Brown's Afghan Coat Is Threadbare

The public and MPs are been taken for fools with bunkered Brown's shameless ploy hiding behind the Afghan 'security' smokescreen as he ducks the flak in the lost battle of helicopter numbers. With an influential group of MPs warning helicopter shortage puts troops at risk, Brown's Afghan coat looks distinctly threadbare. Either put up or pull out.

The Orange Party has long held the view this is the new Vietnam - but without the helicopters. A hopeless, bloody, unwinnable war. Troops should be pulled out now before the whole sorry mess escalates further.

But that doesn't mean sitting idly by as too few brave young lads are sent to their deaths in the Afghan killing fields without adequate helicopter support, without properly armoured vehicles and without the right kit to do the job.

That's the disgrace Brown is having to face up to as he desperately tried to wriggle out of any responsibility at today's grilling by cross party MPs.

With holes blown through his helicopter numbers sham, the only line of defence left was to hide behind the pathetic cloak of "security".

Brown came under fire from the defence select committee questioning his dodgy claim over helicopters numbers, with a stark warning that operational commanders can't do their job properly because of the lack of helicopters, putting lives at risk.

Time and again Brown has repeated the old mantra of a 60% increase. But 60% of 10 is six. A pathetic number considering the number of troops sent out to back-up Obama's long-awaited and long-planned troop surge backed up by a whopping 120 US choppers in Helmand alone.

Hiding behind 'security' is a nonsense. Any fool can swing round to today's Times and see the numbers and present deployment. 10 Chinook heavy lift workhorses - and not all of them deployed on the front-line.

But this is not just about cost with Brown begrudgedly signing up to Blair's war with a piecemeal, peacetime budget, it's about skin-flint planning, putting politics before lives.

Many of those killed have been hit by make-shift bombs hidden in the ground. But move out of a heavily fortified base to forward positions and the supply chain and foot patrols are vulnerable. Any tin pot general worth his pips knows that.

Troops were deliberately and coldly sent to their deaths knowing full well the back-up and support wasn't there. That legacy will now haunt Brown with every life lost.

But instead, the public and grieving familes have to put up with current New Labour spin trying to wage a piecemeal war on a peacetime budget in a country crippled with debt

How long has Panther's Claw been in the planning? Has the government suddenly woken up and realised flat Iraq is different from mountainous Afghanistan and needs a modified chopper?

How on earth can anyone justify an unwinnable war against an invisible enemy with a meagre number of ill-equipped troops, struggling with woefully inadequate numbers of helicopters and properly armoured vehicles?

But the government is pulling out all the stops with a shamelessly spinning charm offensive to con the public as troops are sent to their deaths.

Cameron has already denounced the shortage of helicopters as a scandal, accusing Brown of slashing the helicopter budget when he was chancellor.

Grilled by MPs about past calls for more boots on the ground, Brown again side-stepped the issue. The outgoing Army chief, Sir Richard Dannatt, was told to button it, after admitting travelling round Afghanistan in a US helicopter.

Every death brings renewed demands from the military top brass for a big increase in troop numbers, more helicopters, well-armed vehicles and better quality kit.

Every death brings grief. As the Orange Party asked earlier: just how many bodies will it take to force war-mongering ministers to stop the senseless slaughter?

Public opinion is split on Afghanistan. The government now faces a stark choice: put up resources or pull out altogether.

In Vietnam, the US was defeated at home on TV when night after night an endless parade of boxes and body bags, finally turned public opinion.

Trying to spin crime stats by seizing on a survey, trying to spin unemployment figures by seizing on unemployed benefit claims, are one thing. The Orange Party takes all that with a large pinch of salt.

But trying on the Brown spin to wriggle out of a disgraceful lack of troops, helicopters and properly armoured vehicles, hiding behind the cloak of security, thinking he can pull the wool over people's eyes when lives are being lost, is an outrageous insult.

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That 'Twat' Blair For EU President

Beaming Blair's bid to land the plumb job of powerful EU president has been forced out into the open with his Euro pal, greedy Glenys Kinnock, letting the cat out of the bag, confirming government backing for his cunning plan. But should the EU pick a "grinning, money-hungry, beaming, Cliff Richard-loving, Berlusconi-adoring, guitar-playing twat" for president?

In the squalid world of power politics, all roads lead back to Blair who continues to cast a long disreputable shadow despite pretending to take a back seat while popping up all over the place to massage his ego and bank balance.

Now after months of speculation and denials it's out in the open. Blair has been named for the first time as the government's candidate for EU president, despite a small problem that officially there's no job going begging.

At a Strasbourg briefing, Brown's junketeering Euro minister Kinnock who's done her best to milk the EU gravy train dry, surprised many by publicly stating what everyone knew in private, that the Brown government was supporting Blair for what would be one of the most powerful posts on the planet.

The confirmation comes as sprightly 75 year-old playwright and broadcaster, Jonathan Miller, looks back in anger in an interview in The Times, having a go at Tony and Cherie:

"I have a deep disdain for them. I couldn't bear that grinning, money-hungry, beaming, Cliff Richard-loving, Berlusconi-adoring, guitar-playing twat ... it's that beaming Christianity and that frightful wife with a mouth on a zip-fastener right round to the back of her head. And both of them obsessed with being wealthy."

Blair's ambition to be top EU dog has been no secret. The Orange Party has long tracked the progress of the man who wants to be king. But always Mr Cool, Blair refused to come out in the open and have the guts to declare for himself, leaving it to one of his lackeys.

Everything hangs on the Irish who've been forced to hold yet another referendum on the Lisbon Treaty in October after it became clear the EU doesn't do 'No'. If Irish voters say 'yes', then Blair could be set to head an all-powerful expanded EU.

