Words and pictures - The Express

It is always fun when words and pictures come together to tell one story but illustrate another.

The Daily express has managed that with a heart-warming story of Christmas Day and our troops getting the full Christmas meal.

Sadly though, the soldiers featured in the image appear to be from the  Czech Republic:

For those who are wondering how on earth you can tell where these well camouflaged men come from (it's difficult I know) the clue is that we have a little union flag on our uniforms.

Still - was a great story (and it made me smile) Perhaps the caption should have been 'someone's brave troops'?

Happy Thursday and Veselé Vánoce!

I don't wear a poppy or celebrate Armed Forces Day . . .

Found this post in another place and thought I'd share it as it made me smile:

"I don't celebrate Armed Forces Day. I don't wear a poppy. I don't stop at 1100 on 11/11 if I can help it.

I remember the fallen from Iraq & Afghanistan, the suffering innocents from those countries & the men who fell so that others did not have to follow them on the one day that might possibly make some kind of difference...

Polling day."

All I can say to a post like this is that it is only because people did stop their normal lives and serve the nation's needs when the blessing that is democracy was under threat that you can write as you do and make the choice not to stop and honour their memories. As for suffering innocents from Iraq and afghanistan, I can only suggest that alongside naivety I would also have to perhaps add something much worse for one of the things I am sure of is that our forces have most heroically worked to save lives and reduce the numbers that would have died had we not been in those places. Men and women who have displayed great selfless commitment to their task and I think and pray for those who today train the Afghan Nation Army and Police force (ANA/ANP) and for those courageous people who go out onto the ground to defuse explosive devices.

If you don't want to stop for those who served in the two world wars perhaps you might like to take a look at the lives of men who have served and paid with their lives to protect the civillian population (children in particular) like Oz Schimdt or Brett Linley and pay your respects to them on Armistice Day and remembrance Sunday. Perhaps you might also like to add to them the 195 names of those who have died in the past year and will shortly be added to the Armed Forces Memorial at the National Memorial Arboretum?

As for Polling day, I struggle to see who you might find who would suit your obviously grand naivety in terms of a government and pray to God that we'd never see them get into power.

Soapbox away - rant over - evensong approaches and the words of the psalm (53) echo true with the person to whom I respond in that it deals with fools!

It's Friday in Afghanistan

Which means prayers for the general populace and this means that we need to be praying too!

Not only that but we need to consider our responses to the happenings of the past week sensibly and in a measured and balanced manner.

Last night, during a 'Padre's hour' I asked the cadets what they thought about Afghanistan and the news and attitudes they'd either had or had heard. Some of the comments that came out of our conversation were:

"Unwinnable"     "Time to get out"    "Lost the battle"

"If we leave we deny the value of those lives that have been lost (404 personnel!)"

What was obvious was that the US forces have certainly not helped the situation with the serial errors that are: urinating on dead Afghanistan nations, burning Korans and the murder of sixteen civillians.

So before some of those who are continually bleating about warmongers, occupation, oppression and pulling out start to sharpen their knives, let us consider the situation and our response (especially our response as Christians if the cap fits) to the situation.

What is happening in Afghanistan (with regard to the British forces, and these are the only group I feel competent to have an opinion on) is that we are giving Afghanistan nationals the opportunity to live free from fear. We are also making inroads to weakening the influence of the Taliban (or we were until the serial sadnesses) and we are training the ANA/ANP (Afghan National Army/Afghan National Police) to manage and control their own nation's security. All of which is positive and good.

I think the commissioning of the same legal eagle who represented the infamous serial killer, Ted Bundy, is a massive error for a number of reasons (including guilt ny association with Bundy. It's easy to think, "Oh yeah, John Henry Browne, the bloke who defends proven killers!")


The call for the man to be tried in Afghanistan has been ignored by having him taken out of the area and he's now on his way (I assume) to the good old US of A. His brief sums up my fears when he says:

"He's one of our boys and we have to treat him fairly . . . He has no animosity towards muslims!"

Wow, I'd hate to see what would have occurred if their had been animosity!!

