Category: War on Terror

Reading the Sunday papers always leaves me hungering for articles from real journalists but todays Sunday Mail outdoes itself carrying an article by Charles Laurence under the heading “How the Iraq war is destroying America’s fighting men” I couldn’t link to the article in the Sunday Mail but found it in a similarly low grade newspaper, The Daily Mail He quotes 240 of the 665 cases of military indiscipline in Iraq and Afghanistan involved drugs and alcohol. Let’s see now……with about 1,500,000 US GWOT veterans that calculates out at 1 in 6250 troops have been involved in drugs. I would say my North Brisbane suburban area has a far worse drug related crime rate than the 240 for the area and that is with only about 50,000 people. He comes up with some real crime;

To get an idea of how deep into depravity some of these men have sunk, here is just one of the sex offences: in March, 2006, a group of men – again from the 101st Airborne Division – gang-raped a 14-year-old girl, and then murdered her and her family.

In one case as long ago as May 2004, when President Bush was declaring ‘victory’ and the vast majority of Americans were still cheering him on, Private Justin Lillis got drunk on illicit whisky on his base in Balad, stole a Humvee and went on a rampage, shooting up a residential neighbourhood with his M16 rifle, before taking pot shots at the guards on the entrance to his own base.

Unquestionably depraved but there will always be bad eggs in any basket. One depraved crime doesn’t point to a whole army as depraved.

He quotes Seventy-three of those 240 cases were the most serious yet known from these two wars: murder, rape, robbery and assault.

Just a question: how many of these 73 cases were rape and murder and how many were robbery and assault. Lumping them together makes a mockery of statistics and as the Left have claimed, playing music too loud in a cell constitutes assault or torture.

Another remarkable statistic can be no co-incidence: a record number of women soldiers – as many as one-third of the total returning from tours in Iraq – are coming home pregnant.

They are mostly young, fit people. What does Laurence expect them to do when not on patrol – go to prayer meetings? Take along woman to a war zone and it’s going to happen…human nature.

For years, the Pentagon has banned the taking of photographs of returning coffins, while President Bush has refused to attend funerals because honouring the dead was deemed bad for public relations.

The President hasn’t ‘refused’ to attend funerals at all. He has done what all presidents have done and that’s run the country. If he was to attend funerals he’d spend one day every week doing so

It all points to another shocking statistic: almost one in three of troops returning from the Iraq and Afghan fronts in need of health care are wounded not in the body, but in the mind.

The younger the soldiers, the greater the incidence of post traumatic stress disorder, depression, anxiety, alcoholism and drug addiction. This third compares with 10 per cent of Vietnam veterans – survivors of a war so far considered to have produced an unprecedented number of mental casualties.

That is simply wrong. Stats for the Vietnam War indicate about 30% had symptons of PTSD and that nearly 19 percent still suffer from the disorder. These stats are from a Harvard University report and not some Veteran’s group. There are other factors involved here; one is a certain percentage of PTSD suffering has been caused by the general rejection of the troops by the media (such as this report) and their campaign to treat them as inferior veterans simply because they fight terrorists or in my time, communists. Another factor is that Veterans and Veteran’s Affairs departments now recognize PTSD whereas before it took Vietnam Veterans 20 odd years to get the disorder recognized. The Iraq veterans are being diagnosed as they return home. Ther is no question that the events descibed by Charles happen in a war. An army is a reflection of society with all it’s faults and no one expects every soldier to be an angel. To take some isolated stats and spin them negatively only points out the obvious. To misrepresent stats as he has done only points out another obvious fact – he is biased against the US and Bush for ideological reasons making anything he says as just static in the background of a complicated problem. Still, it is the Sunday papers.

A Chinook is fired at without any hits and it makes the press. I guess you’d call that good news

AUSTRALIAN soldiers and journalists have experienced a close call in Afghanistan when Taliban insurgents fired on their helicopter. Television footage shot by SBS cameraman Jamie Kidston on board the chopper on Monday shows what appears to be a rocket-propelled grenade missing the Chinook by about 20m.

Australian commander at Kandahar, Lieutenant Colonel Kevin Humphreys said today the crew were unaware of the close call until after a review of the TV tapes.

A miss makes the news because journalists captured it on video but the crew and military pax on board wouldn’t have ever raised the issue.

Mildly interesting but really it’s just part of the job.

