Posts Tagged ‘Afghanistan’
My Letter To The Times
I am honoured to be in august company today with my letter published in “The Times”.
The Times, 15th June 2010
Send British Troops To Gaza. Nazi Israel Must Be Stopped.
The Israeli pirate assault on aid ships seeking to relieve the besieged people of Gaza is just the latest atrocity from this vile and inhuman regime.
Stormtroopers Against Saints
Israel now represents just as much a threat to civilisation as did Saddam Hussein’s Iraq. It constantly flouts UN resolutions, commits war crimes and we are certain that it has weapons of mass destruction. The civilised world needs to step in. Israel must be stopped at all costs and this is a cause that it is worth our troops dying for. It is more urgent and pressing than Afghanistan. British troops would be better employed in crushing the evil Israelis than they are in fighting the Taliban. If we do not stand up against the great Nazi evil that Israel has become then we have no right to call ourselves civilised
We should send in the Navy and smash the Israeli blockade, open up a sea corridor to allow aid and relief in. HMS Daring, with the most advanced anti-aircraft weaponry in the world, should stop tootling up and down the south coast and blast the Israeli air force out of the sky. The time for negotiating with and appeasing this pariah state is past. We must take decisive action now.
Israel
I am not anti-semitic because Arabs are Semites just as much as Jews. I am not anti-Jewish but I don’t understand the relationship betwen the state of Israel and the Jewish religion. I am anti-Israel and all men of honour, decency and common sense must be. Its conduct in Gaza and throughout Palestine is beyond any justification. Its conduct is always disproportionate. Its whinging about the little fireworks that the Palestinians shoot in is pathetic. If my country was being oppressed and bullied then I would react at least the same. Suicide bombers against Israeli targets are equally as justified and heroic as any suicide mission against the Nazis in the Second World War.
War Criminal
This may well be my generation’s equivalent of the Spanish Civil War. Give me a chance to fight against the fascist Israelis and I don’t see how my conscience could deny it. They need to be given a dose of their own medicine and pulverised into submission, forced to withdraw from the settlements, forced to abandon their entire national strategy and policy. It is clear that the world made a great mistake in establishing the state of Israel. Perhaps we should have left them to their fate.
Prime Minister Netanyahu is presently in Canada, a nation famed for its defence of freedom and justice. He should be immediately arrested and detained as a war criminal.
The onus is now on us. Obama and Cameron must step up to the plate and condemn this action outright. US and UK forces must join in this most urgent mission. Leave the rest of Europe to dither as usual. We must get on with the job.
It’s Not Drugs, It’s Drug Laws That Killed the Bradford Girls
Forced Here By The Law
If heroin was legally available on prescription the three Bradford prostitutes would be alive today. It is our discredited, ludicrous policy of prohibition that has led these women to their terrible deaths. Cowardly, self-serving politicians who will not address the real issues about drugs policy have blood on their hands.
Today we also learned that the sensationalist, exploitative treatment of the death of two young men in Humberside “linked with mephedrone” was nothing but hysteria. See the story here. Humberside Police shares responsiblity with the media for leaping on a bandwagon, seeking kudos or some unknown advantage through lies, propaganda and misinformation. Trying to look tough.
It’s not a good idea to use heroin or mephedrone but criminalising users and creating a lucrative black market for criminals to exploit is an absurd idea. It’s exactly what America did with alcohol in the prohibition era when, in fact, it created organised crime.
Created By The Law
For those who become addicted to illegal drugs there is very little help available. Almost all street crime is related to feeding a drug habit. If, instead of the unwinnable “war on drugs” we put our money into a regulated supply and treatment facilities we would massively reduce the harm that current laws cause.
The girls in Bradford, the poor people of Jamaica, our young heroes who are dying in Afghanistan, the young man who is selling his body right this minute in Manchester, Baltimore, Hamburg or Singapore, the downtrodden people of Columbia. They are all victims of our absurd, self-defeating drug laws. When will our politicians and leaders stop chasing cheap political points (and expensive bribes) and face the facts?
