So What Are We Fighting For Now?

Afternoon,

Today, the country stopped at 11am, to spend a moment to reflect on those who have lost their lives in conflict in the past 90 years or so. On Tuesday, it is 90 years to the day that the armistice agreement was signed by the Allies and the Germans at Compiègne. However, what is it now that we are fighting for. Are the core objectives the same as they were all those years back or has the waters muddied, to the point that the conflicts of today, dilute the effect and influence that the Great War and World War II continues to have on the nation's psyche.

Could it be that with nearly everyone who fought on the fields of the Somme, Ypres and Gallipoli having passed on, is it time to start thinking what Remembrance Sunday should stand for in the future, and whether it is going to have the same symbolism as it has done before now. Especially at this moment in time, when a large proportion of the population of this country are against the continuing war in Iraq, and the continuous resentment in the World against the West continuing pursuit of Imperialistic goals in the former Raj.

A controversial form of terminology?

Probably, but a large part of the globe sees the continuing conflict in the Middle East and Afghanistan as just that – Britain thinking that she still has her empire and she can use the Middle East as her own personal playground. Of course, we have been here before, and it does seem that we are making the same mistakes as we did back then.

Of course, the last invading army to try it on in Afghanistan was the Soviets in the 1980s and before those us in the 19^th Century. Both invading armies lost, badly. In the case of the British, when they did try to retreat down the Khyber Pass, they were well and truly routed. Moreover, here in lies the fault. It is not the politicians who are laying their lives on the floor for supposed freedom; it is the foot soldiers that are first on the ground and the ones in the line of fire.

That is something that Messrs Brown, Cameron and Clegg would do well to remember.

It does not help having just invaded Afghanistan some eighteen months before, that the current, lame-duck president decided to get all ambitious and create his own caliphate in the Middle East by finishing off some unfinished business in Iraq, with his Defence Secretary old business chum.

Yet it is going to be the President-Elect's job to tidy the shit up from eight years of absolute madness from not just the Bush Administration, but from its poodle in ol' Blighty. Something that might take far, far longer to clean up.

Rob :(