Am I reading things right?

[victor]

come on Kaz ,it's quite simple really --they have 'uman rights -you don't !!

[Kaz]

I think you have a point there Vic

Frank I have wondered about that too - they are unique and we are so easily traced through them, throughout our lives......................So how can so many people just blend into the system without them??

[Suff]

I’ve been the guy in green here. I’ve had the Northern Ireland spiel. Where you have to, loudly and clearly, shout three times, “Stop or I shoot”. Whilst the provo pulls out a weapon and starts banging away.

It is right. Our Military should work to a set of rules and standards which may not be applied by the other side. We cannot descend into animalism just because we are dying or that things are very tough. Our military is a professional force which people volunteer to join.

However much you may want to “give some back” it is not the way we operate and anyone who does operate that way is a criminal under our laws. Wherever we go, our laws apply to our troops.

I would be very sad to hear that it had changed to a different way of working. Just because the going got tough. I know the attitudes of many who went to the Falklands. I also spent time with the people trying to come to terms with the dead 14 year olds in the trenches they had just blown up. 14 year olds with bullet holes in their feet.

It is not about who they are. It is about who we are.

Something which should not change no matter how high the body count.

[Workingman]

It is not the way we operate and anyone who does operate that way is a criminal under our laws.

Quite true, but it does not stop us acting differently.

I was in Cyprus when the Turks invaded. We had the wrong aircrft - Lightnings. We needed Jaguars or Phantoms. Had we had them we would have hit the Turks hard, very hard, and no quarter would have been given. The guys at Episkopi, Nikolaos and Dekalia had the men and hardware to do it, the political will was lacking. But as for any fighting - us or them - it would always be us 1st , anything but last.

Let's not pretend that we are angels and always have been, we are not, and there is plenty of history to prove it. An ideal is one thing, living it is totally different.

[Suff]

Let's not pretend that we are angels and always have been, we are not, and there is plenty of history to prove it. An ideal is one thing, living it is totally different.

I would certainly hope not. Angels have no place in a war. But there are rules. We live by them. One is that you don't abuse prisoners who have surrendered. Or are you saying that if the turks bailed out and surrendered, then we would have abused them?

Fighting a robust war is one thing. "The end justifies the means" is another thing altogether.