Main point is, Generals do not make national policy. Politicians do. Whether Sir Richard Dannat is right or wrong, he has no role in making national policy, except a quiet word over scotch in the club perhaps.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk/6046332.stm
Sir Richard needs to be publicly humbled by Tony Blair or perhaps Des Browne. God knows the unwritten constitution of Britain is a tattered and bedraggled ghost of its former self, but this is still a straightforward abuse of it.
A lesser point is, the crucial part of his comments are essentially an Al Qaeda talking-point which has been bought wholesale by the 'great and good' of the British middle classes. "We should not be in Iraq because we act as a recruiting sargeant for the Islamofascists". Excuse me, but when did we ever STOP fighting our enemies because they might mobilise their own forces? Two seconds thought reveals this to be utterly specious. Once you have declared war on someone, or someone has declared war on you, necessity dictates that you keep fighting until you have won (and/or broken the enemies will to continue fighting). Pretending that if you leave the battlefield you won't be at war any more is patently daft. And it worries me deeply that such intellectual doo doo appears staunch good sense to our top soldier. The equivalent of the childs game "if I cover my eyes, you can't see me any more" will not wash as the openly stated maxim of the 8th largest industrial power, and 3rd largest military one.
As Mark Steyn points out, the IRA made the judgement that although Britain had vastly enough military power to defeat them, they did not have the political guts and determination to do so. If we continue down the road that Sir Richard proffers, all our future enemies will make the same judgement.
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