John is entirely innocent of any involvement in the terror attacks, or any allegiance to terrorism. That is not disputed by the American government. Indeed, all accusations of terrorism against John were dropped by the government in a plea bargain, which in turn was approved by the US district court in which the case was brought.

Paternal concern is indeed honourable.

But seriously, using the “we’ve no evidence” part of a plea bargain just doesn’t prove that there’s no evidence.

As you go on to point out, your son was a trained and armed soldier in the service of the Taliban.

And the demographic that is targeted is significant. The armed forces draws non-officer recruits mainly from young people with low educational attainment and living in poor communities. Research suggests schools from deprived areas are more likely to be visited by recruiters, with particular focus on the north-east of England, Scotland and Wales. Infantry recruits need only the literacy skills of a five-year-old to join. A large proportion appear to sign up for negative reasons, such a lack of civilian opportunities.

Providing careers, education, training, apprenticeships and advancement for NEETS.

Appalling, isn’t it?

A defiant Muammar Gaddafi has threatened to bring war to the “homes, offices, families,” of Europe unless Nato stops airstrikes against his regime in Libya.

The Libyan leader, facing an international arrest warrant for his brutal response to the rebel uprising, delivered the warning of vengeance in an audio message played to thousands of supporters in Tripoli’s Green Square.

“These people [the Libyans] are able to one day take this battle … to Europe, to target your homes, offices, families, which would become legitimate military targets, like you have targeted our homes,” he said.

War is one of these mutual things, isn’t it? We bomb him, he’s allowed to bomb us? We shoot at him, he’s allowed to shoot at us?

And if not, why not?

Lord Levene’s defence reform unit will call for a sweeping overhaul of the structure and management of the MoD, saying that military chiefs must be made accountable for their own budgets.

In Italy in 1944, at the Battle of Monte Cassino, Loewe further demonstrated his courage when he coolly carried wounded men from a minefield. Asked afterwards if he wanted anything, he is reported to have said: “A cup of tea would be nice.”

I think that puts that one to rest, eh?

But repatriation flights are to be diverted and will no longer be flown back to RAF Lyneham and through the small Wiltshire town of Royal Wootton Bassett, where they were saluted come rain or shine.

Instead, they will arrive back to RAF Brize Norton, where they will be driven through the back gate and then down side roads, neatly avoiding the nearby town of Carterton, as they make their way to the John Radcliffe Hospital in Oxford.

Andrew Robathan, Minister for Defence Personnel, Welfare and Veterans, admitted that the decision to avoid public scenes of emotion had been taken deliberately.

Adml Sir Mark Stanhope said the campaign would have been more effective without the Government’s defence cuts.

Heavy shelling and gunfire has rocked the Syrian town of Jisr al-Shughour, two days into a military assault that has caused more than 5,000 refugees to flee into neighbouring Turkey.

The continued assault suggests some groups in the town are resisting the armed forces as the regime tries to crush a sustained challenge to President Bashar al-Assad.

Now yes, it’s not a democracy, Assad is a dictator, the regime is a shitty and oppressive one.

However, it’s very difficult to see that they’re doing anything wrong in law.

They are the de facto and de jure government of the country. One of the rights that such a government has is the putting down of armed rebellion.

As we did in 1916 in Dublin for example, or Weimar did with Hitler’s Beer Hall Putsch, Kerensky’s Government could have (should have!) shot every Bolshevik with a gun in their hands.

If you win you’re freedom fighters of course. And we might well decide that we prefer those would be freedom fighters to the thugs who currently rule the place and thus support them. For example, Ghadaffi…we support those who would overthrow him but it’s difficult to see that he’s illegally putting down an armed rebellion: it’s the most basic “right” that a de jure government has, to defend itself against armed overthrow.

So the inconvenient question is: just what is the Syrian Government doing that is wrong in law?

Diplomatic sources last night disclosed that recent intelligence suggested the Libyan dictator was “paranoid” and “on the run” from Nato’s escalating attacks on his regime.

For there really are the Air Forces of several nations attempting to blow him into small pieces.

