British Expatriate Network

"Three Black Watch troops are killed and eight others injured in a suicide attack on a checkpoint in Iraq." BBC.

Fuucking American war. evil evil evil

( As a soldier thats what you sign up for. Your personal thoughts do not enter it. You are told to go, you go.

Truth be told, most of them live to see some action. Death is part of that.
My feel for all lives lost, but man is man and will be greedy and want. As a soldier you just go.

I was shocked as to how many UK soldiers have actually died up to now in Iraq. According to the BBC its over 73 now. Its worse enough seeing american soldiers being killed but with an upcoming election are the british electorate going to be as oblivious to the mortality rate of UK soldiers in Iraq as what the american voters seemed to be?

I think its a fair question to ask?

I think if labour want to win, they need a new leader pronto.

I still think labour will win as there is nothing else really.

But one thing you need to remember, we have lost alot more Soldiers in Northern Ireland over the years. We did not ask for the PM to go then .

To write soldiers off so easily sounds like someone who has never been one and probably doesn't have one in their family either.

They should be used sparingly, when absolutely necessary to defend their country and its allies and provided with the equipment and support necessary to carry out their missions with minimum risk.

We don't dress our soldiers in "can't miss" scarlet uniforms any more.
We don't line them up in columns and march them towards the enemy any more.

Instead, we send 800 troops to do the work of around 4,000 US troops that have pulled out to pursue their agenda in clearing out Fallujah.

We expect those 800 to throw a cordon around an area to stop some pretty hardened, somewhat professional "insurgents" from escaping a closing trap.

I doubt the 800 will be the last soldiers sent in there but I find it exasperating that we fight wars on the cheap nowadays, except with soldiers' lives.

I might send an absentee vote for Tony Blair because he might be the only person able to talk any sense into Bush. If not over Iraq, about policy in general.

I agree with you Pilgrim. We always want something on the cheap and thats wrong. The whole of the British army could fit (if it was still there) in Wembly.
We don't give them the correct equipment to get the job done etc, at least for most part the US army tends to have far better equipment.

I think the UK Forces tend to be far better trained but the US has far better equipment.

Wars have changed now, they are more like power struggles. To me the world is far less safe now, than it was in the Cold war.

I feel really sorry for the soldiers and their families because they had been led to believe they about to return home when they were sent into this triangle of Death. I hope there wont be anymore but unfortunately with events speeding up by the hour, I doubt it. We lived only 3 miles from Kelty where one of the soldiers lived and he was 19, the same age as my daughter.

US Forces levels of equipment seem based upon who to spend the Pentagon's dollars on, not whether the equipment is actually the most suitable for the troops.

I could name unarmoured Humvees, lack of body armour, the Patriot missile for starters.....