Boiled Egg and Soldiers

It’s not very often you get so deeply indulged in your breakfast you begin making metaphors out of what you are eating.

In this case the boiled egg is Afghanistan and the sliced toast is playing the part of the soldiers. I know what you're thinking, how did you think of that?

Well everyday, be it on the radio or the television, there is a story on the war that is more often than not, bad news. The tally has now risen to 270, six of which have been in the last week. Another important stat to note is the 1,062 service men and women who have been wounded in action.

Another difficulty is trying to keep away from the subject of the troops being outrageously underpaid (I mean a servicemen picked up a live grenade and threw it back!). For kicking a ball around at a fast pace, footballers often get triple the yearly army wage in a week. We are also too busy getting the banks out of trouble to notice the Army needs a lot more funds.

Anyway, moving swiftly on. The troops outstanding job does go somewhat un-noticed. It is a rarity, but when a positive story does grace our eyes and ears, it couldn’t be more ambiguous unless it had no substance at all.

What I mean is, every now and then when we hear about a ‘success,’ in Afghanistan, it isn’t actually explained in any detail. Maybe if it was, we could all feel a little bit more hopeful about the whole thing. 

Can anyone honestly say they know exactly what the aims and objectives are for ‘winning,’ the war? It’s not the kind of subject you can look up on Wikipedia to get 'reliable,' information .

It’s not our fault, without being told we can’t be expected to understand. Maybe if we did, the government wouldn’t come under such scrutinising criticism. Instead of just saying: “Despite the casualties, we are making good progress in Afghanistan.” They could easily tell us exactly what the progress is and whether it is likely to continue.

When they state such things with such vagueness it’s frustrating not to have any knowledge of what’s going on. We remain unaware of the exact situation; an onset of paranoia can take over when going into deep thought about it.

Is the government keeping anything from us? If something so detrimental to our society were to happen would we even know about it? I really believe we would still be none the wiser, maybe others feel the same.

Many believe it will only get worse. Troops have even said now winter is over, the Taliban will come out more tactical and well equipped. Apparently they are not the biggest fans of the cold much like us. That isn’t for one second implying we are like them by the way.

It’s hard to believe we don’t have the technology along with the larger number of soldiers to make quicker progress. However because of the lack of information that is given out I may be approaching the whole matter to simplistically.

As for what will happen in the future, I’m sure the majority have absolutely no idea. However if someone does possess the precious knowledge, hopefully they will come out and tell the nation so we can all sleep a little easier.

The whole ordeal isn’t helped by the fact Gordon Brown has decided to send a measly 500 more soldiers into the sandpit, when Barack Obama sent in 30,000. If that many more soldiers are needed, are they really making any progress over there?

The troops couldn’t give any more, but those in charge certainly can. Unlike my boiled egg and soldiers, the war will not disappear and neither will the casualties. Next time I transform my food into a metaphor, I hope it is something more positive and complimentary.