I was doing my regular web searches and ran across this article. To say that I was shocked is an understatement. This is via the Vancouver Sun. Read the whole thing....its sad and if true, then our friends across the pond have some serious troubles that I never began to fathom.
I look forward to hearing British readers weigh in on this one. I just don't know.
Britain's constant boast that it punches above its weight internationally rings more hollow by the day. The defence ministry is eviscerating the Royal Navy and Royal Air Force and making deep cuts to the army, too. There have been sweeping redundancies across all three services, the sudden retirement of the fleet of Harrier jump jets, the premature retirement of the aircraft carrier Ark Royal and the likely immediate sale to raise cash of one of two carriers now being built. Even after the current round of Draconian cuts, it is difficult to see how Britain can sustain the force that will remain, let alone underwrite plans for a new generation of nuclear submarines, new frigates and the new F-35 Joint Strike Fighter.I don't know if his critique of the Ministry of Defense is adequate. As a matter of fact, at least a couple of procurement issues can be traced back to 'urgent requests' that were rubber stamped without proper vetting. What I mean by that is this...it appears that the UK tried its best to make sure that its troops were properly equipped--no matter what the costs.
That Britain can no longer even pretend to be a major global player was already obvious to its troops and allies in Iraq and in Afghanistan. Well-trained, brave soldiers from fabled regiments went into battle under-equipped because the British treasury no longer has enough money to pay for the kit required for expeditionary escapades. While, for example, Ottawa gave Canadian troops in Kandahar whatever they urgently required, from boots to state-of-the art command posts, helicopters and safer armoured vehicles, British troops often have had to make do with gear that sometimes looked as if it had seen service against Rommel's Afrika Korps - and in a few cases, may have actually been used in that war.
Much has been made lately of Britain's decision to opt out of a new European financial treaty that tried to rescue the continental economies because the other EU states refused to grant London's financial institutions special status. Britons of ``the wogs start at Calais'' school celebrated Prime Minister David Cameron's intransigence as they did earlier British decisions to keep the pound instead of the euro and to maintain a totally separate set of immigration and customs checks than their neighbours across the English Channel. The almost universal European response to Downing Street's latest act of isolationism was to say ``good riddance.''
I look forward to hearing British readers weigh in on this one. I just don't know.
