Thanks for your reply Geo,
I appreciate a lot of what you say although I would like it if you could possibly drop the use of the word whinning as it is not an accurate description of what I am doing.
Standing near a cliff edge bellowing through a bull horn at a stampeding herd of lemmings and yelling at them to turn around before it is too late,
would be a better description of my utterly powerless and ultimately futile position.
And while as the serving soldier you no doubt are, can have little effect on the idiot designs of our masters, you still do what you have to do.
Likewise from my position I do what I have to do.
Now I suppose it could be easy for me to sit here sticking pins in a little action man doll all the while laughing uproariously at the discomfiture of those serving in the armed forces.
But that is neither my inclination or nor my intent.
Like Hastings who is a lover of the army, I heartily despise those leaders of ours who have put so many thoughtful decent serving personnel on a very hot moral spot. And I dearly hope there is a special circle in hell reserved exclusively for such characters.
So why do I go on about the origins of it all?
As Max Bygraves used to say, "Gather round, I wanna tell you a story."
A few years ago someone invented a new and highly effective way of catching squid.
It was a thin metal pole about 2 ft. long. It had rows of barbed hooks pointing upwards along its length and a weight with a flashing light in it on the end.
Fishermen lower this implement attached to a line into the sea after dark.
The light attracts the squid who come shooting up from beneath gobble the weighted end and then find they have a row of barbs embedded in their mouths. At first they try and pull back, but this of course embeds the barbs in further. Then they try loosening themselves by shooting further upwards only to find when they pause they now have another row of barbs embedded in their mouths.
This results in ever more painful thrashing around trying to loosen themselves whilst all the while becoming more hooked.
The squid could never extricate itself from the predicament of having tread where angels would have feared to go in the beginning, it would need external assistance.
Now you take Iraq, first we invade and occupy. (Oh dear, should have looked first).
Still we are there now so we capture Saddam and put him on trial, with the intention of helping make an unpopular war more popular.
At least it will be a result of sorts went the thinking.
But the show trial was a shambles and during its duration here in Britain there were enough articles in papers and on T.V. informing us of our and the yanks complicity with the scumbag back in the days when it suited us.
So that diluted the trials effect and added to cynicism back here.
And in Iraq it was just one more point of poisonous aggravation to add to the pot. To lots of Iraqis it was a humiliation people coming from outside and putting their leader on trial. It was their business to depose and try him if they wanted. AS AND WHEN THEY WERE READY TO DO SO.
I have failed to understand why so many others have failed to understand that even in a dictatorship a continually evolving political dynamic is in operation and should be allowed to take its course, unless there is a clear and present danger from that source.
But the verdicts in and the bugger gets nothing less than he deserves.
So what happens now, He's on the scaffold do you pull the lever or do you stop and think?
Have you weighed up the consequences of him being hanged. Can you even predict with any degree of accuracy what any consequences might be? If you can't it would be sensible to not drop him until you can.
Ah, but you can't have him hanging around unhung can you? The longer you did that the more uncertainty and suspicion it would breed leading to more violence
And people would think you are week and indecisive.
Getting the picture? After swallowing the first row of barbs by attacking the place in the first place you could be just about to swallow another row of barbs by hanging a fatherless who deserves to die!
Difficult isn't it?
We acted like greedy squid from the beginning and the more we struggle the more barbs we will swallow.
WE cannot stop THEM from killing each other now, when it was WE who started killing THEM to begin with.
We can only hope to extricate ourselves from our own hooks as our presence there, as Dannet has said, is exacerbating them who live there and who are now trapped on barbed hooks of their own.
(P.S. Its possible the Yanks might put the hanging on hold anyway, they are trying to reach an accord for their own reasons with the Sunni insurgent groups right now, if so the plot will continue to wend its weary way to gods knows where.)