November 12, 2001

Blair: Just Get Out of Uncle Sam's Way
Go Home

JUST WHAT ARE WE DOING?

"Operation Veritas" is the British commitment to the American "Operation Enduring Freedom." Nevertheless, when one looks at the actual commitment it is actually rather puny:

• Three Fleet Submarines firing two Tomahawk missiles (so far)
• Part of a commando unit
• An Aircraft Carrier
• Air-to-air refuelingtankers
• Reconnaissance Aircraft
• Seventy Military officers assigned in Florida

However, we can not forget our purely naval contribution to this war for a landlocked country:

• An Assault Ship
• A Frigate
• A destroyer
• Seven Auxiliary ships

Of course, there will be troops along in due course, although the proportion will probably be insignificant. For example in the Kosovo adventure British aircraft flew in 4% of sorties (yes, you read it right).

INTANGIBLE BENEFITS

Therefore, if we are of so little value militarily, at least in the present form, what value do we give to America? Firstly, we encourage others to join. That's right, the polyglot armies of Western Europe can also send their symbolic detachments. At least the English grunts speak the same language as the Americans. Now the Americans can also worry about communicating with Flemish or Sicilian privates there to prove the virility of their Prime Ministers. So there's no chance of communications problems. So what else does British participation do? Well, it makes the war look "international", as if the rest of the world really thought that Britain has its own independent foreign policy. The argument could be made that there was no reason for America to seek the support of the rest of the world; al Qaeda was a threat, end of story. Only the most demented pacifists would think that America was not in her rights to remove a threat (the morality of bombing civilians aside).

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Emmanuel Goldstein is the pseudonym of a political drifter on the fringes of English classical liberal and Euro-sceptic activity. He is a former member of the Labour Party, who knows Blair and some of his closest buddies better than they realise, yet. He has a challenging job in the real world, working for a profit-making private company and not sponging off the taxpayer in politics, journalism or the civil service. "Airstrip One," appears Mondays at Antiwar.com.