The side of a military/police point of view you wont find in the press

The pervayer of bad luck

2006-11-16T13:11:00.000Z

Well what an interesting time. To celebrate my returning to the UK with all my body parts intaked a friend of mine arranged a piss up in Manchester. Said piss up lasted two days.

Day 1, started out ok until we left a pub in Central Mancester, the three off duty officers and I ended up witnessing a fight and were stuck in a police station doing our own statements. Oh what joy.

Day 2, was somewhat more relaxed, however it soon turned into a a Jerry Springer show with a pissed up bint who thought the world owed her. All in all was quite an enjoyable experience

The Empire Strikes Back

2006-10-24T13:56:00.000+01:00

As many of my readers will remember there was a "difference of opinion" between me and the Host of ps.com

A result of which was the demise of Dogs of Blackpool, whilst I was on that forum, I was a qualified Defensive Tactics Instructor, as well as a Psychiatric Nurse, I used this experience an posted scenarios and offered my personal views. As a result of which several members nominated me to become a PS.com expert, however due to the fact that I was not a crony I got an email saying I had not demonstrated any expertise.

Despite this I sent them a couple of reference files I wrote in the hope of them benefiting other members. These were then placed in the reference section, the only problem with this, is that to access them you had to pay the fee, which wasn’t my aim, when I also posted the same file in the public part of the forum the post was removed.

Anyway back to present, as I am no longer on there, another member recently made me aware that despite my being banned they still had my work on the there and were still charging a fee for people to have access to it. I emailed the host explaining that as the works were copyrighted they no longer had my permission to host them.

The response I got demonstrated the level of maturity on the forum in that there is a toddler mentality of its my ball and you cant play. The response was:

Deleted with pleasure. They weren't up to our standards anyway

Now if they were not up to their standards, why were the files placed on there, by him around a year ago and keep them on there and charging people between £10-£50 to read them depending on the type of membership.

When will the stupidity stop

2006-10-22T09:50:00.000+01:00

I saw in the News a few days ago that one force has actualy sent a memo out advising officers to be sensitive during ramadan as a ""request for sensitivity".

One has to question what planet theses people are, are they going to show the same sensitivity for Jews, Christians, Hindi or Sikh, I bet they wont. This is nothing but Political Correctness, as was said when the officer in the DPG didnt want to police the Isreali Embassy, all the critics said officers can not pick and choose as they have to police and enforce the law equaly, so why does this force think the oath doesnt apply to them.

I can not see how any competant or dedicated officer can agree with this email, when you have people making comments such as:

May I remind you that we have a duty to ensure that arrests are necessary, proportionate and justifiable. If for reasons of religous tolerence and respect for diversity an arrest can be delayed for a short while, I can see no reason not to do so.

In all my years of service we never shirked away from our duty. This is yet another act of appeasment. The policy y this force is further ridiculed by sections of the Muslim Community.

But Mohammed Shafiq, from the Ramadhan Foundation, said: "It's stupid, lunacy, that police could even consider not arresting Muslims during Ramadan."

He went on to say:

"Greater Manchester Police have a history of policing the Muslim community with great sensitivity and understanding. That this idea was even thought of is shocking.
"I don't know where they get these ideas from and I'm glad an officer was clearly angry enough to leak the memo.
"Police shouldn't hesitate to arrest any Muslims they had planned to during Ramadan. We must all be equal under the law.
"If people think Muslims are immune from the law, it will only stir up tensions within the community."

At times I realy dispare about the UK.

Sorry for the delay

2006-10-08T14:51:00.000+01:00

Well its been a while since I updated my blog, so what’s been happening, we’ll I have finally returned to the UK from the Middle East.

I still hear from friends still out in Iraq. As we all expected when the civilian company left my last camp, all those who lived in the real world all said it would be a major fuck up and it has been. They were given a Multi Million Dollar Water treatment plant and managed to break it within 2 weeks, they ran out of clean water because they bust the plant and also ran out of fuel because the thieving sods stole it to sell on the black market. Rather than making sure that the new contractor was doing their job and enforcing standards, what did the base commander (Iraqi) do, took kick backs to give the contractor good reports.

There are a couple of things I want to talk about, now I know that the level of public support in the US for their Armed Forces is extremely high, sadly that is not the case in the UK, after putting their lives on the line for a screwed up operation that was poorly thought out by the top brass and politicians, the troops return to the UK to get screwed over. We have a law which prohibits employers from sacking TA (Reserve) members when called up, but the MoD don’t seem to give a damn that employers are flouting this. Whilst Blair is happy to have his wife spend £1000’s of tax payers money on a hair do, what does he do for the troops, overseas poorly planned operations in Iraq and Afghanistan, closes many of the Military Medical Units, sending military casualties to the NHS which is another organisation he and his government have crapped over. One poor PARA who was injured for President Blair was abused whilst he lay in his hospital bed unable to protect himself by some Muslim scum who accused him of murdering their brothers and sisters, what are the chances they wont end up in court. There was another incident which brought shame on the state of the UK, three officer are hounded out of a house they wanted to rent by yet more scum who broke windows and left graffiti, again what’s the betting its not given a high priority by the police.

I recently wrote to my MP who I am ashamed to say Is Labour and who I foolishly voted for once, asking her several questions and her points of view, as a voter I am obviously not worth replying to.

Yet another example of Blair’s treacherous treatment of the Arms Forces is the disgusting level of support given to the Military generally. In the UK we have by law a Minimum wage I think it is around £5.35 per hour, however in their wisdom the Government decided this should not apply to the Military who not only are putting their lives at risk with poor equipment, lack of equipment and poor leadership get paid around £2.50-£3.00 per hour and worse still are forced to pay tax and National Insurance whilst on combat operations. A 16 year old shelf stacker in Tesco is paid more.

Now for years people in the UK have been made out to feel as if they are bigoted/racist if they dared to question of discuss Islam, there have been countless cases in the media were the mainstream population have been marginalised in favour of the views and feelings of the Muslim Community. Despite an abundance evidence and the view of prominent public speakers the Government still fail to accept that Multi Culturalism has failed, how is it that every other group has managed to become part of the UK except the Muslim community, in my town there is a large Indian and Pakistani community, large polish community, all of these groups have managed to integrate whilst maintaining their cultural identity, why is it that they can do it without turning to criminals.

Now Jack Straw has got into the press by saying that when in his surgeries he asked women to remove their veils when talking to them, why the hell not, it doesn’t say anywhere in the Koran that a woman must wear a veil, in western culture it is normal to view a person eyes and facial expressions when talking to people, why must we bend over backwards to placate a group who want nothing to do with the culture or beliefs of the country in which they are in. What happens in banks, you are not allowed to go in there wearing a bike helmet so how come a certain section of the community are allowed, wonder how long it is going to be before someone dresses up in a veil and robs a bank.

Now for those readers outside of the UK, you may not have heard about a Muslim Officer who was part of the Diplomatic Protection Group, who are obviously responsible for guarding Embassies and politicians, now whilst I do not in anyway support the Actions of Israel in Lebanon, this officer who took the same oath as every other officer, decided that for welfare reasons he didn’t want to guard the Israeli Embassy until they had pulled out of Lebanon, showing the lack of back bone as would be expected his bosses agreed, they now cite the decision was made after a risk assessment. If he can not or will not perform the duties he took an oath to do then he should simple hand his warrant card back in and get a new job. During my time in the police I had to do several things which I didn’t feel comfortable doing, but I honoured the oath I took. It now seems that the very same officer has close links with a man of hate, Omar Mohammed, who fled the UK and is spouting his bile from Lebanon who thought the July bombers in London were heroes, not only that by this same man officiated at the officers wedding, so with such close links to this man, how did he ever managed to get the clearance to become a police officer, let along become a member of one of the most sensitive departments in the Police Service.

Some of you may know that HRH Prince William and Harry have joined the British Army, in fact they have joined a front line unit, despite everything Harry made a public statement that he wanted to stay with his unit, no matter were they were deployed as he felt he owed it to his men and threatened to resign if he wasn’t, it now seems that despite this some pen pusher sitting nice and safe back in Whitehall has decided that neither Will or Harry will be sent to Afghanistan were their units are supposed to go, it wouldn’t surprise me if this was a political decision, after all Princess Anne has just visited Helmed Province with her Husband, Wills and Harry are demanding to be posted to the front line at the same time as their units, what an embarrassment for the politicians who site safely back in London screwing over the people who’s lives they are risking. It is a well known fact that the Royal Family have far more credibility with the forces that the Politicians.

Oh by the way the email address to contact me is tacticalthinking2006@yahoo.co.uk

The sad side of human behaviour

2006-08-09T12:01:00.000+01:00

Firstly to the gimp who posted the anti Semitic comment, crawl back under you stone!!!!!!

