Kit isn’t our biggest problem in Afghanistan

[FarCenter]

We are now too wise to buy into propaganda. That’s why it’s harder for our soldiers to fight

It’s not just about helicopters and the right kind of armoured car, is it? The problem is that we, as a nation, can’t really do war any more.

Our view of it has become too nuanced and complicated. The reasons for war always required a good edit to be persuasive — the dark motivations snipped out to give the public a focused image of a just and winnable conflict. A war relies on a certain naivety back home to be acceptable. I hate to say it, but nowadays we know too much. The golden wall behind which the powerful have always hidden their little secrets — their MPs’ expenses, their celebrity phone taps and their waterboarding — has been breached so often of late it’s beyond repair.

I watched this week that video of Iraqi prisoners, hooded and forced to squat in the agonising “stress position”, a British soldier screaming at them and calling them apes. I’m glad I saw it and I wished I hadn’t. It wasn’t the image of war I grew up with. It wasn’t fearless Tommy Atkins battling the evil Hun with a wink, a whistle and a self-rolled cigarette. It was more like one of those sickening slices of city centre violence when testosterone’s heavy in the air and you just look straight ahead and keep walking. It seemed like yob culture had been institutionalised and put to practical use.

<SNIP> http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/comment/columnists/frank_skinner/article6717113.ece