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Sending our troops into battle

Oh boy do I get nervous when our glorious leaders start moving towards a war thousands of miles away, against a very strong enemy fighting on its home soil.

And the line coming from Canberra about our troops joining the Americans in their crusade against Soddem Hussein's Iraq has got my knees knocking together like castanets on steroids!

I have no doubt that old Soddem needs a damn good thrashing, but before we sign up for a ground war in the Middle East I think we need to take stock of what our forces can actually do.

Our defence forces are currently stretched to the limit with the tasks they have now.

We don't have enough men or women serving in them to cope now, how will they go if a serious war needs to be fought?

There is no doubting their abilities, or training, or downright guts, but I do worry about how well they are armed and supplied.

Earlier this year a report came out saying we didn't have enough live ammo to give the troops. Don’t know about you, but if I was a soldier sent off to fight I'd want to make sure I didn't run out of bullets because governments hadn't spent the money to ensure I'd have them.

And there was recent talk of sending an armoured brigade to help the US on the ground.

Hello? We don’t have an armoured brigade. Certainly not one we can send into Iraq. Our armoured personal carriers are fine in East Timor, but against dug-in defensive works in the middle of an enemy country? Think again guys.

And think again they must. Until we upgrade our defence forces - both in numbers of personnel and state-of-the-art equipment - we'd be placing them in unnecessary peril. While sending them off to fight may win votes, doing so stupidly and bringing home too many of them in body bags will very quickly have the opposite effect.

We can help our American allies with warships, aircraft and special forces, but to think we could offer more than that is absurd beyond belief.

If Canberra wants to indulge in blood lust - then they should go out and buy Quake 3.

If there is something that has really got up your nose, let Grumpy Old Coot know at grumpy@webwombat.com