Tag Archives: Gavin Williamson

“I made her and I can break her.”

Our Service Chiefs appear to have let Gavin Williamson know what they really think of him by leaking his cringe making boast from a private meeting to the media. Meanwhile, former head of the army, Lord Dannatt helpfully comments that he fears Williamson ‘could be forced to resign over the issue’.

It looks to me like a complex ambush with multiple firing points.

Even before the excruciating interview with Richard Madeley, I doubted whether Williamson, or Private Pike as his cabinet colleagues prefer to call him, was really up to the task of Secretary of State for Defence.

His pronouncement early in his tenure that “a dead terrorist can’t cause any harm to Britain” not only underlined the fact that Mr Williamson has no first hand experience of killing terrorists himself but also served to expose his naivety and inexperience.

It would seem that, in the intervening weeks and months, he has failed to grow into the role and the Service Chiefs are now cutting him loose. It’s going to make for an interesting Monday morning on the fifth floor of the MoD main building.

SPIN ZHIRA: Old Man in Helmand is the unauthorised, unvarnished and irreverent story of one man’s midlife crisis on the front line of the most dangerous district in Afghanistan where the locals haven’t forgiven the British for the occupation of 1842 or for the Russian Invasion of 1979. Of course, all infidels look the same so you can’t really tell them apart.

Amazon Five Stars A JOURNEY OF LOVE, SERVICE AND ADVENTURE. EXCELLENT!

Amazon Five Stars A MODERN WARFARE LITERARY CLASSIC! OUTSTANDING READ.

Amazon Five Stars ENTERTAINING, THOUGHT-PROVOKING AND COMPULSORY TO READ.

What others are saying about SPIN ZHIRA 

DEAD TERRORISTS CAN’T HARM BRITAIN

Gavin Williamson, talking to the Daily Mail, declares that “a dead terrorist can’t cause any harm to Britain.”

A soundbite that will delight jingoistic Daily Mail readers, no doubt, and which may even briefly distract from uncomfortable BREXIT headlines,  but one that also exposes the inexperience and naivety of  our new Secretary of State for Defence.

It’s clear from his comments that the man  now charged with Defence of the Realm has invested little, if any, time learning lessons from history or even understanding that killing one terrorist only creates more terrorists.

He also fails to appreciate that ISIS, an ideology so repugnant and grotesque that it has been condemned by the Taliban, has its genesis in the western military tactics of night raids, extraordinary rendition, water-boarding, drone strikes, collateral damage and incarceration without trial.

If Gavin Williamson is to successfully defend the realm he will need a slightly more joined up strategy than simply killing terrorists. If we have learned anything in Iraq and Afghanistan since 2001 it is that the supply of willing insurgent foot soldiers in that part of the world is infinity.

SPIN ZHIRA: Old Man in Helmand is the unauthorised, unvarnished and irreverent story of one man’s midlife crisis on the front line of the most dangerous district in Afghanistan where the locals haven’t forgiven the British for the occupation of 1842 or for the Russian Invasion of 1979. Of course, all infidels look the same so you can’t really tell them apart.

Amazon Five Stars A JOURNEY OF LOVE, SERVICE AND ADVENTURE. EXCELLENT!

Amazon Five Stars A MODERN WARFARE LITERARY CLASSIC! OUTSTANDING READ.

Amazon Five Stars ENTERTAINING, THOUGHT-PROVOKING AND COMPULSORY TO READ.

What others are saying about SPIN ZHIRA