Arrogance and Ignorance

Well what a week in the news, first Donald Rumsfeld states that during a recent visit to Baghdad he saw so many houses with satellite dishes on so the quality of life must be better. Does this guy who stated that Saddam was a guy he could work with back in the 80's have anything between his ears. Whilst many Iraqi's mat have dishes on their roofs, it means squat when they have under 3 hours of power a day, meaning for 21 hours there is no power to watch satellite channels.

I saw a couple of pictures a few days ago of the trucks that the Iraqi Military/Police use, these are brand new pick ups, within a short space of time some disappear with deserting troops, are wrecked through negligence of stripped for parts so that they can sell the parts.

Things are not to great back in the UK, the Government are racked with yet another scandal, the last Home Sec was fired because they allowed over 1000 Foreign prisoners to be released into the community without them being considered for deportation, these included murder's rapist and child sex offenders.

The New Home Sec said he would get to grips with it, however since he came to power it has carried on and also it has been announced that dangerous people have been released from the Maximum Security Hospitals again without consideration of deportation.

Now you have all the arrogant liberals saying that we cant deport people back to some of their countries because of their human rights, what about the Human Rights of the British Victims. In a knee jerk reaction Tony Blair announced they should be deported regardless if they commit a crime. The only problem with this the Courts are filled with Liberal Judges who are the cause of many of the problems in this country.

Many people name the Human Rights Act, this isn’t the case. The Act its self is fine, it is the interpretation of the Act by the Judges that creates the problems. The New Lord Chief Justice of England and Wales has announced to many people are being sent to prison. Do these dim wits who sit on the bench actually realise they are supposed to protect society from Criminals, not protect the Criminals over society.

I was watching a TV debate show, in which someone said that if someone’s comes to this country and breaks the law then they have showed their contempt for the country and should be sent back. Some half wit student who doesn’t know what the real world is like condemned the person who had got a round of applause from the audience, she said that they are still human and have rights. I have yet to hear any of those who want to protect Criminals make any comment about the rights of victims, in fact they always seem to avoid answering the question.

Absent friends

Well I enjoyed my time in New Hampshire and Taxacuettes as its called. A couple of years ago it was common knowledge that I was one of if not the only Defensive Tactics Instructor on ps.com as well as a Psychiatric Nurse, so a couple of people nominated me as an expert in these areas, however as I was already out of favour Lord Vader declared that it would be inappropriate as I had demonstrated no expertise in my posts. Instead he appointed someone an “expert” on first aid who was nothing more than a basic first aider and an expert of police vehicles because someone spent their spare time taking pictures of police vehicles.

Anyway despite their lack of confidence I travel to the States a couple of times a year to demonstrate my expertise with different Law Enforcement organisations over there, as well as to teach the Americans how to drink. Their hospitality never ceases to amaze me, every time I go there I always end up coming back with hats, patches and t-shirts, so to the Colonial Tony thank you very much mate.

It finally sank in how much I am missing some of the people from Iraq. It still takes some getting used to not having them around, to be honest it’s a bit uncomfortable.

I was chatting to one of the Interpreters on MSN a few days ago he is a laugh and one of the good ones as he would translate word for word rather than editing it. It seems that things have not got any better.

It seems the Americans are going to reap the hardships they have caused. They dismissed a company on base who did all the life support stuff, such as catering, sanitation and maintenance as the Americans had decided to give the job over to an Iraqi company, they realised what a screwed up decision this is going to be and began to beg the company to stay, after agree for 2 more weeks they are going to pull out, but the Americans now realise to late the consequences for screwing people over. They truly deserve the situation they have created.

It has been a few weeks since I left Iraq but it stills get uncomfortable sometimes when my work mates are not around, when you spend so much time working and living next to each other you come to depend on people, especially when you life is in danger.

From Maj Bum mothering us so that we have to hide to have a cigarette to the friendly ribbing with the time honoured debate of which is better Rugby or American football.

My friends in the UK have been extremely supportive included some linked to this blog, will be a good chance to meet up with them for an “out crowd social”. I cant see myself ever going to a social event with the people from policespecials.com.

Is the grass greener

Well, this weeks entry comes to you from the raining New England State of New Hampshire.

Although I have left Iraq, I still remain in contact with friends out there, it is them that I miss. I saw on the news that one of the minor Shia groups have pulled out of the government and are going to set up an opposition party.

I am not surprised at this, despite all the spin and rhetoric that the politicians in the West Spout, there will no be unity in the Government. Whether we like it or not the country is divided between Shia, Sunni and Kurds, now matter how much money we pour down the drain nothing is going to change over 1000 years of bigotry and narrow mindedness.

Whilst at my last base, we often found that the Soldiers/Officers would complain for no other reason than the other person was from a different group to them. The difficulty you are never going to change the mentality that holds the current generation responsible for actions that their great , great, great, great ancestors did.

