Draft Dodger D-day tribute

Seventy-five years ago today, my father was flying along the Normandy coast taking photographs of what was happening on the beaches below, as the D-day landing forces struggled to get a foothold on the French mainland.

He was particularly impressed by the bombardment being thrown at the German defences by the big ships in the Channel. Even from several thousand feet up, the sight was chilling.

“All I could think,” he told us, “was how glad I wasn’t down there on the receiving end of that.”

The D-day beaches from the air

The war still had nearly a year to run in Europe, over a year to run in the Far East. But when those soldiers landed in France, a great turning point was at last reached. From then on, the road to Berlin and the final defeat of Nazism was open and, though it would prove bumpy with some nasty surprises along the way, ultimately the Allies would not be stopped travelling down it.

Today international leaders have met again on those beaches to honour the men who fought and in many cases were injured or died there.

We are now so far from that time that none of the leaders present are of an age to have served at that time. But one in particular could have served in another war. Here’s what he told the British journalist Piers Morgan about why he didn’t go to Vietnam:

Well I was never a fan of that war. I'll be honest with you. I thought it was a terrible war.

So far so good. I frankly couldn’t disagree with him. It was a senseless war, in which huge numbers died for absolutely no benefit to anyone, either American or Vietnamese. I wouldn’t have wanted to serve there either.

But Donald Trump – for, as you guessed, it was he – didn’t stop there. He went on:

Nobody ever – you're talking about Vietnam at that time and nobody ever heard of the country.

He’s citing ignorance as the basis for not joining his country’s war in Vietnam? He’s saying that he didn’t object in principle to a “terrible war”, he just had no idea what it was about. And, indeed, he took no stand on principle at all.

Now I wasn't out in the streets marching. I wasn't saying, you know, I'm going to move to Canada, which a lot of people did. But no, I was not a fan of that war.

Not a fan? But not enough of an opponent to do anything about it?

The Illinois Democrat, Senator Tammy Duckworth, replied succinctly:

I don't know anyone who has served in uniform, especially in combat, who would say they are a fan of war. In fact, I opposed the Iraq war, but volunteered to go when my unit was deployed.

What price did she pay? She lost both legs in a helicopter crash in Afghanistan. In uniform.

Trump, on the other hand, swung himself a medical discharge from Vietnam, something which far poorer people, many no doubt far less well than he, didn’t have the means to obtain for themselves. It seems he was unfit to serve because of bone spurs on both his feet.

Now he’d like some reflected glory so he has travelled to Normandy to the celebrations of the 75th anniversary of D-day. He probably sincerely believes that, despite his proclaimed ignorance and his real duplicity, his presence is honouring the men who fought and suffered for his freedom.

I bet some of them had bone spurs.

It’s a shame I can’t ask my father for his opinion of these curious events. Although I don’t have much trouble imagining what he might have said.

London Bridge and Borough Market: intelligence in the response to terrorism

There are two fine responses to terrorism, one military and one civilian, and two that are far less intelligent – though far from uncommon.

Shrine to the victims of terrorism on London Bridge

The unintelligent military response is to go to war. For years, we’ve had a “war against terrorism”. It’s a meaningless notion. War can be directed against a territory (which may be a nation) or against its armies: war against Nazi Germany, against the rebel American States, against the Vietcong army or North Vietnam – whatever you think of their justification, these are meaningful concepts one can comprehend.

But war against terrorism? Who or what’s the target? Where do you invade?

The answer to that last question has been Afghanistan and Iraq. Neither war has been won and both have led to a far greater threat of terrorism, indeed a far higher number of outrages. The military action was gesture politics: it showed governments doing something, with no concern as to whether it was the right thing.

The intelligent military approach requires – well, it requires intelligence. Excellent security work has foiled terrorist plot after plot in Britain. As a way to keep us safe, it has proved far more effective than, say, invading Iraq.

Even so, not all outrages can be stopped. Which takes us to the civilian response.

The less intelligent reaction is to start enacting new legislation. This is rather like invading Afghanistan. It shows governments to be doing something, but with no concern as to whether what it’s doing is useful. After all, little that a terrorist does is legal anyway – murder doesn’t need new legislation against it, and conspiracy to commit murder or complicity in murder are also crimes. Collecting the weaponry for a terrorist attack is illegal too, as is incitement to commit a crime, or perversion of the course of justice to cover it up afterwards.

