What Do They Look Like!

Most weekdays I watch the TV channel BBC Parliament. I suppose I could be accused of being slow, but I have only realised how truly low the standard of personal presentation is exhibited by ladies on the government front bench.

The majority of male front bench ministers are well presented, neat suits, well ironed shirts with matching ties - hopefully their shoes are well polished too!

Then we see the ladies, many of whom look as if they’re wearing someone elses cast offs, jackets to suits look at least one size too small, garing unnecessary coloured blouses are selected, or they’ve decided to save money by shopping at Lady at the Skip. Sadly it’s not only the apparel that looks naff, most of the time some could not have bothered brushing their hair or looking in a mirror, and they all seem to use the same hairdresser, Blunkett of Westminster!

If Gordon Brown has a modicum of sense, he would have a quite word with Tory MP Nadine Dorries and beg her to offer dress-sense advice to his own front bench!

 

Torture - Waterboarding

Our American allies, led by that great politician George Bush, are evidently continuing on a path of torture to obtain information regarding the Iraq-Afghanistan situation.

President Bush has often referred to ‘water-boarding’, the form of torture favoured for use by the CIA on terror suspects at Guantanamo Bay as an ’enhanced interrogation technique’. He is obviously unaware of the fact that such description is not new and was originally coined by the Nazis.

In 1947, a Japanese soldier who had used water-boarding against a US citizen during World War II was sentenced to 15 years in a US prison for committing a war-crime. In 1948 such techniques were clearly understood to be war-crimes, the punishment for which was death!

One of the (many) torure techniques used by the Gestapo during WWII was a form of water-boarding. The victim was tied face up on a board and then lowered backwards into a bath full of cold water until there was loss of conciousness, after which the victim was pulled out, revived and the torture process continued.

Forms of Gestapo torture can be found in the book The White Rabbit by Yeo-Thomas.

Question: will President Bush be accused of war crimes and made to appear before the Court in The Hague?

Bush, Blair & Bodge

According to a television documentary, the Americans seemed to believe the people of Iraq would welcome them with open arms, with fire-arms yes, although the expected open arms welcome left a little to be desired.

When the war was in full swing, I recall there being a comments from the Americans to the effect that they were unable to recognise insurgents as they did not conform to wearing a uniform. If any of the Bush aides had bothered reading up on the resistance in France during WWII they would’ve known that resistance workers tend to work under-cover for their own safety.

British forces in both Iraq and now Afghanistan are rightly portrayed as the poor relation of the Yanks. I recall the Brits having to beg bottled water from their wealthy buddies. Whilst the Australian forces in Iraq patrol by tank, our guys have to do whatever they can in military Land Rovers, such, according to our battle weary guys being damned dangerous, incapable of offering protection from virtually any in-coming missile or mine, and originally designed for patrolling the streets of Belfast and being totally unsitable for the dessert.

We all remember a sergeant being ordered to give his body armour to a member of his troop and then being killed by a bullet that the same body armour would’ve stopped!

The lesson our ministers need to learn is, don’t send our troops into battle without the correct equipment, adequate provisions, first-class heavy generators to provide ongoing air-conditioning, and in the case of battle zones such as Iraq, vehicles designed for dessert warfare (again including air conditioning).