Sheep magazine Archive 2: issues 10-17

“He just came in one morning and gave us a haranguing about the evils
of our ways. He said a few years before we would have been shot, but
unfortunately he couldn’t do that now.” Hartmann was worried. But some
of his comrades had many years of jungle combat behind them and
were unimpressed by the brigadier and his bluster. They told him, bluntly,
that they believed Britain’s cause in the country to be unjust, and that he
should make himself scarce. The brigadier turned on his heel, and did
just that.
40
But there were no more letters from Saigon, there was little press
attention, and almost no comments were made in the Commons. Despite
the size of its military commitment to Indochina, this was to be a British
military operation that would be kept out of sight, and largely out of
mind. And it would not be the last such campaign.
Almost 70 years later, in September 2014, David Cameron, the British
prime minister, gave a statement in which he prepared the country for the
resumption of military action in Iraq, this time against Islamic State forces.
“We are a peaceful people,” Cameron said, standing in front of two union
jack flags. “We do not seek out confrontation, but we need to understand
we cannot ignore this threat to our security … we cannot just walk on by if
we are to keep this country safe. We have to confront this menace.”
Nobody doubted that the prime minister was under pressure to act
after Islamic State had filmed the brutal murder of a British aid worker
and threatened the slaughter of a second. Moreover, nobody disputed
his assertion that the British are “a peaceful people” who do not seek
confrontation.
SHEEP IN THE ROAD : NUMBER 15