Most legislation proposed in the wake of an attack is concerned with limiting thought, not action. I don’t like the idea of a worldwide caliphate being established and would do everything legal within my power to prevent it. But how can ban people from believing it’s a good thing? Why, there are people who think Trump is a good thing. How can we make it a crim to try to persuade others of their point of view? It’s the very attempt to regiment thought that excites my dislike of the notion of a caliphate.

Let me be clear: trying to persuade people that a Caliphate is desirable should not be a crime; trying to persuade people to take up arms to make it happen is a crime, as it should be.

The biggest problem with attempts to limit thought by legislation is where do you stop? In Russia, for instance, it’s becoming increasingly difficult to speak out in favour of rights for homosexuals. That’s because many – possibly a majority – in the population and certainly in power see homosexuality as an abomination. But then banning belief in a Caliphate would be based on a sense that it too is an abomination.

Limiting freedom of belief opens the door to regressive, and repressive, behaviour which is likely to have far more damaging consequences than its backers imagine. Ill though-out, unintelligent reaction is unlikely to be effective against terrorism, but is highly likely to inflict wounds on ourselves. Let’s not forget that Maggie Thatcher, in my view not maligned anything like enough, made the attempt to ban teaching in schools if it was deemed to “promote” homosexuality. Putin would have been proud.

It’s a slippery slope and it goes a long way downhill.

So how about the intelligent civilian response to terrorism? It’s the reaction that says, “it’s not going to stop me living the life I choose to live”. Fortunately, it’s a widespread attitude and one that reveals an inherent strength in our populations. That makes it probably the best guarantee of our long-term success against the attempts to undermine us by terrorist means.

I was struck forcibly by that truth when I recently wandered through Borough Market, near London Bridge. Not a month ago it was the scene of a vicious and brutal terrorist attack: three men drove a van into a crowd on London Bridge, and then chased victims enjoying the evening in the pubs and restaurants, or just the streets, around the market. They killed eight and injured 48 before being gunned down themselves by police.

There’s still a shrine to the memory of the victims on the bridge. But I was inspired by the activity in Borough Market as I walked through at 8:00 in the morning. Things were only just getting going, with stall holders beginning to open their stands, food beginning to cook, and a few passers-by beginning to appear, to stop and look and occasionally to buy (breakfast, in my case).

Normality reasserted: Borough Market reopening for business as usual

Life was already back to normal. No one had forgotten the attack. But the rights of the living had been reasserted. So the terrorists had failed..

For that I’m profoundly grateful. And hopeful.

Despite the lack of intelligence of so much else of what we do.

Be careful what you wish for...

Do you remember FBI Director James Comey announcing, just eleven days before the US presidential election, that he was once more investigating Hillary Ciinton over allegations about her time as Secretary of State? Only once the damage was done did he let it be known that no charges were going to be brought. Many believe his intervention may have cost her the election.

It’s particularly galling that it has now come out that Comey was investigating Trump at the same time, for the contacts between his team and known or suspected Russian agents. Comey said nothing about that. Imagine the impact on Trump’s campaign if it had come out before the election that his campaign had clandestine contact with a foreign, and not particularly friendly, intelligence service.

Comey may have been instrumental in putting Trump into the White House, but that hasn’t stopped the President he helped create rounding on him. Trump now claims that Comey “saved Hillary Clinton's life” by not recommending charges against her. Comey may have given Trump the shove he needed to get in, but he has no control over him now.

James Comey: is Trump biting a hand that once fed him?

And what about Comey’s other investigation? Whether or not it ultimately discovers any wrongdoing by the Trump people, it’s fairly clear Putin was keen on a Trump victory and prepared to do what he could to facilitate one. Like Comey, he may be wondering now how wise that attitude was. Though candidate Trump was more than complimentary about Russia and Putin, during his visit to Moscow on 12 April, Secreatry of State Rex Tillerson described US-Russian relations being “at a low point”. In that, he was echoing Trump’s own views.

