That fool Dannatt - by Richard... Monday, September 06, 2010

That fool Dannatt - by Richard... Monday, September 06, 2010

"The intention was to acquire a family of armoured vehicles with a common chassis, which would replace a range of ageing ones, some dating back to the 1960s. We were not aiming for a hi-tech solution, merely something that could meet most of our needs in timely fashion." To help fund FRES we agreed to cancel two other projects, writes Gen Dannatt in his autobiography:

The capability was needed quickly, with an in-service date of 2007 or 2008, which meant technology bought "off the shelf". Interestingly, the United States Army had identified much the same requirement. Its interim solution, the Stryker, was highly successful in Iraq and Afghanistan. I spent a day in 2008 in Baghdad with a Stryker battalion. It nearly broke my heart. They had almost exactly what we needed.

Here, thus, in Dannat's book we have writ large the confirmation that he never understood what FRES was all about. This is absolutely damning - a CGS who did not understand the core re-equipment programme in his own Army! But the greater problem is, with a media that struggles to understand the difference between a Snatch and a WIMIK, there is no one who will call him out.

It cannot understand that this fool of a man cannot get his head round the very meaning of FRES ... Future Rapid Effects SYSTEM. He had (and has) absolutely no conception of the basic concept and design philosophy, and thus translated it into terms that he could understand and with which he was familiar ... a re-awakening of the FFLAV programme.

"We we not aiming for a high tech solution ..." says Dannatt. Offered FRES, he didn't understand it so he translated it into FFLAV.

If the man actually believes that FRES was "lo-tech" - and we are prepared to be to be kind - then we have to conclude that the man is even more isolated and detached than even I thought he was. FRES is the ultimate in high-techery and the price tag tells you the story. Actually, the man is terminally thick. All he could see was "new toys" ... at the time, he had not the first idea of the nature of and need for mine protected vehicles. He thought Piranhas would do the job.

I like to think we were instrumental in stopping FRES, to which extent we won the argument. FRES, as it stands, is dead in the water and instead of his toys, the Mastiff and other protected vehicles have been introduced. This leaves Dannatt floundering and spluttering, trying to justify himself in his book and blaming everyone else for his own failures.

My seminal piece was this one which actually brought a response from Drayson, to which we responded with this. Some of the story was told here and more of it here, drawn from the bookMinistry of Defeat.

Dannatt really is an idiot. This is not rhetoric. Des Browne saved the Army from him. If the general had been allowed his own way, there would have been slaughter on a grand scale. Does he not realise that even the Stryker brigades re-equipped with MRAPs, and the Strykers were only let out after route clearance using Buffalos and the rest of the kit?

What strikes me is how accurate my book got it (but then I had sources most defence specialists would kill for). What also strikes me is how useless the media is ... then we knew that! But what also strikes me is the general willingness to believe an idiot general against a politician. That is understandable, but also disturbing that the wee children are so influenced by the uniform, the baubles and the badges. A lot of people need to do some growing up.

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For every action - by Richard...

... there is an equal and opposite reaction.

When there are an awful lot of people taking great pains to sell a message, then it is a good time to start lifting stones and looking under them.

The man who ratified the Lisbon Treaty and who described climate sceptics as "flat earthers" is not someone who is ever going to get the approval of this blog – but that does not mean we are going to believe any of the crap that so many of his detractors are slinging about.

Too many people, it seems, are using Brown as a cover for their own sins.

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A crude characterisation - by Richard... Sunday, September 05, 2010

"Just who is this Guido Fawkes, aka Paul Staines - the semi-literate, extreme right-wing, public-school educated, foreign-born former bankrupt and convicted criminal blogger whose ineptly written innuendoes may yet put an end to the career of one of Britain's better politicians, (thecompletely blameless - ed) William Hague?"

So writes Rod Liddle in The Sunday Times (yes, it does still exist, although I had to check to make sure), but I'm not sure whether this is serious, or a wind-up. He continues, in classic style, answering his own rhetorical question:

Well, Mr Staines is Bloggsville incarnate - the very essence of that vast network of talentless and embittered individuals tapping away at their keyboards in the intellectual vacuum of cyberspace, only occasionally leaving their computer screens to heat up a Tesco microwave-ready mini filled garlic and corriander nan bread with Indian dip selection before returning to spew out some more unsubstantiated bile.

I must say that I really do object to this crude characterisation. I most certainly do not use Tesco ready-meals. Ooop North where it's really grim, we have to get ours from Morrinsons - it's that bad. As for leaving the computer screen ... nah! I get Mrs EU Referendum to pop them on grate along with the tripe sandwiches, after she has emptied the coal from the bath.

But says the great Liddle, of blogging in general, "This is anti-journalism, and nobody takes any notice of it - except, of course, the mainstream media and the government." Do you think I should take him to the PCC?

As for serious blogging, I took one look at The Sunday Telegraph this morning, with its yards of guff on Dannatt, and decided not to bother today. There are times when you simply cannot compete with the narrative, knowing full well that the paper has learned nothing and, more importantly, is not capable of learning anything.

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