Eureferendum is an important website for vigorous critics of the poor equipment the British armed forces have been given in Iraq and Afghanistan. They make a good case that the mission there is being undermined, either by incompetence or on purpose.

Two examples: The British of all Western armies are not equipped with bomb—protected vehicles, even though IEDs and car bombs are the most predictable danger for the future.  Headlines recently blared that British Marines were confined to their bases in Basra for lack of equipment for dealing with suicide bombers.

A second example: British troops in Basra, who now sound pessimistic about victory, have only four helicopters to cover the entire of province. As Eureferendum puts it:

In effect, the Army is being asked to do a job with less equivalent resource than the chief constable of Surrey.

But Surrey is one of the most peaceful places in the world, while Basra is one of the most violent. Even a Catholic Bishop has entered the news by insisting that it is "morally reprehensible" to fail to equip British troops properly in Iraq and Afghanistan.

As in America, it is the British elites that are undermining the troops. Normal people are much more supportive, but they have been shut out of power more and more, as the European Union takes over British sovereignty.

One can argue forever whether the sabotage of the British military is "a cock—up or a conspiracy."  It is a cultural conspiracy in the sense that the Left has controlled the British media, educational system and much of its politics for almost a century. The British Left isn't nationalist, but internationalist. Undermining the armed forces by propaganda and funding cuts is a basic part of the socialist faith: "no troops, no war" is the reasoning, if one can call it that. You don't need conspirators when it is done every day by the BBC,  the Guardian, and much of the Labour and Liberal Democrat Parties.

But there is a more specific reason why the Left is undercutting the British armed forces: that is to destroy resistance to the newest harebrained internationalist fantasy, the European Union. Brussels is the new idealized Moscow. The Left now pins its hopes on the EU as the forerunner of a socialist world government. True, things didn't work out well with the Soviet Empire, but hope springs eternal. It therefore becomes incumbent on all high—minded idealists to cut off support for Britain's own armed forces, with the hope that British impotence will inevitably force the creation of an effective (but peaceful) EU army.

So there is a kind of conspiracy against Britain, just as is there a kind of conspiracy against America. The conspirators don't plot in corners, but proclaim their goals out loud; it is they who are the compassionate, the good, the noble, the peaceful. Leftists hoot down anybody who dares points out that our lives still depend on the tiny lifeboat of the nation—state ——— in which we all bob around in turbulent wates. Drilling holes in the bottom of our boat really not a good idea. How dare  you say that?

In Britain the breakdown of confidence in the country has gone farther than here, but the basic leftwing goal of killing the nation—state is exactly the same.  The Left is gambling that national suicide will lead to international peace and love. It is the only hope they can imagine. Their intellectual narrowness is sad, but they cannot be allowed to drag the rest of civilization with them.

James Lewis   11 4 06