Royal officer endangers lives

With news of Prince Harry’s service in Afghanistan finally hitting the press after ten weeks of silence, it begs the question: was it really worth it?

At 23 years old and third in line to the English throne, Prince Harry is understandably an icon for all of Great Britain.  But was it really worth risking the lives of his comrades and spending large amounts of time and money to allow him to fulfill his desire to serve on the front lines? 

The biggest concern in the decision to deploy Prince Harry was that, being such an important public icon, he would be specifically targeted by the insurgents.  This would not only jeopardize his life but also the lives of every single man in his regiment. 

In order to safely deploy him, the Ministry of Defense had to cut a deal with the top British media organizations.  In this deal, the media would keep quiet about Prince Harry’s deployment until he had safely returned on the condition that they would get an interview before he was deployed. They also would also be allowed to send several reporters to be embedded in his unit. 

This well laid plan, however, was thrown off course when American reporter Matt Drudge decided to post news of Prince Harry’s deployment on his blog site, The Drudge Report.  This act showed a complete disregard to the safety of both Prince Harry and the men in his regiment.  However, Drudge has refused to apologize for his actions. 

This phenomenal and admirable cooperation by the British news media, which has been known for being relentlessly insensitive to the royal family’s needs, sidesteps the real question of whether he should have been allowed to go in the first place.

The British monarchy is a great tradition that should be continued; however, simply because Prince Harry has the title of “Prince” he should not have gotten any special treatment that could have put his fellow servicemen at risk. 

If the information of his deployment had leaked without the knowledge of the British government Prince Harry’s regiment could have become priority-one for the insurgents.

 It has recently been claimed by the Taliban that they had in fact known of Prince Harry’s deployment, but were unable to find him.  The validity of this claim is still unknown, but it is the perfect example of what was trying to be avoided. 

This is not only extremely reckless on behalf of the British government but it is also selfish on behalf of Prince Harry to be willing to put everybody at risk for his own desire to see combat. 

Simply to make the decision to send Prince Harry to Afghanistan required the time and effort of many important people, including but not limited to the Air Chief Marshal, Chief of Defense Staff, and the Chief of the General Staff.  This seems wrong that one man should warrant such special treatment while the needs of so many “regular” soldiers are beening ignored.

There has been a general feeling circulating through political blogs that the whole ordeal was some sort of political stunt.  The blogs are full of accusations that the British government used Prince Harry’s situation to glorify the war and boost public support.  This, however, is reading way too much into the whole situation.

 All the evidence points to this simply being an example of an over privileged individual pulling strings in order to get his desires met with complete disregard to the safety and well-being of his fellow men in arms.