Grin at British ineptitude if you like, but this is not funny. The Taliban are serious about this war
Tuesday May 19 2009
Let us consider the two latest appointments in Afghanistan: one, of Lt General Stanley McChrystal, the latest Irish-American to add lustre to our contribution to the US military, and who recently replaced the unfortunate Major General David McKiernan: a fine soldier, of similar background, but one dogged by ill-luck.
General McChrystal's British deputy is to be Major General Barney White-Spunner. The two men's careers are almost barium meals in the contrast they provide into the respective health of the two countries.
They are the same age. The young White-Spunner, having left Eton, studied economics and history at St Andrews. McChrystal, went directly to West Point from school, and was commissioned into the 82nd Airborne when White-Spunner was completing his first year at university. By the time that White-Spunner arrived at Sandhurst, in 1978, McChrystal was on a Special Forces Officer Course in Fort Bragg, North Carolina.
White-Spunner joined the Blues and Royals, a household cavalry regiment which still parades on horseback, just as McChrystal became commander of a Special Forces Detachment Airborne Unit. McChrystal had already picked up a BSc in the US Military Academy. He later collected an MA in National and Security Studies at the US Naval War College.
White-Spunner, whose wife is known as Moo, has followed his own peculiar academic-military track. In 1992, he began writing in the equestrian magazine 'The Field'. In 1994, he became editor of 'Baily's Hunting Directory', the same year that McChrystal became commander of the elite 2nd Battalion, 75th Ranger Regiment. The next year, White-Spunner journeyed across the Taklamakan desert in China with a Chinese army team. Meanwhile, General McChrystal had collected a further degree, an MSc in international relations from Salve Regina University, Rhode Island, a college founded by the Irish Sisters of Mercy.
For White-Spunner, two years of household cavalry duties in London then followed, with an occasional visit to post-war Bosnia. Over that same period, McChrystal was a senior fellow at Harvard, before assuming overall command of 75th Ranger Wing: the elite of US Special Forces. White-Spunner was next appointed deputy director, defence policy at the Ministry of Defence, which means what is says on the tin marked Sweet Fanny Adams. Also known as the Old Boy Network.
Much of McChrystal's career was henceforth in Iraq and remains secret -- however, it does not appear to include editing the 'Palomino & Coyote Gazette'. He is known to have been responsible for tracking down and killing the Islamo-Nazi beheader Abu Musab al-Zarqawi. We also know he was behind the decisive deployment of Special Forces during the Surge, which transformed the war in Iraq. In February last year, as McChrystal's tactics in the field -- within the broader strategy of General Petraeus -- were decisively shifting the war to the allies' favour in the Sunni Triangle, General White-Spunner took command of British forces in Basra. This was the most important field-command in the British army. Nine days after arriving, he left to go on a skiing holiday. Soon afterwards, the British military position in the Basra area was close to collapse, and had to be restored by the US Marine Corps (of course) and the Iraqi army.
If there is a more degrading moment in recent British military history than when it was rescued by the rag, tag and bobtail outfit that is the Iraqi army, I do not know it and, believe me, I've looked.
Shortly afterwards, White-Spunner gave a video-link press briefing from Iraq to Washington -- not from Basra, because, it seems, the British were not technically capable of achieving it from there, but from US facilities in Baghdad. The following is an excerpt from that briefing.
Q: "Sir, the last time I was in Basra, they were talking about clearing the channel between Umm Qasr and Basra. Is that done now? And is the port in Basra itself working?"
Gen White-spunner: "Yeah, sorry, I think that was about clearing the channel of Umm Qasr. You know, there's really, I mean, in terms of the channel within Umm Qasr and Basra, it's not sort of quite like that."
Quite so.
So here's the question. Just what will be going on in the razor-sharp Irish-American mind of Lt General Stanley McChrystal, ex-82nd Airborne, ex-US Rangers, DSM, DSSM, (with Oak Leaf Cluster), Legion of Merit, Bronze Star, MSM (with 3 Oak leaf Clusters), MA, MSc, BA, as he stares over the morning coffee at his British deputy, Major General Barney White-Spunner, BA, horseman, some-time skier, equestrian-journalist, editor of 'Baily's Hunting Directory', and husband of Moo?
Grin, if you like. Rejoice at British ineptitude and snobbery if it makes you happy. But this is not funny. The eastern-most marches of European civilisation are now being guarded against a fanatical Islamic foe by the extraordinarily brave soldiers of the US, Canada and the UK (though not, of course, by EU forces, who have urgent duties -- shoes to polish, trousers to press, and so on -- at home).
So who is being really serious in the conduct of this war? Taliban, to be sure. The US, of course, and admirably, as always. But Britain, with Barney White-Spunner at the Kabul helm? I somehow don't think so.
kmyers@independent.ie
- Kevin Myers