Now to the rest of my loyal readers, there are a number of things I would like to mention.

there have been a number of incidents in the UK involving the police, two of the incidents involve one force in particular.

the first incident is of a PCSO having a go at kids after some moany old git complained after the kids drew hop scotch squares on the ground to play, can I firstly say to the type of person who would complain GET A SODDING LIFE and the PCSO GROW A BACK BONE.

The second incident involved the same force, however this time involved police officers who arrested, detained, fingerprinted and DNA'd some kids after building a tree house, the Area Commander had said that they were destroying the tree.

Both these incidents remind me of one of the most annoying parts of being a police officer in the UK, the constant whingers you have to put up with.

We are at risk of demonising youths, many shops have banned customers from entering if they are wearing hoods, thankfully the Arch Bishop of York actually has a brain and had the guts to challenge the demonising of youths by deliberately wearing a hoody to a meeting.

I have lost count of the times I got called to "Youths causing a disturbance/Riot" I used to get so pissed off when people would exaggerate just to get a police response. Many cases the youths were doing sod all wrong. the Government are pandering to the wingers by blaming youths for anti Social Behaviour and endorsing the ban on hoodies.

The third incident with the police was the esteemed AC of the Met Mr Tarique Ghaffur, he believes law enforcement organisations are acting in a biased way against Muslims. The current PC way of thinking is that Muslims "Collective" can do no wrong and that to challenge this view is racist. I remember when Lord Condon I believe said that the majority of reported muggings in London was committed by Black Males, there was a huge out cry from the rose tinted brigade accusing his of racism, was it racist, NO IT WAS FACT, he made a statement based on information given to him by witnesses/victims, did he say all black males were muggers? NO.

I know large parts of the Muslim community in the UK are peaceful and law abiding, but it is the unwillingness of the authorities to deal with the Muslim community that is causing the problems, one leading in the Muslim community raised the lack of engagement by the authorities for the ongoing child abuse that occurs in some areas of the Muslim community as the authorities are afraid to do anything in case they are accused of being racist.

If the intelligence and previous incidents of suicide bombers in London had been white males, then I would expect white males to be the majority of people whoa re searched, same as if the bombers had been oriental then I would expect the majority of Anti Terror Searches to be of Oriental males, this is called intelligence led policing. If we are not careful it is people like him and his thoughts that are going to create such a climate we allow incidents to happen by inaction for fear of being accused to racism.

And on the wider world stage, the news is full of the crisis in Lebanon, quite rightly Russia are refusing to support a resolution which does not have the support of Lebanon, the current resolution that has been tabled would allow Israel to remain on Lebanese terrorist and conduct “non offensive” operations. This has gone on long enough and as I have said if it was any other country that has done what the Israeli Cabinet have allowed the Western World would be screaming for War Crimes Trials, why should it be any different.

Some of the worst images to have come out of Israel are the pictures of young children signing the shells with smiles on their faces

Response to a Comment

2006-08-05T06:42:00.000+01:00

As I said at the very beginning even if a comment was made that is different to my point of view and relevant then I would post it.

Fernando has left a new comment on your post "Response to a Comment from a moderator":

"If there is nothing wrong with the site, then why have so many people posted comments on here?"

Why are so many people that bothered that a moderated forum is censored? That's like going to McDonalds and moaning they sell fast food.

As to the "secret reports" the blogger keeps referring to, if they're secret how does he know about them?
I haven't seen anything on the specials site about this blog so, presumably, they're keeping a dignified silence. Here there are random accusations without any supporting evidence.

I hate to say it but I'm leaning towards this being a case of, at the very least, both parties being as bad as each other and it's teetering in to believing the only sour grapes are from outside the specials thing.

For what ever reason Fernando you either seem to have deliberately missed the point of chosen to ignore what people have been saying. The people on here including me who have complained about the censoring, we all agreed to join the forum according to the rules supplied, however we did not agree to our comments being edited to say something different or deliberately twisted out of context. There are three main complaints that people have 1: The double standards in the moderating, when you have forum members who are slammed for what ever reason and then you see a moderator doing exactly the same then of course this is going to annoy people. 2: In our police career we are held to account for our actions, it is with this principle in mind that has annoyed so many people with the complete contradiction of everything a police officer stands for in the way a site that clearly identifies it self as police related. 3: The complete lack of will to discuss any problems, if anyone on this blog has disagreed with me I have still posted their comment and replied to it, because I am man enough to accept that people dont think the same. To quote LV in a PM he has sent and:

“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”

Pity they cant take their own advice.

As for the reports, over time a number of moderators have mentioned this and there has been proof in that a number of forces PSD's have received unsolicited reports from PS.com. Have you missed the point that some many people have posted anaom comments for fear of their PSD receiving a report.

Please take the time to think before you post. Any thread on the forum has always been hastily closed of deleted, on the rare occasion the host asked for views, every single issue raised was dismissed.

The people who have listed incidents are not random, they are all people who had a difference of opinion to the "approved" one.

When things could potentially lead to disciplinary action do you really think people are going to post the evidence on here.

As for the sour grapes, if the standards are applied impartially to everyone including the moderators then people wouldn’t have a problem, they are not above anyone else, it is even worse when these people are supposed to be police officers. If you would like to discuss this one on one rather than waste space on here, feel free to email me at the address at the top.

Meanwhile back in the real World

2006-08-02T09:37:00.000+01:00

Well it seems the world is going to hell in a hand basket, we have the rumblings of WW3 starting out in the Middle East.

Whilst no one in their right mind can say Israel does not have the right to protect its self or that they had been subjected to years of terrorist attack, but lets be realistic they are hardly innocent themselves, lets not forget the Israeli terrorist attack on the hotel back in the days when the British were in Palestine.

They have deliberately targeted Red Cross convoys and ambulances, UN civilian Workers and troops and now Qana, why is it that if it was any other country who had done this the world would be united in screaming War Crimes, but it seems Israel can do what they like, they have shown time and again that they have no regard for international Law unless it is to their advantage. As for the road map, it clearly calls for no new settlements, but the government still allowed more.

Rather than making themselves safer they have done far more to damage World peace than anyone, as long with the leaders of the US & UK the three have done far more for the recruiting of the terrorist groups, and is it that will suffer?? Not the politicians, but innocent civilians.

Syria and Iran are close to being pulled into this conflict, I dred to think what will happen if they do. We all know Israel already has Nukes, along with Syria having the WMD's from Iraq that Saddam managed to get out before the Coalition moved in and Iran who are doing everything they can to form a weapons programme, it seems that many of the people giving the press conferences have missed this point, not to mention the last time Israel took the law into their own hands OPEC shut down the West by doing a fuel Embargo, can just see that happening again.

As for life in the UK, the fluffy do gooders are at it again, now in their infinite wisdom they are saying that women’s prisons should be closed, what planet are these hippies on?

For my British readers you will all know the National Lottery or the Lotto, they have developed a reputation for giving loads of money for off the wall causes that support various small groups in society. It seems the department that runs decides the good causes have a political agenda as they refuse request from the main stream society. They turned down a request from either Mountain Rescue or the RNLI because they didn’t rescue enough people from minority groups.

they have already refused a request to help with funding for a house in the Falklands that veterans could stay at when commemorating their fallen colleagues. It seems the only way to get anything in the UK is to belong to a special group who just seem to try and outdo each other as to who is the most persecuted.

Response to a Comment from a moderator

2006-08-02T06:12:00.000+01:00

Unlike some I have no fear of criticism and am prepared to answer those criticisms, after all are we not adults?

I received a comment from what would appear to be one of the moderators, why the felt they needed to post an anonymous comment is beyond me, are they afraid to stand by their decisions? I can understadn why people who crticise the forum are anonymous as they don’t want a secretly compiled dossier to reach their PSD in revenge.

Perhaps if there are any legal eagles out there could let us know what the implications for these secret reports are when dealing with RIPA, DPA and the HRA?

I will now answer the post piece by piece:

For someone who doesn't like the site, the moderators or the host, you seem to spend a lot of time on there, digging for information and then ranting about it on here.

It is not the site I dont like, it is the underhand, bullying attitude of the host and some of the moderators, a few of them are actually quite normal and I enjoy catching up with them when I have managed to get to a social, any and all criticism on the forum is deleted rather than dealt with in an adult manner, by posting it on a separate medium other people can see the hypocrisy of some of the people on there, there are rules telling people that inappropriate language or comments would not be tolerated, but they are if a moderator does it.

Everything in this blog is backed up by individual people and also pm's and pages I have saved demonstrating this.

