The BBC’s man with the finger on the pulse of politics (or so we are told at any rate), Nick Robinson, is in Afghanistan travelling with Conservative Party Leader David Cameron (think Canada’s Stockwell-Day, only less insane and more posh) and our Nick was taken aback by the bullish nature of the British troops stationed in Helmand province:
Again and again today David Cameron was told by the soldiers he met that they didn’t want sympathy. What they want is support. Sympathy, one told me, was for losers and the British army aren’t losers. Similarly they are sick of the pessimism that has taken hold of the public and blame politicians and the media for spreading that gloom.One squaddie remarked ruefully – “I’ll only get on TV if it’s in a coffin”.
I find it impossible to assess whether the army’s confidence is misplaced but I was struck by their conviction that what they are doing is right.
Nick’s observations aren’t surpising in the least. The average British squaddie causes equal amounts of confusion, bemusement and dismay in their American counterparts but one thing they grudgingly admit is the British skill, courage and confidence despite the glaring deficiencies in equipment and numbers.
What they do object to however is the portrayal in some sections of the media of a downbeat and demoralised army running away from Militia groups in Basra and happily handing over responsibility to the Americans in Helmand.
There has been a fair bit of briefing from some people in the past to British and international reporters no doubt to put pressure on the British to do more but it only serves to make the average squaddie out in the field more aggrieved at his lot. And trust me, there are two things a soldier of the British Army loves to do: fighting and moaning (drinking and getting naked come a close 3rd and 4th, just ask the guys who run the free range international blog 
)
Simply put, if you had told the British that they were going to have to stay in the center of Basra rather than withdraw to Basra Airport, they would have complained but would have gotten on with the job regardless. Its a historical fact that Brits will moan. They moaned when they saw the French knights coming at them at Agincourt, they complained bitterly about having to row for ages at the Battle of the Plains of Abraham, they whined endlessly about the state of the field after all that rain at the Battle of Waterloo and of how slow the ships of the line were sailing at the Battle of Trafalgar. During the Battle of the Imjin River in Korea the Gloucesters were furious that they were having to lob their rum rations at the advancing Chinese because there was no American or Commonwealth bugger nearby to relieve them as they had all run away southwards! In 1982, they spent the best part of two weeks complaining about wet feet and the cold after walking from one side of the Falkland Islands.
But despite all the endless complaining, they got on with the job and completed whatever task and that is where the confusion lies. People confuse complaining with bad moral when the opposite is true. When a British soldier isn’t complaining then something is seriously wrong.
And when that happens in Afghanistan, that will be the proverbial dead canary signal to President Obama to pull his men out.
