"Lawyers acting for the families should instead be suing Gordon Brown personally because he is directly responsible? Five former Chiefs of Staff stood up in the House of Lords and laid the blame?see below full article "Savagely vindicated"
From "Snatch Land Rovers" to Grand Strategy, we have been on a five-year virtual journey, from the deserts of Iraq to the hills of Waziristan, following two "wars" which have cost the lives of thousands of soldiers, injured many more, and cost the lives of hundreds of thousands of civilians.Broadly, we were supportive of the war in Iraq, and felt the counter-insurgency there "winnable". Having invaded the country and deposed its ruler...
Anthony Loyd in Sangin reports for The Times on the latest fatal attack, which killed three soldiers and injured many more. He writes as follows:As the dust cleared around them, revealing the terribly injured body of one of their comrades, the fusiliers knew that the horror might have only just begun.Three of their number had died on Thursday in the same green zone south of Sangin — killed by a secondary device that exploded among soldiers...
After the first inquest into a Jackal casualty, two weeks ago, with the vehicle escaping any serious criticism, the military have managed to hold the line through the second, the vehicle again emerging with no censure of any significance.This was the inquest into the deaths of Marines Neil Dunstan, from Dorset, and Robert McKibben, from County Mayo, held at Trowbridge, in Wiltshire yesterday. The pair were killed, together with an Afghani...
Predictably, in the "touchy-feely" media of today, dominated by "human interest" stories, almost all the newspapers play the current soldiers' compensation drama "big", with the broadcast media also running the story as their lead items.Inevitably, therefore, we see – as in The Times - the devastating experience of young Ben Parkinson brought up again, the Lance Bombardier who suffered 39 injuries including brain damage in Helmand in 2006,...
Two more deaths have been added to the growing list of fatalities arising out of operations in Afghanistan. According to the MoD, one was a soldier from The Light Dragoons, killed "as a result of an explosion that happened whilst on a vehicle patrol in Lashkar Gah." In the other incident, a soldier from 5th Regiment Royal Artillery was killed by an explosion whilst he was on a foot patrol in Sangin district.Not untypically there is little...
It is revealing how, for all the resources and "skills" of the serried ranks of hacks, it takes a reader's letter to make the obvious suggestion to resolve the helicopter shortage in Afghanistan.Thus does Huw Baumgartner write in the letters column of The Sunday Telegraph as follows:There is a way to increase helicopter capacity in Afghanistan with relatively small expense. There are dozens, if not hundreds, of utility helicopters mothballed...
Colonel Blimp, you're still fighting the wrong war.by Philip JacobsonThe Daily Mail, 24 July 2009Although Richard North sets out to make the "case for the prosecution" of the British military and the political establishment for comprehensively bungling their conduct during the Iraq War, it is events in Afghanistan that make the book so timely and thought provoking.The parallels between the two conflicts are inescapable, from the failure...
Not a few people in very senior positions, in government and the military, have made disparaging remarks about the low grade of journalists serving as "defence correspondents" in national newspapers. Sometimes, that must be considered as self-serving, but it has to be said that, in many instances, those journalists leave themselves wide open.In the last week or so, we have seen an unusually high crop of reports on military matters – for...
Having egregiously failed in its role of questioning the MoD's often lacklustre choices of vehicles, The Guardian, via Richard Norton-Taylor and Mark Tranc, now rush to give house-room to defenders of the Viking.Thus we see the headline "Former officers defend vehicles as Afghanistan bomb deaths investigated," with the strap line: "Use of Vikings questioned after British commander and soldier are killed, but analysts say size of Taliban...
Two days ago, Yorkshire Post columnist Bernard Dineen ventured his opinion on Snatch Land Rovers and the court case to be mounted by families of soldiers killed in these vehicles."The Government" and "the MoD", he ventured, are too diffuse a target. "Lawyers acting for the families should instead be suing Gordon Brown personally because he is directly responsible. Five former Chiefs of Staff stood up in the House of Lords and laid the blame...
"I find it so distressing to hear lavish praise being heaped upon the procurement of vehicles that are potential death-traps and to listen later to expressions of condolence to the families of those who have perished in them."Thus said Ann Winterton on Thursday (pictured below right), to a near-deserted Commons debating chamber, addressing on the government benches the minister of state for defence, Bob Ainsworth (below left).Spoken from...
The Army is in "denial" over Iraq, claims Richard North, author of Ministry of Defeat, a startling new book published today, the first comprehensive history of the British occupation of southern Iraq.Charting the progress of the occupation, relying on "open source" material, the extensive official and Arab media coverage, and high level sources, he finds that the military made many serious blunders which led to an irrecoverable position....
In June 2006, Gerald Howarth, shadow defence procurement minister, posted on his own website: "We welcome the Government's announcement that the Vector vehicle will enter service next year." He did, however, add: "It is more manoeuvrable but, according to the Secretary of State, is not much more armoured than the Snatch Land Rovers."Not quite a year later, we reported that the same Gerald Howarth was praising the Pinzguaer Vector, even...
As the publication of the book draws near - now scheduled for next Thursday, the same day as the euro-elections - we are beginning the largely thankless task of getting media attention for the launch. To that effect, the first of many press releases have hit the street, couched in terms that may interest the media.Our first is entitled "Failure of supervision by MPs 'caused deaths of soldiers'". It makes the case - which we have so often...
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