Sunday 10 November 2013

We will not remember them.

At the going down of the sun and in the morning we will forget them.

In fact let’s not pretend.

We already have forgotten them in Kent.

The sacrifices of our troops and citizens in WW1 and WW2 has been forgotten already.
Sure on Remembrance Sunday there’s a few warms words and faded flowers.

But the millions killed have been forgotten.

D-Day last year was forgotten in Kent. Not one piece of activity in East Kent.

And in previous years, the disgusting spectacle of the veterans having to scurry around to obtain funding from KCC, for what would most likely be their last visits to Normandy to see their pals graves.

Or the Ramsgate British Legion veterans besieged by skateboarders and vandals and tuppeny food vouchers requiring Mayor Green and Kent Police to step in.

Or the feeble preparations for the WW1 Centenary next year.

There are no preparations – yet Flanders and Mons are remembering the British dead already – a year in advance.

And only the War Graves Commission, what Rudyard Kipling described as “better than the work of the pharoahs”, tend the monuments and graves from Kohima to Kwai across Asia.

A contrast to the shame of the Long Tanh Australian memorial in ruins or Bien Hoa Cemetery or the failure to recognise Operation Masterdom of UK troops in Vietnam 1945.

And in Vietnam the millions of spotless graves from Ben Tre to Qui Nhon, so many dead from the French and American War that they are buried by village in the cemetery and dedicated women’s cemeteries.

And if the appalling war crime of the Royal Marines in Afghanistan – not just the murder but the video clips as war trophies passed around -becomes nothing next to the American massacres of My Lai or even the sickening routine of 400 villagers executed by the French in My Tho.

Then the failures of Bloody Sunday and Deepcut Barracks will be forgotten or whitewshed too.

And still in Syria we have the horrific plume of banned chemical weapons and banned napalm and phosphorous burns on children even today.

But the Korean veterans have been forgotten in this year of remembrance for the 60th anniversary before they too fade away.

Yet the Koreans remember our troops with over 1,000 dead in securing freedom for their nation.

And we forget.

And worse.

We ignore the wounded veterans of Iraq and Afghanistan with horrific injuries and the thousands of troops that end up in prison.

Canada, always first to answer the call, from the military hospitals in Ramsgate and bloodshed of Vimy Ridge onwards, has a huge Veterans Department that puts us to shame – even in the Canadian Embassy in UK.

And Kent as likely cannot even be bothered to secure the memorial paving stones for our 10 Victoria Cross veterans of WW1.

And little done for the Channel Dash suicide-by-air pilots against the German warships and Luftwaffe.

And simply ignoring the Little Ships of Dunkirk in Ramsgate.

And nothing done in Dover for the White Cliffs and Battle of Britain and hundreds of Polish and Czech and Canadian and American Spitfire pilots.

A grubby little county, the shame of England, prepared to deny the memory of the veterans that secured our liberty.

What would the veterans in the trenches of Flanders or the beaches of Normandy or the jungles of Burma make of Kent now?

They’d likely ignore the failure to remember them.

The veterans of Burma and Korea are used to being forgotten.

They would likely just get on with it.

But the democracy they gave their lives for would certainly concern them.

Imagine fighting and dying in trench for corruption and deceit on the scale of Infratil and Thor. Or the 0% fraud or waste of EKO. By your own Kent councils?

Imagine being willing to be buried in the desert far from home, for your children to have pollution on the scale of the Medway and Stour or asbestos in schools.

Or your grandchildren funding stagnant organisations like the Environment Agency or TDC or Southern Water, featherbedding their salaries with your money for failure.

Or lawyer trash like Glick QC and Hollingworth and their clerks and solicitors using your courts as a cashpoint – and it being accepted as routine by the LSB and BSB regulatory bodies.

Imagine sitting in a POW camp for years but not having the vote at 16 for your children – yet Scotland has and Brazil and Austria and even the USA in local elections already.

Imagine not having equality laws like 40% of women in Parliament or business Boards – as they have in Norway a country we helped liberate, and they do not forget.

Or even fripperies like free internet access in Finland or essentials like free tablet PC’s for children in Thailand, again a nation we helped liberate and our Allies and they do not forget.

Or even a ban on payday loans and 10% interest rate cap in a Germany we helped liberate.

And never mind 57M children still not in school – a huge number but not impossible to resolve with the UNMDG2.

Or 91% of malaria victims African children under the age of 5 – for want of a $3 malaria net. Or TB epidemics blazing in London and Romania for want of a few pennies on injections.

And we cannot even provide the right boots and bullets yet fund white elephants like the new NATO Headquarters or delay removing troops from Germany when we have no enemies except dictators like Gadaffi or in Saudi banning the vote and even women drivers.

Or we support Brunei and Dubai former UK colonies refusing the vote to everyone - or Bahrain another UK former colony buying enough Korean tear gas to give each of their citizens a cannister for demonstrating for the freedoms we fought for.

And Britain still refusing to provide FOI on Police bullets and guns or even something as basic as costs and staffing for all civil service departments after 7 years of the FOI laws.

A democracy run by the civil service for the civil service – fought for and funded by you.

Or the Great British Flu Vaccine Farce that runs out in the first week of winter allowing us to stack the corpses of our pensioners higher than most battle defeats.

Imagine being torpedoed by a UBoat in a Merchant Navy convoy in the Atlantic or Pacific - yet still having the failure of tsunami warning systems in East Asia with yet another typhoon causing mayhem in Philippines and previously in Burma, Thailand and Indonesia and Japan.

All nations who stood with us and we helped liberate.

And yet we cannot work with our allies to forward position supplies or helicopters or aircraft carriers for aid.

And yet spend billions on a new aircraft carrier that can only fly 7 jets or 8 helicopters - in 7 years time. Maybe.

Such waste as the generals bicker over the spoils and bloat of the MOD yet cannot provide boots or bullets or uniforms in the type of unified military the Canadians already have.

And the Royal Navy sailing around on pina colada tours when they could be building schools or removing the Pacific Plastic Patch.

Or the RAF watching its 400 helicopters and 200 jets rust when the CAA allows banned EU aircraft and gunrunners and drug smugglers into Ostend and Manston.

Or Margate citizen Joshua French held on Death Row in Congo and Tappin only just released from Death Row Texas. How many more UK citizens lost in foreign prisons or stranded abroad in countries we helped liberate?

The veterans would say nothing. They would continue. They would know things go wrong.

I do not think though they would expect their sacrifice to be in vain.

But we have forgotten them.

At the going down of the sun and in the morning we have forgotten them in Kent.