Letter to the Australian;

CONSIDERING Prime Minister Howard has been so accomodating to US Vice-President Cheney, I wonder if he would be equally as welcoming to the Iranian leadership in return? I think it would only be fair to listen to Iran’s side of the story, considering Howard and Cheney have obviously been considering the possibility of attacking Iran during this rather bizarre visit by the US second-in-command.
Mike Anderson
Lyneham, ACT

Mike, you must have missed it. We have listened to Rafsanjanihe…in a speech a couple of years ago he stated that Nuclear weapons could solve the problem of Israel and added;

…. Muslims must surround colonialism and force them [the colonialists] to see whether Israel is beneficial to them or not. If one day, he said, the world of Islam comes to possess the weapons currently in Israel’s possession [meaning nuclear weapons] – on that day this method of global arrogance would come to a dead end. This, he said, is because the use of a nuclear bomb in Israel will leave nothing on the ground, whereas it will only damage the world of Islam.

What’s your next point Mike?

Jenny Brockie on SBS’s Insight holds a trial seeking to put further pressure on the Howard government to bring Hicks home and judging by the on-site poll, the pollsters, media’s version of a jury, want him home, voting 94% to 6% to do so. No mention at all as to whether he should answer the charges against him…just bring the poor missunderstood lad home. I can only assume that 94% of SBS viewers believe it’s OK to fight against your own countrymen. Poor fellow, my country indeed! Jenny shows extracts of the feature film called ‘The Road to Guantanamo’ backed by Amnsety International spokesperson Katie Wood who believes everything in the feature film, an ex inmate of Guantanamo, Moazzam Begg who surely would be kicked out of any court as a hostile witness, Terry and Bev Hicks who understandingly are against everything that deprives their son of liberty, Major Mori and George Williams a constitutional lawyer as witnesses and expert opinion for the defence. Colonel Moe Davis leads the prosecution and Phillip Ruddock takes the side of the Government. Neither have a chance. The judge, Jenny, is biased as is the paid public gallery. The “selected members of the public’ were Grahame and Debbie Goddard. Graham got to say;

But the fact of the matter is, is that he was caught red-handed being part of an illegal terrorist group and he was arrested. Now, only a court can tell us whether he’s innocent or guilty.

But was quickly negated by his wife who in a moment of unbiased rationale debate says;

I just think that the Australian Government, Mr Howard, is in Mr Bush’s pocket and I believe that David Hicks has been made a scapegoat.

Meanwhile, in the US the courts are eschewing emotion and politics and are considering the law

HOPES that David Hicks could be back in Australia by Christmas suffered a significant setback today in a US court. The US federal appeals panel in Washington DC ruled Guantanamo Bay inmates, including Hicks, do not have the right to challenge their detention in lower federal courts.

They shouldn’t have the right either. They are armed combatants fighting against the US. Major Mori seems to think they should be given the same constitutional rights as American citizens. I can only say the campaign to free Dawood is well orchestrated and achieving results. I would think that by now the majority of the public think the entire issue is about his encarceration and give little thought to his alleged crimes. Amazing isn’t it? within two generations treason has become OK so long as it’s against countries who have conservative goverments.

The ALP’s media division, the ABC, report Peter Tinley condemning the government for sending Trainers to Iraq. They also promote him to Deputy Commander of the Australian Forces in Iraq when he was actually Deputy Commander of the Australian Special Forces contingent in Iraq…quick route from Major to star rank via the ABC.

The former SAS deputy commander of Australia’s forces in Iraq says the Federal Government’s plan to send up to another 70 military trainers there will make Australia an even greater target.

It’s an opinion but has no further weight than others with similar experience. Personaly I think it may help – by all accounts they do need some training. At least he has now officially thrown his hat in the ring as the ALP Candidate for Stirling, WA ,whereas previously he was only quoted as an ex SAS officer.

A NATIONAL television advertising campaign showing a close-up of David Hicks as a freckled, nine-year-old schoolboy will try to humanise the Guantanamo Bay detainee after the weekend announcement of serious charges against him. How cute he looks Oops. Sorry! Wrong photo. This shot is one of Osama Bin laden when he was a cute teenager. Still, same message.

I have said from day one of Hick’s incarceration at Guantanamo that he should be treated as a Prisoner of War and released when the conflict is over. I have been bemused by legal opinion that demands he be charged and tried or released. To me this would be the same as if an Australian had left Australia in 1942 to train with and fight for the Japanese and was later captured on the battlefield. He would’ve been incarcerated until wars end and nobody would’ve demanded he be charged or released. The Left wing legal activists are suggesting Hicks be charged as a common criminal when clearly he isn’t. He was fighting for the enemy and if he hadn’t been captured when he was, he could well have ended up being in a position to shoot at and kill Australians or allies. In my reading on the subject I came across this study by the Australian Defence Association that delves into the fact that his detention as a captured combatant and his possible trial on criminal charges are two entirely separate issues.

