Currently, there is an upsurge in interest in the two world wars, and hardly a day passes that there is some event celebrating the past. This caused me to think about those generals and their cohorts who planned those incredible massacres, like Ypres and the Somme. With hindsight we can censure their level of personal inhumanity, stupidity, lack of reason, and an inability to learn by experience. Prior to 1914 a high proportion of the officers obtain their rank by purchase, and came from wealthy families whose lifestyle placed them outside the realms of the rest of the public, to some extent one can say they were detached from reality.
The fact that when I was demobilised, in spite of the fact that the law stated that as I had volunteered my job was sacrosanct, I didn’t get it back, because, as I have said before, not enough of us were killed in the five years during which we served, and natural progression had overtaken us. The officers during that war came from all walks of life, they had a better understanding, and probably a quicker mentality. They weren’t hidebound by archaic rules which some quoted as being ‘ Not cricket old chap!’ War is a dirty business, and takes many forms.
What I’m leading up to is the fact that most of us realise that the man in the street is too busy with living to want to go to war, and that it is the politicians, for reasons of their own, who instigate these atrocities. Russia, since the revolution, has shown a level of aggression in every field of law enforcement and war, that probably is equal to the Nazi regime. So why we allowed ourselves to go to war in Afghanistan, to subdue the rebels who were supplying poppy juice to the rest of the world, when the Russians hadn’t achieved it, was something I could never figure, except it was a rash ego trip by a small group of politicians. Mainly the Americans and the Brits, are fighting in Afghanistan, and therefore acting aggressively, possibly bombing, certainly shooting, and to a certain extent innocents are being caught up. My simple, uncomplicated reasoning makes me wonder why, when all you want to get rid of is the poppy fields, and we have the means of doing that, and that we could warn in advance of the fact that we propose to do it, we are not just wiping out the poppy fields, from the air, and giving money, a pittance to what the war is costing, without loss of life, to repay the growers of the poppies.
I know I’m whistling in the wind, but am I really a simpleton as well? Sitting in this chair and thinking about it, it seems a simple, safe, and above all sensible solution. Some would say that this war is to get rid of Al Qaeda’s base, but it would appear that this is no longer the prime target, as Al Qaeda seems to have shifted to PaKistan. I suppose there is a profound reason why I am wrong? Certainly, a lot of British and American soldiers aggressively stumbling about in Afghanistan is feeding Al Qaeda with propaganda.