Being worried about this, taking action to avoid it, is not paranoia. It’s plain common bloody sense.

I think I’m right in saying that flying allowances are only paid to those who are current to fly?

The Military Association of Atheists and Freethinkers (MAAF), which I presently serve as president,

Riiight…..

In the US military, the chaplaincy is afforded great responsibility, access to service members, funding and senior positions within the chain of command.

Oooooh Kaaaay…..

Humanists wish to put forth chaplains,

Ahhhh…..

See how it’s done?

The head humanist chaplain would need to have one of those “senior positions within the chain of command” of course. The current Chief Chaplain is a Major General. And to have humanists ranked lower than religious types would of course be discrimination on religious grounds.

Which I guess is one way for a retired Captain like our MAAF President to make Major General…..

Cynic, Moi?

Mr Obama, addressing the United States and people across the globe shortly after 11.30pm on a Sunday night from the East Room of the White House, said that the Saudi-born Islamist had been killed on Sunday in an American ground operation in Abbotabad, Pakistan. He concluded: “Justice has been done.”

I thought we’d all just spent a decade insisting he was already dead?

Henry Leach married, in 1958, Mary McCall, daughter of Admiral Sir Henry McCall

Marry the daughter of an Admiral.

A US soldier who pleaded guilty to the murders of three Afghan civilians has been sentenced to 24 years in prison after saying “the plan was to kill people” in a conspiracy with four fellow soldiers.

The military judge said he initially intended to sentence Jeremy Morlock to life in prison with possibility of parole but was bound by the plea deal.

I think I’d make an exception here.

No, not because the murder of Afghan citizens is worse than the murder of anyone else. But because he was a soldier. Something which carries with it certain liberties (you get to kill bad guys and are praised for it), certain excuses (killing people by mistake is excused) but also certain duties (you only get to kill bad guys or make mistakes).

Actively going out to kill people for the fun of it is worse when done by a soldier than when done by anyone else.

For, among other things (leaving morals entirely to one side), the reason that it endangers all of your fellow soldiers by mightily pissing off all the relatives, friends, and possibly half the nation, of those you have just murdered.

Therefore I would hang him and his buddies.

For reasons of state even if not for reasons of natural justice.

Military law is notably harsher than civilian in cases of rape for example, for much the same reason.

But what?

We don’t have any carriers left, we’ve not got any planes that could fly from them, we simply do not have the sort of military forces which could do anything.

So what you want to do then?

Both the last lot and the current lot have left Britain entirely unable to do the one thing that, as an island nation, we’ve always needed to be able to do. Land an expeditionary force from the sea, fight, then take that force off again.

And, of course, protect it with air power while all of this is happening (this last of course being a creation of the 20th century).

It’s not even about Iraq and or Afghanistan. Even if we weren’t there, we still couldn’t do anything.

It’s all very well cutting the military budget but what happens when you actually want to have some deployable military power?

Put like that, no.

Add in that he was wounded in Iraq, when recovered, went back and is said to be suffering from PTSD.

Now?

Me, I put the having shed blood for this country as qualifying to stay. This isn’t quite what it means but the jus sanguinis* method of citizenship perhaps.

Fortunately, Pex has good friends, including Sue Smith and Elaine Laga, a widow who also lost a soldier son, in a Land Rover accident in Germany. She has paid £500 from her meagre savings to enable Pex to apply to the Home Office to re-examine his application to stay in Britain – which is why he is still here, despite the deportation deadline having passed.

As Mrs Smith says: “I cannot believe this country has allowed rapists, child molesters and terrorists to stay here, yet a man who is quite willing to give his life for Queen and country is being booted out.” Mrs Laga adds: “When you consider who we let into this country and provide for, it is a shame that we cannot look after a war veteran and a hero, a man who would be getting on with his life if allowed to.”

If Dr Fox really is commited to the “Military Covenant” that he wants us all to honour, he could prove it by ordering a review of the case of Pex, Mr Epeli Uluilakeba, as a top priority.