Meanwhile, Trump is finding it hard to deliver on his domestic pledges. Like so many other inept and authoritarian leaders, he’s resorted instead to military action. It’s so much easier to fire missiles at Syria or drop a massive bomb on Afghanistan, than to make deals with Congress (the “great deal-maker” Trump is proving he doesn’t deserve even that title), far less to improve incomes or extend employment opportunities at home.

Like Comey and Putin, many of those who believed Trump’s pledges to help them out of their difficulties, may soon be wondering whether they were as smart as they might have been in backing an amateur’s bid for the White House.

Meanwhile, back in Britain, it’s becoming increasingly clear that leaving the EU won’t increase opportunities or improve trade. On the contrary, the country is likely to find it hard to sign trade deals that would be as beneficial as the arrangements it currently enjoys with its European partners. Nor does it seem that Brexit will even lead to any decrease in immigration – Britain needs the foreign manpower – even though that was the principal aim of many Brexit supporters.

Comey and Putin may just be the tip of the great wave of disappointment likely to sweep the US and UK in the coming years. It would be gratifying if that disappointment would drive people back towards more sensible positions than backing Trump or Brexit. Sadly, disappointed people aren’t always the most rational. The reaction may be a switch to even more extreme positions.

We’re going through difficult times. They may become a great deal more difficult still. But we need to get through them if there’s to be any hope of resuming progress once this retroactive period is over.

In the meantime, it’ll do none of us any harm to be a little more careful what we wish for.

A Christmas message to a "Christian" Britain. Seriously, Cameron?

David Cameron has shared his wisdom with us in his Christmas message to the UK. It seems that, here in Britain, we’re about to “celebrate the birth of God’s only son, Jesus Christ – the Prince of Peace. As a Christian country, we must remember what his birth represents: peace, mercy, goodwill and, above all, hope.”

Aaah. It’s touching isn’t it?

According to children’s charity Barnardo’s, 3.7 million British children now live in poverty. Infant mortality is 10% higher in poor families than among the rest of the population, and children under three in those families are two and a half times as likely to have a chronic disease. These children also tend to underperform at school, so the chances are that their children too will be brought up in poverty.

Not a lot of hope there. Not much goodwill towards them, either. And, with growth forecasts for the UK revised downwards, hope is shrinking fast too.

The spirit of Christmas Present.
As long as you don't actually need a present.

Just a month before Christmas, Cameron appeared in the House of Commons pleading for authority to take military action against the ISIS death cult in Syria. Meanwhile, in Afghanistan, where NATO is trying to withdraw to leave Afghans running their own affairs, six US soldiers died recently in an insurgent bombing, while British forces are being sent back into action in Helmand Province. They will be helping an apparently desperate struggle to save Sangin city, with no guarantee of a successful outcome.

So not much peace or mercy there. In fact, I’d rather hoped at the end of 2014, that this year might be Britain’s first without war since 1914; well, that didn’t happen. So this “peaceful” country has racked up something of a record: not a single year’s peace in 102.

Cameron has no difficulty mouthing sentimental platitudes about the country he leads, though they have nothing to do with the reality of the nation on his watch.

But then that’s obvious from his other words. He’s once again described Britain as a Christian nation. Clearly, this supposed Christianity has nothing to do with Christian values – as we’ve seen, there’s not much compassion for the poor, nor much desire for peace. But then there isn’t much evidence of Christianity in religious practice either: we heard only days ago that Anglicans are planning to close down certain churches since congregations have fallen to single figures in many cases. Overall, it seems that only about one in ten of the population attends a Christian church service on a regular basis.

That doesn’t stop many Brits describing themselves as Christian. In the latest census, 59% of people in Britain and Wales described themselves as Christian, and 54% in Scotland. The British Social Attitudes survey came up with a lower, and probably more reliable figure, of 46% Christians, against 48% describing themselves as irreligious.

Still, even that figure seems to overstate significantly the level of Christian commitment, compared to actual religious practice. Which maybe explains Cameron’s message: he joins the tradition of many of his compatriots, to be long on words and short on practice.

Cameron’s talk of peace, mercy, goodwill and hope is welcome. But given what he’s actually doing, it strikes me that getting much of any of them has to start with getting rid of him.

Now, that would be real note of hope to celebrate in this holiday season.

Thirteen years to start to measure the impact of 9/11

So it’s the 11th of September again.

