Personal Blogs

listened to Ivan Lewis on the Radio 4 Today programme this morning in respect of allegations of Britain being complicit in torture.

Now then let us agree that a soldier signs up to serve their Queen and Country, that they do not believe in Harry and his 'we do bad things to bad people' the cap legend which Harry had when he secretly served in Afghanistan, and which was the subject of a media cover-up. So, they also sign an oath of allegiance and that they will follow all legal orders, without complaint and do as they are told by their superiors, and that there is accordingly a chain of command, and that because actually we are the good guys in all this that the officers, right to the very top will always give legal orders.

But what if you are in an occupying force where some of the officers are not like your officers. That they do extra-ordinary rendition, and that they use enhanced interrogation techniques, and that this other country uses regimes to do their torture for them, and they treat prisoners with contempt and inhumanely, and that some of these prisoners are sent to Guantanamo Bay, for reasons of our safety and national security.

So, my point, surely a British soldier will do his bit whilst he is out there, he will not let down his mates, his pals, his friends, the regiment. But what if he knows that by following his orders he is acting against his own moral beliefs, that it is not that he is refusing orders from a British officer, but that he will not take any longer orders from this officer of another country. I think that that soldier is right, that we as a nation are diminished by the activities of our so called allies in the war against terror.

Hutton has agreed in parliament that we have detained people who have then been handed over to a third party where we do not know what has been to them, I think you will find it in Hansard. He said, and I paraphrase, previous ministers who denied this were not aware at the time that they had been incorrect in the answers which they gave to parliament, other holders of the post include Geoff Hoon.

There must be an independent inquiry, and please do not give me the rotten apple apology for the action of some of our soldiers, the ends do not justify the means, by our actions we are judged, and I think that in due course millions will have to paid in compensation, only that will not salve my conscience. Parliament, this abject parliament has allowed this to reach the stage where we have lost hearts and minds throughout the world, we are just as guilty by not naming names as those that do the deeds, in our name. The ends justify the means is the mantra. Would our soldiers in 1945 have taken orders from a Nazi officer in the army when they saw the concentration camps, of course not. However, did our soldiers respect the German soldiers in WWI, well the evidence from two of our true veterans would say that they did. We are not at war in Afghanistan, we are an occupying force, just like the Nazis were in France in WWII, it is not the war which is the problem, it is the occupation. The French in 1945 treated those who colluded with the Germans as collaborators, how are the Afghans any different, it is their 'country' we are the invaders like so many in the past. How would you treat somebody who was trained by a foreign army to protect your country so that the soldiers of the occupying force could leave you to the 'new model army', the collaborators of today. 

no good morning today I'm afraid with the news from Afghanistan and the Miliband interview on the Today programme. Even Humphries does not understand something. One minute he is inetrviewing Miliband, almost the next minute he is reviewing the papers and laughing about 'Pies in Stockton'. I am not going to say that we should not be humourous but the Editors must understand the anger which is building-up with regard to the media.

Exactly how many of the people who flew planes into the World Trade Center came from Afghanistan. How many boarded planes in Afghanistan and took over the planes and flew them into the Towers on 9/11. The answer I think is none, the people who flew planes into the World Trade Center were from Saudi Arabia, but they left the kingdom and planned and perpetrated their atrocities in America. They lived in America for quite a long time, planning and plotting.

The problem was not with Afghanistan, it was with Saudi Arabia, that is the problem, we have attacked the wrong place. Only we could not possibly act against Saudi because of the oil.

So we went in Afghanistan with the Americans to 'get' bin Laden, only we still haven't got him. We got Sadam alright, he was captured and executed. But unlike what many of the American soldiers thought he had absolutely nothing at all to do with WMDs and nothing at all to do with the attack on the WTC. You look at the living accomodation for the American soldiers when they first went in to Iraq, the pictures of the burning WTC on the walls of the occupied palaces. So we thought we could forget Afghanistan and deal with Iraq, which was still not Saudi Arabia.