The complexity of the legal issues surrounding David Hicks confuses even lawyers, particularly ones with little or no background in the relevant international law. Even some academic lawyers with general backgrounds in international law have demonstrated insufficient knowledge of the Laws of Armed Conflict (one of the oldest and most detailed bodies of international law). Recently, for example, the Law Council of Australia lapsed into purely domestic legal thinking and terminology in describing David Hicks as having “languished powerless in custody, principally at Guantanamo Bay, for a period of 30 months before he was even charged with any offence”. Similarly, a recent letter to the Prime-Minister from the Australian Section of the International Commission of Jurists (ICJ) implied (wrongly) that “indefinite” detention was illegal in all circumstances, mentioned “the Geneva Convention” (rather than show any understanding that there are in fact four Conventions and three Additional Protocols), and did not mention the Laws of Armed Conflict at all. Such statements, apparently premised on the narrow and incorrect supposition that this is only a form of civil criminal matter, are just further variations of the common but simplistic claim that it is merely a matter of someone trying David Hicks or releasing him.

Being tried on terrorism or other war crime charges will not necessarily mean he would be released if found innocent.

Although too often ignored in popular clamour, the correct position in international law is that even if criminal charges against David Hicks were dropped tomorrow this would not necessarily mean his unconditional release from detention as a captured combatant under the Laws of Armed Conflict. The dropping of criminal charges would, however, probably assist the relevant tribunal in determining the likelihood of him resuming belligerent activities and therefore deciding whether his release on captured combatant parole, for example, could be justified under international humanitarian law.

The article from the Australian Defence Association spells it out and is a bit lengthy but if you want to voice an opinion about Hicks then I recommend you read it first. In the meantime I will just accept that most of those clamouring for Hick’s trial and/or release do so based on ideology and in the absence of any impartial knowledge of the laws that govern detention of armed combatants. I’ve been to war and when we captured an enemy soldier we detained him for as long as was deemed necessary to avoid him getting back into the fray. It’s what armies do for God’s sake.

That’s the spirit. Never stop looking for them and when you find them – kill them. The US have attacked an al-Qa’ida hideout in Somalia targeting at least three suspected operatives.

Military sources said the targets in southern Somalia included a senior al-Qa’ida leader in East Africa and an al-Qa’ida operative wanted for his involvement in the 1998 bombings of the American embassies in Kenya and Tanzania that killed more than 250 people. There was no confirmation last night that the airstrike had killed the al-Qa’ida targets but sources told The Washington Post that initial reports indicated the attack on the suspected terror training base had been successful.

Some may think an AC-130 Spectre gunship is an overkill but not me. Whatever it takes to eliminate terrorists is fine by me.

The US has also moved the aircraft carrier Dwight D. Eisenhower to join two guided missile cruisers USS Bunker Hill and USS Anzio and the amphibious landing ship USS Ashland off the coast of Somalia.

While the US does something about Somalia, the UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon appointed Tanzania’s Foreign Minister Asha-Rose Migiro to the number two job at the United Nations on Friday, calling her a highly respected leader and outstanding manager who has championed the developing world. The Australian notes she supports Iran’s pursuit of the nuclear weapons and the internet is ablaze with stories of her name not being in the original short list. I have no problems with appointment of woman to any position but this one smacks of a token woman as Ban Ki-moon had previously pledged to appoint a woman as Deputy Secretary-General.

I would rather he had pledged to appoint the best person available.

The UN, of course, is worried that the US have actually done something as it goes against their policies of waiting until hundreds of thousands have been slaughtered before taking over and deploying troops.

Seems like standard business at the UN to me but I guess only time will tell.

According to Al Jazeera Saddam Hussein is due to be executed sometime today. I have stated before I’m against the death sentence mainly due to the possibility of errors in law or questionable guilt however I don’t think any of those factors are relevant in this case. Some will say his execution will make him a martyr but so what? By definition a martyr is no longer able to terrorise his own people and that has to be seen as a plus. I wouldn’t advocate the death sentence as some sort of revenge for his past deeds; rather I see it as a means to ensure he will never again be able to wreak havoc and terror at home and abroad. One down but there is still a lot to go UPDATE:   Saddam was executed at dawn this morning Iraq time (1.00pm EST) How’s this for predictable and meaningless?

Human Rights Watch and Amnesty International both complained that Maliki’s government had pressured the judge to return guilty verdicts, and called for the accused to be brought before an international tribunal. “Imposing the death penalty, indefensible in any case, is especially wrong after such unfair proceedings,” said Richard Dicker, director of Human Rights Watch’s international justice programme, after the appeal failed. 

Yeah…right.