Tuesday, November 2, 2010

Perfect sense?

Liam Fox, the Defence Secretary, has said that plans which could put British combat troops including the SAS under French command make “perfect sense”. Well they might make perfect sense to an imbecile, (or politicians) but they don't make sense to me. When it comes to the defence of the realm, you make damned sure that your armed forces and all the attachments that go with it remain under your command. You for instance don't allow a foreign military however friendly to command your troops under any circumstances simply because their interests may not be in any way shape or form your interests. I can imagine circumstances where the lives of French civilians or military may be in danger where the "British" contingent of their rapid response unit is used as a sacrificial lamb to get them out whilst the French contingent remain safe doing the evacuation. Far fetched? Not really, British troops on the whole have combat experience, French troops mostly don't, you want something difficult done you use the right tools for the job, in the case of the military in Europe, that's us. I can see the EU using our troops as cannon fodder when the inevitable breakdown happens either through internal division, or the rise of the Islamics and their constant attempts to bend our way of life to their medieval lunacy. In the next 20 or so years, something is going to break and I want our troops here with a 26 mile (at least) moat between us and them.
Liam Fox and whoever came up with this idea on the British side (yes I'm looking at you Cameron) are traitors, there is no other word for it, they are selling out our armed forces to a foreign power to pay the bills instead of getting rid of the obscene environmental taxes, trimming back savagely the welfare industry and napalming the Quango cults. They can claim they are just tidying up Labours mess, but you don't endanger your nation by messing with its armed forces by handing command of them over to a foreign power. Oh I know it's early days yet and they are keeping the units separate, but this is the thin end of the wedge, this is where we start to go slowly into the night as a nation.

6 annotations:

Anonymous said...

Dear Mr Quiet Man

And allowing a defence of the realm bypass to a massive and continuing invasion of thsi country is also treason.

DP

Will Jones said...

This is nothing new, Lloyd George did his damndest to get British soldiers under French command during WW1, he completely ignored the hard and relisitic appreciations of his own CIGs and the CinC of the BEF in favour of the more nebulous and airy-fairy ones by the French. Consequently, LG never forgave Haig for winning the war, starting the smear campaign that continues to this day.

Anonymous said...

My wife came up with the perfect summary of this odious situation "What do we do when the French change sides?

Anonymous said...

It will make a change to have the French doing what the Americans say right alongside us.

The wheels may come off when the French get rid of the odious Sarko and replace him with a proper president.

The next president will hopefully not be in favour of the whole thing being run from the pentagon by someone as brain addled as the average US defense secretary, determined to stamp on whatever is bothering American commercial interests at the time.

I dare say that the order to do this came from Washington and was a part of the reversal of the cuts regime that Cameron had insisted Fox make...until Mrs Clinton phoned him and told him otherwise of course...

Badly thought out and stupidly done.

Scooper said...

tris@ "The wheels may come off when the French get rid of the odious Sarko and replace him with a proper president."

Sorry tris but politics don't work like that. Expect the next potential Froggie president to talk tough about these arrangements and then comply when in power. As soon as politicians take office, they are told The Great Secret about the EU and become part of the club, forgetting everything which they've promised the electorate. This military arrangement is little to do with cost savings and everything about the EU incapacitating international forces and moving towards an EU commanded force.

Anonymous said...

QM: I dare say they do the EU thing well enough, they are at the centre of it.

But America is a different kettle of fish. French Presidents don't bow to America (think Iraq). Sarko is an exception.