There is nothing wrong with the site, it has plenty of members and plenty of posts each day. There are other Police sites to be used if people don't like this one.

When you have moderators who bully people, compile what could potentially be illegal investigations of people, monitoring IPS not to mention passing on personal information to third parties, not to mention moderators advocating the police commit criminal acts then I would say yes there is something wrong. People are often told on there that a police officer cant have an off duty and on duty opinion, if that is the case, why are the standards that one would hope ALL the moderators use whilst on duty are applied when off duty, are people that insecure that they cant handle the criticism?

I'm sure you were impressed with the hits you had on your website at the start, but I'm sure that will soon die down once they all get bored of your rants.

It wouldn’t appear so, judging by the number of hits and the comments that have been made, it would seem there is allot of interest, why are you scared? Like me, many of the people who have made comments actually care about the police service and the oath they took. But after all there has been over 1640 hits so far, and close to 1000 have been since I mentioned the threat I recieved.

Good luck with you legal proceedings, would love to see how far you actually get

What legal proceedings are you on about, I am not the one who threatened it.

Maybe this post will appear, maybe it won't
All the best

I am man enough to accept that not everyone thinks the same way as me, that’s why your comment has been posted and I have replied to it personally, perhaps there are some on the forum who could take a lesson from this.

Developments

2006-07-29T08:04:00.000+01:00

I appologise my loyal readers. Have been pretty busy with work. Well what has happened.... Following on from a comment on here it seems somehow my power user membership was taken twice and it wasnt until last week when I asked for a full refund was this notices, quite shocking when it was back in March that this money was taken. For all those people who have been banned whilst not breaking any of the published rules, get in touch and demand a refund, I did and I not only got the legit fee back but also a second one that had been "missed", good to know the accounting is so tight.

As some of you may know that the Real World has now been made accessable to Power Users, way back when it was actualy my idea to start the area, there were some mods at the time who were against it as they said it was a Police Site so should only have police stuff on it, if that is the case why have the Locker Room or Market Place, but in a very rare show of acceptence of others views the Real World was created and as I was told in a recent email as it has become one of the most popular it has now been moved and made accessable to Power Users only, the same as the reference Libary, it was for that reason that I deleted the reference files that I put in the Libary as I was not going t0 be used to drum up business.

This latest ploy is just a means to drum up more business, sad thing is, I can see it dying off, the Real World was a good place to have mature discussions, although the same old moderator would crawl out from under his stone every now and again and make a belitteling comment. On a side not I have been informed that there is also a "private" moderator area on the forum that has an AtoZ of members and also a thread "Ones to Watch", both these threads are in breach of his own Data Protection Statement which states that the only information that he will store will be the information that the user provides on joining. On the Libel Front, after my response has been posted on here there has been no further progress as of yet, I have my suspicions as to who his Legal Advice was that worded the letter for him.

I know of a FOI reqest that has been sent to Surrey, it will be interesting what comes back, because as has been stated on here if Surrey have allowed Police time to be used in any way for the running/maintainence of the site the HRA applies making the relevent people liable of any breaches of that Act.

If anyone wants to contact me about anything on this blog or to share views/experiences they do not want published on here, plese use the email address at the top of the blog.

Live Long and Prosper..

An interesting quote

2006-07-16T12:33:00.000+01:00

I was browsing "that place" when I saw an interesting quote by one of the Moderators who is a serving regular officer.

Now before I show you the quote, you all know of the problems suffered by people for expressing their views on there, and that we have been lectured repeatedly that Police Officers can not have an on duty and off duty opinion, so if a person shows such disregard for the ideals behind their oath, code of practice, the HRA & ECHR, then what regard is shown when whilst on duty.

I'm afraid you don't have a freedom of speech on this forum, it's a commerical concern. As moderators we have a responsibility to keep the forum 'tidy' and repeated threads on the same topic are contrary to this.

So straight from the horses mouth so to speak, a commercial concern run by police officers, using official insignia. Will be interesting to read the response from the FOIA Request when it comes back.

For all those people who have read this thread and thought people were making it up about the lack of free speech I hope this comment validates what we have all been saying.

An interesting point.

2006-07-13T11:16:00.000+01:00

Fernando said...

Supply of Goods and Services Act won't apply;

No goods are involved and how do you prove the services were, or were not provided;

with reasonable care and skill.
in a reasonable time, if you haven't specified a completion date.
for a reasonable price, if this hasn't been agreed in advance.

Legally they're not entitled to a penny, especially if they've lost the service by breaking the sites rules.

Anonymous said...
"The fact is it is a private run site which means if you dare to disagree you WILL be banned."
Sounds reasonable to me.

Fernando, I am not sure if you even know ps.com, but allow me to explain, there is freely available a list of rules which could be interpreted as terms and conditions. When pay either £12 for a years of £50 for lifetime membership, the site owner LV agrees to provide you with services which are freely listed on the site. These services are not available to people unless you pay the subrictoption.

No one is questioning the practice of people being banned for breaking the rules, thats fine, what other people and I object to is being banned for having a view that is different to that of the moderators.

Moderators are allowed to breach their own rules by making personal attacks on people and attack their charcter, a favourite activity of some moderators is that when a thread is locked they continue to post messages goading people knowing they cant respond.

I am not a Civil Law Buff so dont know about the Supply of Services and Goods Act, but by providing the site owner with a fee, they agree to provide you with services in accordance with their "T&C's", you can not then change the goal posts because it suits you.

Another interesting point that has been made is the financial side of all this and the revenue that is going in.

To answer a question

2006-07-11T14:21:00.000+01:00

I was sent a comment on the censorship entry which said:

Fernando said...
No idea what all this ps.com stuff is about but one thing I couldn't help noticing.
You talk about the censorship on there as a bad thing but have the blog comments on here set so they need to be approved. How do you reconcile that, and how do we know how many negative comments you've been getting?

The reason that it is set so that I have to approve it, is to stop the blog getting bombarded with spam as reccomended by the site. I will publicly state that if anyone has a differnt view and wishes to express it in a grown up manner withouht refering to names, profanity and is in accordance with the Law then I am more than willing to approve it. If the person does havea differnt view to mine that is fine, after all I took an oath to protect that right, but they should at least back up why they think I am wrong. So feel free to post any mature comments.

Hope that clears that up.

My Response to the Demands sent to me

2006-07-11T06:34:00.000+01:00

When I went offline last night there was 949 hits on here and over night that has shot up to 1025. Please accept my appology for providing the wrong emaila ddress is should be tacticalthinking2006@yahoo.co.uk As I said I understand why people would want to post anonymously, but if you do please drop me an email at this address to say hi, unlike some this information will bot be provided to any 3^rd party withouht your express permission.

Well today my loyal readers I announces the demise of “Dogs of Blackpool” from Policespecials.com. I have been banned for comments on this blog. Now you may ask why, well here is the notification I received:

Dear Rob,

My attention has been drawn to your blog, located at http://tactical-

thinking.blogspot.com/

I refer in particular to the following comments made in your entry of

15 May 2006:

1. You refer to me with the comment "delusions of grandeur? or

narcissistic personality disorder?)" .

2. You suggest that I am in some way less competent as a police

officer because of the way the PoliceSpecials.com forum is moderated.

I am prepared to overlook all the other comments where you have

vented your frustration with the moderation on PoliceSpecials.com,

because you are of course entitled to your view, and to publish it

wherever you like. However the comments about me I find personally

extremely offensive and potentially libelous.

Please remove these comments and publish an apology, within 7 days of

receipt of this email. If you are unwilling to do this then I will

be forced to consider legal action, because such comments are harmful

to me and to my business.

Finally, please take this as notice that you are hereby banned from

using the PoliceSpecials.com forum. Your user account 'Dogs of

Blackpool' has been blocked. Do not try to re-register under a

different name. I have taken this action because your views about

the moderation, and your comments about me on your blog, are clearly

in conflict with our wish to keep the PoliceSpecials.com forum a well

run, well moderated forum.

I look forward to your reply.

Now despite paying a subscription fee for a service in accordance with their published conditions I have been banned for comments which were not even on the forum.

Now to answer these points in turn.

Point one,

The statement does not refer to a specific person, no one is named, it was a rhetorical question posed to the readers, you have chosen to apply the comments to yourself, which is of course your right, however the comments could equally apply to my posts as well, it is your choice to apply them to you.

As for the comments about your suitability as a police officer, if you perform your duties diligently in accordance with the Law, oath of office and codes of practice then there should be no problem.

The comment was not aimed at you, but the people who engaged in the practice of disregarding the vital elements of the standards the police are supposed to abide by and a vital piece of UK Legislation. You have stated publicly on the forum that a police officer can not have an off duty and on duty opinion and they are one and the same as well as calling in to question other people ability to be police officers when they have not agreed with certain points of view on the forum, if you feel this refers to you then again that is your right, but my comments were based on the behaviour exhibited by several people rather than a specific person.

