By Arthur Weinreb
Tuesday, May 22, 2007
There was some controversy after the final decision was made that Cornet Wales, a.k.a. Prince Harry, would not be deploying to Iraq with his unit. No doubt much of this controversy lies at the feet of the British military with its "now he's going; now he's not" routine which did nothing to inspire confidence in a profession that demands the ability to act decisively.
The reasons for the criticism to keep the Prince from being deployed in Basra are varied. Some people criticized the decision based upon the fact that their sons and daughters lives are put at risk in Iraq while the third in line to the British throne gets a pass. One can easily sympathize with those parents but the reality is that as long as the monarchy endures and despite Prince Harry's training and desire to fight alongside his buddies, he is different. He's royalty and no matter how much he wants to be treated like everyone else, he's not everybody else. This is neither good nor bad but merely a fact of life in Britain.
The argument has also been made that being royalty, Harry should lead by example. This was the subject of an opinion piece over the weekend that appeared in the American Chronicle. It seems a bit rich that this argument was made by a publication in the United States; a country that now and for some time that has been led by ageing baby boomers who honed their political skills in successfully avoiding the mandatory draft to serve their country in Vietnam. And we don't see any of these leaders' kids lining up to join the troops in Iraq or Afghanistan or Japan for that matter.
Then there is the old standby argument; that if Prince Harry doesn't go to Iraq, the terrorists will have won. The decision that was made gave them a victory. This really makes about as much sense as Toronto City Councillor Howard Moscoe when he said that improving security on the city's subway system would mean that the terrorists have won. If we are really so concerned about what the terrorists think about the fact that Harry will not be going to Iraq we might as well simply surrender right now.
In several articles concerning the Prince's military deployment, reference is made to his uncle, Prince Andrew. While some merely mention Andrew as being the last member of the Royal family to see military action (in the Falklands in 1982), the implication is sometimes that Prince Harry is being accorded special treatment, not only compared to commoners but to other Royals who were as close to the throne of England as he is.
When you see some of the reactions of those who think that Harry should be deployed to Iraq it makes you wonder if these critics actually understand the enemy that is being battled in Iraq and Afghanistan in what is rightly or wrongly referred to as the war on terror. Any comparison between the current conflict and a conventional war such as the one that was fought 25 years ago between Britain and Argentina is false. If Prince Andrew was ever targeted it was because he was a member of the enemy's military, not because he was Prince Andrew. The fact that Prince Harry will not be seeing action is not a victory for the terrorists who are affectionately referred to as insurgents by the Western media. A victory would be kidnapping the young prince and posting a video on the internet of a bunch of men dancing around while yelling "Allah Akbar" while one of them slowly separates Harry from his head by the use of a dull knife. By not sending the Prince to Iraq, not only are the lives of those surrounding him made safer and given the ability to focus all of their concentration on the enemy, but the possibility of this type of victory that the terrorists would have put unlimited resources towards will be avoided.
The decision that was made was the only rational one that could have been made under the circumstances. It is indeed unfortunate that it wasn't made sooner.
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