Fighting For The Law
Legalise, regulate, tax – you pull the rug from under organised crime, you eliminate the need for most street crime, you have the resources to address the issue as a public health problem.
Transform Drug Policy Foundation has the answer.
I Agree With Nick But I’m Voting For Dave
In the last general election I wrote “no suitable candidate” across my ballot paper. In the European elections I voted UKIP.
Fundamentally I’m a Tory but if I became prime minister tomorrow, I’d implement the following policies on Friday:
- Withdraw our troops from Afghanistan
- Nationalise electricity, gas, water, telephone and broadband provision
- Introduce the Lib Dem’s £10,000 tax policy
- Introduce the Lib Dem’s policy on the separation of retail and investment banks
- Start a phased withdrawal from the EU retaining a free trade policy.
- Legalise all drugs. Introduce strict regulation and taxation
- Break off diplomatic relations with Israel until it ends the Gaza blockade and stops new settlements.
It is sad but true that a Lib Dem vote is a wasted vote. Not only that but it is extremely dangerous. It could result in the very worst possible outcome to this election if there is no overall majority but Labour has the most seats and Gordon Brown remains prime minister. This would be an unmitigated disaster of horrendous proportions. If this happens then I predict at least as much chaos as is happening in Greece. In fact we could well be in for riots in the streets whoever wins.
The only hope for the future, far from perfect that it will be, is a Conservative government.
Channel 4 – The Air Hospital
This was magnificent television, enough surely to shock us all out of our complacency. Watch it here.
It was the story of the courageous team that flies our badly injured heroes home from Afghanistan in a C17 aircraft, converted to one large intensive care unit. Every second of this documentary is shot through with pain, heroism, trauma and the utter pointlessness of the war.
I am afraid that I don’t believe we will be any further on in Afghanistan in another year. I don’t believe that having our troops there now is making our country safer. I think it actually makes terrorist attacks more likely.
What this programme reminded me of most effectively is that every time we hear of another soldier who has lost his life, there are four or five others, horribly mutilated and facing a future which may well be worse than death.
It has been said a hundred times but we need to say it a hundred times more, every day. This is an unwinnable war, a pointless war.
Bring our boys home now!
Fraud, Deceit And Death
For the second week running a member of the “Question Time” audience, the parent of a serving soldier, has complained that they have had to pay for equipment for their son or daughter to take to Afghanistan.
Our Brave Boys
There can be no greater condemnation of the funding of our troops than this. In the face of doublespeak and accounting tricks from the government, this is a true insight into reality.
The deception that Gordon Brown is running about defence spending would not pass the most provincial test for petty fraud. He must be recalled by Chilcot to explain himself. He must be cross examined, as a hostile witness, as if he had stolen a credit card.
We learn this grubby and sordid truth about our prime minister while our boys bleed to death into the soil of a foreign land.
The Evil Of Organised Religion
If we lived in a world without religion there wouldn’t be any conflict in Iraq or Afghanistan. The Twin Towers would still be standing. We wouldn’t be hearing the dreadful news about child sexual abuse in Ireland. The Christian Church and Islam are both condemned for thousands of years of violence and evil. They are both as bad as each other. If I had my way they would both be disgraced and proscribed by appropriate public ceremony.
“Too many have died in the name of Christ for anyone to heed the call”
Teach Your Children
These are the immortal words of Crosby Stills & Nash. Substitute “Christ” with any deity you care to mention.
I accept that in all organised religions there are people who do good. However, an accounting of the last two thousand years: the Crusades, the Inquisition, Palestine, the vile behaviour of priests and nuns, so many wars – shows that religion is seriously in the red and, quite seriously, perhaps it should be illegal.
Worship who or what you want as you want. The minute that two or more of you get together to promote ideas that lead to death and suffering – well then you’re in a conspiracy.
