Another voice
Being in the right
Auberon Waugh
Expecting a telegram at any moment recall- ing me to the Colours, I went to the acting cupboard to retrieve my old army uniforms. They had shrunk to about a fifth of their original size. Should I inform the Ministry of Defence that there are Marxists at work in the Royal Ordnance factories, introduc- ing some perishable fibre into the material? It will be a terrible thing if our brave boys, advancing fearlessly on the fascist hordes from Argentina, suddenly find that their uniforms are shrinking so fast they can no longer move at all. They will be reduced to lying on the beaches outside Stanley Har- bour, Port William and the Cape Pembroke lighthouse, like baby seals waiting to be culled.
This is only one of the nightmarish possibilities, as we sit around the tables of every saloon bar in the land, feverishly pushing little flags across the map of the South Atlantic. However, I do not wish to advertise my state of military un- preparedness to Mr Nott, who would almost certainly use me as a scapegoat. In Somerset there is a general feeling of gloom, that we are almost certainly going to lose the war, our two aircraft carriers will be sunk, and Prince Andrew, second in line to the throne, will be returning to these shores as bully-beef. The more violently patriotic among us announce that they will never touch the stuff again, just as people refused to eat mackerel during the last war for fear they had eaten some of our drown- ed sailors.
Most people in Somerset thought we were going to lose the last war, too. There is talk of digging up the caches of arms we have buried all over the county in preparation for the Bennite Reign of Terror and civil war. The Surtees Society is ready to mobilise, and no doubt many other organisations which are unknown to me. Where there is talk of victory, it usually takes the form of subterfuge or dissimula- tion — a Pearl Harbour-style attack on the Argentinian fleet, an Israeli-style pre- emptive strike against Argentinian airfields, an SAS-style raid on the presidential palace in Buenos Aires, or Rio de Janeiro, or Caracas, or whatever is the capital of Argentina. They all look at me. I have ap- peared on television, and must be an expert. I think it unlikely that we will be able to achieye much surprise, as the Argentinians have a fortnight to watch us coming. As 'long ago as October 1978 they were practis- ing black-outs in Buenos Aires. My own strategy is for a Grand ad hoc Alliance with General Pinochet's Chile, I say. Chile is already practically at war with Argentina over Argentinian claims to some Chilean islands in the Beagle Channel. With use of
naval facilities around Cape Horn and air- fields in Chile, we should be able to biff the Argentinians all over the place. The great thing is to sink Argentina's fleet, destroy her airfields, then leave the area to stew in its own juice with a blockade of the Falkland Islands.
Now all the middle age of England are on fire, but what about the nation's wretched youth as they come limping out of Mrs Williams's horrible concrete cockpits clut- ching their certificates of proficiency in plasticine modelling? Are their hearts touched by the fate of these semi-articulate Falkland Islanders, with their oddly porcine, inbred faces?
It is hard to know what the youth of England is thinking, or even if it is thinking anything .at all. One glimpses only the brighter elements in the pages of Taller: a generation of flippant, cynical, hedonistic, ruthlessly go-getting toughies with no moral scruples of any description, so far as one can see. Mind you, I am sure they are more amusing than previous generations of guilt- ridden goody-goodies, drug-stunned flower philosophers or angry young revolu- tionaries. But they are the creme de la creme. Underneath them are engulfing waves of speechless, resentful louts in plastic jackets and goofy, unkempt females all unemployed and nearly all unemploy- able thanks to our beloved Shirley Williams. Perhaps the liveliest and most politically conscious of the nation's youth would venture the opinion that we might send a low-yield intercontinental ballistic missile to Buenos Aires (or Santiago, or San Salvador, or Dar es-Salaam) once a week until the Argentinians (or Argentines as they are now known) agree to withdraw. But that does not really answer the question of what young people feel about the matter. Would they be prepared to fight and die for the rights of these porcine, inbred sheep- farmers? Would they even be prepared to give up two cigarettes a day to see justice triumph in the South Atlantic? Offered the The art of democratic government, of course, is not to give the people the choice. In their jealousy of each other, our party politicians have lost this art. If, as I suspect it will, the Falklands fiasco ends in abject humiliation for Britain, I even hope that it will be the first of several such humiliations until the country comes to realise, quite apart from its richly justified contempt for politicians, just what sort of society it is which the politicians have created, just what sort of person the New Briton is. The supreme joy about the present farce is that everyone agrees we are in the right. There may be disagreement about which party would have handled the crisis better, but all parties are at one with the entire na- tion in believing that the Argentinians (°t Argentines) have behaved like absolute cads and ought to be taught a lesson. Nell. mind that the Falklands aren't worth fighting for, or that after decades of wearer ly defence cuts for party advantage We don't have the means to re-take them. Right, reason and morality are on our sic1_,e; There can be no doubt about it. We are au agreed. These two facts — that we are in the, right, and that we all know we are make our national humiliation all the More, complete. The first scapegoats may be Lora Carrington, Mr Nott and even Mrs That- cher, but this awareness of our national im potence transcends any diversionary witch- hunt. All our politicians are equallY , blame, and so are we for giving them en- couragement. The case for reintroducing compulsory military service has never been stronger, than it is today. Seven hundred thousand ignorant, idle, unstimulated school-leavers drift out of Shirley Williams's massage parlours into the dole queues every year' They have had no experience of a disciplia" ed life, and no opportunity to appreciate the joys of a free one. Few of them have ex- perienced any except the mildest discomf?r,, beside which to appreciate the joys of ;;' comfortable existence. Obviously enougl; we need a General Galtieri; awareness 0' this regrettable need is growing fast. If, their new spirit of collaboration, the three parties wish to save their own skins, they should agree to reintroduce National military Service without delay — and 11°' some half-baked community serviete whereby a quarter of a million school' leavers are paid to lift old ladies on the lavatory. Without harsh supervision, they would almost certainly place the old dears upside down. Which leaves us middle-aged folk with our fantasies of saving those far-flung' slightly porcine sheep-farmers. Like thc Irish airman, those whom I fight I do.n°t hate, those whom I guard I do not love: 'I balanced all, brought all to mind. The years to ,come seemed waste 0' breath, A waste of breath the years behind, In balance with this life, this death: If only I could get my uniform on.
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