RAQ - THE BRITS ; RETREAT OR BETRAYAL Ed

IRAQ - Redeployment or betrayal

The recent withdrawal of troops from Basra can only be seen as a betrayal . Even the term is a typically British slight of hand . The real and only meaningful term was retreat . But this is considered repugnant to the British phlegm , and to accommodate their National vanity they insist on 'withdrawal'
The perfidity of carrying this out in the dark of night to avoid the media spotlight had of course nothing to do with military secrecy and everything to do with deflecting the ignominy of having a Vietnam vista after the fall of Saigon broadcast around the world .
This would not auger well for a new Prime-minister who is so desperately trying to divest himself of the clothes of Blair who chose to conduct his regimen on a presidential footing.
The most lucid reasoning for the necessity of departing Iraq now for a resurgence in Afghanistan was articulated by Col T. Collins Officer Commanding the Irish Rifles.Collins has been cautioning against the deluge of opiate traffic - cocaine , heroin flooding in to Europe and causing catastrophic societal rupture. This is manifest in the ghettos of Liverpool , Manchester and more recently on the streets on cities in the Irish Republic . This traffic he argues is funding the warlords in Afghanistan , and thus perpetuating the war effort .
The Brits also realise that their frugal budget there has had an incapacitation affect on the soldiers in Afghanistan .
Mr Bush's unexpected visit to Iraq may have been the stitch in time to salvage the slumping morale among the US troops . The fact that it was one of the shortest speeches he has made on Iraq contributed largely to its undoubted immediacy and the fondness of its effect.
General Petraeus is soon to report on the efficacy of the troop surge . Has Mr Bush used all the good news lines from this report or is there perchance some genuine positivity contained in this report . We will know as soon as the press decode the text and arrest the spin .
But the most disturbing aspect of the British withdrawal must be the contemptuous ease with with the PM can shift the remaining 5500 troops back to an airport , so that he can present to the upcoming Labour conference the new and defining direction of his Premiership ; Why leave these 500 troops within the gun-sights of the insurgents all this time , if the simple vagary of a political guru can so deftly and finally determine their fate .
We shall also see quite soon how meaningful is the deployment of the 5500 troops in an ambigously defined overseeing capacity .Or are they revving up the troop carriers on the runway.