Hero or Zero

D

Duplex

Registered User
Messages
155
Hero or Zero.


U.K. Airman to Face Court Martial for Refusal to Serve in Iraq
March 22 (Bloomberg) -- A U.K. Royal Air Force officer was ordered to stand trial for his refusal to serve in Iraq, after a military judge rejected arguments that the war was illegal.

Flight Lieutenant Malcolm Kendall-Smith, 37, was charged with five counts of failing to comply with an order, after refusing to report for duty in the southern Iraqi city of Basra in June, an RAF spokeswoman said.

The judge hearing the case at an air base in Aldershot, England, today ruled that the orders to Kendall-Smith were legal, the spokeswoman said. Judge Advocate Jack Bayliss said U.K. troops were justified under United Nations resolutions to fight in Iraq and dismissed Kendall-Smith's view that he could disobey the orders because Britain had no lawful reason to enter the country, the British Broadcasting Corp. reported.

Kendall-Smith, a physician, had served previously in Iraq and refused another posting to the country after studying legal advice about the war given to government ministers, the BBC said. His court martial is scheduled for April 11, the BBC reported.
Britain has about 7,800 military members in Iraq and is the second-largest contributor to the 160,000-strong coalition led by the U.S. The U.S. contingent numbers about 140,000.
Click to expand...

http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=10000102&sid=aT.R6GQ6Idws&refer=uk
 
Hero but probably a naieve one if he thought that was going to get him off the hook. Given that he is a physician you would think it shouldnt have been too abhorrent to him to help his fellow soldiers, as opposed to, say, being a pilot carrying out suspect bombing raids.

I'm afraid it goes with the territory that once you join you have to tow the line - thats why I wouldnt normally blame the guys on the ground - they have to follow orders, of course then you have Abu Gharib etc and thats a different story
 
Zero. He signed up to serve in the armed forces, he knew what would happen if he refused orders. As a physician, he is letting his comrades down.
 
Neither, just foolish, its not up to soldiers to decide whether the war should be fought, an army does what the government tells it to do the whole thing would fall apart if individual soldiers were able to decide to do different things. You sign up and take orders.
 
He's already done a tour of duty over there. He's done his bit... unfortunately we've created a mess over there now which won't be cleaned up without great difficulty.

The premise for this whole war was based on a web of deceit. It's George Bush and Tony Blair who should be up before the War Crimes Tribunal in The Hague... but of course that's never going to happen.

 
'Il est bon qu'un soldat désobéisse à des ordres criminels.'
[It is right for a soldier to disobey criminal orders.]
Anatole France

It takes more courage, too.
Click to expand...

Tell that to the Kurds, or the countless women raped by Saddam and his sons, or the countless families torn apart by his death squads...
 
Sherman said:
Tell that to the Kurds, or the countless women raped by Saddam and his sons, or the countless families torn apart by his death squads...
Click to expand...

So do we invade every country with a nasty little dictator? Where's next - The Congo (1,000,000 dead), North Korea the list goes on and on. The justification for this war was WMD and a supposed link with Al Quaeda and the 9/11 attacks both of which turned out to be rubbish.

By the way, what about the (estimated) 37,000 Iraqi civilians killed since this war began; what about the 15 civilians (including women and children) killed in a reprisal attack by US army forces last year after one of their number was killed by a roadside bomb (as reported in Time magazine); what about the inmates of Abu Ghraib.

Even human rights excuses for the war are beginning to wear a little thin now.
 
So do we invade every country with a nasty little dictator?
Click to expand...

Ideally, yes.

Where's next - The Congo (1,000,000 dead), North Korea the list goes on and on.
Click to expand...

Iran, hopefully.

Even human rights excuses for the war are beginning to wear a little thin now.
Click to expand...

As are the rantings of the anti-war brigade, many of whom take as their primary motivation hatred/mistrust/fear of the US rather than any deeply held conviction as to the legality or otherwise of the war in Iraq.
 
Why do you think for one second that the mess that is Iraq would not be repeated if Iran was invaded? Above all else, Iraq has shown the world that no matter how large or advanced your military is, determined people with homemade explosives can render it all irrelevant.

