Black Watch!

A conversation I had in a chat.
Phil (07:55 PM):
I still don't understand why they agreed to send troops to Bagdad?
Dan (07:55 PM) :
do you mean the black watch?
Phil (07:56 PM) :
yupp! I mean even if they told the Brits it was militarily necessary (which might be true given the brilliance of the US army) it is still such an obvious political backing of Bush! I don't get it. They could at least have waited till after the election
Phil (07:57 PM) :
I mean it's not like Bush will give orderes to a bigger riskier operation before he is reelected anyway
Dan (07:57 PM) :
well, its obvious why he(bush) wants to do it
Dan (07:58 PM) :
problem is that scotish regiments are being mergered- by using the black watch for this, he is shooting himself in the foot a bit as he is showing that they are really needed
Phil (07:59 PM) :
It is obvious why Bush wants the black Watch up there, but even Bush won't actually use them before he is reelected. And Blair, if he had a bit intelligence would know that as well, so he could have waited till after the election unless of course he wants Bush to win
Dan (08:00 PM) :
well he has 'plausible deniability'
he can say it was a purely military request and its not for him to get involved with that
Phil (08:01 PM) :
Yes and we all know that the military is completely independent! About as independent as the intelligence services were before the war!
Dan (08:01 PM) :
hehe indeed!

So are the American great soldiers, or just a bunch of fire-happy cowboys?
The answer to this might probably alter, depending on which side of the atlantic you are, or on whether you are realist or - how do you call someone who believes in his own lies? ideologist? fundamentalist? or simply stupid?
The great american Army, has currently 133000 sodiers in Iraq, two thirds of which, according to their closest ally, don't posses the 'requisite combat capability and of those even fewer have the armoured capability that is needed '. So far the facts!
Now this leaves a the question, what is the requisite combat capability?
For some reason I can't really believe that there are almost 90 000 american troops sitting in iraq without a gun!
The Americans are the army, that in a manover get their ammo in truck-loads with the comment 'take what you want, guys', while every soldier(of a Non American army) has to fill in at least three forms, to get one shot(OK I am exaggerating, but that's roughly how it is).
Why is it so hard for me to imagine that the troops I met in Grafenwöhr (Nato - training area in Germany) are suddenly underequipped? The last time i personally saw American soldiers they had about everything you can wish for as a soldier - at least twice! (I rely on second hand wishes here, as I never was a soldier, but I was told so by others) . And this was in a stable, peacefull environment. So why would they go to war without the necessary equipment?
Right you got it, whatever Hoon tells us, it is not the equipment the Americans are lacking. So what then?
Well, there are tow possible answers I can see.
One, they don't need the Brits after all! I guess this is the version most Americans would prefer. In this case, the 1% increase in the overall number of capable troops (calculated for only a third of the american troops, just in case Hoon is actually correct) has absolutely nothing to do with "compelling military operational justification", but is purely based on political backing for Bush.
One a first glance this actually seems to be the most obvious answer to the question, what the Brits are doing in Bagdadh.
There are a number of additional points that would back this.
First, there has been more or less constant fighting in Falluja for the last couple of months, and so far the Americans had no problems bombing anyone in the town by themselves. If the plan really is to use the newly trained Iraqi forces to re-liberate it (or is it re-re-liberate by now), why on earth do they need a British Infantry unit to watch? (maybe because of the name)
Another point is that I cannot imagine that Bush will order any major assault on the city, which might turn out to be a masacre before November 2nd. So untill after the election there won't be any significant operation and consequently no need for the Black Watch.
Hence it is after all to show to the American people that Bush has many powerfull allies - or something along these lines. In any case to persuade them to vote for Bush!
Remains the question, why Blair agrees! I just hope for this country that he doesn't seriously want Bush to get re-elected! But to be honest, he has done everything Bush told him so far, so maybe he just got used to follow orders. Or he is affraid that if he refuses he might get invaded!

There is however a second possibility, and this is the one, some of my British friends (the ones with links to the military) constantly try to explain to me. And it is actually fairly easy. Despite all their equipment, the Americans are actually unable to do anything, but fight the red army in the wide areas of eastern Europe. In this scenario you have a huge materially over-, but intelectually under-equiped army of morons (the ones that didn't make it anywhere else, or who actually like fighting for its own purpose), that is actually discovering that, while it is easy to shoot anything that moves, you do actually need something else to govern a population.
This together with a political administration of similar intelligence, that actually discovered that while it is easy to conquer a county, you actually need to govern it afterwards. (especially if you wiped out the complete civil administration for ideological reasons)
And while these two are slowly recognicing that things aren't as easy as they thought (well, everything will be fine because we are fighting with the blessing of god!!), they see a fewhundered kilometers further south, that someone else seemingly knows better how to deal with the situation. And as the someone else is actually led by a good friend, why not ask them whether they could't sove oour problems? Especially as we have election soon and it would be nice if we could get a better picture in the near future!
Now obviously, this scenario has some flaws. Namely that 850 British soldiers (even if they are as good as I'm frequently told) won't solve the shit the Americans have produced, in 2 weeks time. However given Bushes general intelligence, it is not beyond reason - for him - to believe this. Yet it is unlikely because it actually means recognising that America can't do everything unilaterally!