The Iraq base commander was a Shia and would deliberately make things difficult when dealing with the Sunni Basic Trainees.

Although the previous Prime Minister has stood down, you still a government who want vengeance for something the current generation had nothing to do with. It was not every Sunni who were responsible for the atrocities that were committed by his regime, but the backward elements of the Shia community blame all Sunni’s for this, when you are having to deal with this type of bigotry you are not going to have a quick fix.

Under the constitution that was voted for by the Iraqi Public that the political parties had no control over the right was given to different municipalities to for together into semi autonomous areas under a Federal Iraqi Republic. Now the problem is that under Saddam and small group of Sunni had all the power, now under this constitution this would change as the main oil reserves are in areas dominated by Shia in the South of the Country and the Kurds in the North, with very little resources in the central Sunni controlled area. They are now loosing the wealth and the power which is why they have obstructed the process so much and no matter how much the powers that be try and placate them it is not going to be resolved.

I have seen first hand the quality of the Army and there is a completely lack of any effort by the vast majority of the “soldiers”, they do not despite intensive training any comprehension of what it means to be in an effective Military unit. You have rampant corruption within the officer corp, bullying and a complete and utter lack of any common sense. The cases of negligent discharge are high due to their complete lack of discipline, it is very common for Iraq Soldiers to literally shoot themselves in the foot because they have not had proper control of their weapon.

They take no pride in their uniform or appearance, they may wear combat trousers, a dirty looking t-shirt and flip flops and think this is acceptable. You would never get in any Western Military Mess hall any member of their military being able to do this.

You would often find in any competent military force anywhere in the world that after training has finished of the soldiers have gone back to barracks, that they would often be polishing boots, kit weapons, but not so in the Iraqi Military, they go around setting fires, stealing, shitting everywhere including in empty buildings on base of screwing each others brains out for a bit of “fiki fiki” even with “soldiers” who are of school age. They can not act like soldiers on base, so how can they act like soldiers in the field when it comes to fighting the Insurgency.

After the major US operations to clean Fulluja of Insurgents control of the Security in the City was handed over to the Iraqi Military as part of a transition, due to their competency the city is almost as bad as it was before the US went in.

Well down in Basra, the esteemed local government have decided to start cooperating with the British Forces, wonder how long it is going to be before the next raid on the Militia’s were the Governors cronies are arrested like the last time.

Now back in the UK, I haven’t bothered letting the gimps know on ps.com that I have left, after all some of the twats actually believed that I made the whole thing up about working in Iraq, do they think I am as screwed up in the head as they are????. For those readers who have checked out the site, I must apologise on behalf of all the conscientious, competent, dedicated and with a sound mental state police officers both regular and Special Constable in the UK, they are not all like some of the people on the forum.

Now if any of you are sad enough to want to do it there are some threads on there that the moderators call “bash the moderators” threads, now all this is a member of the forum raising a concern about the actions of a moderator of policy, now no matter how justified the person is in their complaint it will always be condoned by the other moderators and their host. There is one moderator on there who quite happily posts sarcastic and unprofessional comments but as far as the host goes he can do no wrong.

Now there was one incident on there, a member was put on restricted posts ( which means their posts have to be vetted by a moderator) because he dared to have an opinion that was different from the Ultra Liberal Host, now this member would make posts, it would be approved by one moderator when the Obnoxious one (Whopper MacBig), would then remove the posts without any notification, when this was challenged the host said that each moderator had their own style of moderation. Does this not reflect on their policing. As a police officer you do not have a choice as to which laws you enforce, you enforce them all, you can not have a situation were one officer enforces a law and the other ignores it. Now in one such “bash the moderator” thread several members put their justified complaints on the open forum with the opportunity at the end for the host to answer the comments. Can anyone guess the response from the host?.............

Yep you guessed it, complete and utter white wash, every single complaint was swept under the carpet and all his moderators were complete exonerated.

Now another tactic that is employed by the moderators is manipulative posting, now by this I mean that for certain members they will post in such a way to elicit a response that makes the poster appear in a negative light, or they will deliberately edit someone’s post to say something completely different or they will resort to spinning your comment out of context, all this so they can help compile dossiers on member in their private members area, which they forward to professional standards departments which they have done to at least three people I know of.

Now there was an incident quite recently were my comments were deliberately taken out of context, my reply on the public thread was:

This is the last time I will say this, DO NOT twist my words to mean something I didn’t say, I find it quite underhand and inappropriate for a police site, especially from a moderator. On that not I am not going to continue with this thread.

It is because of this type of behaviour that I save copies of the page.

