David Kirwan Questions British Presence in War Zone
PROSPECTIVE Independent MP for Wirral West David Kirwan has questioned whether our soldiers should remain in Afghanistan.
David believes that Prime Minister Gordon Brown should consider pulling our troops out before another life is lost.
Speaking in the aftermath of the death of Major Sean Birchall in Helmand Province, David said: “It concerns me that we have grown accustomed to the reports of death and serious injury to our soldiers and other military personnel in Afghanistan.
“The same politicians who squander taxpayers’ money upon themselves make monumental decisions to send our soldiers to war and many pay the ultimate price.
“We sit in the comfort of our homes whilst our soldiers patrol in Helmand Province vulnerable to daily detonated roadside bombs that we are reduced for convenience to referring to as IEDs (improvised explosive devices).
“The death of Major Sean Birchall of The Rifles brings the growing toll of service deaths to 169. It strikes me that the least we can do in the comfort of our armchairs is to seriously question the policy of the Government in prosecuting what many of our experienced Officers are already describing as futile war, fought without enough men and without enough equipment for a Country whose citizens haven’t the slightest desire of embracing our Western notion of democracy and so called freedoms.
“Tony Blair took us to War in Iraq without the informed consent of the British people based on seriously flawed intelligence in circumstances that the cynical amongst us may believe that he had hoped by this venture to secure his name and reputation in history like that of Margaret Thatcher in the Falklands.
“This is a war not to protect our borders or our citizens but to pacify a people steeped in a tribal culture which has spawned unrest in the region for hundreds of years.
“Tony Blair has often been described as Bush’s poodle. Does Gordon Brown want to be crowned with the same epithet in terms of Obama? Is the sacrifice of one more gallant British life worth the gamble? Are we going to allow the toll to rise to 200 or higher given that the Army now predicts a continued presence in Afghanistan for at least 5 years?”
