Why is the news reader saying the soldiers in Afghanistan are risking their lives for us?

[FabBakerGirlIsBack]

Are the Afghan's a threat to us?

I don't understand at all what is going on or what they mean by the soldiers are risking their lives for us.

"For those that don't feel the troops deserve support - let's hope you never need them; because you sure as hell don't deserve them. "

In a perfect world, we wouldn't need an Army or Navy because there would be peace. However, such a world doesn't exist and we ought to be grateful for the men and women who are prepared to do a difficult, clearly unpopular and dangerous job so that we can rest easy. Anyone who can't separate the troops and what they do from the politicians who instruct them to do it is naive at best and plain silly at worst.

There is some evidence that the presence of Western troops in countries such as Afhganistan and Iraq contributes to the radicalisation of some Muslims.

However......the Taliban operate between Pakistan and Afghanistan. Pakistan is an unstable, volatile place that already effectively ceded part of the control of Talibam sympathisers and their terrifying version of Islam. The Pakistani army cannot win the fight alone - nor can they do it without some sort of support within Afganistan.

And also, lets not forget that Paksitan is a nuclear power......we need to do whatever we can to support stability in this region.

I don't think there have been any here that have said the troops don't deserve respect ... BUT they don't deserve immediate respect just through virtue of the job they do. Those involved in torture don't deserve respect for example (though I know they are a tiny minority). Those who kill innocent civilians do not do so in my name.

People don't automatically respect any profession, because there are good and bad in every one. Whilst I sympathise with those who have lost relatives, and feel that the lack of adequate resources is completely outrageous, it still holds firm true that people have the choice NOT to join the armed forces and risk their lives.

I think what they deserve is proper pay and the tools to do their job, the job they were asked to do by the government we elected

they deserved respect and pause when they die and are brought home

I don't subscribe to the idea of being a hero by virtue of wearing a uniform that is just stupid
and I come from an army family saw first hand what combat can do to the soldiers and their families whether they live or die

I think we need to bring government to account and be involved and ask many questions before conflicts arise, these are somebody's children being sent out to do a pretty hard job, where they can actually die
and yes I know they choose the job, some more than others but still

Unfortunately in war, innocent civilians get killed Clemette - and if you voted for this Labour govt then this is happening in your name as they put the troops into both Iraq and Afghanistan and you gave them the mandate to do so when they were elected.

Yes, people can choose not to join the Forces, but you would be stuffed if we needed them and they weren't there. It's a good thing they were there in 1939/40 and during the Cold War; the Falklands; peace keeping in Bosnia; Northern Ireland etc. We are also an island nation; we forget that at our peril, and one that doesn't feed itself at the moment. How do we supply ourselves /defend ourselves at sea without a Navy? What kept the balance of power until the Berlin Wall came down? Nukes - and our guys at sea for months at a time with the UK Nuclear deterrent.

I can see that giving up your job would be terribly difficult, especially since housing etc is all tied in but tbh from what i know of the conflict i tend to see it all as wrong and immoral.

I cant support the invasion either in afghanistan or iraq. Pakistan was far more stable before this started it was said at the time that the operations in afghanistan would just push the taliban over the border. This was heded and has proved correct

I do think that is terrible that this men and women have died, it is horrid to see it on the news but i dont value their lives much more than the people who have been killed by our forces, the wedding parties bombed, the children shot

Hm...if they hadn't "invaded" apghanistan, I think we might have had many more terrorist attacks...is that what people want then? Because I certainly don't!

So, yes the troops are over there FOR us....not that difficult to understand, is it?

There were already Al Quada camps in Pakistan when NATO troops entered Afghanistan in 2001 littleducks - the difference was that the Pakistani government had done nothing about them. Since then it has attempted to tackle them (and the Taliban sypathisers within its own military and intellience services).

Arguably the troops moving into Afganistan speeded this process up, but the country would have eventually been destabilised due to the radicalisation going on within it anyway.

scaryteacher it is not good enough to say innocent people get killed. I understand the need for defence, and also for contributing towards global peace but we are not going to agree on some of the tactics we employ to do so. Cluster bombs are not deployed in my name and people should be able to criticise the armed forces without being condemned.

