You do the fighting and i'll do the talking?

Cameron is just the latest in a long line of politicians who are happy to send troops (including Royal Navy and RAF) into action but aren't really interested in either their welfare of in ensuring they have all the means at their disposal to achieve their aims. I left the Royal Navy in 1993 after 23 years service and the situation was the same then. Reduce the manpower and ship strength but still expect the same tasks to be achieved. In 1986 I maintained two weapon systems, it was quite normal when the ship was alongside for a few weeks to have to strip parts from operational systems to hand as spares to a ship just sailing. The same happened in reverse just before my ship sailed to restore my systems to an operational state. The bean counters attitude was that if I had not used a spare part for a year then I wouldn't need it, so unknown to me spares would be returned to the depot to allow the overall number held by the RN stores organisation to be reduced. Not a lot of use when I need that item whilst in the middle of the Atlantic. One problem is that a large number of officers will toe the party line and not rock the boat because doing so will damage their career prospects. No wonder morale in the British armed services is so low, why fight and risk your life if you're facing redundancy?