More dead Parrots

In the Dead Parrot debate, I said that both Blackpool MP’s would abrogate their responsibility and avoid asking questions. Indeed they went one better and avoided the debate completely.

How then should I feel when Gordon Marsden MP, escorts the mother of a fallen comrade at the Blackpool Cenotaph, when he seems incapable of insisting that the fallen hero had the best equipment possible? If this defunct Labour Government really meant a syllable of what they espouse, they would quadruple the manpower in Afghanistan overnight, or withdraw completely.

In Rhodesia, a tiny enclave of decency and respect, when the Army was in need, the population pulled out every stop to assist. For those who think I am blinkered, I admit it, with the proviso that I served in a Black Regiment and was equally as proud of my Black Comrades as I am with my Whites.

The MoD has obviously not got hold of the Rhodesian Army Corp of Engineers blueprints for the vehicles used in the bush. The Rhino was a mash of spare parts from obsolete Landrovers which made a brilliantly simple anti-mine vehicle, saving numerous lives. The use of sandbags in vehicles, water in tyres and shaping of vehicles so that explosions were diverted away proved simple, cheap and effective. If we could get MP’s away from organising their expenses to benefit themselves, perhaps we could get some sense out of this mess the Tony Blair put us into.

But what is most irritating, and will be ghauling to the families of killed soldiers, is that the Landrover was proved ineffective because of NOISE, IMMOBILITY, PROTECTION AND LACK OF SPEED, in N. Ireland, as far back as 1970.

If this Mastiff vehicle is as good as the MoD says, will it defend the passengers against landmines? At about £800.000 each, it is an overpriced exercise in stupidity and obduracy on behalf of the civilian led MoD. The only vehicle the Army should be using en-mass is the helicopter.

Having watched twice the Procurement Debate and the debate in Chambers with two high ranking Army Officers, the amount of political correctness on every part was sickening. Chinook helicopters kept in expensive mothballs, C 130’s still without fuel tanks with fire retardant capability ad nausea. It was noted that many speakers have now acknowledged the lack of wisdom – I would say possible illegality – in the purchase of the useless SA 80/81 assault rifle. Boeing, it is intimated, have taken 10 years to fulfil the obligation of a contract on Chinook helicopters. Surely that should have been done ten years ago and the Generals and Civil Servants cashiered - with no index linked pensions - for dereliction of a duty of care to 100 plus dear, dead soldiers?

As an infantier I ask this question. Which bright spark thinks it is logistically sound for the walking /fighting soldier to have to carry two sizes of ammunition? Almost every picture coming out of Afghanistan show the action initiated at ranges of over three hundred yards. This is well beyond the range of the SA 80 and makes the collective firepower in the infantry section useless. Historically, the 5.56 never has competed with 7.62 short of the opposition. To quote… “It cannot be said that the AK47 won the war in Vietnam. What can be said is that the Armalite helped to loose it for the Americans.”