On Friday, Ming Campbell and his wife Elspeth visited Colchester and met with the 16 Air Assault Brigade. During his visit, Ming called for massive improvements in conditions for the armed forces and their families.
Ming called for:
- All army accommodation to be assessed at the highest standard according to the Army’s Standard for Conditions
- An Independent Commission for Military Complaints to be set up to ensure complaints against the armed forces are handled effectively
- Proper support to be offered to troops returning from service including proper medical care and counselling
- Development of a Service Families Charter – to ensure that all families in the armed forces receive consistent and standardised welfare services
Commenting, Ming said:
“Last year 14,460 personnel quit the service.
“We need to treat the brave men and women in our armed services better otherwise we could face an ever growing shortfall.
“The men and women of our armed forces deserve decent housing and proper equipment. Both Conservative and Labour governments should be ashamed of their failure to provide this for our dedicated servicemen and women.”
This report is the most comprehensive (and devastating) account of the travesty in Afghanistan which passes for part of ‘the war on terror’. As can be clearly seen, from the eye-witness accounts alone, this is a war of terror. The indiscriminate nature of the ‘counterinsurgency’ measures has been clear for some time to anyone who looks beyond the official spin. Bombings of villages which kill ‘terrorists’ or ‘ dozens of Taliban’ are often massacres of villagers who may or may not include some Taliban. If you follow objective reports and sources (Xinua is one of the few) or local accounts, which are rare, it is clear that the same cavalier approach is adopted to ‘collateral’ damage as that in Iraq. The Americans are particularly guilty, but RAF aircraft have also bombed civilians in Afghanistan and examples abound but are rarely, for reasons of terrain and personal danger, followed up by the western press. The practice of ‘spray and pray’, a disgusting US military term for shooting at anyone and everyone in the vicinity of a bomb attack, is as live in Afghanistan as it is in Fallujah, Najaf, Samarra and Baghdad. The occupation is the reason for the resistance of the Taliban now and as the NATO forces escalate their violence against the population so the population will increase its support for the Taliban. This has all been said before, but never in as detailed and illustrative fashion as in this report. Pass it on.
http://www.senliscouncil.net
Can someone please tell me what military service Ming Campbell has?
Ming
your efforts in this area are admirable but I would suggest a long way down the list of issues to address with the armes forces.
I have only recently left teh forces and what is really of concern is the high operational tempo, deployments of personnel for 10 months in a year period is not sustainable no matter how good the accom- you are going to lose people! I would suggest you look at the resources of our armed forces (diminished) and the tasks we are asked to do (expanding) and ask decide wether we increase defence spending, drive up recruitment and improve equitment to meet theses challenges our reduce our responsibilities worldwide to reflect our diminised capability. (I am not just talking Iraq/Afgan in defence you must think bigger picture)
Also ask yourself why you have a defence spokesman who is a member of Greenpeace- if you do not see why this is an issue i would suggest this is one of the reasons why Lib Dems are not a credible alternative to govern, you are not credible. How can a defence sec of state support an organisation which operates at near illegal levels on the high seas? the majority of voters (and defence chiefs) will not take that lightly.
yours aye
Mike