Our bloodiest month in war
on the Taliban
Death toll sapping public
support for war, says retiring Army chief.
by
Matthew Hickley
-Defence Correspondent
Daily Mail ,Friday,
July31,2009
THE MOUNTING DEATH TOLL in
AFGHANISTAN could destroy public support for the war and
lead to 'strategic disaster', the outgoing Head of the Army
has warned.
General Sir Richard
Dannatt, who yesterday gave his final public speech before
retiring, called for urgent investment in surveillance
systems to pinpoint Taliban booby traps.
He said that while the Army
itself would not waver, the high death rate ' could
undermine our public will to continue taking theses
casualties', putting the entire mission in jeopardy.
Latest figures
yesterday revealed record numbers of troops wounded in the
first two weeks of July.
Operation Panther's Claw
plunged British forces into ferocious combat during which
57
soldiers were injured.
The toll, in a single
fortnight, is more than the total seen in any previous
complete month.
Military medical
chiefs admitted U.S. surgical teams had to be drafted into
the main field hospital at Camp bastion in Helmand as
British surgeons were 'exhausted' by the number of
casualties.
They outlined plans
to open extra wards at Headly Court, ther military
rehabilitation centre in Surrey, to cope with a surge of
wounded servicemen needing specialist care.
The Taliban
ever-more powerful improvised explosive devices have become
the biggest threat to British soldiers.
In the past three months
British troops have encountered more than
1,000
such bombs, and explosions
have claimed more than
40 lives
already this year -(2009).
In his speech to the
International Institute for Strategic Studies, general
Dannatt urged the PUBLIC and GOVERNMENT to realise that the
country is at war in Afghanistan.
He said: 'We should be
under no illusion. We are at war and we want to succeed,
which we must, we must get onto a war-like footing.'
General Dannatt, who steps
down as Chief of the General Staff next month, said
troops urgently needed more aerial surveillance systems
capable of watching whole areas and tracking Taliban teams
before and after they plant IEDs.
The figures show that
casualty rates in Afghanistan , climbed to record levels in
the first half of
July 2009
with
57
UK personnel wounded in
action-compared with
46
in the whole of
June 2009,
and only
25
in
May, 2009
The British death toll now
stands at
191,
including
22
in
July, 2009 alone
Colonel Peter Mahoney who
recently returned from commanding the Camp bastion hospital,
described the strain on staff dealing with the rise of
casualties.
'It's stressful for
everyone, dealing with badly wounded young
people-particularly when cutting off camouflage which you
recognise as your own.' he said.
'That's always very
emotional. But has it stopped them ? NO!
Defence Secretary Bob
Ainsworth yesterday admitted it was a
'MISTAKE' to try to cut
compensation for injured troops.
However , he said the
Government had to 'clrify' the situation so that wounded
soldiers with the same injury did not get different payouts.
Mr Ainsworth also revealed
that the REVIEW into the much-criticised Armed Forces
Compensation Scheme would no be Independent.
'The Government can't
abdicate it's responsibilty, we can't leave decisions to
other people.' he said.
*
[Well! with the many
instances in which the Government has made so many wrong
and in some cases illegal decisions over the past decade it
would have been better if they had passed such matters to an
Independent Body. We would not have lost so many lives
of our brave soldiers in Iraq and the mounting death toll in
Afghanistan if the decision to enter these conflicts had not
occurred. Our presence in Afghanistan is adding to the
hatred from the Muslim world and no amount of
politically-correct or other gender propaganda will
alleviate the situation for our brave troops who battle on
to protect their comrades in the first instance and with the
knowledge that they appear expendable when they hear that
their presence may be required in the terrifying
killing fields in some of the most harsh terrain on the
earth for the next 20 years. Rightly many commentators
have described the mission in Afghanistan as MISSION
IMPOSSIBLE and no asinine comments by Harriet Herman as to
the number of children attending school justifies the injury
or death of even ONE SOLDIER.
Blood
and Oil-Middle East WWI-PT22-Hollow Victory
It is important that the
people realise what we have only ourselves realised since
May this year after researching on the internet the so
often quoted term NEW WORLD
ORDER which has emanated of late from the lips of
Gordon Brown -George W Bush and now Barrack Obama and many
others of the COFR the body which runs the U.S. and the
World. The real dangers were brought home to us
of the WORLD CONSPIRACY by the INTERNATIONAL BANKERS to
reduce the world's population and introduce a WORLD
GOVERNMENT. The situation in the U.S. is at a crucial stage
because of their PATRIOT ACT which is as far from patriot as
one could go.
Unfortunately for the Americans they have a authority which
is even beyond the control of their Congress. It is
called FEMA a paramilitary organisation above the law of the
land with its own concentration camps some equipped with
extermination means by gas and other means and
supported by foreign troops from
Britain-Germany-Mexico-Canada and other countries.
In the case of Britain we
have our so-called TERRORISM ACT which has given the
Government the ability to curb their people's once
secure constitutional rights which have in the past been the
evidence to the world of a FREE COUNTRY.
NEW WORLD
ORDER/ILLUMINATI/WORLD GOVERNMENT/911/77/FEMA/COFR and a
great deal more.
Only today we have an
article in the Daily Mail to day by Max Hastings which
underlines the arrogance , and greed of the Banks
The
U.S. giant Goldman Sachs
expects to make the
largest bonus payouts in
its history, with London
traders in line for
£500,000
*
The Daily Mail COMMENT
mentions the following :
...'What is disturbing is
that BANKERS here still don't get. They are deaf to the
public anger at THEIR GREED, and worse than that, still
don't understand that unless the BONUS SYSTEM is changed we
are DOOMED to repeat the CREDIT CRUNCH.'..
Our Reply:
'That harsh truth is that
the INTERNATIONAL BANKS have the greater share of funds of
the world in their hands so they decide THEIR POLICY. It is
said that they control over 70% of money in circulation and
after two centuries of rewards for financing both sides of
the majority if not all the conflicts in the world they are
sitting on mountains of gold. No Government can afford to
make a stand because in reality they have no say. We
have BILDERBERGERS in all three of our political parties and
even the Governor of the Bank of England who must be
struggling to serve two masters the INTERNATIONAL BANKERS
and the innocent taxpayers who have not realised that
Governments are merely a cover for a GREAT ROBBERY which has
been going on for centuries. The only way out is for a
REVOLUTION by the PEOPLE to assert their control but with
the miserable response so far from the public that
possibility is receding by the day. Banks should be under
the control of the REPRESENTATIVES of the PEOPLE not
INTERNATIONAL BANKERS and until this is reversed their can
be NO
real stability in the BANKING INDUSTRY.
*
NEW WORLD
ORDER/ILLUMINATI/WORLD GOVERNMENT/911/77/FEMA/COFR and a
great deal more.
*
AUGUST 4-2009 |