The real soldier scandal: Why do they have to ask charities for rice?
QUITE rightly, the armed forces have dominated the headlines this week, with much of the media coverage dedicated to whether the Government is offering the armed forces the support needed to get the job done in Afghanistan.
Big question marks have been placed, again, over the equipment available out in Afghanistan, not least whether the vehicles ferrying our brave men and women around are actually protecting those inside, or just leaving them sitting ducks against an increasingly tactical insurgency.
Ask any MP what they think of a conflict, and their answers may well differ about the validity of the war, the morality of battle and, indeed, whether we should be involved or not. What they will never dispute is the bravery of our men and women out there, or the need for the country to support them.
Which begs two questions: 1. When Afghanistan was discussed in parliament earlier this week, why was the chamber half empty? And 2. Why, if we all agree on supporting our troops regardless of conflict, why are troops relying on charities to send them our basics such as painkillers and rice?
Yet that's what is happening. Support Our Soldiers does a superb job doing exactly what it says on the tin, raising money to send out things to Afghanistan, or wherever we are in conflict.
In theory, it should be the nice little extras they should be sending out - the sort of stuff which makes the troops feel as though the people back home care about them (something which used to be taken for granted, but which has only recently re-emerged in the wake of the sad sight of repeated trips to Wootton Bassett).
Yet the requests page on Support our Soldiers is now getting requests for different types of food - including rice, surely one of the most basic foods out there - and medicines, because the rations provided out in Afghanistan simply aren't enough.
So put that another way: While our politicians argue over whether enough helicopters are out in the region, a charity made up of families of servicemen and women are having to send out the supplies so basic that they are among the first things the United Nations delivers to famine-ravaged areas of Africa.
It's one thing for Gordon Brown and David Cameron to pay weekly tributes during PMQs to the latest soldiers to have died. But it appears to be quite another for the Government, and the opposition, to actually take action to ensure our troops are well fed and cared for.
Civil servants, army chiefs and politicians can argue about the best strategies and what is the best equipment to beat an opposition which doesn't play by the war "rules", but there can be no room for discussion when it comes to providing the very basics for our own troops. If we can't do that, then we shouldn't be out there. Simple as that.
The actions of those behind Support our Soldiers is as commendable as the fact they have to supply such basics is lamentable.
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David Higgerson - David Higgerson has covered local and national politics for much of his career as a journalist. This blog aims to look at Westminister from the outside in, at a time when it appears very few are looking out from the inside.