Now according to the police oath and code of practice (which was deleted from my signature by a moderator) they strive to foster a climate of treating people fairly and impartially. This is hardly the case when you are told that regardless of the fact you may be right, the Moderator is always right. Is it fair when a persons posts are censored purely because they have a difference of opinion, when one moderator approves a post to then have another arbitrarily remove it, seems to be contradictory to the principles of fairness and impartiality. Despite repeated comments that this is unfair by several prominent members/forum users this behaviour is allowed to happen and is condoned.

Fact is the forum is just that, its not a cherished institution of the Police Service, in fact it is now something that many officers have been advised to avoid by their supervisors, because comments are edited and spun out of context to make the author appear in a bad light. For the exact reason that as you know I save copies of the posts I make and pm’s I receive to substantiate the comments I have made about treatment and moderation on the forum.

However to the moderator who has printed a copy of my blog, if you have chosen to take offence at a rhetorical question and feel that it applies to your conduct, then for that I appologise on your behalf.

There have been countless cases when you have been contacted by other members and myself with concerns with regards to comments and in some cases bullying they have encountered on the forum when they are sent pm’s threatening action based on their legally held views. You were contacted as the host in the hope that the ideals of the code of practice and Oath of Office would be applied, however this was not the case, in fact the person raising the concern has on occasions been blamed by you for causing the whole incident.

There was a thread with over 13 pages of comments made my forum members many of them paying members who made legitimate comments about the unfair treatment they have suffered by your chosen moderators, the response was for the entire thread to be swept under the carpet.

Now I have never known a Police Constable to refer to the Service as their “business”, rather an interesting choice of words, to which legitmate disclosed and officaly sanctiond business interest are you referring to?

To use a quote of yours from a pm you sent me:

“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”.

Rather than blocking people, censoring their legitimate views, tracing their ISP’s and reporting people to their forces.

As for the demand of a retraction, whilst public opinion and criticism may be censored on ps.cpm on the standards of moderation and behaviour, that same censoring policy does not reach here.

What now my loyal readers may ask, well thanks to the benefit of saving pages the appropriate Statutory Organisations and Police Forces will be notified.

WOW

2006-07-10T13:51:00.000+01:00

Well folks, seems like I have stirred a right hornets nest, 9 comments from my last post and over 100 hits in just over 24 hours.

It would seem that I am not alone in my experiences, but I digress, one my response has been prepared I will post it in full on here along with the email of complaint I received.

But to Sinbad, welcome and hope you find my rants on life interesting. I was not in the Military, I was a Civilian Contractor working with the Coalition, mostly with the Americans, but I did get some normality working with the British.

I take it from the bluntness of your post that you are a Squaddie, lol.

I have set up an email you can email me at tacticalthinking2006@yahoo.co.uk, I understand why people would post anonymously in light of some of the comments have been made, feel free to continue to post anonymously if you wish, just say hi via email.

Whilst all the comments so far have been one sided, I am more than willing to approve any comments as long as they are relevant, do not mention and real names or breach any Law. If you have a different point of view to me that’s fine, just back up your comments and they will be approved.

Censorship

2006-07-09T11:01:00.000+01:00

Hi to my loyal readers. Just to upadte you, I have received a letter from someone from policespecials.com demanding I make a retraction for some comments on this blog and that if I dont they will seek legal advice.

As I am involved in several differnt organisations in the UK, US and other places, I am having my response prepared, so rest assured I will reply soon.

The stupidity continues

2006-06-05T17:50:00.000+01:00

Well what an interesting week in the news, there was an Anti Terror raid in London, during which one of the "suspects" was shot once. The reason for the raid was credible intelligence that the house was being used to manufacture a chemical device which would have a death count in the hundreds. Immediately after this there are mental retards claiming how it is all victimisation that two brothers have been attacked and were shot without warning, the two twats even had a dig at Tony Blair in the TV interview.

There still hasn’t been a press release yet, I think they have learnt from the last incident in that they need to get their facts right before opening their mouths. The solicitors for the two "suspects" have already started the bleeding hearts campaign about how hard done their innocent harmless clients are.

On the world stage the rank incompetence of some elements of the US forces was highlighted this week. It now appears that in Afghanistan our troops (The British) are potentially at risk from American weaponry (I dont mean so called friendly fire) but by armaments that the US troops have abandoned when they moved areas in Afghanistan. Thanks guys really appreciate it. It is monumental screw ups like this build the reputation, that and what has been called Iraq's My Lai

I just hope that "if" anyone is convicted in the incident at Haditha that the US Authorities seek the death sentence. If they want to regain any credibility on the World Stage they need to back up their rhetoric.

I still hear from mates back in Iraq who have to work with the standard of police and soldiers in Iraq. Wonder if the new PM can pull a miracle and sort it out, first job is to slap Basra into place and replace the corrupt officials.

Arrogance and Ignorance

2006-05-30T14:09:00.000+01:00

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

2006-05-22T14:31:00.000+01:00

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

2006-05-15T15:56:00.000+01:00

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

2006-05-07T11:40:00.000+01:00

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…….

2006-05-03T08:00:00.000+01:00

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.

Who's side are you realy on?

2006-04-23T17:15:00.000+01:00

One of the things any soldier hates it the threat of friendly fire, now with the advance of communication, Satellite imaging you would think its hard for a modern military to shoot its own people of their allies, sadly not in Iraq, a considerable number of the British Casualties during both Gulf Wars were a the hand of their allies, once such incident was the fact a British Tank with the union Jack painted on the roof and transmitting the appropriate signal was blown up by a US Pilot as he mistook them for an Iraq Tank, last time I checked Saddam was never equipped with Challengers. There was an incident on the camp I am on, there is a US Air Force Captain, is an excellent laugh and cares a great deal about her work, for obvious reasons wears US Military Uniform and has blond hair. Now in the infinite wisdom a National Guard unit mistook her for an insurgent, anyone spot three problems which the National Guard Obviously missed as they shot a flare at her.

Now some might laugh at this, but it is indicative of the lowering of standards in the US Military. I have met and worked with some outstanding examples of good service personnel, but I have seen the real dross. All Branches in the US Military are failing to meet their recruitment targets, so what do they do, lower the standards, they now take people with lower level of education, lower fitness and have widened the list of criminal convictions they will allow.

One thing that is really shocking is the rampant waste of money over here, now some of you if you are Americans may know that KBR/Halliburton are under investigation by Congress as they were caught fiddling the books and over charging the US Military for fuel, quite surprising really when their ex CEO is now the Vice President of the United States. Well KBR is not very well liked by the grass roots troops, there was one case were one of the soldiers in the units mechanical department gave all his generator spares to another civilian company because they didn’t want KBR to have them.

So much money has been spent in Iraq that it works out every man woman and child $10,000 EACH. There is a camp near to mine that has a scrap yard the size of a small English village, there is enough operational equipment on here to equip a small country, it seems that in the US Military and KBR they have a philosophy that if its damaged its easier to replace than to repair.

Now things are still getting stressed on my camp, now you may not know this but I am a Civilian Contractor, now how it works is that a US Officer is appointed to each civilian company on base, turns out ours is a right ass hole, he used to be a good laugh, would come round for our BBQ’s, have a chat and laugh, turns out he was as spineless as a jelly fish. When we have our daily meetings he likes to use the Phrase “The Colonel Said” or “Command have said”. At one point he tried to play our company off against another civilian company on base, the gimp didn’t know that we actually talk to each other. He is the perfect example of what an Officer should NOT be, he is one of the types who get all Americans a bad name, he has a habit of demanding people drop everything there are doing, regardless of how important to do what ever he wants to do. Perfect example, yesterday there was a major supply convoy that had arrived that was 5 days late, so the Civilian Contractors were off loading the supplies which he knew had arrived and knew how important they were, but no, Captain Twat demands that the fork lifts be sent to him so that he can off load some generators which were not going to be connected for a few days, but the supplies on the convoy were needed that day, when he was told that the fork lifts wouldn’t be available he transmitted over the radio “Tell them it is a directive from their COR( Contracting Officers Rep) and if they don’t they will be in breach of their contract”. If this is the calibre of officers that are in the military no wonder the US are getting a bad name and the good officers get tarred with the same brush. In the end he was ignored as the base commander said the supply convoy was more important.

as you know from reading my other entries I used to have a great laugh with the old XO (old as in previous, the git is younger than me), he along with the likes of the Blond Captain and the guys who work “across the river” and Major Bum as we call her are the good that are in the Military, I could ask any of them anything and vice versa and if it is within our power will gladly help each other out. Mind you it was funny though at times as our old XO (I know your reading this) and the two female officers didn’t used to get on, I think it was like the situations many of us were in when we were young and at school, when we used to like a girl we would be horrible, pull their pig tails type of thing…….