It was a shocking day back in 2001. But 13 years on it’s clear we haven’t finished measuring the damage it did.

As the Twin Towers fell on 9/11, it was clear the West had to do something. Sadly, in many circles, and above all in government circles, that view became translated into a sense that the West could legitimately do any old thing.

What we did first was invade Afghanistan. Now Britain fought two Afghan wars in the nineteenth century, and even a small postscript Third Anglo-Afghan war in the twentieth. Afghanistan never fell to Britain.

Brilliant success in the First Afghan War
The last British survivor gets back to base

In 1979, the Soviet Union invaded Afghanistan. Just over nine years later, in 1989, it was forced back out. The opposition it couldn’t crush was spearheaded by Muslim jihadists which the United States armed and financed. The government put in office by the Soviets struggled on for another three years and then fell to the US-backed insurgents, and the fallen President was eventually brutally assassinated.

But just because Britain and Russia failed, that wasn’t going to stop the US leading a coalition into the country to show the Afghans who was boss. And they’ve succeeded. A decade later, the last forces are poised to leave and the Taliban, now the enemy of the US, is poised to move right back in.

Just like after the Russians left.

The second thing the West did was to invade Iraq. There was some rationale behind the Afghan adventure, since the government there backed Al Qaida and offered refuge to its leader, Osama Bin Laden, who organised the 9/11 attack. But Iraq? It had nothing to do with it. One could have understood an invasion of Saudi Arabia, Bin Laden’s home nation and the source of much of his financial support, but Saudi has lots of oil, so it’s an ally. A rich ally.

The justification for Iraq was weapons of mass destruction. They hadn’t been used on 9/11 (the idea that aircraft, which were used, are weapons of mass destruction has some merit, but tends to be held only in more fundamentalist ecologist circles). People who really ought to know, like Hans Blix, then in Iraq as a weapons inspector, reckoned it was unlikely Iraq had such weapons. But we went in anyway.

A decade later, the situation there is if anything worse than in Afghanistan. Iraq is riven by violent sectarian conflict. It is impotent and heavily influenced by the West's great enemy in the region, Iran. Worse still, the fighting has given impetus to the emergence as a major force of the fundamentalist movement Islamic State, which makes the Taliban look almost civilised.

Ah, yes. 9/11 was a disaster. Firstly for the brutality, cynicism and ruthlessness of the perpetrators of the attack. But secondly for the myopia that caused the West to walk straight into the trap before it, eyes wide shut.

The anniversary is a good time to remember the victims. The horror such violent bigotry can cause. But also to bring back to mind just what disasters human folly can lead us to, when we allow it to lead us in our response to terrible events.

Brilliant success in Iraq
The West bringing peace and democracy to the Middle East

18 June: a day to remember, but perhaps not to celebrate

Before 1973, the United States had never lost a war. Why, back in the eighteenth century, they beat Britain, the foremost naval force on Earth at the time and also one of its greatest military powers. They repeated the trick thirty years later, in the War of 1812.

Thereafter, they won war after war, not always to the greatest glory of the nation: defeats of native Americans were impressive and comprehensive though perhaps hardly the stuff of which proud legend is born. They also kicked the stuffing out of Mexicans (repeatedly, including multiple invasions in the twentieth century), the Spanish and pretty well anyone else who tangled with them.

Why, in 1865 they even scored a notable triumph against themselves and conquering oneself has to be the great test of will, hasn't it? At any rate, it was a victory over the most militaristic section of the country, the Southern States who seceded from the Union and precipitated a Civil War that was catastrophic first and foremost for themselves.

And of course, in the bitterest conflicts they faced abroad, they tipped the balance in the First World War and won the Second, with massive help from the Soviet Union in Europe, to all intents and purposes alone in the Pacific.

Then came January 1973 and the Paris Peace Accords between North Vietnam, South Vietnam and the United States. Those agreements provided a fig leaf to cover US withdrawal in Vietnam, and withdraw they did. Two years later, the North Vietnamese completed their victory over the South, confirming that what had happened in 1973 was the utter defeat of the US-backed side in the conflict, and very far from the ‘peace with honour’ that had been claimed.

For the first time in its history, the US had lost a war.

As so often happens, the first occurrence of an event was quickly followed by others.

