[Rasczak]

A good artilce in the Guardian focusing on the comments by General Wall, Chief of the General Staff (head of the Army):

Army chief signals new niche roles for UK troops | UK news | guardian.co.uk

Never again will British troops be deployed in the kind of operations that have bogged them down over the past decade in Afghanistan. There is neither the political appetite, nor the money.

His speech comes as the Army is reduced in size from over 100,000 to 82,000 and possibly significantly more cuts will follow as the Force is brought into balance with the much smaller Royal Navy and Royal Air Force.

In future the emphasis for the Army will be on intelligence gathering missions rather than firepower. Lengthy deployments would take the form of "stabilisation operations rather than a perpetual fight" - and are likely to be on a much smaller scale than the vast deployment in Afghanistan at present.

[BISHI]

......good..! Maybe we can return to the good old 'peace keeping' days..!
Saves money, lives and reputations..!

[Alan CD]

Unless another world war threatens it would appear the days of large armies and grand-scale battles are over.

The SAS scale of operation seem to be the modern order of battle (and have been for some time). Smaller multi-purpose units without the usual old-fashioned army BS.

Hopefully the newer smaller scale army will be well equipped!

[Rasczak]

Originally Posted by BISHI

......good..! Maybe we can return to the good old 'peace keeping' days..!
Saves money, lives and reputations..!

Originally Posted by Alan CD

Unless another world war threatens it would appear the days of large armies and grand-scale battles are over.

The SAS scale of operation seem to be the modern order of battle (and have been for some time). Smaller multi-purpose units without the usual old-fashioned army BS.

Hopefully the newer smaller scale army will be well equipped!

I agree with both of you. Personally I would like to see British Forces operate as a small, technologically advanced and highly mobile Force capable of worldwide deployment. The focus being on technology rather than 'boots on the ground'. In short a model based on the Libyan conflict rather than the Iraq/Afghanistan (almost) Roman era model of building Forts (FOBs) all over the place and staying there for years.

[stanga]

Peacekeeping?

You mean wearing a blue helmet and watching civilians burn in churches. Check. Or watching the shells fall on market day and letting snipers shoot 5 year olds, while waiting for the Yanks to step in (again).

A real reputation builder, that one. The Dutch have never recovered from Srebrenica, I think.

[Rasczak]

Originally Posted by stanga

Peacekeeping?

You mean wearing a blue helmet and watching civilians burn in churches. Check. Or watching the shells fall on market day and letting snipers shoot 5 year olds, while waiting for the Yanks to step in (again).

How many people - across the Allied Forces and throughout Afghanistan - have died since the initial invasion? How many non-combatants? Peace-making doesn't always end up much better...

[stanga]

I just despise the UN, that's all. And I laugh at the oft made suggestion that we should leave global security to blue hatted armies, lead by some of the scumbag States represented in New York.

[hopeless]

Just downsize the military until all our wars are fought via Battlefield 3 instead.

Iranian noobs - prepared to be owned by clan USUK.

[GAZBEROTTEN]

Actually giving the iraq and Afghanistan ps3's xbox 360's and free online access and letting them fight there wars with those machines would prevent wars. It would also give them and us laughs and no one would get hurt

[Sonic67]

The armed forces go from a force of a similar size comparable to our similar neighbour France to a token force. Defence on the cheap sold as a good thing again. Well done the coalition. I did two tours of Bosnia with UNPROFOR and yes we were pretty powerless to do anything. It was NATO that brought about the changes.

By the way Rasczak I thought you said the army would be against the cuts. I said the army would get on with it as they always have...

[Sonic67]

Originally Posted by BISHI

......good..! Maybe we can return to the good old 'peace keeping' days..!
Saves money, lives and reputations..!

Afghanistan is intended to be peacekeeping. What do you call it? The troops of ISAF are there to back up the Government and ANA and ANP. To keep a country peaceful and sometimes from collapsing into civil war how many troops do you think we do need? How many were deployed to Germany in 1945 after the armistice?

[BISHI]

Originally Posted by Sonic67

Afghanistan is intended to be peacekeeping. What do you call it? The troops of ISAF are there to back up the Government and ANA and ANP. To keep a country peaceful and sometimes from collapsing into civil war how many troops do you think we do need? How many were deployed to Germany in 1945 after the armistice?

No..........Afghanistan was invaded by a coalition of the 'willing', it was occupied and the national government (no matter how unpalatable) were removed..! This is not peace keeping, it is aggressive occupation.... and as we will eventually see....... an utter waste of time and effort..!

[Kebabhead]

Why does reducing the number of people in our armed forces suddenly make it more affordable when the military hardware they need keeps getting more and more expensive

[Sonic67]

Originally Posted by BISHI

No..........Afghanistan was invaded by a coalition of the 'willing', it was occupied and the national government (no matter how unpalatable) were removed..! This is not peace keeping, it is aggressive occupation.... and as we will eventually see....... an utter waste of time and effort..!