Shame on the Irish Catholic Church for what it has done to Ireland. No consequences could be too great or severe for this godless institution.
I pray to the God I believe in for justice and healing.
Abandon Afghanistan Now!
Our so called leaders don’t listen to us. They’ve abandoned any pretence of democracy by imposing a new European regime and president on us. They don’t even listen to their expert advisors. Instead they prolong an idiotic and discredited drugs strategy that brings violent crime to the streets of every town in the country and funds international terrorism.
Perhaps they will hear the crunch of Gulbeddin’s bullets as they smash into British flesh and bone?
Please listen! Too many heroes have died or been cruelly maimed. This foreign land is not worth it and the idea that this strategy is protecting us at home is nonsense.
Now is the time to abandon Afghanistan. Leave behind the disgusting and corrupt Karzai for, sure enough, whatever we do, he is doomed to suffer a grisly and horrific fate. Leave behind the Taliban for they are medieval evil but with no interest outside their own borders. Leave behind the Afghan people because much as we may deplore their treatment of women and of each other that is their problem, not ours. Bring our boys home!
As for Al Qaeda and the threat of a renegade nuclear Pakistan, let us install a small but powerful contingent of our most heavily armed troops, garrisoned in impregnable fortresses. In conjunction with our allies they should be equipped with the very best that we have. Mostly they can observe and use pilotless drones to interdict where necessary. All movements should be done by helicopter because we have no real interest in “hearts and minds”. When necessary, overwhelming, unrelenting and merciless force must be used against our enemies and yes, let our men have battlefield nuclear weapons too. We need to blast these evil Islamists off the face of the earth. There is no more time for patience or consideration or concern.
Not In The True Spirit Of The British Forces
Corporal Mark Wright
I was dismayed, upset and disillusioned to hear Rear Admiral Tony Johnstone-Burt, Commander of Joint Helicopter Command, speaking about the inquest into the death of Corporal Mark Wright and the maiming of his six colleagues in Afghanistan.
The Coroner, the “guardian of the crown’s pleas”, with the full authority of the Queen herself, found, as a matter of fact, that the mines were detonated by the downdraft from the Chinook helicopter that went into rescue the men. Yet the Rear Admiral had the audacity, impropriety and outrageous, traitorous arrogance to say “that’s not true at all”.
Rear Admiral Tony Johnstone-Burt
The Coroner said that the MOD should hang their heads in shame. The Rear Admiral should hang his head in a noose for the disgraceful, insincere, weasel and wicked words he spoke in an effort to deflect the Coroner’s criticism.
Clearly these men were badly let down and the Rear Admiral’s conduct will bring more pain to those that survived and to all the families and friends concerned.
Why can’t the senior officers and the MOD display just a fraction of the courage that Corporal Wright and his colleagues did and admit they failed them?
Russia Invades Georgia
So just as they chose to invade Afghanistan on Christmas Day, the Russians have chosen to invade Georgia on the day the China Olympics open.
It is by no means certain why they choose such an occasion. Perhaps it is to draw attention to the event while the world has an international focus. It may actually serve to emphasise the message they are sending by this action. On the other hand, it may be that Moscow hopes our attentions are distracted by the Olympics and it will
be better able to get away with this sort of conduct now than at any other time.
Russia is asserting its might for its strategic interests in the same way as the USA does. There will be many innocent lives lost. There will be massively increased profits for Russian and Western arms manufacturers.
Ultimately Georgia’s destiny must be to be truly independent so Russia’s action can only fail and should be abandoned immediately. On the other hand there is much talk of agitation in the area by the USA, possibly CIA warmongering.
I fear the die is cast – thousands are going to die. Perhaps it will continue until November when Barrack Obama becomes President-elect and insists on peace.
The worry is that we are all playing with high stakes. Last year Georgia openly cooperated with the CIA to arrest a Russian trying to sell bomb-grade uranium…
Peter Reynolds 