HERE

I suggest mooching over and asking him nicely to look elsewhere for his kit.

How about if I mooch over here?

No, something must be done to support the people of Darfur. I want to petition the British government because I'm British and one has to start at home.

I don't believe that we don't have a single helicopter to offer, particularly as we withdraw from Iraq and, although I believe the government consistently lets our boys down by supplying them with inadequate or insufficient kit, I would be interested to know what the actual situation is with regard to helicopters.

It's very unfortunate that so little help is provided in Afghanistan by other countries, particularly EU countries, and I'm surprised that our government isn't on to Germany and the rest every single day to get some help out there. However, that's not my campaign. Hundreds of thousands of civilians in Darfur have been and are being raped and massacred, many in front of their own children. This must be stopped.

Hello Steve

As far as I know the situation with regard to helicopters is we can't spare even one. Maybe you could take a few from a search and rescue squadron, but there are no secure bases in range for them to fly from. So you need to set up a base, force protection and all the rest of it. We're already over-committed, and while I feel stronly about Darfur it's not our problem any more than it's a French, German, Belgian or Spanish problem. Let someone else take the strain.

Well said. Five Helicopters doesn't sounds like much but when you consider the logistics and security of the helicopters. I agree that something needs to be done but when you consider how overstretched our forces are, I doubt we could find the troops to do this. Besides, how exactly will five helicopters stop a bunch of loons attacking a refugee camp? Unless you want to send apaches and the like, but they aren't much use when it comes to handing out food.

The campaign I'm running on blogolob.net is largely focussed on using the 2008 Olympics as a window of opportunity to shame China into putting pressure on the Sudanese government. China is Sudan's main backer and takes 70% of their exports, including oil.

However, I'm also trying to do what I can to get the UN mission underway. The UN voted unanimously to take this action. Now it must act.

Regarding our own helicopters, I would very much like to know from an authoritative source exactly what the true situation is. Who can one believe?

I don't agree that it's not our problem. As long as it's our world it's our problem.

Besides, how exactly will five helicopters stop a bunch of loons attacking a refugee camp?

The UN have said that they require 24 helicopters before they'll deploy their peacekeepers. Getting the British government to supply even 1 helicopter would get this ball rolling.

No one has said its not our problem. However the forces are under tremendous strain already, and I wonder whether Sudan could be one commitment too many. The point I'm trying to make is that a lot of the other European nations have the resources to spare, so perhaps they should take the lead on this one.

Just out of curiosity, under what remit would these peacekeepers be deployed? Would they be able to defend themselves and others under attack with lethal force? Or would they be there under a "high visibility, low presence" policy/

I didn't say it wasn't our problem, I said it wasn't our problem any more than it is any of our allies' problem.

The authoratative source on the true situation would be the generals - and they're all saying we need more helicopters. Quite a lot more. And we need them now.

Your campaign sounds great, and with China you may well be bang on target. But if you want helicopters, asking the British is asking in the wrong place. Ask Brown for more helicopters by all means, but don't ask him to remove 5 of the ones we have.

Steve,

I don't know if you read the papers much but our Forces are a bit overstretched at the moment. These include;

Helicopter Pilots.
The people who maintain the Helicopters.
The people who would have to move them to Darfur in transport aircraft. You may also have read that we don't have enough of these aircraft to re-supply our own troops in Iraq and AFG.
And a whole host of other people needed to keep helicopters in the air.

Some of these people get bounced from one tour to the next, spend precious little time with their families and are probably thinking about leaving because they are working so hard.

A quick look around some of our European allies will show you that France have a lot of helicopters. In France.

Germany isn't short of a few helicopters either. Not many are in AFG.

Neither are the Spanish Armed Forces.

Even the Irish Armed Forces could manage to send one. They are a small but incredibly wealthy nation.

In short, while your cause may be honourable, you strike me as a little naive and you would do well to focus your efforts on those other countries in Europe who are considerably less committed than Great Britain but not short of helicopters or all the people and resources that go with it...

Adjutant

France already has some bases and forces in Chad, with an airbourne element no?

Whatever happens in Sudan I'm not alone in suspecting the Janjaweed have tacit government support. I don't think a small force will be enough, and the Sudanese government will do everything it can to hamper their operations. It'll suck in more and more troops, and we just don't have them to spare.

Use the FOI act to find out. I for one would rather support the current Ops we have - we don't have enough helo's for Afghan so why should we use this valuable resource on a spineless UN mission. The Africans need to take a stand and sort their own issues out, or why dont our European neighbours who do little to support Afghan (and therefore the worlds drug problem) do their bit in Sudan.

Go somewhere else for your helicopters - our cupboard is bare

Steve let other members of the UN sort it out, you may not have noticed but the UK is already fighting a couple of wars. In any case Sudan doesn't like us infidel dogs and it's about time the African members of the UN actually did a proper job.

Just posted on your blog but I'll ask you again here.

Nice sentiment but why don't YOU do something to help Darfur instead of being outraged that someone else isn't doing something? What exactly have YOU done to help?

You people aren't interested in funding the Armed Forces properly but expect them, when under extreme pressure in Afghanistan, to jump and assuage your conscience.

It’s much better to whine on the internet that others aren’t doing enough than actually doing something yourself.

Ahh this is what you do, blog for Darfur. God give me strength.

Blogging is still more than 99% are doing, cut him a bit of slack. It gets what's happening into the mainstream news media, and that gets the politicians interested.

Just that Brown should be shaming other nations into acting, especially the AU ones, not being asked to ponder withdrawing our kit from where it's needed and sending us into yet another conflict.

Fair one bit his naiveté is incredible.

I agree about the AU, the Africans couldn't get the Europeans out fast enough with the end of colonial rule. Now they've fcuked it all up they expect us to come back and help them, sorry guys its your bed now you lie in it, sort it yourselves.

But he'll never do anything other than sit on his arse whine, get outraged and in a couple of months time move on to the next PC cause.

Steve can usually be heard to slag off HM Forces as baby killers and murderers and supports the terrorists in palestine, iraq and afghanistan.

You put a story like this in the papers and 99% of the readers would think it was so easy to hand over 5 helicopters for such a worthy cause, what they wouldn't know is that the actual helicopters flying is nowhere near the amount we have and nowhere near the amount we actually need. The logistics of supporting 5 helicopters in Darfur would be a huge task which would take a lot of men, equipment and supplies away from where they're needed just now.