How can it be aggressive occupation when the largest contingent of ISAF is the Afghan people? How come surveys of Afghan people back ISAF? The national government was elected not removed by force. Are you yet another person full of student politics as to how 'we' invaded? You do know it was UN lead don't you? Sure you aren't getting mixed up with Iraq?

[Rasczak]

Originally Posted by Kebabhead

Why does reducing the number of people in our armed forces suddenly make it more affordable when the military hardware they need keeps getting more and more expensive

Manpower is always the most expensive component - especially when you factor in soldier/sailor/marine/airman requires pay, pension, medical, dental, housing, feeding, compassionate care etc etc.

[BISHI]

Originally Posted by Sonic67

How can it be aggressive occupation when the largest contingent of ISAF is the Afghan people? How come surveys of Afghan people back ISAF? The national government was elected not removed by force. Are you yet another person full of student politics as to how 'we' invaded? You do know it was UN lead don't you? Sure you aren't getting mixed up with Iraq?

It takes an aggressive act of military invasion to free up the seat of government previously occupied by the power that was - in order that those behind that aggressive invasion can put in place one more congenial to their own requirements..!
Where exactly does 'peacekeeping' come into that - how on earth you can describe it as anything but an invasion is beyond me. You need to invade to displace and that is exactly what happened..!!

[Sonic67]

I’m sure some people would say the aggressive act was done by the Taliban sheltering Bin Laden, Al Qaida and the terrorist training camps which were in turn attacking various other nations.

Still if you want to believe that they were a peaceful, legitimate government disposed by the evil UN and Nato then so be it.

I’m sure if we had only left them alone we could all have lived peacefully together.

We were the bad guys...

[BISHI]

Originally Posted by Sonic67

I’m sure some people would say the aggressive act was done by the Taliban sheltering Bin Laden, Al Qaida and the terrorist training camps which were in turn attacking various other nations.

Still if you want to believe that they were a peaceful, legitimate government disposed by the evil UN and Nato then so be it.

I’m sure if we had only left them alone we could all have lived peacefully together.

We were the bad guys...

The point I was making was that before the 'peacekeeping' there had to be, neccessarily, an invasion to displace the existing governance.

I believe that a surgical, intelligence led action to get Bin Laden would have been much more successful than a full scale invasion and would have been cheaper in lives and money ................ and in the end that how they got him..!

I never have beleived the Taliban to be a 'peaceful' regime, I think they are one of the most repugnant on the planet - I also put Muggabe and plenty of other ruling elites in the same class but see no 'legitimate' intervention planned. Furthermore the legitimacy of NATO and the UN have, IMO, been tarnished by what happened in Iraq and Libya - they certainly are not the credible, whiter than white organization you seem to insist they are.

We probably should have left them alone as I am pretty certain in 10 years time things won't be all that different to that we stupidly tried to change.

Were we the bad guys...? well that depends if you are an Afghani who's had his wedding party bombed or a Pakistani who's been vapourised by friendly fire I guess..!!!

[Sonic67]

Yes we preferred to send thousands of UN troops to Afghanistan for ten years rather than do ‘a quick surgical strike.’ Are you for real? Don’t you think that is always the preferred option? Do you think nations have billions to throw around?

In 2003 on the eve of the war we tried to kill Saddam in a ‘surgical strike’ so the invasion of Iraq wouldn’t be necessary. It didn’t work as he did the crafty trick of moving around. Same with Gaddafi etc.

Surgical strike? Another sound bite… I’m sure this all sounds so easy from the comfort of your armchair. Yes all we need is a bit of intelligence and a missile and we can solve all the worlds’ problems at a stroke. So easy if you say it fast and yet we still spend so much money on having armed forces. Crazy.

Yes we got Bin Laden. After ten years…. And in part helped by turning Afghanistan upside down, interviewing captured insurgents for ten years and having intelligence assets in a next door country.

In reality when a person wants to be hidden they are. They have a huge planet to hide in.

I’ll ignore the rest as apparently you do think we were the bad guys. Though maybe we should ask the victims of 9/11 or 7/7 or the other victims of terrorist incidents around the world who the bad guys were.

[BISHI]

Afghanistan was occupied for 1 man.
It cost billions of dollars, thousands of allied lives and tens of thousands of Afghan lives - do the maths .................!

And it turned out that for most of that time he was in bloody Pakistan under the protection of our supposed allies..!!!

[BISHI]

Originally Posted by Sonic67

I’ll ignore the rest as apparently you do think we were the bad guys. Though maybe we should ask the victims of 9/11 or 7/7 or the other victims of terrorist incidents around the world who the bad guys were.

No - i would really rather you didn't...!