Some have been minor. Following a terrorist attack on a marine barracks that left 300 dead, the US was forced out of Lebanon in 1983 having achieved none of its goals; ten years later, US troops were killed in Somalia and their bodies dragged through the streets, leading to another humiliating withdrawal.

Far more serious are two new conflicts which the West is still trying to pass off as victories. In Iraq the fact that Saddam Hussein has been overthrown is presented as some kind of victory; the huge loss of life among the civilian population as well as among Western soldiers is talked down, as is the fact that the regime is increasingly a puppet of Iran. The latest disaster is in Afghanistan, where the Taliban grows in power and strength every day, while the government NATO put in power is mired in corruption and disarray.

Afghanistan.
Well, that went so well, let's try our luck again somewhere else

Today, 18 June, NATO handed over responsibility for military operations in that country to the Afghan military. It did so despite knowing that the Afghan army has been infiltrated by Taliban agents, many of whom have turned their guns on NATO troops; it knows too that the same army has established a mode of operation in which it pulls out of areas where the Taliban wishes to carry out a mission, and only moves back once that mission is complete.

In other words, handing over to the Afghan army is tantamount to admitting yet another defeat and preparing the ground for a return to Taliban rule.

The series of failures of American, or American-led, armed interventions that started with 1973 therefore continues its disastrous course.

It’s far from clear to me that this series of defeats does anything to further the cause of democracy or human rights, or even simply the interests of the West. The countries invaded suffer enormously. The cost to our nations is far from negligible either. Might it not be a good idea to cut our losses?

But far from our nations drawing any wisdom from this experience, West is now considering taking a more active role in the Syrian conflict. Initially that would mean arming the rebels, even though the main rebel units – which would undoubtedly get their hands on any weapons sent out there – are controlled by Al Qaida, and it was to root out Al Qaida that we first went into Afghanistan. There is also talk of a more active intervention, imposing a no-fly zone, which would mean committing NATO forces once more, if only in the air.

Ah, well. Here we go again. Proving, as if proof were needed, that if you don’t learn from your mistakes, you condemn yourself to making them again and again.

Soldiers to secure peace? Time to learn a lesson

‘From the nature of things, soldiers quartered in a populous town, will always occasion two mobs, where they prevent one. They are wretched conservators of the peace.’

Interesting observation. Soldiers may not be the best people to help make or keep the peace. Curious, actually, that we even need to be told that: after all, we train our soldiers to be as good as we can get them at waging war. So why should they be all that good at quelling disturbances? Their specialty is creating the biggest disturbances of all.

It’s not just mobs, of course, but the equation applies in other areas. Take ‘Improvised Explosive Devices’ (don’t they sound much less unpleasant than roadside bombs?): for every one an occupying army defuses, it usually provokes the planting of two more.

The Western Nations bringing peace to trouble communities

That would be a lesson we could do with learning, as we blunder around Iraq or Afghanistan or, who knows, perhaps Syria next. Britain and America, in particular, would do well to take heed, since they seem among the most inclined to wander in first and worry about how their military will be received afterwards.

To keep the lid on civilian trouble you need the police (and to be honest they’re not always as good at it as we might like), not the army.

It may amuse you to know that the words I quoted were spoken by a lawyer who was defending a group of soldiers who had fired into a disorderly crowd – in his terms, a mob – and killed five of them. The victims were the lawyer’s countrymen; the soldiers were part of a foreign occupying force.

You’ve got to admit it was a brief that took courage to accept.

And to general amazement, in front of a jury also made up of his countrymen, he got all the soldiers cleared of murder (two were found guilty of manslaughter and received relatively minor sentences). Lawyer and jury showed a commendable, not to say exceptional, preference for the rule of law and natural justice over their political inclinations.

A great story though, sadly, not a very recent one. The civilian deaths occurred in 1770, in what came to be known as the Boston Massacre. The soldiers were British. The lawyer for the defence was John Adams, later second president of the (independent) United States.

The British and the Americans. Them again. Sad, isn’t it? The British clearly never learned the lesson Adams tried to teach them. And though he had obviously got his mind around the idea, Adams’ countrymen seem to have forgotten it.

The consequences are tragic for the servicemen and women we send out to wage our wars. They’re even more tragic for the civilian populations on which we descend.