At home some believe with Blair's backing, beleaguered Brown's flagged leadership could recover. A double-edged sword but one which explains why Cameron has been so silent on the Blair candidacy.

Oborne writing in the Mail recently blew the gaff, suggesting a cynical deal has been struck: Cameron would do nothing that would damage Blair's EU chances, while Blair agreed not to speak out against Mr Ambition's plan to get into No 10.

But that puts Cameron at loggerheads with side-kick Hague who's made it quite clear Blair should be "let nowhere near the job".

Meanwhile the shabby deal between Brown and Mandelson to protect his boss Blair was exposed by John Kampfner, in the Spectator, blowing the gaffe on the Prince of Darkness who promised to prop up Brown in the fag-end days of his premiership.

Forced to support his arch-rival, a squalid deal was hatched to protect Blair and his bid for the EU presidency in return for a secret stitched up Iraq War inquiry, with a whitewash outcome well after president Blair had his feet under the EU table.

The founder of the discredited New Labour project could yet run into stiff opposition in Europe. Sarkozy and Merkel are blowing cold on the idea and many see Blair as a chancer just in it for himself. Inquiry revelations could still damage war-mongering Blair's plan.

But if the Irish succumb to threats and bribes and vote yes, Mandy would to be off like a shot to join his boss in Brussels while arranging for the ex-Supreme Leader to be out on his ears.

The shameful legacy of events leading to war has left many with blood on their hands, not least a disgraced two-faced ex-prime minister Blair and his "taste for war".

Many voters here and many in Europe look back in anger and disgust and regard Blair with profound contempt. As Miller puts it:

"And he got us into this disastrous war with Iraq because he had consulted with God. Like Bush. Well, anyone who claims to do something on the basis of a personal relationship to a non-existent deity..."

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Who Killed Dr David Kelly?

The official 'suicide' of government weapons expert, Dr David Kelly, has been called into question by a group of doctors hoping to overturn the controversial verdict and a new documentary which sheds fresh light on the mysterious death of the scientist whose body was found in Oxfordshire woods six years ago this week.

Kelly's death came just days after he was at the centre of a government witch-hunt for the source of embarrassing leaks over now discredited Iraq weapons of mass destruction.

The Hutton Inquiry into the circumstances surrounding his death and the controversial suicide ruling led The Independent to clear its entire front page with one giant word - WHITEWASH.

The death in 2003 prompted reporters to ask prime minister Blair the chilling question whether he had "blood on his hands" as Kelly's apparent suicide came days after he was grilled in the commons and exposed as the source of a BBC news report questioning the "sexed up dossier" on Iraq’s alleged WMDs.

Now the circumstances surrounding Kelly's death are set to return to haunt the government in a two pronged attack by leading doctors who question the suicide verdict and US television investigators who claim Kelly was writing a book exposing the murky world of anthrax and “suicides” of five government germ warfare scientists from around the world.

Many have long argued Kelly's death wasn't suicide with the more likely explanation that he was murdered by enemies in the course of his work as a weapons inspector.

The Orange Party doesn't believe government agents were part of a dastardly assassination plot. More likely part of a bungled botched-up attempt to cover-up his death as an apparent suicide.

LibDem MP Norman Baker in a forensic investigation for his book The Strange Death Of David Kelly reaches a similar startling conclusion putting him at odds with Blair's spin doctor Campbell, and his part in the 'dodgy dossier' that was used to justify the Iraq invasion.

Claims that this had been "sexed up" sent Campbell into a spin, waging a fierce campaign against the BBC, eventually leading to Kelly's death.

The 90-minute documentary, Anthrax War, by investigative journalist Bob Coen already aired on Canadian public television, claims Kelly's death may have been linked to the secret world of germ warfare research and adds to the calls for a full and proper inquest into Kelly's death.

The film exposes Kelly's links with Dr Walter Basson and his notorious work for the South African apartheid regime using chemical and biological weapons research to ethnically cleanse the black population.

The assassination scenario is strengthened by revelations that a team of 13 specialist doctors who worked closely with Baker have compiled a detailed medical dossier that rejects the Hutton conclusion that Kelly died from loss of blood. Those revelations in the Mail on Sunday also claim they think it is highly likely he was assassinated.

Reports in today's Sunday Express reveal Kelly, an expert in biological warfare and a former United Nations weapons inspector in Iraq, was writing a highly damaging book before his mysterious death.

That was due to reveal the claim that he'd warned Blair that Iraq possessed no weapons of mass destruction as well as lifting the lid on the scandal of his own secret dealings in germ warfare with the apartheid regime in South Africa.

Following his death, Kelly's computers were seized and many involved in probing the mystery of Kelly's death, including Baker, have also found material on their computer had disappeared.

Critics have long regarded the Hutton report as a 'whitewash'. Blair remains acutely sensitive to the accusation that he has 'blood on his hands' over the scientist's death.

The only official verdict came from the Blair commissioned Hutton Inquiry, which concluded that Kelly died from loss of blood after cutting his wrist with a blunt gardening knife.

In a highly unusual move, a coroner's inquest into the scientist's death was suspended before it could begin by order of the then Lord Chancellor Lord Falconer, which is now set to be challenged by the doctors.

The Hutton Inquiry included the chilling testimony from a former British ambassador who quotes Kelly as having said, “I will probably be found dead in the woods” if Iraq were invaded.

Anthrax War which will be screened privately in London on July 17, the sixth anniversary of Kelly’s death, includes this extract which centres on the biological weapons expert following an anthrax scare after 9/11.

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