Start with these points-

Would 7/7 have happened if we had not invaded Afghanistan with the USA...?
What the hell did Saddam Hussein have to do with 9/11 any way.?
Are we in this country 'safer' after getting into bed with Uncle Sam bearing in mind the convictions of home born Islamicists today..?

Look, I get that you are a military man and I get that your perspective is bent in that direction - but never forget that the military you are so keen to support are nothing but a political hammer in the diplomatic tool box ( another metaphor for you there fella...............hope you like it............all my own work that one..) What you are told and what you are expected to do depends on who is in power, what they want and ( probably more pertinent to these example) what American foreign policy expects its client states to do. Tony Blair was the main man back then.............he's considered a discredited wuckfit now, and his decisions put you in a very dangerous country doing a thankless and ultimately pointless task whilst the elites you were sent to facillitate lined their pockets with even more of our money sent by way of 'aid.' All you are doing is spouting the rubbish you were told to justify why your political superiors sent you there in the first place............. It is all spin , smoke and mirrors to cover up the total mess the west made of the whole sordid affair......................TEN YEARS OF WAR TO CATCH A SINGLE MAN......................!

[Alan CD]

Originally Posted by BISHI

Afghanistan was occupied for 1 man.
It cost billions of dollars, thousands of allied lives and tens of thousands of Afghan lives - do the maths .................!

And it turned out that for most of that time he was in bloody Pakistan under the protection of our supposed allies..!!!

And that is where a 'surgical strike' was carried out.

Come on BISHI - please let a little reality creep in, you are thinking with your heart.

[Sonic67]

Originally Posted by BISHI

Would 7/7 have happened if we had not invaded Afghanistan with the USA...?

Probably. A long list of terrorist attacks were being done prior to 7/7 by Al Qaeda and they don't like the west.

Originally Posted by BISHI

What the hell did Saddam Hussein have to do with 9/11 any way.?

No idea. Why have you brought it up?

Originally Posted by BISHI

Are we in this country 'safer' after getting into bed with Uncle Sam bearing in mind the convictions of home born Islamicists today..?

I feel pretty safe.

Originally Posted by BISHI

TEN YEARS OF WAR TO CATCH A SINGLE MAN......................!

Wasn’t that the surgical strike you wanted? Do you think we deliberately waited ten years to catch him or is it the case that surgical strikes aren’t as quick and simple as you think after all? So which one?

[Rasczak]

The Army is going to speed up it's redundancy programme as it aims to get rid of 20,000 troops by 2018 (rather than 2020 as planned):

Army to cut 20,000 jobs two years earlier than expected | UK news | The Guardian

The earlier cuts will save millions, enable further cuts beyond the 82,000 to be implemented in a timely manner and allow the Army to re-configure into the new, less ambitious, roles for which it is envisaged.

[Sonic67]

Army cuts creating 'gaps' and leaving soldiers unsettled and frustrated, says chief - Telegraph

[Rasczak]

Originally Posted by Sonic67

Army cuts creating 'gaps' and leaving soldiers unsettled and frustrated, says chief - Telegraph

I thought you said the Army wasn't complaining about the cuts?

[BISHI]

Originally Posted by Alan CD

And that is where a 'surgical strike' was carried out.

Come on BISHI - please let a little reality creep in, you are thinking with your heart.

I wouldn't have wasted a single British serviceman in either of the recent wars in that region - millions of UK citizens felt the same as massive protest marches at the time testify. It's a matter of opinion and for me it has been a wasted exercise - yes I don't like the Taliban, yes I don't like Islamo-fascism and yes I think our involvement abroad has made us more vulnerable at home.
All that blood and treasure ( sorry for the metaphor Sonic..!!) for 1 man in a medieval state that will revert to like once we leave..............what a waste.!!

[BISHI]

Originally Posted by Sonic67

Probably. A long list of terrorist attacks were being done prior to 7/7 by Al Qaeda and they don't like the west.
?

Probably...............? or probably not...!
I would suggest there have been many more since we set foot in Afghanistan, that 7/7 was directly linked to it, and that prior to Afghanistan the biggest terror threat was the IRA............ and they were inpeace talks..!!

There were plenty against the USA, but the USA is a global hegemon treading on feet all over the planet..............we were not..!

[Sonic67]

Bishi millions of people weren’t on the protest marches why not Google the figures or would you like me to do it? Besides ‘The Stop The War’ stuff was about Iraq (why are you confusing the two?). We are out of Iraq and still in Afghanistan. Where are the protest marches now?

[Rasczak]

I would humbly suggest that the Taliban doesn't really need to attack now as, in all effective purposes, they have won. They have now been formally recognised with an Office in Qatar and, according to a recent NATO report, are popular in Afghanistan. They only need wait until Western troops depart in huge numbers in 2013/14 to re-establish control. Maybe by the mid-2020s we will have a Taliban Government in Afghanistan again.