A deep feeling of unease

I watched the 9/12 Lancers parade through Northampton Town Centre over a coffee and with a growing sense of unease.

it was abeautiful sunny day and the parade was a grand spectacular and the crowds were enormous but one had to ask -why?

Apart from the fact that the soldiers were not really local in any accepted sense, if you wanted a 'local' regiment then the Anglians or more appropriately the Pioneers were better bets.

Then again why at this time? I don't remember local parades when they came back from tours of duty in Ulster,or the Falklands for that matter.
Why did I get the feeling that it was all about instructions from on high to get a bit of gung ho patriotism for'our boys and girls' and the wonderful job they were doing in Iraq and Afghanistan.
Best way to defuse unpopular wars is to run up the flag and see who salutes!

The demonstrations of patriotic zeal being re-enacted all over the country has really nothing to do with our returning heroes but cynically an attempt by the government to legitimise two useless wars under the guise of patriotism-the last refuge of the coward!

So if you don't support our heroes then somehow you are unpatriotic and are insulting the men and women who risk their lives 'protecting our freedom'

What utter balderdash, I have no doubt that our young men and women are brave and loyal,but in the end that is what they are paid to do and they act under orders.
it's a fair bet that most of them had never heard of Iraq or Afghanistan until they were sent there-and for what?

To prop up American oil interests in the middle east and reactionary war lords in the east!

Both wars are unecessary and meaningless in terms of 'protecting our freedom'.
It is not the fault of those young men and women that they had to go, it was the orders of the politicians-who should be ashamed that they ever got troops involved in the first place.

The old east India Company had it about right two hundred years ago.To protect their financial interests they raised their own mercenary army .it seems to me that if Exxon or Mobil or Esso want to protect their oil interests in the Middle east they should perhaps buy a company army-I wonder then if we would be so keen to rally round the flag!