2009, logica_sine_vanitate wrote:

  To be more accurate in the term I used in my last comment:
  
  Manslaughter by gross negligence
  

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• 8. At 10:15pm on 14 Jul 2009, figurewizard wrote:

  Tonight's file on 4 covered the scandal of the Nimrod aircraft that exploded in mid air because of a fault with the fuel supply that was known to be endemic with that aircraft.
  
  Measures that are supposed to contend with this were not enacted however, apparently on the grounds of cost and it is cost again that has caused the budget for military helicopters to be halved since 2001. It is little wonder therefore that we currently have just 10 Chinook heavy lift helicopters and 8 apache gunships to support a force of over 9,000 in Afghanistan.
  
  Finally a letter in today's Telegraph points out that there are 96,000 civil servants employed in the Ministry of Defence. That's pretty much one for each soldier in the British army.

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• 9. At 10:41pm on 14 Jul 2009, lordBeddGelert wrote:

  logica-sine-vanitate - you should have been listening to File On Four this evening [maybe you were, but if not, make sure you catch up on iPlayer.]
  
  I would have a cushion ready so that when you want to punch something you don't damage your hand.

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• 10. At 00:07am on 15 Jul 2009, logica_sine_vanitate wrote:

  I just listened to File on 4.
  
  I found the following exchange interesting:
  
  The Chairman of the Defence Select Committee, James Arbuthnot MP: "It strikes me that you are raising some extraordinarily important issues which go straight to the heart of safety for our troops and I think it's something that needs to be answered."
  
  Interviewer: "Warnings that should have been acted upon haven't been and there are clear breaches of regulations here; the warnings have effectively been overruled on the grounds of cost."
  
  Arbuthnot: "Yes, it is on the grounds of cost. It is because we have always tried to take an essentially penny-pinching attitude to each new procurement rather than going for the quality of equipment that we could. This is a real concern for the Defence Committee - it's raised it on a number of occasions, and we will continue to do so."
  

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