A fairly long column from Daft Old Duffer today. Ed
Go back as far as you like in the history of the world and you probably won’t find a single year in which some tyrant somewhere was not ill treating his own subjects.
Mostly this has been ignored. For ‘umble folk because we didn’t know about it, and for our Glorious Leaders because they didn’t give a toss what General Nasty got up to so long as he didn’t upset the apple cart for the rest of the world.
At times however, intervention was deemed necessary. Then speeches would be made, bands would play, the fleet would sail and soldiers would indulge in a prescribed amount of slaughter.
Usually of poorly armed naked folk who thought quite mistakenly that they had rights.
Left, right, left, right
And then the Politicians in Chief would decide enough was enough, everyone important would shake hands and the armies would be marched off to repress someone else.
Unfortunately for the Lords of Creation and the British Empire the World War, part one and two, put a stop to all that as far as they were concerned by doing away with The Empire and giving certain lowly individuals the notion that perhaps, after all, they were just as good as us of the mighty West.
What it failed to do however was convince Those Destined To Lead Us that Britain no longer being a World Power meant they were no longer World Class statesmen – and women.
Take that
Thus Anthony Eden’s ridiculous attempt to give Colonel Nasser a smack when he had the temerity to make Egypt independent of our loving embrace. And its abrupt end when President Eisenhower told him to go home and behave himself or he’d get an Asbo.
Followed by Prime Minister Wilson’s equally silly effort to tell Smith of Rhodesia what he could and could not do, sending a clapped out warship to blockade – apparently – the whole of Africa and effectively handing our lucrative trade with that ex-colony over to our gleeful competitors.
I’ll pass rapidly over despatching a lot of our bravest and finest to die for the Yanks in Korea and instead give thanks we kept out of that bloodbath of the innocent entitled Vietnam.
Though I suspect that was because the Yanks told us to keep out of their way, so they could practice with their latest mass-slaughter machines, not because our Glorious Leaders did not yearn to Show The Flag yet again.
Charge!
Can you imagine what was occupying Margaret Thatcher’s mind as she rode that tank? I bet military bands, gallant warriors mounted on chargers and the Duke of Wellington smiling cold approval were all in there somewhere.
In the event of course it was only by the sheerest luck and the tremendous heroism of our forces that we didn’t get bloodily punished for conducting a seaborne invasion on the far side of the world, using obsolete equipment and a pleasure cruiser. (Yes – think about it. We sent a holiday cruise liner against a battleship and a fleet of skilfully piloted Mirage fighters. How utterly ignorant and arrogant was that?)
Were you all as sickened as I was when Tony Blair rushed over to Bush’s side to show he too was a big bold military titan in command of a big bold military power and terribly keen to help give the Tyrant of Iraq the thrashing he deserved?
Yappy lapdog
Showing the world instead that we were nothing but a tiny yappy lapdog ready to nip ankles, while the mastiff snarled and slobbered above our head. And now Cameron, terribly keen, apparently, to stop the murder of innocent Libyans. Not the ones supporting Gaddafi of course. Nor for that matter the rebels of Yemen or Bahrain. Just those that give him an excuse to lead Britain’s – in his cosseted brain – military power to Glory and much flying of the Flag.
Not much publicity for the Libyans who said, all right help us with Gaddafi’s tanks. But if you set foot in our country we’ll kick your assets for you.
International statesmen?
There is surely no doubt that all our Glorious Leaders, from Eden to Cameron, brought up on tales of past daring-do, are forever on the lookout for an excuse to play the International Statesman, to strut the world stage giving speeches and being applauded. Just like Churchill.
And for that they need Britain to be a World Power. Being a member of a government such as, say, Norway, or Poland or Belgium simply will not render them important enough to take coffee in the White House.
And the fact that they can feel free to so strut and preen whilst at the same time constantly cutting our armed forces to ever more insignificant shreds is a further measure of their contact with reality. Our army, navy and airforce are to them merely brightly painted toy soldiers, deployed at their whim on a sand table. Until they tire of their game and go off to play somewhere else.
Leaving someone else to tidy everything away, discarding the broken ones and replacing them with some new. And to deal with the sweat and filth and blood, the fear and death and mutilation.
The naive, murderous buffoons.
Image: Rheana Royer under CC BY 2.0
