Comment is Free: Serving in Iraq killed my faith in God

From The Guardian Comment is Free section, a very good read by a former Muslim solider on the eve of the Iraq invasion:

Luke Allsopp was a friend of mine. The last time we spoke for any length was in February 2003. Around three in the morning I woke hearing him struggling to stand and giggling. I saw him confused and braced against the wall. I called out, he turned and asked me why I was sleeping in the toilets. I told him it was my bedroom. He needlessly told me he was drunk.

We were both soldiers in the Royal Engineers. He was what you might imagine your average squaddie to be: hard-drinking and full of life. I was not so much your average squaddie: a Pakistani immigrant who had joined the British Army looking for adventure. He sat on the end of my bed and told me he was worried. We had just been told we were going to Iraq.

The lads had responded to this news by going out into the local town to drink the bars dry. Now, here was Luke, his behaviour the result of a heavy night numbing reality. I prepared myself to hear my friend talk about how he was worried about his family. But, he didn't want to talk to me about that. He told me he was worried about me.

Read the whole thing: HERE

The Guardian: Suspected Russian arms dealer Viktor Bout to be extradited to US

From the Guardian yesterday:

The man known as the "merchant of death", the alleged black-market arms dealer Viktor Bout, could be on American soil to face terrorism charges within weeks after a Thai appeals court ruled he must face charges of conspiring to supply Colombian rebels with weapons.

The 43-year-old Russian, who has maintained his innocence throughout two years in a maximum security prison in Thailand, will continue to fight the US's extradition request. His lawyer said he would lodge a petition with the Thai government asking it to block the extradition.

"The defence believes Bout will not be safe in the US and he will not receive a fair trial," Lak Nittiwattanawichan said outside court.

The Thai government is not compelled to extradite Bout, but is almost certain to, given the high profile of the defendant, and strong American pressure. If he is not extradited within three months, he must be released.

Read the rest of the article here.  Also read 2 more articles on the Guardian worth reading about Victor Bout:
Viktor Bout: five passports, half a dozen languages and alleged friend to all sides

Thailand to extradite suspected Russian arms smuggler Viktor Bout

The Afghan War Logs Part 1: Don't phone home! The Taliban will phone your mum!

In part 1 of some of my analysis of the leaked Afghan War logs I'll look at the concerns raised by one file posted from the ISAF HQ in Kabul about the use of the local GSM phone network and the capabilities of the Taliban to exploit it.

The file, which you can see here on the Guardian website. This file is of Type "Threat Report" and outlines how ISAF and other foreigners operating in the country could find the details of there phone calls been compromised by the Taliban, Taliban sympathizes or even foreign powers like Iran, Pakistan, China and India who's, according to the file embassies have a SIGINT or signals intelligence capacity, this means they have listening gear in there embassy that is capable of listening into foreign phone calls.

The Defence Budget and Trident

Trident missile been fired

George Osborne has made it very clear that the budget for the Trident will have to come from the already overspent MoD budget. This means Dr Liam Fox has to find a huge amount of money in the defence budget, this runs a risk of putting the already strained resources in Afghanistan. One big debate is do we replace Trident or retire it when it comes to its end of life.

The previous major 2 deployments by British Armed Forces have been in a Counter-Insurgency or COIN role. Which have been infantry lead with ground air support only. This is where operations by submarines have seen a VERY limited role. Royal Navy ships were part of the beginning of Operation Telic (the MoD name for the British deployment to Afghanistan) and fired Tomahawk cruise missiles into Afghanistan, however as Afghanistan is a landlocked country have no role or at least a limited role in Afghanistan. We will not be handing over security to the Afghans until 2014 and it is unknown when we will completely withdraw from the country.

However, it does not mean that next year, or in 10 years time Britain will still be only involved in COIN there are other threats including Islamist in Pakistan gaining control of Pakistan's nuclear weapons where again a nuclear deterrent would be necessarily. However, the MoD cannot at the moment afford to replace Trident, but Trident doesn't have to be the only type nuclear deterrent.

Minuteman missile been test fired

Cheaper land-based missiles on the British isles or our existing overseas territories such as the Falklands, Diego Garcia. These would be cheaper as there would not be a need to build, fuel and maintain the expensive missiles. The Americans already have a land-based nuclear deterrent in the Minuteman system in use. Another alternative could be to have air-based systems where a missile is fired from a large bomber, however this would require the development of a new bomber capable of firing such missiles.