Now I wasn’t surprised when I got a reply from the host, Lord Vader (delusions of grandeur? or narcissistic personality disorder?):

Your MO (modus operandi) is basically to state your opinion, then put your head down and continually re-state it, ignoring all reasoned debate. When the going gets a bit tough for you, you start bleating about censorshop and complain that people are twisting your words. You're officially a forum bore!

Here I see that yet again you are making accusations against my moderators, and some sort of veiled threat relating to saving copies of pages.

I suggest that if you don't like the way the PoliceSpecials forum is run, you vote with your feet (well, keyboard actually) and visit other forums. Offduty, UKPoliceonline and Police999 all have busy forums where I am sure you will find a willing audience. Or you could always set up your own forum and moderate to your heart's content - try www.Invisionboard.com, it's very good software.

OR (and this is just a crazy off the wall idea) you could try listening to other people's points of view and be a bit more grown up about the fact that not everyone agrees with you.

Sadly though, I imagine you will see this PM as yet more evidence of some great conspiracy against you and will be saving it away for some future use. Ah well.

Best regards,

It is for this reason that I am quite ashamed that these people are walking the streets of the United Kingdom as police officers.

Rose tinted glasses

I was shocked to see the news today on TV, with scenes of Basra after a UK Helicopter was downed over the city, whist this is sad in its self, what was absolutely disgusting was the cheering and celebration of the Iraqi's some waving debris in the air in celebration.

The main thing many people dont realise about people in Iraq, they are very inpatient, when the UK went in many Iraqi's celebrating as they were now free from Oppression as they were under Saddam because they were Shia and as long as the British did what they wanted ( The Shia) then they loved the British, but as soon the British begin to enforce laws against the Shia they turned against them.

Anyone remember the scenes last year of Iraqi crowd fire bombing British APC's and then the solider jumping from the burning vehicles, this was all caused because the corrupt Government and Police in Basra handed over two British Soldiers to an illegal Militia group, thankfully the Brigadier had the balls to send in troops to rescue our guys. How can you help a people who think the only way of sorting a problem is through violence.

A large part of the problems in Iraq are by their own making.

The main thing that pissed me off about this whole incident yesterday was the CNN website, on there they had a reporter who seemed to be completely stupid, he trivialised the circumstances that our troops have to work under, he gave the impression that it was quiet and far safer than the Area that US troops patrol. Anyone told this ass hole that the British are supposed to be allies, especially when we have lost so many troops due to negligence of the US Military. I made my comments made to CNN in an Email.

The reason the British have had different experiences is because of their different ROE, but have still lost brave men and women serving as part of the coalition. It is always going to piss me off when you have uneducated twats in the States who think they are the only ones on the planet.

Anyway rant over, as so many people have suggested I write a book based on my blog, so I have started, have even had one of the main newspapers in the UK express an interest.

Escape…….

Well I have now left Iraq after 14 months in the country. Well a few weeks ago in their infinite wisdom the US terminated our contract as they wanted to have the Iraqi’s to take responsibility, the new Iraqi contractor spent best part of two days on site and decided they could take over all operations in two days. Despite the obvious incompetence of the new contractor, the rear echelon warriors seemed to know everything there was to know about everything, they could do no wrong, our COR (see previous entry) became even more of an asshole. There was a female member of our staff on base, who had been threatened and assaulted before by the Iraqi’s, she was threatened again and when I went to inform our COR ( Captain USAF) his firsts words were not a question about her safety but “Well there is nothing we can do if we don’t know who they are” he made no attempt to find out despite us knowing what unit the Iraqis came from. It was decided by our company that the woman should be with drawn, when he was told the COR went into a tantrum saying “It is not our responsibility to provide protection, show me in the contract were I have to” Now for obvious reasons this really pissed me off. Our company was on contract to the US Government and yet when our staff were attacked this officer decided it was none of their business. Hardly the conduct one would expect from an Officer, I hope he can sleep at night.

Well as we predicted the new Iraqi contractor didn’t turn up when they were asked for the meetings and had no equipment, so low an behold when a 3 star General turned up he raised “concerns” and decided to it would be a good idea to ask us to remain at least an extra month, thankfully our company said no, if the COR, the new female LTC and her bag man hadn’t been such gimps we may have considered it. Things were so bad that between the LTC, her bagman and our COR they not only managed to piss us off, but they also managed to piss off field units who happen to think a great deal of the woman. If I wasn’t leaving I would have come up with a suitable revenge for the gimp, but sadly I didn’t have the time.

