In Afghanistan, We Are Only American Tools

So unfortunate is the fate of the British soldier, Lance Corp. Joe Glenton, 27, who is facing court-martial because of his refusal to be redeployed to Afghanistan and demanding the PM Gordon Brown to withdraw the British forces from there.

What actually drove him to be brought to court was not only because of the accusation charged on him but because he wrote a letter that he personally delivered to the office of Gordon Brown at Downing Street. “We are only tools of American foreign policy,” he said. Glenton also said that NATO’s mission in Afghanistan would fail and it would only bring “death and devastation”. “I believe this unethical short-changing of such proud men and women has caused immeasurable suffering not only to families of British service personnel who have been killed and injured, but also to the noble people of Afghanistan,” he wrote.

Glenton added that Afghans showed many of the same characteristics as British soldiers, such as “robustness, humour, utter determination and unwillingness to take a step backwards”. He added: “However it is these qualities, on both sides, which I fear will continue to cause a state of attrition. These will only lead to more heartbreak within both our societies.” This year, the British defense ministry informed that the number of British soldiers killed are much more than the previous years since the invasion started in 2001. “Far from improving Afghan lives it is bringing death and devastation to their country. Britain has no business there. I do not believe that our cause in Afghanistan is just or right. I implore you, sir, to bring our soldiers home,” Glenton added. Glenton would most probably be sentenced to two years in jail. However, he asserted that he would never ever return to Afghanistan. LC Glenton is clearly a young man of conscience. Unlike Gordon Brown who stands to be paid off in cash by the Americans and Israelis like his friend Anthony Blair, LC Glenton has earned the right to form, hold and express his views on this war. And to act on them. He is not willing to fight a war that he has seen with his own eyes and judged from his own knowledge to be unjust.

According to a recent poll conducted in Britain, more than half the population of Britain believed that the British military would never win the war in Afghanistan and they must withdraw from there immediately. 58% saw the attack on the Taliban as something that could never be won and 52% stated that the British forces must return home immediately. The poll was conducted by COmRes and published in the Independent daily. The British politicians are write-offs. They have lost all credibility due to their lies, cover-ups, their casual despatch of soldiers to their deaths in wars of aggression, collusion with America in kidnapping or “extraordinary rendition” and now we are learning, collusion with America in torture. Nor should we forget the enormous number of deaths, refugees and incredible destruction in Iraq and Afghanistan for which they are responsible. Without Anthony Blair’s and Gordon Brown’s promotion of these wars with the collusion of most of UK’s political class, they would not have happened in their present form and might not have been possible at all.

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on Nov 3 2009. Filed under World. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0. You can leave a response or trackback to this entry