How to start the New Year right !!
Everyone should have one of these in his or her back garden: just the thing for parties, avoiding being picked up for driving under the influence, or just plain raising a little hell. All those in favour say AYE !!
1 commentLogistics of disaster relief totally beyond the understanding of Whitehall and their sycophantic mouthpieces!
I find it rather disingenuous of so many of the newscasters and media interviewers who persist in suggesting that governments have been slow to respond, aren’t doing enough, or generally aren’t providing instant relief for all ills following the Tsunami disaster in Asia. The truth, which they seem totally unable to accept, is that it takes time to actually assess what has happened and how best to provide the RIGHT assistance. It takes time, then, to move the necessary equipment and supplies to the affected areas. It takes time, vast amounts of organisation, even bigger amounts of money, and an army of men.
The early criticism of the US response has now been toned down, thankfully, as the Administration has re-appraised the needs and adjusted the cash injection accordingly. What most of the news media failed to mention was that the US had dispatched one of their giant carrier Task Groups – upwards of 30 ships with its complete supply train carrying thousands of tons of food, fuel and the capacity to generate millions of gallons of clean pure water, plus around 20,000 service personnel – within hours. They had also sent their huge fleet of heavy lift transports – the ubiquitous C-130 Hercules – loaded with supplies from their Japanese base. No mention of anyone asking to be paid for any of this, either!
One problem, of course, is that it takes time to move such a fleet, even at full speed (for a nuclear carrier this means unlimited range and a speed of more than 35 knots) from wherever they are to wherever you need them. This Task Group seems to have been pretty damned quick off the mark, because they got there yesterday! The other problem is actually getting the supplies and equipment to where it is needed on the ground, and in this case that means flying it in by helicopter. Many of the places worst hit were not that easy to reach before the Tsunami; now it is all but impossible, yet, again, the despised (by the liberal left-controlled media and politicians) military excel at doing this. They have the organisation, the discipline, and, one would hope, the tools.
Sad, is it not, to see video shots of long lines of US transports (and I do not mean to say that they should not be there!) while the overstretched, under-resourced, and under-supported Royal Airforce Transport Command can manage to send only one C-130 and the Royal Navy only one Royal Fleet Auxiliary and one frigate. Not that long ago there would have been at least two Fleet Carriers and all their attendant escorts, a Landing Ship Dock or Platform, and a train of RFA Supply ships available, but successive governments have reduced our Defence Forces to pitiful levels. Thus, to hear that arch-cretin Blair bleating that he will order the deployment of more ships and troops to this region for relief work is something of a sick joke. Who will he man them with? The army of worthless civil servants he has replaced the sailors, soldiers and airmen with? Unlikely. What ships will he deploy? What precious little that is left of our fleet is currently deployed in the Gulf, West Africa, and laid up in “maintenance” at home while they prepare them to be scrapped or sold so they can reduce them to the 39 ships our Whitehall Wankers think is an adequate fleet. The cry of “one modern ship can do as much as a fleet of WW2 ships” is suddenly exposed as a downright lie. Let’s see them deploy these 39 ships to 3900 destinations! Dear old “Buff” Hoon will really get some laughs explaining that one to the media.
The scale of the human tragedy is undoubted; the scale of the generosity of the US and of many other less wealthy nations is no less than magnificent. What a pity that the world’s left-controlled media cannot see beyond the soundbites, beyond the desire to expose and denigrate anyone who attempts to rise above the herd, and see the vast amount of organisation, the huge effort needed to deploy this aid to where it is needed. Instead of hiring every helicopter in sight to fly their news teams, camera crews, and hangers on around, let’s see them instead deploy these resources to the use of the aid workers, emergency crews, and others actually doing the work.
For the rest of us, let us keep on giving and keep on pressing for the ongoing help that the people of the stricken communities will need for several years – long, long after the media and their circus of politicians will have turned their attention elsewhere. Sometimes it takes something on this scale to expose the lack of understanding among our political liberal left and their blinkered view of uniformed services. Now they have discovered that it takes much more than a few boy scouts to deal with something on this scale. Will they learn from it? Probably not!
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