Wednesday, February 07, 2007

The use of ground attack aircraft in guerilla warfare is wildly counterproductive

.
I was reading this article on CiF and recalling reading my father's memoirs about his experiences flying Harrier GR1s in the Falklands War. In particular I was considering the enormous gap in civilisation between deploying such multi-million killing pound technology against a well armed, trained and equipped foe such as the Argentinian junta and deploying such technology against guerilla fighters such as the majority of those targetted in Iraq. Although I cannot deny that there do exist well trained and equipped fighters in that country they are the minute minority and the overwhelming majority of targets are young men with little or no tactical warfare training, armed with small arms and nothing more. The deployment of the most advanced ground attack aircraft on the planet against such targets is using a sledgehammer to crack a nut and, as the article describes, grossly counterproductive to the intended achievement of a peaceful solution to the conflict.

The most disturbing aspect of this article is the fact that the British forces in Afghanistan appear to have adopted similar tactics in their fight against the Pashtun-Taliban militias. Although I find it distressing to hear reports of American forces deploying military force to gross excesses, the reports of the RAF following suit is, frankly, shocking. I appear to have been labouring under the misapprehension that our forces were trained to fight with honour. Aparrently I have been mislead. When such regressive tactics are deployed it is little wonder that the resistance simply strengthen their resolve to continue the fight against these imperialist invaders with the super-advanced technology and their well equipped soldiers.

It can only be concluded that the people ordering the use of such tactics do not want to end the conflict, but are in fact bent upon aggravating and prolonging it.

No comments:

Post a Comment

Feel free to share your opinions of my opinions. Oh- and cocking fuckmouse.