And yet we were warned nearly two and a half centuries ago...

The young John Adams. He knew a thing or two...

They died – for what?

Today’s ‘From Our Own Correspondent’ programme on the BBC quoted a British General in Afghanistan saying ‘don’t ask me if it was worth it. It wasn’t worth it.’

There seems to be a general conspiracy never to admit that we’ve sent young men and women to their deaths without purpose. The press is quick to accuse anyone who dares voice a doubt of undermining the forces themselves and denying consolation to their bereaved relatives – as though anything could be worse than the bereavement itself.

A few days ago I visited a church in Saverne, in Northern Alsace, and came across a plaque:

Age shall not wither them. But if only it had been allowed to...

Some eighty men from a single battalion died over eight years of what can hardly be dignified by the word war: it was a last ditch attempt by the French government to hang on to its colony in Algeria. The full story of the war crimes committed during that time has yet to be told. In any case the effort failed: France withdrew from Algeria, and all the atrocities were for nothing.

Fifty years on, a church celebrates their deaths ‘for France’. And yet it’s hard to see in what sense their deaths served their country. If anything, Algerian independence has done far less for Algeria – a string of authoritarian governments, a long and vicious civil war – while it helped free France from imperial illusions, allowing it to carve a new role for itself as a European nation.

Something Britain has still to learn to do.

As for the French people, they’re not sending young people out there to be maimed or killed. It was ending the war that served them, not prosecuting it.

When my wife, Danielle, was growing up at the other end of Alsace, she was close to her cousin, something of an elder brother to her. It was a blow when he was called up for military service, and a far greater one when he was sent to Algeria and she lost contact with him for the best part of two years.

But no blow was worse than when he returned, unrecognisably transformed. Introverted, bitter, quick to anger. Over the next two decades he sank deeper into alcoholism and watched his life fall apart: he became a chronic invalid; he was fired from his job, which took some doing since he was employed by his father; while his family stayed together, home life became increasingly fraught.

Finally, his frame could take it no more and his difficult life came to an end in his forties.

His name won’t appear on a plaque anywhere. These memorials are always big on the fallen, but they say far less about the ones who came back alive. Some of them are horribly maimed and needing lifetime care which they don’t all receive. Others are much less visibly injured and fall through the net of the care system. And some like Danielle’s cousin have wounds so deep inside them that they are often not even recognised.

He took his injury serving in a war which gained France nothing. Now we’re beginning to hear the people who know best say that the Afghan conflict will have proved as futile.

But men and women are coming back from it as damaged as Freddy was. The United States and Britain have a major problem of injured veterans unable to find the treatment they need or even regular employment.

It’s time to admit the truth about them. We sent them out there. It was a pointless exercise. The least we can do is look after them.

And become a lot less casual about doing it all again somewhere else.

Syria: when the West sits on its hands

It’s harrowing to watch the news footage from Syria. A warplane turns gracefully in the sky, taking its time to choose a target before it glides in and bombs another house, killing some more children, a family, some old people, occasionally a rebel or two. On the ground men and women scream and cry and plead for help from the West. 

Syrian warplane gracefully killing women and children in Aleppo

Of course they call on us: in their position my anger at the wealthy and powerful nations who are sitting on their hands would be exactly the same.

‘Why don’t you intervene?’ I would scream, ‘Why don’t you help? Is it because we don’t have oil? After all what’s happening here is just what you set out to prevent in Libya.’

But that’s just the point at which natural sympathy for a people being massacred by a vile government has to pause a moment and take stock.

Because how well did that go in Libya? Did our military intervention there usher in a new era of peace and democracy? With the US Ambassador, Chris Stevens, killed there a week ago, is that even a question worth asking?

There are no doubt people in Libya keen to build a new nation conceived in liberty. But there seem to be many looking for something quite different. Perhaps a theocratic autocracy. Perhaps an opportunity to settle scores with another tribe. Perhaps just the perpetuation of a low-intensity conflict which serves them well.

The idea of perpetual conflict is hardly unrealistic. The fighting shows no sign of ending in Afghanistan. Today we learned that NATO has decided to suspend joint patrolling with Afghan forces in small units, since there have been so many occasions when Afghan soldiers have rounded on their supposed colleagues in NATO and killed them: 36 attacks this year costing 51 lives.