Now for some of the British Police readers you will understand this next incident. How many of you have got in a disagreement with the Custody Sgt over the removal of the handcuffs. There was one incident I was involved in, now this incident happened whilst I was a Force Defensive Tactics Instructor (Something the Custody Sgt didn’t know) well I locked up this guy for scrapping in the street, we had a bundle to get the cuffs on him, had to fight to get him in the van, then when we got to custody had a fight to get him out of the van, now in their infinite wisdom the Sgt decided to keep us waiting, whilst we were waiting he stated to all of the officers present that as soon as we take the hand cuffs off he is going to attack us. When the Sgt finally let us in from the holding bay we had to use force to get the bloke inside. After I explained all the circumstances the Sgt began to go through the booking in process and actually asked me to take the handcuffs off so the guy could sign it. I repeated what had happened and that he made threats to attack officers and that I wasn’t happy to take them off, the Sgt wasn’t happy so I offered him my handcuff key and said he was welcome to remove them, I did this knowing that the whole incident was recorded. He stormed round the counter and removed the handcuffs ignoring the safe removal training he was given, he then gave the person a pen so sign the custody papers, the guy then refused to hand the pen back so the all knowing custody Sgt and another officer end up getting into another fight with the guy trying to remove the pen which he is now trying to stab them with and try and get him to a cell.

When it came to documenting all this I made a full pocket book entry detailing my professional opinion as a Defensive Tactics instructor and how the Sgt had completely disregarded all the information I had given him and exposed officers to avoidable risk and that the fight in the custody suite was completely avoidable, I then sent papers to our divisional Defensive tactics advisor who completely supported me. The Sgt was really friendly to me next time I brought a prisoner into the block next time having been spoken to.

The moral of this story is that if you are the one who has been with a violent “customer” then have the courage to stand by your convictions and if you can justify it in law then say NO, then having insured that this is recorded on the custody recorder offer the Sgt the key to do it themselves.

Well last night was one of the best here, we had a BBQ and invited some of our friends round, the atmosphere was great, actually forgot what complete assholes some of the Americans have become, at the BBQ there were both enlisted and Senior Officers and, we didn’t manage to entice the ladies to try out the Jacuzzi we built though. The BBQ was sort of a leaving party, for me and two of the officers who are leaving. For the good people here, you can never forget the friendships that you build up and I certainly wont forget the friends I have made out here. They certainly are a credit to their service and country, it is just a pity they get stuck working with assholes.

It is going to be weird leaving the camp in a few days, its not like leaving any other job, especially for me and the other medics I work with.

Now as part of the many jobs I do out here is to be responsible for the medical provision for over 90 civilian contractors from several different countries, including South Africans, Indian’s, Nepalese, Sierra Leons and a few others.

Now under the US Military classification they are classed as TCN’s or Third Country Nationals, however I am not as I come from the UK, a lesson a yank learnt the hard way when he was using a chemical toilet……

Now back in their home country the TCN’s could have to pay for medical treatment and medication, now for the slightest thing I will have a stream of TCN’s except the South Africans come to my office asking to tablets without telling me what’s wrong, I thought working in a Psychiatric Ward was bad with the hypochondriacs, they these guys are terrible, the favourite complaint is “Body Pain” normally after the lazy gits have actually done some work, when there was more staff the most under performing ones were the Sierra Leon Guys, they would try and bunk off work every chance they could get, if they had to do any form of manual work, within a few hours they would be knocking on my door begging for tablets. They think medication grows on trees and that there is an endless supply

One of the things that bugs me is how subservient the Indian and Nepalese staff are, this is not because they are expected to do it as part of their job, but no matter what I am doing, carrying a box, cleaning my truck out, the guys will walk up take the box out of my hands or take over washing my truck, it bugs the crap out of me, this is 2006 not 1940’s in the British Empire. However the Sierra Leon guys, since they have been employed by my company they have been nothing but problems. The women that were employed sold themselves to anyone who would have a go, Coalition, and other staff. The guys cause just a much problems, they are militant to the point of disrupting operations, they steal something chronic and make Arthur Daly and Del Boy look like amateurs, when they leave we search their luggage, last time the stuff I found, one person stole pairs of latex gloves and paper hats people wear when working in the kitchen, one person even had taps in their luggage, they have the misconception that rules don’t apply to them. The harass the Americans to try and get them green cards or get them into the US. Now before any stupid hippy liberals reading this claim I am labelling all Sierra Leons I am not just the ones I have worked with, work being a loose term when they are concerned. If one of them has a problem, they can never come and talk to you individually, they always come with a committee and their opening comments are “Sir, My brothers and I”

Dose of reality

2006-04-19T03:20:00.000+01:00

I have had a number of interesting comments made on my blog and thought I would address them. Now as I have explained on the forum, one of the esteemed moderators made a comment how my leave from Iraq always coincided with the dates when the forum had one of their social events. When I replied to this comment between them the author of the comment had completely changed to another moderator and several of my friends on the forum made comments that I was infact working in Blackpool.

The fact that someone tried to trace my IP address for fun whilst I was in Baghdad just goes to show how sad they are and the fact that would think I made this all up. It really is a sad reflection on this country (UK) that people with this level of intelligence are the ones to up hold Law and Order.

The other comment was about PSD (Professional Standards Departments) and how that it is not the officers fault, well here’s the thing, you do not get forced to join the department, you CHOOSE to join the department.

The Politicians in deed need a kick up the ass, they need to realise that they create more problems than they solve with their drive for Political Correctness, has anyone noticed that the biggest advocates of Political Correctness in the UK are White Middle Class people who try and force their perception on to everyone, including the minority groups they pretend to care so deeply about. But the fact is the Senior Ranks of the Police Service should be ashamed of themselves, I doubt very much that they are put under pressure to find disrepute cases, they just go hunting for them so that they can try and stay in favour with the Administration in the hope of getting a QPM or a Knight Hood.

Now the esteemed Commissioner of the Met actually interfered in an investigation concerning a Police Officer who miss pronounced "Shi`ite". Now if this was any other type of PSD investigation would the Commissioner have intervened, in the end the Employment Tribunal found in favour of the officer under investigation and they were quite vocal in their Views of what the Commissioner had done.

The fact is Forces up and down the country use PSD to as a tool to prevent criticism of them or their forces. I may have been asleep during my GCSE History, but wasn’t the Second World War fought to stop this kind of behaviour, (http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/england/london/4638331.stm). Even the most Senior ranking Asian Police officer in the country dismissed the complaint in shock that it had even reached his desk, but this wasn’t good enough for the Campaigning Commissioner.

The pendulum has swung in the opposite direction from the 70's, 80's and Early 90's of ignoring racisms and other forms of discrimination they have swung in the opposite direction, any one remember the McCarthy Era in the US were they had the reds under the bed. We are now faced with a situation were some senior officers see, racism, sexism, homophobia or any other of phobia were in some cases there isn’t. Now dont misunderstand me I think there is no place in the Police Force (Not supposed to use this word) or Society in general for this type of discrimination, but the current polices need to be re-looked at and replaced for more common sense policies, now if it was a ethnic minority officer who made a comment about a group of white people I doubt it would have even been investigated, in fact it wouldn’t surprise me if the officer making the com plaint was investigated for picking on the minority officer.

I have never in the 7 years of my service ever encountered any form of discrimination except from the force against me. I say this following two incidents.

Until the McPherson enquiry the force I was in had never bothered with my welfare or progress, in fact following one incident were I dealt with a jumper, all the regular officers were contacted by Welfare to see if they wanted counselling, but for some reason they missed me out. But after the McPherson enquiry I was inundated with letters, reports and junk telling me how I was important to the force... ooops Service and how they were looking after my welfare. I sent a nice reply back that until the McPherson report they had never bothered with me and that they were treating me differently purely because of the colour of my skin which I felt was discrimination and if they continued I would make a formal criminal complaint. Guess what......... they stopped sending me stuff.
Now no one can say I ever had a good working relationship with my old Area Officer, but I had a meeting with him one evening before my shift, he said that following the Area Officers Meeting, my name was put forward to take part in a recruitment campaign, now normally I would have jumped at the chance, however this happened around the same time as the previous incident, so I asked him, "Is it because of the amount of work I do or is it because I am listed as IC2 (Dark European), as I have no intention of being used as anyone’s token officer" Not surprisingly he couldn’t answer me and I was never used for the recruitment campaign, instead every other ethnic minority officer I knew was featured on a poster. They didn’t even have the guts to be honest with me.