My concern however is that the Chancellor and the Defence Secretary are forgetting or at least not trying to think about one thing, if he makes the wrong decision, it will cost british lives. If they move Britain away from been able of operating in environments like Afghanistan and Iraq and another COIN operation arises the armed forces will have to play catch up yet again but if it move the armed forces towards a expeditionary COIN op focused military and a nuclear power begins to threaten Britain it will once again be very difficult to defend british soil.

The Lab-Lib Coalition - Pros and Cons

Today was a interesting day in politics. Gordon Brown making quite a shocking resignation and Labour attempting to beat the Conservatives with offers of coalitions. What we know as of Today is:

• Gordon Brown will step down as Labour leader in time for conference season which is around October. This is to allow The Liberal Democrats to begin talks on forming a coalition. Nick Clegg and Gordon Brown have struggled to get along. It is believed from sources in the Labour Party, most notable Diane Abbot on BBC News that this is organised by Peter Mandelson.
• Who will run for Labour leader is still not 100% certain, Harriet Harman has said she would not run, the current speculated front runners are Ed Balls and David Miliband. My bets would be on David Miliband.
• Labour will offer the Lib Dems an Alternative Voting bill and a referendum on Proportional Voting. The Conservatives have offered a referendum on Alternative Voting but nothing on Proportional Voting. One of the core policies for the Lib Dems is voting reform, as they (and other smaller parties) would benefit most from this reform.
• Talks are still ongoing for a Lib-Con and Lib-Lab Coalition. The Lib Dems haven't made their minds up.
• A LibLab Coalition would see Gordon Brown has PM, even if it is for a short period of time. There would then be an leadership election in the Labour party and assumed that whoever wins that would take over as PM. However, it is the hope of this blogger that in that situation the power would be moved over to the Lib Dem leader Nick Clegg, with him becoming PM. Under a LibCon, David Cameron would be PM with no chances of that changing without extraordinary circumstances.

As Liberal Democrat voter, the upside of a Liberal Democrat coalition with Labour and other smaller parties is that more of the Liberal Democrat policies could be implemented in government because Labour would be more dependent on the Lib Dems to keep them in power than the Tories would be (who could technically speaking, still form a minority government). This means Labour would have to make more cohesion with the Liberal Democrats (an example of this is offering the referendum on Proportional Voting).

The problem with the LibLab coalition is that it wouldn't just be the Liberal Democrats that Labour would have to get on side. It would be the SNP, Plaid Cymru, the single Green Party MP and assuming that Sinn Finn won't take their seats in Parliament. This could make for a very unstable coalition, all it would take is a minor party to start withdrawing support and siding with the Tories and it would begin to fall apart, party by party. Another issue is public support, Labour lost the election in terms of votes. Gordon Brown would become PM again but only for a few months, then it would be another PM, who hasn't been through the debates and screened by the public during the election process. Remember that when Gordon Brown became PM, there was an expectation that an early election would be called.

John Reid (former Home Sec and MP) was make a quite frank view on the Lib-Lab Coalition who felt that the two losing parties are forming a coalition with the Labour party hanging on to power. He felt that the public would take it out on the Labour party causing them lose even more MPs at the next election. (See the video of John Reid on BBC News here)

One thing is important to take away from all of this: We will not have a new government soon, who will be PM is still up in the air and there is still a possibility of another election. In my opinion however, to my displeasure that David Cameron will be PM, but if he will be joined by the Liberal Democrats is another matter. I also predict the government will not last the whole 4 years and the possibility of an early election is high.

For more lovely stuff about politics, current events, and my daily antics follow me on Twitter: http://twitter.com/gregdash

Met police scare the shit out of Londoners

Found this pic on Digg:

It was taken outside a Tesco's in London. Another Digg user fixed it:
Ahh that's much better!

Darling: "People are pissed off with us."

I wouldn't have noticed, Darling. (OK, up front apology, I will make Darling jokes I know there not that funny or clever) I'm sure that 20 point lead the Tories have is just a blip.

Darling has done an interview in the Guardian which appears to be the new place for Labour politicians to whine, David Miliband has published some articles in the paper. But Darling's interview was quite interesting. Darling, doesn't normally do interviews but I was quite impressed with him. He shows that he gets it, which is good because I don't want to see politicians just keep saying "Everything is fine" or even worse "I'm getting on with the job" - Yeah I'd be fucking pissed if you weren't with the free house in the middle of London!

Darling showed that he'll admit that things are going wrong, and that is important to admit mistakes and problems. He admits that the Government have a lot to do if they want to get re-elected, which is looking increasingly unlikely.

I'm hoping the next Labour politician will be the Home "Fuck up" Secretary. The totalitarian bitch Jacqui Smith who in the "War On Terror" is on the other side.

You can read Darling's darling interview at guardian.co.uk