So, having gone into Iraq we started to round people up, detain them, arrest them, use enhanced interrogation techniques, use extra-ordinary rendition, allow sectarian civil war to break out, not defend the local population from attack, allow corruption, send prisoners to Cuba, maltreat people, insult them, beat them with sticks, beat them up and kill them, basically act just like illegal occpiers, after an illegal war, in a war based on lies.

Now we are in Afghanistan again. Only we can't arrest people, we can't interrogate them, we can't 'do' anything, we just sit there. So, we have to attack, we just kill, using drones, helicopters, high explosives, all of our superior technology. Only we have lost, we can't talk to the locals, they won't hand over the Taliban, we take no prisoners, we lose men, for what!

The trouble is the British got into a fight with the Taliban, or freedom fighters from a local perspective, and they would call up an air strike and innocent women and children were killed, usually by the Americans, because where is the British Air Force. Oh, that's right they have no equipment, they are nothing! Why? because you look at the case of the air force officer Fl Lt Kendall-Smith who was prosecuted and convicted for refusing orders in Iraq, the illegal war, the WMDs, and he was sent to prison, for six months, and dishonourably discharged. You ask soldiers why they did not call up British air strikes, because the British pilots, I think, would not bomb houses where there were possibly innocent women and children. Why do you think we are investing so heavily in Drones, flown with joy sticks from the deserts of America.

As for prisoners by the British, too much of a problem, we can't do anything with them, what with the case of Col Mendonca, who was left out to dry by his superior officers, by the people who gave the orders.

So, we are now mired in Afghanistan. It is a war we can never win, Brown will have to announce, in parliament, in a broadcast to the nation what is the point. What is the purpose. None of this is about Afghanistan being an incubator for terror, I have had enough lies, and half truths. There is no longer any point, it is not Vietnam, it is the killing fields of Passchaendale in WWI. During WWI, when it started the dead soldiers were brought home for burial. Then they realised we can't do this, we can't have a hundred burials a day, a thousand burials a day, ten thousand burials a day, so bury them where they died, if we keep bringing them home the people will rebel, they will revolt, bury them where they die. It is not only the dead, it is the injured, both physically and mentally. This is not acceptable, it is time to bring the soldiers home. We admitted our defeat in Iraq, eventually after much loss of life, and the loss of any moral authority, and we have no moral authority in Afghanistan. It is just killing for the sake of it, no point, no purpose, we again have become the problem and never the solution.

the big news item has surely to be the comments made in parliament by David Davis last night, comments made under parliamentary privilige to protect him and his sources from being charged under the Official Secrets Act. There are very many brave and principled people in this country who have either remained silent or have been silenced over the issues of all forms of rendition and all forms of torture, or enhanced interrogation technoques if that is the form of words the guilty want to hide behind.

In February Hutton admitted in parliament that some previous statements made by his predecessors were, in fact, incorrect. I believe that the media has not investigated the comments made by Hutton to the extent which they should have been. I believe that injunctions have been used to prevent publication under the guise of national security, I think it is more likely that it would be national shame.

Ainsworth is today on the media saying that we are in Afghanistan to keep the terrorists off our streets, and that we are being succesful in that mission, where is his evidence. We have just gone through the fourth anniversary of the July bombings in London, we have had the death of Mr de Menezes, the death of Mr Tomlinson, the death of Dr Kelly, we have had government ministers misleading the House of Commons, either by accident, ommission, or because they have not been told the truth. This is a shameful government, we invaded Afghanistan forst in 2001, we took our eyes off the ball, and now we and the Americans are using a scorched earth policy to clear the Taliban. We have lost the war, that is why Brown has not sent reinforcements, military history will always tell you not to reinforce defeat, we have been defeated, Brown knows it, some of us in the real world know, when will the government admit it, not yet, but they will soon. Just like we were defeated in Iraq.