Many many years ago when I was a young student I was on a pre recruits course for HM Forces and the Emergency Services, as part of this we were on a outward bound residential in delightful Wales, now being young 16 year olds we were rather excited to be away from home and along with some girls decided to have a “party”, however one of the Chaperones was a prudish bint who knew absolutely sod all about working in the Public Services, a bit like the LTC and the two Captains have no sodding clue about working in a Combat Zone. Anyway this old bint decided to try and contact our parents when we got caught in the girls room, it was 0200 and because most normal people don’t answer the phone at this time decided to ring the local police and ask them to go to our homes and tell our parents we had had a mishap, now the type of trip we were doing involved some dangerous stuff, so I can guess what my mother would have thought. Thankfully the other tutor talked some sense into the old bat. Not happy with this “Some” students decided to show the old bint what happens when you piss them off, the building we were in was single story, so we threw a rope over the building and tied it to a branch outside the old bints window and had the other end in the girls room, so all through the night they would pull the rope making the branch on the other side tap on her window, she got quite freaked out by it.

Not finished their the “students” waited to get back to college, when they got back they found her vehicle, now one of the students was very talented and managed to open the bonnet of her car, they then put a raw fish back behind the radiator and closed the bonnet, over the course of the next few weeks the fish was cooked slowly and began to rot, the stench got into her car and sank into the upholstery, in the end she had to get a new car. The things students do…….

Now just before I left the camp I got the chance to visit one of my mates in the Marines in a field unit, now as I explained before these are the guys who are stopping the insurgents from bombing the crap out of us, anyway we went to visit him at his base, the living conditions were bad and far below the standard that the likes of the LTC and the other gimps are living in, can anyone guess how many complaints were made by the guys living and working out in the filed………. Yep you guessed it ZERO, whilst all the pen pushers back at our camp bitch and moan if a bulb goes and isn’t replaced immediately. The guys in the field have my utmost respect and admiration for what they do, their efforts and sacrifices they have made to keep us safe on base can never be repaid. The trip turned out bad in the end, one of the other guys I worked with and got on well with was at the forward base, just as the insurgents bombed it, there were 16 casualties, for obvious reasons the mood dropped when I found out, I hoped the Coalition bombed every insurgent they could.

Thankfully a few days later we found out that the guy wasn’t hurt to badly. Having seem what they guys in the field have to live and work like I am actually quite ashamed for the people back on the base who have no idea, they are the ones who reflect badly on the professionalism of the US Military, they are the ones who dishonour the sacrifices of the brave men and woman who are fighting what is in all reality a Civil War. Thankfully I will never have to deal with the LTC, her bagman or the twatty COR every again.

Leaving the base was fun, the flight was late picking us up, then when we got to Baghdad International Airport (that’s a laugh in its self) we got to see yet again how crappy it actually is, for some reason known only to them they decided to cancel a flight and not tell the passengers, instead made them wait until the afternoon flight when they then had two plane loads of people trying to get on one plane. One of the most aggravating things about being in Iraq is the complete lack of any comprehension of what a que is. I finally got my flight to Dubai and then onto Qatar were I am staying for a few days, on the whole the trip went far better than my last return to Iraq, it was around the time the Shia mosque got bombed so they closed the airport, we were stuck in Amman, we had a few drinks in the bar at the hotel and decided we wanted to watch the football and rugby as there was some good games playing, so we went in search and actually found an Irish Pub in Amman and watched the Rugby, we then staggered out and found a taxi, which if he was in the UK and I was still in the Police would have buried it under tickets, all the way in Amman I still have to put up with sodding boy racers, anyway we takes us to this club and walks us past the bouncer, not long after sitting down we are met by some good-looking Russian Chicks who start to chat to the three of us, alarm bells start to ring in my head and I tell the other guys that the night is going to turn out very expensive. We ordered our drinks and the chicks asked if they could have a drink as well. We didn’t stay very long in the bar, when we got the bill we were shocked to find out that for 8 drinks it cost over £100. Well that was a costly lesson to learn.

Now I couldn’t end this without mentioning some of the great people I have met and worked with, tope of the list is Major Bum as we call her, she was head of the Medical side of things on our camp, had a great sense of humour but tended to other us at times, me and one of the other medics used to hide if we wanted a cigarette as she would tell us off, then there was Chief or “Doc” as he is known, another one with a great sense of humour and a good bloke to work with, you all know about the old XO from the pic of him wearing the leash, there is also the Air Force Captain who decided to make it her mission to try and restore the old British Cemetery on the base as the base used to be an old British base during the WW2, an act the British are extremely grateful for, she has made many friend in the RAF and British Army for what she has done and also for “Murph”, thanks for the invite and delicious lunch we had and of course not forgetting the beast, thanks folks for all you have done. This is not all of them but an example of how not all American Personal are ass holes like the three mentioned above. To them you have my undying gratitude for what you did for us and am proud to call you friend.

Although I have left Iraq there is plenty to tell, so I will still be updating my blog, I have even been asked to write a book about my time in Iraq. Well to my loyal readers enjoy and sorry for the delay.