However, this is frequently not the responsibility of troops on the ground so I would not condemn them. But equally, I have yet to approve a visit from the armed forces to do recruitment activities and assemblies in my school.

The troops are not over there for me because I don't support the invasion and I certainly don't think "the war on terror" has made a terrorist attack on Britain less likely.

I think its a tragic waste of life and they will never "win" in Afghanistan. Noone ever does.

My guess is the majority of the young soldiers losing their lives so tragically are fighting in a country they could not even find on a map and don't really understand who or what they are fighting. Makes it even more tragic.

Are our soldiers that dumb FM?

Who says there is somethimg to win? It's muchmore about containment.

They do have a recruitment process FM, they don't just pluck people off the street.

When I did my Navy application/Interview I had to show a thorough understanding of current events and you get booted out if you fail map reading exams in basic training. Army might be different but I doubt it.

At this stage of the operation, I think its more containment than a win or loose war as MT said.

They are doing it 'for us' because they are our armed forces. We might not have asked them to do it personally but our elected government did.

The taliban are just terrible and terrifying. I don't like the idea of soldiers of any nationality dying but if they have to this seems a good reason to do so

What are they containing exactly monkeytrouser? And if there is nothing to "win" then how long do we go on for exactly?

I have not said that the soldiers are dumb, but I think its fairly well-known that at least the army are full of young working-class men who didn't have many other oppportunities open to them. These are not all people who wanted to go out and fight for an ideal or for you and me.

Also, if you join the British army, you should know that Britain fight wars in other country and you might get killed. I don't know why people get suprised and complain. Just don't the army.

who is complaining?

I don't understand your last point FM. I haven't seen anyone complaining, least of all any Soldiers?

AND it's not just the Army, the Navy/Marines and RAF are out there too!

It's a shame you don't approve of the Armed Forces coming to do an assembly Clemette, you might learn something by actually talking to them. They are people, who do a job well and to their best of their ability. If you bothered to engage with them, you'd learn that they don't like killing people; they consider war as the least favourable option for all concerned; but they will go where they are sent by their lords and masters as they are required to do. I assume that you don't live in an area with many HM Forces about. We had them in frequently at the school I taught at as we had service kids there; service wives like me on the staff, and we were near the largest Naval Base in Europe.

As to innocent civilians getting killed - what about those killed on 9/11 and 7/7 - don't they count, and aren't our troops out there to contain this and deal with those who masterminded it?

My problem is not with the soldiers scary, and as I went to school with lots of service kids I do "understand". But I will have nothing to do with recruitment. I don't need to "learn" something - here in Notts we have had our fair share of losses.

You don't seem to acknowledge that there are serious issues with some of the tactics, and some of the weapons used by the armed forces wherever they are deployed. It is too easy to blame the government - they don't make the decisions about where and how.

Supportive is good - blind admiration of the armed services does no-one any good.

I don't see any problems with the weapons used by the Armed Forces - and as for the tactics; they're soldiers/sailors/airmen - it's not Queensbury rules and a fair fight - it's war. Kill or be killed sometimes. If someone tries to kill my db when he deploys, I hope he gets them first.

I don't like the fact that the Taliban and Al Quaeda decapitate people and shoot women for wearing nail varnish; I don't like the fact that the Taliban use IEDs (we are not allowed to). If the Taliban ever get control here Clemette, you do realise what it would mean for you as a female? You wouldn't be allowed to teach, and indeed would be executed if caught doing so.

The government has decided where by deploying the troops to Afghanistan; they didn't just decide to go on their own. And as for how; yes, they decided that too when they took the decision to underfund the Armed Forces and not reinvest the peace dividend from the end of the Cold War into defence. They decided how by only having 3 working Chinooks in Afghanistan and making the troops go by road. They decided how when they under resource and under equip the troops; they decide how when they want to slash the defence budget even more and won't send more troops out to do the job on cost grounds and are proposing to cut the numbers of troops in Afghanistan so that those remaining will be stretched even further.