For anyone spending any time in the Real World or General Discussion area of the forum will see how a distinct leftist slant that is prevailing across the police service. In an effort to show how squeaky clean they are on the forum people are manipulated to post in a particular way to show them in bad light or the moderators just edit someone’s post without consulting them, because of this I now saves copies of pages of controversial threads I take part in. Another method of censorship on there is if you are put on “Moderated Posts”, now what this means that if a moderator doesn’t like you they can put you on moderated posts which requires all your posts to be checked by a moderator before they are posted, they can then edit your posts to say what they want before posting it, then even if one moderator does past the persons post, there has been several cases of a particular moderator either deleting or editing posts already approved and what is the reply when this was challenged “If you don’t like it don’t come here” This is hardly the behaviour and standards one would expect from a police officer.

It has been stated that Freedom of Speech doesn’t exist on there, as the site belongs to the host and its his forum and his rules, all Police Officers are supposed to up hold the Human Rights Act and people Human Rights, so how can police officers only play lip service to it when on duty, but disregard it when someone makes a comment they don’t like.

There will be my regular update at the weekend, with some intresting news for my readers, but I would like to take this oppertunity to thank people for taking the time to read my blog and for those who have taken the extra time to post comments.

The Thin Blue Line

2006-04-15T14:37:00.000+01:00

Well things are getting interesting here, now you know from my other posts there is a big deal being made of getting Sunni Iraqi’s to join the army, all well and good but at the camp I am on there is growing animosity between the Sunni and Shia units on base, it didn’t help that for the Sunni Soldiers were marching around the camp chanting Pro Saddam slogans calling him the Hero of Tikrit and chanting anti American Slogan, took 3 days before the Americans found out. As a result there are now groups of Shia Soldiers who want to deal with the Sunni’s their own way.

I was having a chat to a friend of mine back home (UK) about my time in the Police, the service as a whole in Britain is pretty screwed, it is suffering from a chronic lack of leadership with guts to tell all the hippy liberals to go screw themselves. The slightest hint of getting sued then the police give in making out of court settlements. At the same time the Police are more than happy to go on witch hunts of their own officers who have blog's or post on forums. There are times when I think some of the moderators on policespecials.com are employed by retainer from the PR Departments of their respective forces. They bully and harasses people to have the approved opinion about any issue they like, perfect example was a long discussion about Positive Discrimination, once force deliberately deselected white male recruits because they had enough, those people whit brain cells and common sense posted on the forum that this was illegal and even posted evidence to prove it, the result was getting flamed and having snide comments made. In the end the force did infact admit what they were doing was illegal, all the do gooders on the forum who were jumping up and down justifying what this force did all went quiet and crawled back under their rock.

Forces are increasingly becoming strapped for cash but waste money on witch hunts, one case was a force pursuing officers for making a comment in a secure police station to another officer about a criminal, something they would not have found out about if they didn’t have CCTV cameras investigating a separate incident. Now for all you British Police Officers who read this you will know of the catch all offence the Police Use to do with any officer they don’t like “Bringing the Service into Disrepute”, they use this for anyone who dares to speak out and tell the truth about policing, how senior managers are more concerned about their next promotion or getting a medal than the policing of their area or the welfare of their officers.

Forces hate to admite they are failing and like to pretend to members of the public that theya re getting value for money, so now with the explosion of blogs forces have taken to bullying their officers and threatening them with “Bringing the service into Disrepute” if an officer dares to speak the truth and say how it realy is. Heven forbid the public learn that it is rare for anyone above the rank of Sgt to be out on the street, or about how officers are being handicapped with left wing ideology. How officers are restricted from carrying out their duty for fear of upsetting a particular group. The Police are supposed to have a high level of integrity, but the powers that be feel threatened if officers dare to speak the truth, about how they spend more time filling in pieces of paper which justifies a civilians job or meets some target set by people who have no idea about how innicent members of the public have their lives blighted by crime.

Now with any police force there is always urban legends about different people in the force, one person I have heard about is in fact an ACC, now to look at him, he always looked a bit of a scruff and had a nose that Rudolf would have been proud of. Once such legend involving him was that at a Confirmation Ceremony when he hands out the Warrant Cards the poor officers who had to go up and receive theirs got breathed on and was hit from the fumes of his drinking. The same person also fell asleep due to his drinking at a Police Authority meeting.

Now as you know I was a Special Constable, for you Colonials that means Reserve. Now After initial teething problems I was moved to a different unit, in fact this was the best thing that ever happened to me, I began to develop an excellent working relationship with the regulars. Now the major problem with the Special Constabulary in the UK is the chronic lack of professionalism, when you have Senior Specials advocating walking out if you are asked to do something you don’t like, it hardly does the service any favours. One of my major gripes with specials is those who cherry pick jobs, I would always work the same shift as the regulars, if that meant I work 14 hours then so be it, one such day I was on duty for 20 hours, my attitude was that when I came on duty and until I went home I would do whatever was asked of me, if it meant babysitting a shit bag in the cells instead of the Area Car driver then I would do it, what makes more sense a Special sitting in the cells or a highly qualified response driver. It was this attitude that resulted in the close relationship with the regs, to the point that Sergeants would ask me if I wanted to do operations before asking the Section Officers (Specials Supervisors). Now something people need to understand at the time I was in the Specials there was a lot of nepotism within the Specials Supervision which meant the regs had very little faith in the Supervisors. It reached a point were the Area Officer deliberately obstructed me, he attempted to block my application to go on courses, it was only after I got an Inspector involved that I got on the course, his response was “Because of your relationship with the regulars you get better opportunities than the rest of us” My reply was simple, just be more effectual when you go on duty rather than just wander around doing sod all.

Now back to my delightful camp in Iraq, for all my Military readers you will fully understand the difference between line officers and those who have got their rank sitting on their ass’s in an office who think they are line officers, we have 3 of these at our camp a female Lieu Colonel and 2 Captains, all these are Air Force, none of they appear to have any Combat experience and are the biggest wingers going. There are units working outside the camp to protect us and prevent the insurgents attacking us, when the US Officers working with these units come in to camp we have a chat, laugh and get on great, even they are getting pissed off with the office jockeys. The Office Jockeys seem to have no comprehension of what life is like in the field, whilst the guys in the field are sleeping in crap accommodation without air conditioning,, permanent power supply the wingers on camp are bitching because a light has blown in their room, or their tap leaks or their air con doesn’t work properly.

Since I have been working with the Americans I can fully appreciate why people don’t like them due to the actions of a few everyone gets labelled the same. I have made some really good friends out here and even they are embraced about their fellow country men/women who they say are getting them all a bad rep.

The British Police service has been liberalised to the extent that in some cases they have tied their own hands up for fear of upsetting someone, the So called leaders or Commanders have forgotten that first and foremost they are police officers, in one force I have a friend who is a Special Constable, now in this force gangs of youths basically claimed an estate, vandalised cars and set them alight then started attacking the police who went to deal, what did the Senior Officers do, instead of gain the streets back and instilling Law and Order after 3 Police Officers called for a PSU (Riot Police), guess what the order was……

Yep you guessed it the request for the PSU (Police Support Unit) was denied all three times and all police were pulled out of the area, leaving the innocent with no protection because the senior officers had no guts. I wish we could go back to when the police had a back bone.

A similar incident happened to me in my first force, I was leading a public order van on a weekend night, we went to back up a couple of foot officers, they ended up getting into a scrap and my van set up a cordon, about this time the night club closed so all the people spilled out into the street, resulting in more fight breaking out, PAVA drawn and used, emptied my can and drew my baton, one officer had her front teeth knocked out, loads of Urgent Assistance calls go out. The Controller was getting every available unit to respond, but the Duty Inspector standing nice and safely in the control room watching the CCTV screen made the judgment that he didn’t want to inflame the situation so cancelled the officers responding. The controller was spitting bricks, as we were still rolling around the floor fighting trying to shout for help over the radio’s the officers ignored the inspector and raced to the scene, with one incident we filled the entire custody block, the control so angry they called the duty Superintendent. The debrief was interesting all the officers who were at the incident went ballistic when we ground out our help was cancelled, so as a UDT/OST (Defensive Tactics Trainer) I stated that I would be documenting what happened and the risks the officers faced in my official statement and use of force form and would be ensuring that it reached the Head of Operations and that officers were deliberately put at risk.

The Inspector was one of the rapid promotion types, were they get very little operational experience but are good on paper. In the time I spent in the force as a Special Constable, he went from Special Constable to Regular Inspector in the same amount of time.

