Time to put my head back above the parapet I think. The media do I am afraid have a role in reporting on and yes commenting on the behaviour of anyone in public life - that is actually the role they should perform keeping the public informed of what is going on - but the opinion has of course to be kept out of the news pages. Most of the hacks writing about this today will have been to both Afghanistan and Iraq and with respect most of them would have been there with the army which is perhaps why a bluejob wouldnt see them.
I realise that I am in danger of sounding like my grandad used to but I spent 15 years in the army and while there were of course the odd occasions when things went badly wrong in Northern Ireland - Bloody Sunday among them - I cannot imagine anyone I served with doing some of the things that have gone on.
It has not been just one regiment there has been a depressing series of them. Someone mentioned the drugs story. I may be being naive but I was seriously shocked when I heard the interview and the evidence of what appears to have gone on in that particular regiment. I was also seriously shocked by the evidence in the court martial involving the guys in the Breadbasket case where it was clear that officers had breached Geneva rules and not been even investigated, while a corporal who simply stopped the abuse the minute he saw it, and bawled out his men, but didnt report it up the chain, was put away for longer than anyone else.
There is something seriously awry with the British Army at the moment and while it is of course true that most of them are heroes who should make us all proud, it is no longer sensible to keep saying it is just a few bad apples. Certainly it is a very small minority but it clearly isnt just a one-off. Just read this evidence to the defence select committee on the treatment received by the parents of the kids who committed suicide at Deepcut. It's nothing to do with Iraq and being under immense strain, as the guys in the video undoubtedly were, this is just the behaviour of troops in bases in the UK and just as disgracefully officers in charge of them who clearly did not deserve to hold a commission. Given the circumstances, it is in some ways far more damning.
http://www.publications.parliament.u...3/41201p04.htm