His Royal Highness Prince Dumbass, who is going to “deploy” to Iraq any day now. And by “deploy,” I mean “travel there with bodyguards after a security team has wasted tons of British money making sure it’s safe and that there is an ample supply of silk toilet paper to tend to His Highness’s supple white ass.”
OK, fine. I get that by virtue of having dropped out of a particular Royal Vagina, this dude is an Important Political Figure. I don’t pretend to understand the Brits or their stone-aged traditions, so whatever. And he seems to want to do something useful, but he can’t, because if they give him a rifle he might shoot it and the bullet would ricochet off one of those rock-hard stale English biscuits and skin his knee.
So why the hell is he wasting all these damn resources and distracting the real British troops from their jobs in such a useless manner? He should take a lesson from his grandma, who drove and fixed cars during WWII and could probably still run circles around anyone with a wrench. OK, granted, they didn’t let women fight during WWII. But at least with a wrench, His Royal Uselessness wouldn’t need bodyguards. As long as they kept him away from the pneumatic air-gun thingy.
Where does it say that he’ll have bodyguards? Where does it say that he’ll be treated differently than any other soldier?
Sending spare princelings into battle is not without precedent. Prince Harry’s brother Andrew served as a helicopter pilot with the Royal Navy during the Falklands War.
Meh. It’s all just stuff that’s expected of him. He’ll come back fine and ready to light up the tabloids with illicit affairs and latent homosexuality.
It’s not as if any of this really matters. He’ll never command the British military or serve in any position of political relevance. The prominence of the royal family is entirely vestigial. It’s accepted affectionately by the people as a curiosity or mascot of sorts.
I’m fine with all that. It’s the fact that he seems to be willing to needlessly endanger British troops and divert resources with his presence that pisses me off. Like I said, he could probably do useful work in the military with a Royal Desk Job without screwing anyone over.
I hope the Brits will take a lesson from the US — do not invest Head of State and Head of Government in the same person. Be grateful for your Queen. She can do no real harm. If Bush were just our Head of State, the stuff he does would be merely funny.
Do you think the same about Prince Andrew’s service in the Falklands War? (At the time he was number three in the line of succession, just like Harry today.)
I think his goint to Iraq is a good thing, in the long run. He will get a priceless experience from which he will be able to advise future Prime Ministers. Just imagine a future Tony Blair discussing a future Iraq-style venture with him (the PM has regular chats with the Monarch). Provided he has his grandmother’s deft hand, he’ll be a real asset to the country. Paradoxically, he’ll be safer over there than if he were an ordinary member of the public over here: the road deaths in Britain are an order of magnitude greater than the deaths of British soldiers in Iraq.
But I’m going to put my conspiracy hat on: the real reason he’s being allowed to go is because we’re going to be pulling out.
Unless something happens to William, it’s unlikely that Harry, being third in line for the throne, will ever be giving any kind of advice to a Prime Minister.
I see the OP’er’s point, but I also think the guy is damned if he does, damned if he doesn’t. If he agreed not to go to Iraq, to take alternate duty, no doubt that would be “special treatment” and he would be a coward. It’s not his fault that other people have invested him with some degree of specialness, so I give him credit for wanting to serve his country as best he can, in the same way other people his age are doing. It puts him lightyears in front of the Bush daughters.
As for the OP, I think it’s pretty weak. I doubt very much that Prince Harry is really going to be causing any significant troubles. Considering how often the royal family goes hunting, I also suspect that he is actually skilled with firearms; also I doubt his military training kept him away from such in the first place. I hope it turns out to be a healthy, maturing experience for him.
Huh? About 130 deaths in four years in Iraq, among about 9,000 troops. That’s about one in 300 per year. Meanwhile road deaths in Britain are about 3,500 per year, which is more like one in 20,000.
Only if William’s kids aren’t yet 18 (and there is precedent for a Royal Consort serving as regent). And while the Queen served in ATS for a few months (when the war in Europe was nearly over) she was not treated like the other women. Instead of living in barracks she was chauffered home to Windsor Castle every night. The other women she trained with were handpicked based on how well they could be trusted to behave themselves with the princess and they’d already been through the same training (HRH didn’t know this) and where even coached to ask questions at certain points to give the illusion intact.