Nest of Vipers

2006-04-09T13:33:00.000+01:00

We used to have a good working relationships with the US troops on base we would have a good laugh and a few of them would come round to our accommodation for our BBQ’s, we have made some god friends, however over the past month that goodwill has quickly diminished.

The first thing that happened, in one of the mess halls (DFAC for my colonial readers) is run by a fierce South African woman who scares most US troops on base, she called up to say that the Jundie were fighting, as normal we requested support from the US Military, the officer who is responsible for looking after this company replied he was to busy to attend. The unit the Jundie came from has US Officers attached to it as Advisors, now the previous advisor an outstanding and top bloke an LTC in the USMC would always make sure the civilian staff were ok and went out of his way to make sure all problems were sorted, however his replacement is a waste of space, the new guy a full bird colonel as the yanks say turned up, when informed what had happened he replied “Its not our fight, we are just advisors, leave them (unarmed civilians) to deal with it and pulled two of his soldiers out who were trying to help. He then walked off until I transmitted his entire comments over the radio net requesting military support, he then turned around and returned to the DFAC.

We have a new guy on base, an Air force Captain, he has to be a grade A asshole, along with the colonel they have managed to nearly destroy all the goodwill that has been established over the past year we have been here.

Now something you definitely wont see on the news is the standards that the IAF live in, now a bit of back ground, when they were first given these ablution blocks, they were spotless, and the pics you see is what the Iraqi Soldiers turned them into, this is what the Coalition is having to deal with, I have the greatest respect for the Coalition folks who are trying to educate these people, you cant call them animals, animals don’t shit in the same place that they sleep.

Had fun with a convoy a couple of days ago, just before we left the camp to of the dim wit drivers decided to drive up the wrong road and nearly getting two semi’s stuck. Then when we left the camp we were driving through chicane, one of the trucks saw an oncoming US Convoy approaching so stopped to allow them to enter, however the twat stopped in the deepest, wettest muddiest part of the road which was to narrow for the American convoy to pass anyway. When we tried to leave the twat had got his truck stuck so we had to get a tank to toe him out.

As expected there is good natured ribbing between the Brits and Yanks, but there is a limit, I actually saw 2 American Marines getting very defensive when a US Soldier was bad mouthing the Royal Marines, so one US Marine took offence having worked with Royal Marines, punched the soldier, doesn’t matter what country they were from, Marines are Marines, the USMC guys actually said the Royals could teach the Army a few things.

At another incident I was involved in, one US Marine decided to be rather suicidal and start bad mouthing Brits, his fellow Americans were obviously embarrassed, one person who shall remain nameless managed to get into the Marines room armed with a can of CS Spray (similar to the ones police officers have), along with some help the person removed all the Yanks trousers, took them outside and sprayed the crutch of all his trousers, then when it crystallised they were put back in his room, now as the rooms have air con and this was the height of summer the room was nice and cool, so next morning he put his trousers on and the heat activated the CS.

Moral of the story for all my American readers, don’t bad mouth the Brits, especially if you are on a base full of them and there is a vindictive bastard on base.

I have been contacted by one of my colonial readers who complained at some of the terms I have used, so here is a link from BBC America Site that translate into American (http://www.bbcamerica.com/britain/dictionary.jsp).

Every day on base we have a daily meeting in the afternoon, now as you will know the atmosphere has been pretty crappy of late, we went to the meeting fully expecting the new Captain to give us shit, however thanks to the timely intervention of one of the finest example of a US Marine I have worked with in over 4 years or so I have worked on and off with the Yanks, thanks to his help I sat in the meeting have not only pulled the rug out from underneath the arrogant Captain but ripped it out, this morning he demeanour changed completely from being a complete prick yesterday to all friendly and smiley.

I was digging though some old files on my computer and found some posters I had done. The previous XO of the base had a wicked sense of humour and surprisingly was well versed in current events unlike many of his compatriots I have worked with, now for obvious reasons I have blacked out his face, but the pic in this posts is one of the posters I did after I “Acquired” a picture of him. There was a few made much to the enjoyment of the Americans on base who enjoyed having a laugh at “The beast”.

Is it worth it????

2006-04-02T04:00:00.000+01:00

Is it worth it?????

I am in no doubt that the Coalition needed to get rid of that maniac, but the powers that be screwed up big with the stupid assumption the whole country would have a ticker tape parade, but having seen the standards and behaviour of the IAF at the bases I have been based, I can see this is going to be one screw up as soon as the coalition leave.

Back to the standards of the IAF, one of the towers on our camp is staffed by the IA, they are so good that one night they caused a major security scare across the whole camp, we heard massive gunfire, all the Coalition troops scrambled think they was a major attack on the camp only to find out that the IA had mistaken a cow for an insurgent.

It seems that the Coalition Powers that be seen to enjoy walking round in circles, there is a big drive to recruit Sunni’s into the Military to make it more representative of the population, at the moment to placate the Sunni’s who actually manage to pass the entry requirements they give in to every demand, whilst the Shia and Kurdish soldiers have to live without Air Conditioning, in stead only allow ceiling fans, to stop the Sunni recruits from leaving they give them Air Conditioners, I can just see the crap that is going to happen when the other soldiers find out.

A major thing all the Iraqis bitch about is the food, now that the West has given them the much flaunted right to complain, and complain they do about everything. Despite the portions being dictated and approved by Iraqi/Coalition the new Sunni recruits bitch that they don’t have enough food, so what do the US Senior Officers on base say, “Oh but this isn’t a normal boot camp, this is special”, my diplomatic response was “So what, this is still a military base, they should act like soldiers and accept what they are given.

All the staff here have their own call sign, it didn’t take long for me to be given the call sign “Bart” as in Bart Simpson, because our personalities are similar, it may have had something to do with the fact that during my chequered past, I tipped over a portable toilet at another camp when a twatty yank in it who had the nerve to claim the UK was a Third World Country, the guy was taking a dump at the time and the portable toilet hadn’t been emptied that day.

The Egg trick was pretty good as well, at one training course I was on way back when I had no grey hair, there was this complete asshole on the course, no one liked him, one of the other people in the group was gay, so one night the class went out and got complete wasted, as it was a residential course we all staggered back to our rooms, mean while twat man was well wasted, after stripping collapsed on his bad, so Mr Evil (Me), managed to get a raw egg from the canteen, as twat man slept very heavy, so I broke the raw egg over his but and left. Next morning we got the gay guy to go in twats room in just his boxers to wake him up, got him to slowly wake up twat man, then when twat man was awake say “Hi, I really thought you didn’t like me, but am really glad we got together last night”.

Despite having a great deal of admiration for the US Marines who are out in the field, on base they are the biggest wingers after the Iraq soldiers, they seem to forget were they are and whinge and moan about the slightest thing, despite the rooms having four bulbs in, even if one bulb is blown they whinge that they need the other light, they seem to think that they should have 5 star accommodation.

Since I

Twat man then tries to get up and feels the raw egg on his butt which he thinks is something else, the other guy leaves to get dressed, Twat man then doesn’t speak to the group for about 2 days before we well him what we did.

Every now and again on the forum (ps.com), we get Walter Mitty types, there was this one guy on there, he spun everyone a yarn about how he was a Team Commander on SO19 (Police with guns in London), he even turned up at one of the socials, he made up this whole persona about how he was a crack Sgt in SO19 all before he was 26, didn’t take long for his cover to be blown.

There was another guy who told everyone he was in the Royal Military Police (RMP’s), now to look at him this looked highly unlikely, he looked like your stereotypical geek boy and he was built so well that he would prob blow over in a strong breeze, the thing that rumbled his cover was between a friend and I ask asked of made comments on the forum that if he was legit would have known, despite claiming to be a fully trained RMP he even asked on a site for Special Constables for advice on Military Law.

Me being the Macevelian type of guy I am sent him a message offering to meet up with him next time I was at the MoD in London, and out of interest asked him what unit he was in, turns out no one “in the know” had ever heard of the unit and shortly after my question he stopped using the forum, that was nearly a year ago, I cant understand how these twats think that they wont be found out.

Now being out here, I am really surprised that there has been anyone to go on the Jerry Springer show, most of the audience seems to be working out here, predominately for KBR. One base I was at we had all the convoy truckers, I could have sworn that most of the truckers were in the film Deliverance. There was one really obnoxious red neck, the I was working in the back of the billeting office out of site and the billeting officer was a lady from the Philippines, now in the camp there was a system assigning accommodation to the truckers in the order they arrived, otherwise they could sleep in their truck or a tent, now this red neck came in, was none to pleased to be talking to a TCN (Third Country National), demanded he be given a room as he was “An American Citizen” and as such shouldn’t have to sleep in a tent, after the billeting officer explained the situation to him he continued to demand a bed, having had enough I walk round and ask him nicely what the problem is, he repeats his demand, by this point he had pissed me off so I replied that as the lady had explained to him in ENGLISH what the policy was, he could either sleep in his cab or a tent, unless he thought he was better than the men and women in the military who fight for their country who have to sleep in tents and that if he didn’t start acting like an adult he would go to the bottom of the list permanently.