Other defend the actions taken by pointing to a friend having lost a leg the day before whilst others claim he was unfit and 'didn't want to go' or was suffering 'battle fatigue'

The reality is that much ground has been lost, something clearly demonstrated by the fact that President Karza, in a strategy designed to reduce civilian deaths, has told the US to pull its troops out of village areas and let Afghan forces take the lead. The reality is that trust has been lost at all levels of the people of Afghanistan.

So, what do we do?

1. We pray for the families of those who have had their loved ones murdered,

2. We pray for those who are on the ground and seeking to do their duty (and their families),

3. We pray that the right thing would be done regarding this sad episode - I fear for the responses should the man be brought (as some reports claim) to a trial of sort in some eighteen months or so and found 'not guilty' or in some way exonerated and I am fearful that others seek his death to show that some sort of 'justice' has been seen to have been done. Justice, Mercy and Humility!

4. We pray for the comrades and family of the yet to be named soldier as it's obvious he isn't in a good place, and

5. We pray that the actions of wicked men who might use the Friday prayer to arouse and inflame passion through corrupting the Koran coms to nothing.

I've tried to keep this short and realise that there is much more that can be said but think there is enough here for people to join the dots for themselves.

Pax

The ends NEVER justify the means

I am saddened and appalled at some of the (supposedly Christian) blogs which have been calling for us to act wrongly. Others have been calling for us to remove our forces from various operational locations because of some strange and skewed link they have chosen to make regarding Qatada's presence in our land. Not only that but they somehow align the situation surrounding illegal/bogus immigrants with that of not being involved elsewhere.

Others have been advocation action that 'puts the fear of God into those who think and act as Qatada does regardless of what the rule of law or our 'soft' attitudes to the naughty people would have us think. Still more call for us to expel att the scroungers and illegals and regain our sovereign rights and take back our rightful place in everything that is rightly ours (I can hear 'Rule Brittania' playing in the backgrounds as the gentle rustle of the Daily Fascist in the backgrounds accompanies the laughter of children colouring in the maps and globes in red once again!).

The reason we are in 'other places' is because we are members of a global community and have been asked, as such, to support Afghanistan's struggle regarding terrorism. Afghanistan was a place that was subject to terrible acts being commissioned against the general populace by the Taliban and the Taliban also provide the training grounds and assisted with acts of terror all around the world. Our forces being there mean that terrorism isn't coming to a (usually very safe place) near you. This is why we are willing to be deployed and put our lives on the line - for the safety of people far away and closer at home - it what we do! To call for pulling out because our sensibilities are offended just makes those lives lost (sixty last year) and those deployed much less valuable.

Not only that but we are working hard to train the Afghan National Army and Police (ANA, ANP) and as we work to reduce the potential of oppression from within we are also training forces that will ensure that once our work is done the tide does not turn and reverse all that we have given our comrades, and time and effort, for.

NATO and ISAF are working to bring democratic reality to the nation (in the truest sense, not like the confused situation that Iraq brought us) and will see us leaving with 'hearts and minds' won and peace if not established, planted and beginning to show shoots!

So a request to those who speak of 'regaining our rightful place' - we already have it and it is bearing fruits through the service, commitment and sacrificie of our forces in many places. We have no need for the awful heritage of the fascists who, having read their scurrilous rags, rech for their pens to write as 'offended of somewhere cosy, safe and comfortable'.

We take the Union Flag and place it in foreign soil, engaging in conflict to see that right is done and moral codes are lived by. Regardless of the provocation we are called (by God) to do what is right. Regardless of situation, we are called (by the Law of Armed Conflict) to act rightly in our military engagements. Regardless of the offence that a man like Abu Qatada 's continued residence in our land causes, it is right and fitting that we should abide by the rule of law and act justly for this is what we have (generally - for I know there have been times when we have failed) always sought to do and be.

To do anything else denies the above paragraph and makes us no better than those who we despise and justifies the wickedness of those who would engage in acts of terror against us. If our hands are clean then their acts are exposed for what they are, and demonstrates our higher moral and spiritual ground.

God calls us to act rightly - secularism calls us to act for ourselves regardless of the methods used.

So please, stop writing tosh and start supporting what is right, regardless of the pain it causes us, and . . .

Why don't we learn from this and demand that our governments, the nations with whom we operate and those who act for us do things the right way - for had they done so Qatada would now be in Jordan!

Now there's a thought for the day, week and the rest of our lives.

Proud to be British - let's keep it that way!