Shek, I will do my best to address your points. British policy in the South has been largely to train the Iraqi people to look after themselves and to work with them to help them do this until they are ready to stand on their own. As the months go by more and more Iraqi security forces are taking the load allowing UK troops to be withdrawn (another 700 go soon). In this regard UK presence is being deemed as a success. The UK have learned lessons regarding supply of body armour and other important items of equipment, learned them the hard way with soldiers dead and injured. This article has an interesting perspective of how effective troops have been. http://www.findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_qn4153/is_20050830/ai_n14912040 According to Britain's new commander in Iraq, Major-General Jim Dutton, there is still "some way to go" before adequate numbers of local forces are trained. The huge British-controlled area, half the size of the UK itself, contains, he says, only 5,500 trained Iraqi soldiers and 14,500 trained Iraqi police. And more than a few of those, the general admits, are "rogue elements who have other interests than the good of the local citizens at heart". This may be a polite way of admitting that, under the noses of British troops, Iraqi security forces in many towns have become little more than enforcers for the local warlords, criminals or religious leaders. Unlike the Americans, Britain has chosen not to confront such people. Fewer British troops have been killed as a result; but in Britain's area of responsibility, the democratic ideas we are supposed to be implanting are in trouble. This raises a point over differing methods of “peace keeping” in Iraq. British troops are not being as confrontational as their American counterparts. This might be construed as turning a blind eye or as letting the Iraqi’s govern themselves, however they want. The long term effectiveness of the differing policies remains to be seen. I believe the general opinion is that the British troops are not improving the Iraqi nation, if anything they are just slowing the slide into possible civil war between religious communities. However no one has a better idea what to do. People fear what would happen if troops do leave. I hope these thoughts and links help. Regards Angryjohn Looking for links over the issues discussed I found this Sorry, I mean this http://www.arrse.co.uk/cpgn2/Forums/viewforum/f=3.html This has the opinions British soldiers on the ground presented for all to see.

horsesoldier the SAS do indeed spend a lot of their time on hearts and minds types of work. DA is just a part of their bag of tricks.

your point about the military culture being a reflection of the popular culture is i expect very true. the british/american cultural difference is fairly profound and an excellent example comes to mind. i watched some footage of airmen just landed after the first airstrikes in gulf 1. the first up were some eagle pilots who were hopping about, yelling and high fiving each other like they had just won their highschool football championship. all quite exuberant. the next group to go past the camera were tornado crew who were strolling along discussing what they had done. the reporter stuck his mike in the leaders face and was simply told that the PR officer was over there and would be briefing in a short time and sorry we cannot talk to you as we need to brief for our next mission. Very low key and matter of fact. it really came across as a men and boys situation despite their ages/jobs being the same etc.

Ehran, Are you sure that you weren't seeing footage of Chad Hennings, who was a college All-American and went pro following Desert Storm and earned three championship rings ;) http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chad_Hennings

Since when has war supposed to have been like a day at the sea side, or a theme park? How many soldiers that were in the Falklands War took thier video camera's to film or take pictures of the bloody combat that they were involved in? War ins't fun, boys and girls. It's about killing before being killed. Not getting some cool shots of you and your mucka's blowing things up.

Since when has war supposed to have been like a day at the sea side, or a theme park? How many soldiers that were in the Falklands War took thier video camera's to film or take pictures of the bloody combat that they were involved in? War ins't fun, boys and girls. It's about killing before being killed. Not getting some cool shots of you and your mucka's blowing things up. DropShort, 1. My guess is that you probably didn't find too many video cameras during the Falklands because to carry one meant dedicating your rucksack in its entirety, and you needed others to carry the extra batteries to run it - in other words, it was a crew served piece of equipment. Contrast that to today where you can fit a DV video camera in an extra ammo pouch all at the cost of a pound or two. 2. Digital cameras and video cameras absolutely have their place on the battlefield - they are a great asset to capture intel or to document evidence - we'd take pictures of caches before they were destroy so that the evidence could be sent with a detainee's packet and used during their detention status review boards and for eventual trials within the Iraqi legal system. So, I encouraged my guys to use their cameras while at the same time making sure they understood the operational security considerations so that their unofficial uses didn't compromise operations. 3. The argument here seems to automatically equate any soldier produced video as an attempt to glorify or glamorize war, when in fact, we don't know the motivations behind the splicing and soundtracks of the video. Are they made to share with other soldiers? With friends and families? As a hobby during their spare time because they like working with computers and current technology makes it easy to combine stills, video, and music into "productions" that really only take hours and keeps their spirits up? To simply show operations as they are and to let the viewer decide? Maybe some GI videos explain their motivations in making the video, but my guess is that you have some from all of the above; however, to make an argument that they are solely for the purposes of glorifying war is inaccurate, and I think you'd rarely find a case where glorification is the motivation.

The bottom line is that if this SAS soldier quit for the reasons that he did he should be court marshalled. It's none of his goddamn business how soldiers in another nation's army behave themselves, when you are at war you follow orders, and since I doubt he had orders to execute a bunch of Iraqi school kids he has no excuse to run home.

>>it really came across as a men and boys situation despite their ages/jobs being the same etc.<< I think it is more of a attiude difference than a maturity difference.

>>>>it really came across as a men and boys situation despite their ages/jobs being the same etc.<< I think it is more of a attiude difference than a maturity difference. << Like GOP suggested, the British stiff-upper-lip cultural complex has zero to do with maturity, it is simply a cultural artifact seen in British society and most especially in certain socioeconomic strata. I'm not making a judgement value on the issue (I'd personally tend to be more on the low-key and non-high-fiving side of American culture), but it's an apples and oranges issue, part of that "two peoples divided by a common language" thing.

"I think it is more of a attiude difference than a maturity difference. " Isn't atitude dependent to maturity? Anyway, with the Gulf War pilots example, you could replace the Brits by the Frogs, it's the same.