In late 2014 the top brass of the British army were in serious disagreement with each other over the purpose of why British troops were sent to fight in Afghanistan and indeed of the whole enterprise
The same can be said of Iraq. The purpose of the Chilcot Inquiry was to ask exactly the same question — “how and why did Britain go to war”.
In both these conflicts there is a common denominator — lack of clarity as to why Britain waged war on largely defenceless civilians. Back in March this year, the Washington DC-based Physicians for Social Responsibility (PRS) released a landmark study concluding that the death toll from 10 years of the “War on Terror” since the 9/11 attacks (where the victim toll was 2,977), could be as high as 2 million.
Yet the international community has clarity on one Middle Eastern country. Since 1948, Israel has engaged in thirteen conflicts against neighbouring countries, often involving multiple adversaries such as; Egypt (5 times) Iraq (3 times), Jordan (2 times), Syria (4 times), Lebanon (2 times), Algeria, Morocco, Kuwait and Tunisia.
In 1948, Israel killed nearly 20,000 Palestinians and several thousand Arab soldiers; thousands more were killed in 1956-7. In 1973 15,000 Egyptians, 6,000 Jordanians and 1,000 Syrians were killed and more than a half million Palestinians were displaced.
In 1978 1,200 Lebanese and Palestinians were killed by the Israeli’s.