The attitude that invading and regime change by violent means is best was put forward by the neocons in the US and Iraq was to be their crowning glory in showing the world what can be achieved. Instead, Iraq is descending further into chaos and one of the founders of the neocon movement Francis Fukuyama has written a book basically telling the world that they were wrong all along.

The Iraq invasion was badly planned, badly executed and was based on misleading intelligence, if not outright lies. The Iraqi people are suffering now as much as they ever did before and for what?

I personally always had respect and admiration for the US and its achievements. Although their foreign policy decisions in the past were sometimes flawed, I don't believe that they are the evil empire that others would claim, but this was an illegal war and unfortunately they are now reaping the consequences of that action.
 
icantbelieve said:
Neither, just foolish, its not up to soldiers to decide whether the war should be fought, an army does what the government tells it to do the whole thing would fall apart if individual soldiers were able to decide to do different things. You sign up and take orders.
Click to expand...

I’m not too comfortable with the ‘Nuremberg Defence’ (I had to follow orders). I was naïve enough to believe when the ‘War on Terror’ started that the motivations and the intelligence were sound, I was wrong. Iraq is on the verge of splintering into a vicious civil war, the war in Afghanistan is ongoing with only Kabul under the control of the allies. I think that the easy course of action for this guy would be to do his tour, but he has chosen a principled stand.
 
Duplex said:
I think that the easy course of action for this guy would be to do his tour, but he has chosen a principled stand.
Click to expand...

Arguably the easiest course of action would have been to stay away from the army altogether and work in a civilian hospital where there are plenty of other battles to be fought.....
 
Disagree with part of your post gearoidmm.
The invasion was well planned and executed; what was disastrous was having no plan at all for what happened after the "victory"
My son, who had left the Regular Army 8 years previously, was one of the guys who crossed the border into Iraq on Day 1 and, thank God, he and all his guys came home safely.

As Duplex implies, the "I was only following orders" was destroyed as a defence at Nuremburg.

Further to DocM's comment, it is the positive duty of every soldier to refuse to obey an illegal order.
 
Tactically the invasion was well executed but from the beginning mistakes were made ie not having enough troops on the ground, totally disbanding the armed forces and police, allowing looting and lawlessness to take hold. There are horror stories going round about how people were selected to work in the transitional administration and how ridiculously unqualified they were. I don't think you can separate out the planning of the first days of the invasion from the follow-on.

I'm very glad to hear that your son got out safely, I have spoken to Iraqi vets on visits to the US and I certainly don't wish them any ill.

I wonder if the troops who went in day one still feel that is was justified?
 
There was no planning for the follow-on.

So far as the British Ministry of Defence was concerned there wasn't a great deal of thought given to equipping the troops on the ground.
Compared to some, my son got off lightly in that he was only short of desert pattern combat trousers, sand goggles etc, which I had to buy from an army surplus shop and post out to him.
He already had his own GPS to take with him so he was able to know where the hell he was.
The other thing he and his guys were short of was food - even after being held in a rest camp for three days and being fed on demand he was still 3 stone lighter than when he left home.

Any one who has served in the British Army will be familiar with the delights of Lancashire Hotpot ration packs; that was all that they had for three weeks.

All so that Bush's poodle could posture on the world stage!
 
Cheap shot shnaek, you don't have to be prepared to fight yourself in order to have the right to believe that something should be fought for. An army is there to do the fighting on behalf of the people. You support charities, are you prepared to go where they go and help out.
With regards to whether a soldier should or shouldn't obey illegal orders, who says the orders were illegal, where has there been a judgement in his country's law that this soldier/medic can point to in support of his claim. If you join the armed forces you obey orders, if you feel the orders are illegal then you take your case to the court, if you lose you do what you are told or leave, an option open to this man.
 
It is not a cheap shot, icantbelieve. Look at Dubya. A man that dodged the draft who is quite happy to send other peoples brothers, sisters, sons and daughters off to die. To me that is worse than hypocritical. It is criminal.

I do believe that we should go and help out charities. Absolutely. Giving money is nice, but the people who really care do something about it. Even if that means helping out the local homeless, or giving some time to the samaritans. Time and effort is far more important to money.

And if you are arguing that we should send our fellow human beings into other peoples conflicts where they may pay the ultimate price then you better be willing to go in there yourself, or that arguement does not hold much sway.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top