Peter Reynolds

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.

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?

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…

If our actions in Afghanistan and Iraq are morally justified then now we should be mounting a special forces operation to assassinate Robert Mugabe

This man is evil to the core and is beyond any redemption or pardon.  The people of Zimbabwe are relying on the international community to liberate them and surely this is the most effective way to do so with the least collateral damage.