And what about the longest-standing of the Western attempts to force enlightenment on the Arab-speaking world? In a burst of optimism, Iraq brought in a power-sharing regime in 2005. Tareq al-Hashemi served as Vice President under a Shia President. Last December he fled for his life, a decision he presumably regards as one of his more judicious, since last week he was sentenced to death in his absence. Only on Monday, he accused his former colleagues in government of helping Iran pass weapons through to the Syrian government, rather confirming the widespread view that if there was a victor in the Iraq War, it was the Tehran regime which hugely extended its influence in the country.

Coincidentally, Monday was also the occasion of the latest in the unbroken series of bombings that have rocked Iraq ever since Dubya Bush declared his ‘mission accomplished’. The latest left at least seven dead in Baghdad and 24 injured.

The West has proved itself good at taking military action but lamentable at building a legacy behind it. At least, not the kind of legacy anybody would honour.

Meanwhile, back in Syria itself, a report issued on Monday by Human Rights Watch suggests that there are elements of the rebel army whose behaviour is no more commendable than the government’s: they have been torturing and killing their opponents just as the regime tortures and kills its own. Perhaps we are beginning to discover, in time on this occasion, what we discovered far too late in Libya: just opposing Basher al-Assad or Muammar Gaddafi doesn’t necessarily make you a nice guy.

Supporting disreputable characters wouldn’t be new in the history of Western intervention in the region. Let’s not forget that the West spent a long time supporting and arming the Taliban against the Soviets in Afghanistan before we decided these erstwhile friends were a pretty nasty bunch too. If you haven’t seen Charlie Wilson’s War make a point of watching it now (and not just for the lesson: the script’s by Aaron Sorkin, of West Wing fame).

That news footage from Syria is as harrowing as ever. But, though my heart goes out to them, when I hear the persecuted civilians on the ground calling out for Western help, my inclination now is to say ‘be careful what you wish for.’ We’re good at delivering poisoned chalices but they’re not good presents.

It sounds heartless to say it, but bad though things are, I firmly believe that the West should hold to its present attitude and stay sitting on its hands. The alternative could be a lot worse. And last a lot longer.

Foresight saga

The Scots have a great saying, ‘the best-laid schemes o' mice an' men gang aft agley’. It's a quotation from Robert Burns. The last three words are completely incomprehensible and yet the overall meaning is obvious. I’ve often laid meticulously crafted plans that have gone agley (or should that be gong agley?)

A great example of the problem is provided by Philip II of Spain. He married devoutly Catholic Mary I of England and wasn’t a man to take his kingly duties lightly. During his time in England, he worked conscientiously on a number of projects to improve the state of the nation, in particular putting the navy on a new footing. Small but effective in the time of Henry VIII, it had declined worryingly since his death. Philip II reorganised it to make it a redoubtable weapon for the defence of the realm.

But then things went agley. Or perhaps I mean ugly. Or both.

Because in 1588, with Mary dead and England under the rule of her Protestant sister Elizabeth, Philip decided to invade the country and sent a fleet to carry the troops across the Channel. The Armada was catastrophically defeated and though the debacle owed a great deal to the weather – winds blowing the wrong way, that sort of thing – what made the conditions particularly difficult to contend with was persistent harassment by the more powerfully armed English warships. In other words, the Spanish took a battering from the very navy Philip had done so much to overhaul.

The Armada in trouble at the hands of the fleet that Philip built

Shame that Philip didn't enjoy better foresight, in 1554 when he’d been King of England.

Fortunately for his memory, he’s far from alone in having courted disaster in this way. Back in the fifties of the last century, bright minds in London and Washington, acting in the interests of oil companies (and isn’t that a refrain with a great tradition behind it?) decided to do away with the reforming Prime Minister of Iran, Mohammad Mossadegh. Enjoying the fruitful support of the Shah for the next 25 years, how could they guess that the reaction would lead to relations that have fallen a little short in the loyal cordiality department?

And again, it seemed a great idea to arm the Afghan Taliban when they were fighting the Soviet army in 1980s. Who could have foreseen that they might turn their guns against us later?

Oh, well. These things happen.

Why, they even happen to mice. According to the Scots.