Supporting the Nation

Last night someone sent me some YouTube footage of British soldiers actually engaging the Taliban in Afghanistan.

The question that came to my mind was: why?

Of course, I couldn't say anything without being branded a total idiot for failing to "support our troops". But how can we support our troops by watching a shaky piece of footage that got uploaded to a terribly American video provider? You can't, and saying that disagreeing that this is the right way to go about supporting our brave (and criminally undervalued by the Labour government) is emotional blackmail. That's how there people will win! We need to be stronger, and the effort starts at home.

I am quite a patriotic person. I love my country, and surely this is shown by my ambitions of being part of the great system of Parliament and maybe even becoming Prime Minister. So you cannot shoot me down as some unpatriotic Nazi, like some people love to do. Sadly, the person who sent me the footage is going to be studying War Studies at university. My message is: it's great to be patriotic, but let's support Britain in more diverse, cultural and symbolic ways then crappy footage on the Web.

That's the trouble with a lot of people today, not just young people, although they are a large part of the segment of society that do this, hence this is a The Kids Aren't All Right article. It's other things I get criticised for, like not supporting the national football team. Just because I do not like football does not make me unpatriotic. There's more to jingoism then watching David Beckham dance around the football pitch and get paid obscene amounts and paying no tax. I will gladly wave flags in a parade, I will defiantly go campaigning for the Conservative Party at the next general election, I will lukewarmly hope for a good haul at the Olympics (I'm not a sporty person, but let's wish these athletes well!) and I will always be proud of my country.

I, incidentally, don't really agree with our presence in Afghanistan. Sure, we have installed democracy, but we need to let go, let the Afghan people support themselves. I'm all one for democracy, but in some regimes it just doesn't seem to work, like in Iraq, Zimbabwe, to name a few. We should promote its cause, but if you force a system that the public are not receptive to and really do not want, then what good is that? It's tantamount to what I could say is reverse-Nazism; we're no better then the dictators we depose by fighting, killing and maiming people in order to force democracy on them where it may not be the ideal solution.

If I was Prime Minister tomorrow, maybe my foreign policy would be a little... tame? Radical? You decide. I would try to patch things up with Iran; sure, we all say they have extreme views and want to wipe Israel off the map, but threatening them by parking an aircraft carrier next to their coast will only make things worse! But I am not suggesting appeasement, we all know that failed. But we need to broker an lasting peace with these nations, and work with their differing political systems. If not, it's back to the Cold War with us.

I'm not for one suggesting our troops do a bad job; considering they are under-equipped, overstretched they're doing a fine job, and my credit goes to them. But I am not happy with the Government's ideals for using them, and also, if you want to support your loyal soldiers, do something constructive. Give to charity, buy poppies in November. Don't emotionally blackmail people to simply add hits to a website. Only one person benefits from that; advertisers and YouTube itself. That's not right, is it?