squid ink

From the secretary of State for Defence:

Mr Reid told BBC Radio 4's Today programme there had to be a balance between the scrutiny cast upon British troops and the enemy they faced.

"We can't continually have an uneven battlefield for our troops, where we are facing an enemy, unconstrained by any legitimacy, any morality, any international convention and at the same time, subject our troops to a level of scrutiny, accountability, media intrusion, questioning and every conceivable opportunity to criticise them," he said.

"I say in that kind of world, where we are facing that kind of enemy, let us be very slow to condemn our troops, our forces, and very quick to support and understand them."

Via.What I understand from this is that John Reid’s just admitted defeat through a cloud of the political equivalent of squid ink. After all, you don’t come up with stab in the back theories if you’ve won.

Facing an enemy “unconstrained by any legitimacy.”? Crap. The insurgents around Basra belong to militias which themselves belong to political parties that have gained power in elections held under British control. Of course, it’s easier to conceal this fact if you don’t give the subject to too much scrutiny. Shortly before his assassination last year, the journalist Steven Vincent wrote:

To the despair of many secular-minded residents, the British are doing a cracker-jack job of teaching Iraqi police cadets close-order drills, proper arrest techniques and pistol marksmanship, without, however, including basic training in democratic principles and a sense of public duty. As a result, our Anglo allies may be handing the religious parties spiffy new myrmidons to augment their already well-armed militias.

Shortly afterwards he was abducted by men in police uniforms driving a police van and shot in the head. It was put about at the time that he was shagging his translator and that his murder was an honour killing, a sliming exercise with good old British fish n chip breath all over it. Since then we’ve had the British army storming a police station, several high ranking cops arrested ands the Basra governor threatening to withdraw co-operation from British forces. And now we’re acknowledging the inevitable and talking withdrawal, with a warning not to look too closely at the way we're being chivvied out the door.