- Several contributors to the comments below have asked how they might contribute to a fighting fund for Pex. Cheques made out to Elaine Laga can be sent on via Christopher Booker (Pex), Sunday Telegraph, 111 Buckingham Palace Road, London SW1W 0DT. This will ensure that the money reaches Pex, who is not allowed to open a UK bank account.

As always, make up your own minds on such matters.
* The real meaning of this is almost exactly the opposite, that you can only get citizenship if your parents had it, that is, the drop of blood in your veins, not having spilled it.

UPDATE. To make a paypal donation, email it to RAENORTH AT AOL.Com and mark it “Pex”. That’ll get there.

On one occasion he saved his men from an angry mob by showing a presence of mind well in advance of his 21 years. Encountering a roadblock consisting of eight young virgins, dressed in white and lying in the path of his armoured vehicles, he ordered a good-looking young Gurkha to walk forward and drop his trousers.

The virgins ran off screaming and the column moved on without a shot being fired.

Nicholas Kristoff tells us that:

The U.S. will spend more on the war in Afghanistan this year, adjusting for inflation, than we spent on the Revolutionary War, the War of 1812, the Mexican-American War, the Civil War and the Spanish-American War combined.

Well, no, not really. The full paper is here. If you use only cash terms and upgrade for inflation, then yes. But you might rather want to upgrade for GDP (which makes the current wars decidedly cheap), or wages (less so).

But since we are talking about war we might actually want to measure by the value of a life.

A reasonable estimate of an American life these days is $8 million. That’s what we actually observe people valuing their own lives at by the wage premium they demand for risker jobs (actually, that’s at the high end of estimates but still….).

WWII deaths for the US, military only, were 416,000. That’s $3.3 trillions worth of lives.

Afghanistan and Iraq have so far led to (over a slightly longer time period) 5,800 US military deaths. $464 billion.

As ever, whether something is expensive or cheap (which, please note, is absolutely nothing at all to do with sensible, moral or desirable) depends upon what you decide to measure.

Hang the bitch.

Update:

“Those who are commemorated by the Cenotaph died to protect the very freedoms that allow the people of Britain the right to protest and I feel deeply ashamed to have, although unintentionally and unknowingly, insulted the memory of them.

“Ignorance is the poorest of excuses but I am sincerely sorry.”

Fair enough. We’ll downgrade the hanging to you doing a few weeks hard labour for the British Legion, shall we, working as a labourer as they refit a house for someone disabled in more recent wars.

Fair do’s?

The case is being compared to that of Anna Chapman, a suspected Russian spy who was arrested in New York and then returned to Russia under a “spy swap exchange” earlier this month. There is no evidence that the two women knew one another.

It has been reported that Miss Fermanova was arrested on July 15th for “knowingly and intentionally” attempting to export “defense articles on the United States Munitions list.” The night-vision goggles and scopes cannot be exported without approval from the US State Department, as they are considered to be sophisticated military weapons.

Among the items she was caught with were a Raptor 4X Night Vision Weapons Sight, which she had bought online. A customs agent claimed that the sight’s ID numbers “had been covered with black marker pens”.

The strangeness is that a), Russia is a major producer of exactly these Generation 3 rifle scopes (yes, I’ve been to the factory) and that b) it’s not entirely certain that such a scope would be on the State Department list.

Now I agree, it’s been some years since I looked at the State Department list (or even the other list kept by Commerce) and I’m entirely happy to believe that such night vision jobbies will be on the list.

However, there’s a little let out in the system. Even if something is on the list and yet it is also “generally available at retail” then it’s not a controlled item. Walmart seems not to sell the specific model but they do seem to sell something very similar from another manufacturer. And there seem to be enough online retailers for it to be possible to say that it’s “generally available“.

No, of course I’m not a lawyer but I’d think it likely that she’s got a get out of jail free card here.

As to why she did it no, not spying. Or at least, not spying for a government. This is pure commercial espionage: the Russian manufacturer wanting to see what competitors are making.

And why not? I have a buddy who regularly buys the new Russian version of whatever tank is coming out. It gets shipped to the US manufacturers of tanks so they can take it apart to see what makes it tick…..