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February 14th, 2012 
FAKE NEWS for the Zionist agenda
By
Allan Mallinson
Last updated at 1:48 PM on 13th February 2012
Top-down cuts: Shadow Defence Minister Kevan Jones MP believes Army staff cuts should include a greater number of senior officers
According to the Guardian, a Shadow Defence minister has at last
got a big idea: we have too many admirals, generals and air marshals.
“Military top brass being protected from cuts, Labour says”, is today’s
headline.
“The shadow defence minister, Kevan Jones, called on the government
to embark on a review of the size of the highest tier of the armed
forces, saying proposals for slimming it down, set out by ministers, did
not go far enough.”
Each service has just lost one of its two four-star posts – the
highest tier – so it’s intriguing how far Mr Jones thinks we can go.
“Figures show that just one in 20 of the most senior officers in all three services have lost their jobs, while 20% of more junior ranks will lose their jobs as 30,000 service personnel are axed,” he says.
I’m afraid I find these figures incredible. Besides, how can you compare what has happened with what will happen? The plans I’ve seen – and it’s still a work in progress – are pretty savage.
But why – other than straight proportionality – does Mr Jones believe
more cuts at the top are necessary? What is the operational
justification?
“If our armed forces are to be reshaped there will need to be
disproportionate reductions of senior officers. We now need a review
which has this as its premise. It is right to demand efficiency of those
at the bottom, but we cannot do so while protecting those at the top,
he said.”
This statement makes no sense at all. We’re not “demanding efficiency
of those at the bottom” – we’re cutting them. And, Mr Jones, we’re
cutting them because of the wreckage that was the defence programme of
the last government – in which you were a defence minister (and because
the Coalition government has convinced itself and others that government
debt is the biggest threat to the nation).
There is a man in the MoD called Jonathan Slater. He is the
“director-general of transformation strategy”. He wrote a paper last
year that called for 700 senior military and civilian posts to be axed
in the next three years, and another 335 before 2020, saying “The simple
truth is that the defence senior cadre is larger than we can afford,
[and] is judged to be out of proportion with a reducing manpower base
and also with modern working practices and societal tolerances.”
Concerned: Sir Peter Wall, Chief of the General Staff, has warned that cuts of all kinds are damaging to the Army’s morale
I wish he’d said something like “the changing nature of war” or “the
growth of peace in the world” means we can cut down our senior thinkers;
but no – it’s because we can’t (or won’t) afford them. And when I read
of management-speak like “modern working practices and societal
tolerances”, I know the argument’s baloney.
The services are soon going to be put into enforced hibernation; we
have got to make sure that when they’re brought out again – as
inevitably they will be, because the world is like that – they are
equipped, trained and led to best effect. This needs admirals, generals
and air marshals of the highest quality. If you think it can all be done
by colonels or sergeant-majors, Mr Jones, then heaven help us.
But Mr Jones is a politician, and he has a terrible record to defend.
Attacking “top brass” is always populist and easy. The Young Winston
did it. In a speech in the House of Commons in February 1905 on the Army
Estimates he mocked “those gorgeous and gilded functionaries with brass
hats and ornamental duties who multiply so luxuriously on the plains of
Aldershot and Salisbury”.
But Young Winston was at least speaking with a deal of operational experience. And, fortunately, he also grew up.
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If we are going forward with smaller forces – fine. If that is a strategic decision. We must be able to increase the size of our forces should it become necessary. The army, for example, is a pyramid structure so as you go up the ranks you may decrease proportionally but the numbers of junior ranks leaving will be higher. If you have a situation where you need to increase numbers you cannot simply maker the pyramid bigger. Apart from extra riflemen you will need to increase up the rank structure. It took, in my time, about two years to train up a Grade One Rifleman. Considerably longer for Junior NCOs and Senior NCOs. A Warrant Officer must have perhaps 8 to tens years experience if he or she is to be effective. The same goes for commissioned ranks in tandem. Where are they going to come from if you don’t keep a large enough cadre of experienced leaders, both senior and junior to command your new recruits. Or do people think you can walk in off the street and do it?
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How many civil servants in the MOD are losing their jobs?
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We have too much Brass, simply because Labour sold their empires out from underneath them, much of it just before the election. Whether that was a good thing, and whether the expertise they hold is dispensible, are questions that need to be asked loud and clear.
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And that is a NEW idea? Rip Van Winkle wasn’t the only one taking time out.
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Labour MPs like Jones hate Britain and by definition hate the armed forces.
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