Phoney excuses for a war

I was reading today about this poor bugger who's being screwed by the MoD after they'd fucked up...not only by sending him out in a vehicle which couldn't protect him against home-made Afghan land mines, but also by putting almost £50k in his bank account by mistake. Like any sensible bloke in his situation, he paid off his mortgage with it.

I don't like violence. I don't think it ever really solves anything: that being said, I have a lot of respect for decent honest soldiers. They're doing what they feel is right and I've known a fair few young tearaways who've responded positively to the kind of military discipline the armed forces provide. I've known more who've been totally fucked up by it too and come out with untreated PTSD but that's a whole 'nother story.

That's why it irks me when our sort-of elected leaders send them into unwinnable wars on phoney pretexts. The War in Afghanistan isn't really about terrorism and drugs. OK, it's logical that scumbags who want to blow up civilians in the name of a skewed interpretation of some holy book or other (and you can put Israel in that bag too) will eventually retreat to an area like the Afghan-Pakistani border if you chase them hard enough. Likewise, it's the ideal place to grow opium, which has after all been traditional in these parts since long before our civilisation was even a twinkle in Aristotle's eye. Nobody has ever been able to control that place against the will of the local people.

The real reason that this war is - peddled on a ticket of Drugs! and Terrorism! - being fought is energy. There are huge oil and gas reserves east of the Caspian and Uncle Sam needs to make sure he can get his fix without the hands of those nasty Russians or sneaky Chinese on the tap. (Of course you could always avoid that by piping it through Iran ... yeah right.)

You don't believe me? Have a read of this. And this. Hands up all of you who've seen the pipeline mentioned on the news.

And so you have some poor sod whose legs have been blown to bits getting screwed twice. Once by being sent to 'war' on a false pretext, and now by the very people who should have taken care of him afterwards.

Excuse me while I vomit.