As for blind admiration of the Armed Services, I admire them, being the daughter, wife, daughter in law and sister of Naval Officers. It's not blind admiration - it's rage that a Government can cynically break the covenant it has with the Armed Forces and yet expect them to go and do the job without the back up and resources that the Forces have the right to expect and that their employer has a duty of care to provide. It is also shame that people can bleat 'not in my name'....they'll soon change their tune when terrorism and bombs come to a school/hospital/train station/bus near them. The Taliban need to be ground down so hard that they won't come back again, and I don't much care how it is done a slong as it is (and avoiding collatoral damage of course). We are not however going to achieve this by being nice.

"As for blind admiration of the Armed Services, I admire them, being the daughter, wife, daughter in law and sister of Naval Officers. It's not blind admiration - it's rage that a Government can cynically break the covenant it has with the Armed Forces and yet expect them to go and do the job without the back up and resources that the Forces have the right to expect and that their employer has a duty of care to provide."

Well said! As the wife of an Army officer from an Army family, whose husband is in Afghanistan right now, I agree with you.

I have little truck with people who like the security and freedoms that are protected by the Armed Forces on behalf of the government and the nation but bleat on about how the realities of that protection involve killing and other concepts that might be a little uncomfortable. Grow up, all of you - our comfortable life comes at a cost we ought to be prepared to pay.

jcscot - have you read the journal in the DT comments section by one of the young officers who was killed? It was sobering and shows just what this pernicious and dangerous government has done with the safety of the Armed Forces.

When people on here talk about the Armed Forces in the abstract it makes me so mad, as they are people fgs; they bleed, have families and children just like the rest of society; but that gets conveniently ignored.

I've read Lt Evison's journal and it just echoes everything we've been hearing from friends and colleagues for the past couple of years. Honestly, I don't know how the current crop of politicans sleep at night - they have no understanding of the military covenant and have boiled it down to a simple balancing act of what they're prepared to pay weighed heavily against what the military need. The fact that people like Mike Jackson and Richard Dannet have been effectively ignored speaks volumes.

My husband left me an "Oh Shit!" file - filled with all the info I'd need in the event he comes home in a coffin. One of stipulations was that no politician - local or otherwise - was to be allowed within twenty miles of his funeral on the grounds that "...none of the (insert sweary epithet of choice here) cared about me when I was alive, so they're not bloody well making any PR gains out of my death...". The other was that I had to return the condolence letter one receives from the PM with a snottogram attached. Most soldiers/sailors/airmen of our acqauintance have an awful lot of contempt for the Labour government and their attempt at defence.

I had one of those mentally each time dh went off in his black tube. I must remind db to sort one before he deploys in Nov.

Hopefully, they will listen to David Richards. Dh used to work for him at JFHQ and has a lot of respect for the guy.

Having an effective Sec of State would help. I don't like the labour lot as you may have gathered, but I think John Reid was OK; at least he seemed to fight their corner, although he was totally deluded over what Afghanistan would involve.

I hope that DC looks at this website at times. The politicos all seem to forget that servicemen and their families have votes too. I won't be voting for anyone who proposes not to ring fence defence.

I stand by what i said, and seriously do not believe that i am bleating with the 'not in my name' business, i marched against it, i wrote to my mp about it, i didnt ever vote labour, but i couldnt stop the 'war on terror' and i am just trying to express my sense of feeling about it

short of leaving the country-to go where? the propoganda has started about iran and pakistan now,the next stage is brewing i might end up being killed by a bomb dropped by US troops instead-there isnt much i can do

i will endevour to read the book you mentioned to see if i can get a better understanding from that (the author was on the big question show, is that the same book?)

"Having an effective Sec of State would help. I don't like the labour lot as you may have gathered, but I think John Reid was OK; at least he seemed to fight their corner, although he was totally deluded over what Afghanistan would involve. "

It used to be that the MoD, along with the Exchequer and the FO were the big cabinet portfolios. Now, the MoD seems to be somewhere they park middle-ranking MPs who're on their way up or down the greasy pole. George Robertson was the last true heavy-hitter, although I know that John Reid was at least respected (mind you, my husband knew his MA, who was less than enamoured of of JR). Hoon was a joke, as was Des Brown and Ainsworth is a complete non-entity.

I'm keen to see the Forces Manifest that DC promised way back when the housing scandal broke. Like you, I won't be voting for anyone who doesn't promise to support adequately the Services.