Interesting article from the Sunday Times

We have not reached the limit of our military commitments. Four weeks ago the staff in Mesopotamia drew up a memorandum asking for four more divisions. I believe it was forwarded to the War Office, which has now sent three brigades from India. If the North-West Frontier cannot be further denuded, where is the balance to come from? Meanwhile, our unfortunate troops, Indian and British, under hard conditions of climate and supply, are policing an immense area, paying dearly every day in lives for the wilfully wrong policy of the civil administration in Baghdad.

We say we are in Mesopotamia to develop it for the benefit of the world. all experts say that the labour supply is the ruling factor in its development. How far will the killing of ten thousand villagers and townspeople this summer hinder the production of wheat, cotton, and oil? How long will we permit millions of pounds, thousands of Imperial troops, and tens of thousands of Arabs to be sacrificed on behalf of colonial administration which can benefit nobody but its administrators?

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Now if France and Britain had listened to the author the Middle East would be a very differnt place today tribal rather then political boundaries would have been drawn up had T.E. Lawrence map of the Middle East been taken on board.
Note what Lawrence says about troops suffering due to bad policy I guess nothing has changed over the course of time expect for where the troops come from and the part of the region they are serving in.



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[edit on 22-5-2007 by xpert11]