Early 90s I spent a sunny summer in Malta, one of the few places readily open to Libyans then and probably now.

After several warnings and final exasperation, our host was forced to exclude all of the Libyans from our shared accommodation for repeated thievery.

Perhaps somebody had forgotten to explain the local law and the difference between right and wrong.

But actually the incumbent interviewed has a point. The cultural differences are so astounding that if we're going to get involved, we really do have to state the obvious to such individuals. I mean, western girls are easy and are NOT ALLOWED to say no, dont you know?

Brought to you courtesy of Thatcher the Baby Eater, well I mean after all she did, didnt she?

Commiserations to all involved

The old chief petty officer once told a young lieutenant ...

"You can polish it all you want to, Lieutenant, but that turd will never hold a shine."

That may apply to a few of these trainees ...

Ohhhh yes you can :)

Do you have an underlying party-political gripe behind this, hangarshuff? The reason I ask is all bar one of your posts highlight the word "Conservative" even though on the face of it party politics has no bearing whatever. Our military involvement in Libya was fully supported by Labour and a Labour PM took us into Iraq, as you well know.

Afghanistan campaign whilst expensive in human lives wasted, cost £40billion.

National debt costs the taxpayer £1billion per week in interest alone, the country's 4th largest expenditure.

This makes the Afghanistan endeavour quite good value for money in comparison, I'm surprised the MPs only managed to p1ss away 40 big ones. Not sure what Iraq cost???

One day people will wise up, maybe. Labour and Conservative are one and the same, gravy train riding professional liars & thieves.

So are they getting prosecuted or simply shuffled off home to be dealt with.... Or not.

I know the Kuwaitis we had go through the engineering training told us that if they failed the courses ( which included a year prior in the States learning English ) then they would be liable for the total cost of their courses and possibly more retribution..

I remember it being said by old sweats in the 60s that Libyans could raid your tent and steal your groundsheet from under you without you realising they were there.

You can't polish a turd, but you can roll it in glitter.


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On the contrary, tash, the British Military has centuries of experience of winning wars (ok, and losing some!)with unpromising raw material.

When things started to fall apart, why wasn't this course relocated to one of many MOD sites far from distraction and temptation?

ShotOne

Now you're drifting into the Marham Posting thread...:E

Mister B

Oh, Nutloose, you make oi larf!

So it's the MOD's fault for not teaching them our version of 'right and wrong' ....and yet I would imagine that if someone had devised a training course that set out to explain to the Libyans that they can't steal, sexually assault men/women/other things, the racism balloon would have gone up quick bloody sharp!

Under Sharia law, the punishment for theft is the loss of a hand? What is cut off as a punishment for sexual assault?

Ask the victims, they seem to be the ones that get punished.

Am I asking the obvious, but why wasn't this training carried out in Libya by British soldiers on detachment?
Yes I know, from hindsight.

Basil Probably because Bassingbourn was a well established Army training camp. I believe the Army no longer used it.

Spent 4 happy years there, in it's OCU days.

In the late 1960's the West Australian Govt sold a heap of farming equipment such as wheeltractors, seeders, scarifiers, harvesters, etc., to the Libyan Govt for the startup of a large farming arrangement under one of Ghaddafis "green the desert" expansive programmes.

A group of local farmers went to Libya to train up the locals in how to operate and maintain the farming equipment. They mostly came back pretty disgusted with the material they had to work with.

When one posed a question as to how the programme progressed, a typical answer was, "You'd teach them how to drive the tractor, check the fluids, and carry out basic maintenance - then a week later they'd forgotten more than half of what you'd taught them."

"You can't take people who are still 5th century donkey-and-camel-riding peasants with backward ideas, and expect them to move smoothly into the operation of 20th century technology. The whole exercise was a total WOFTAM."

I understand most of the farming equipment supplied was either wrecked or abandoned as the peasants charged with its operation and upkeep failed to keep up even basic maintenance.
Once repairs were required, it was beyond any of them to repair the machines, so they were abandoned as soon as they broke down.

I believe Ghaddafi eventually managed to get large centre-pivot irrigation plots in place, after the expenditure of multiple billions of dollars.
I have no doubt it was all done with imported technology, imported workers, and imported skills (at least on the management side).

It probably would have been a lot cheaper for Ghaddafi to just import the grains and other cereals required from other countries that produce them cheaply and efficiently.

Here's a link (below) to a report on the futile exercises of both the South Australian and West Australian Govts into setting up similar agricultural operations in Iraq. The story reads like a Hollywood script.

You cannot establish stable structures and organisation in amongst permanently unstable people, who inhabit permanently unstable regions, and who ensure that those regions remain permanently unstable.

The only way they gain a semblance of stability is when a ruthless, murderous dictator arises and rules the region with an iron fist.

1980's Australian efforts in the Iraq Agricultural arena

Redcaps and USAF SKycops downtown Cam
 

Forgot to mention night before the bloke got raped by a pair of those recruits) I had left/meandered/staggered Vodka Revolutions (opposite Cambridge Plaza Hotel where most attendees for the then Helitech Exhibition used to stay when it was held at IWM) looking for a taxi by Drummer Street bus station (by the future crime scene) forgetting taxis are parked by the Not So Grand Arcade shopping mall.

Bearing in mind that said park has become dangerous over the years...even though recently its been more lights then say 20 years ago when we used to stagger back home from good night on the town and funnily enough it was safer. Anyone doing shopping walkign through there in daytime can see the drunks and druggies sat around a bush / copse of trees in that park as well as young students wanting to drink and do substances in broad daylight. Its always been like this over the decades.

On fri and sat nights over the years, the Redcaps have accompanied the locals from Parkside Police Station to look out for the guys and girls from the then Waterbeach, Bassingbourn, and further afield. They have de camped outside Boots in the centre of town. Even the skycops/SFS from Alconbury/Lakenheath/Mildenhall have accompanied the local constabularly on their patrols in case any airmen/soldier/sailor/contractor gets into hot water!

I'm not overly sure if any Redcaps were present on the night of the incident though tbh, if they allowed leave / night out for the Libyan recruits it could be on the basis of been shadowed/escorted/mothered by say an RSM or WO2/3?

Cheers

7th century. Don't be unfair ;)

Arab soldiers?