It is arrogant ass holes like him and Major Secret Service who get the American people a bad name, the number of good people I have met far out number the twats, but sadly its not the good people that make the news.

I logged on the ps.com a couple of days ago and found that despite having the same signature to my posts, (the police oath of office and two quotes from the Police Code of Conduct) one of the moderators decided to delete everything in my signature that referred to standards in policing, the ignorant git didn’t even have the balls to contact me first, just did it and then sent me a message “I hope you don’t mind”. They will be calling each other comrade soon instead of constable.

I was driving around the camp yesterday when I saw something truly shocking. I actually saw Iraqi’s actually acting like soldiers. Now in an effort to include all the different groups in the military they have decided to have a Sunni only intake, now I have some reservations about this as it just reinforces the differences, now whilst all the Shia and Kurds on base are having their air conditions removed and replaced with fans whilst the Sunni recruits are getting new air conditioning units., this is definitely a recipe for disaster.

Now since the Sunni recruits have started their basic training (boot camp for my Colonial readers), they are not allowed to go anywhere on base (Mess hall or classes)unless they march in formation and escorted by an NCO at all times, they have all had their hair cut and are keeping their uniform clean and tidy, meanwhile all the units that were on base before them look like a sack of shit and continue to shit and screw everywhere, even if the toilet is blocked they still continue to shit in the toilet.

The side of policing the public dont see

2006-03-28T11:05:00.000+01:00

Before I came out to Iraq I spent a year teaching at a Further Education College on a Public Services Course, the aim of the course was to prepare students for careers in the Military and Emergency Services, all the lecturers had to have had public service back grounds, on the whole it worked very well, however the person over seeing this knew sod all about the course or the organisations and was in fact a peace activist.

Just before the Coalition entered Iraq in 2003, there was talk of WMD, she got so upset that we advised her to stock up just in case, she then went out and stocked up her house with emergency supplies, we even put a Military Ration pack in her post tray for her, she fell for it…..

Any way at this college was the college bike, one of the other lectures was shagging one of our team, the bike was jealous of the rapport I had with the students. After I left the “County” force I stayed on the social committee of the bar at the nick, they asked me to remain on it after I left the force, a couple of the students who were of legal age came to the bar as well as many of them wanted to join the police. Anyway the college bike who by now had moved on to a police officer who was also working with the course made an allegation that I was a BNP supporter, the basis for this allegation was a module I was teaching, we looked at the 3 main parties and some of the smaller ones and examined how if in power they would effect the working of the public services. When we looked at the BNP (British Nation Party), I said that I can see how they (BNP) are playing on peoples concerns and gaining power. The bike made a written statement to the County Force, by now I had moved on to the other force and thus acquired a higher level of security clearance, now the Chocolate Fireguard Area Commander I mentioned earlier accepted this allegation, despite Special Branch saying they had no record of my alleged involvement, plus the fact I had worked with them before, so without even talking to me the Area Commander accepted all this, kicked me off the committee. When he invited to in finally to chat he said that as long as I did not attempt to find out who made the allegation he would not contact my new force, what a complete liar he turned out to be as he did just that, mind you the new forces actualy had the brains to dismiss the allergation as malicious.

Now about me, I am mixed race, My mother is half Serbian/ English, my father Half Maltese/Indian, my sister is half English/African, we are all born and Bred in England, and according to the BNP manifesto anyone who isn’t native born ( can trace their ancestors back a few generations) should be deported, whilst I was also in the county force I also worked with the Black Police Association. I paid my taxes to keep these type of people in their jobs.

Now during my time in the county force I had some really good times and some bad, I was the only Special Constable (volunteer) who had the competency to not only arrest people, but interview, charge and put before the court, something my all singing all dancing Area Officer and County Commandant couldn’t do, I had such a close working relationship with one team they put my name on the duties board as part of their shirt, even had my own cup with my call sign on. One particular Friday night, the big bosses had allowed the staff to get so bad that the shift that covered the town centre area of the division with all the pubs and clubs, consisted of one tutor, two probationer constables who had not long been independent and myself, in fact that was the shift on nights for quite a few weeks.

The backward side of policing in the UK

2006-03-28T04:49:00.001+01:00

The first week of Jan was pretty hectic this year, on New Years Eve, the Jundie being such a well disciplined military organisation break the glass in the door to the dining hall after rattling the door because they dont want to wait for the dining room to be opened, then on new years day a fight breaks out and one of the Iraqi MP's (that’s a joke in its self) decided to fire an AK47 in the air to instil order, instead makes all the civilian staff panic, call goes out over the net shots fired, net result, every US Military person on site turns up in full battle year, Humvees mounted with 50 Cal machine gun expecting a mutiny.

Then we have the booze black market, some Iraqi's try and smuggle 70 bottles of scotch on the base.

To take my mind off of the constant shagging between the Iraqis, Soldiers and Officers, the stealing, piles of shit everywhere, I go onto the forum, when I first joined ps.com he was a good place to be, exchange ideas about policing, experiences and chat to different people, now however the Political Correct Wind that is prevailing over the UK has infested the site, most of the mods strictly enforce a politically correct left wing agenda, they bully and ridicule anyone who dares to think differently, they put one person on moderated posts indefinitely, when challenged about this atmosphere the site host says "Its my forum, I can run it how I like", despite receiving £100's in subscription fees, they make personal digs at people, spin comments out of context to make people appear in a negative light and these are the people who uphold the law.

There was a thread on there about Avon & Somerset Police, in an effort to make their force more representative and to meet quota's the Government have set, they deliberately deselected several white male candidates from joining the police force, having researched this I said that it was illegal, all the hippy liberals said they were doing nothing wrong and just trying to rectify a wrong, either these people are completely stupid or just arguing with me because its me, but they refused to accept they were wrong, even after the views of the CRE were published. Low and behold the force eventually admitted they acted illegally and made an out of court settlement, all those who were screaming and shouting how wonderful the idea was all shut up and crept back under their stone, one person even had the nerve to say that the 2 year probation period for regular police officers should be curt for minority recruits and they should be given preferential treatment when applying to specialist posts of those who may be more qualified as there isn’t enough minority recruits in specials posts.

This type of behaviour has now became indicative of the police service in the UK, rather than good old fashioned values of fairness, integrity and common sense, you get s small minority of people, often white middle class, enforcing their values on everyone else.

Nearly had a heart attack couple of days ago nearly had a haert attack, I was racing across a bridge that snipers like to hit targets on, as I crossed teh first bridge all of a sudden saw a bloke standing in the middle of the road waving a white flag, nearly caked myself, then on another occasion told it was ok to cross the bridge when the two humvees infront of me opened fire.

2006-03-28T04:49:00.000+01:00

Well whenever I go on leave I always manage to get screwed over by the company, always get to fly "Royal" Jordanian Airlines, one time I got on the plane, sat in my seat and the whole thing fell backwards, then when I moved to another seat (very rare for the plane to be full) the seat had been fixed with some duct tape and again the two volume in flight entertainment, wasn’t to bad last time, I managed to convince my boss to fly me BA, I was not in the mood for RJ.

We had a had a real crappy spell on camp, we get BBC World News piped into our office so we see the news, but you never hear how often our camp gets hit, at one time we would be attacked daily, one day we had 22 separate strikes in one day, I am part of the joint response team on base that deals with medical emergencies so every time the camp get hit we all have to make our way to the site hospital to wait for the casualties, it was during this period in Ramadan that I had the worse day of my time out here, a mortar landed just outside the door to one of the Iraqi barracks sending shrapnel inside the building, we did our best for them, but the guy I was working was to badly injured and died whilst I was treating him, when I got back to the office with blood still on my trousers, I wanted to kill my boss, he was one of those Walter Mitty types who always wants to be involved or know everything from a distance, he used to get excited wanting to know the details, I walked in and he bombarded me with questions, I told him that I didn’t want to talk about it as the guy I was treating just died, he went all pissy saying he was only asking, I went outside to use have a cigerett (dont call them fags anymore after an incident in a Hajji shop in Baghdad, I was surrounded by American soldiers and said to my mate "God I am gagging for a fag", ,que all the Americans nearly pissing themselves laughing and I nearly die of embarrassment), when I was sitting outside the office the boss came out and asked "Are you going t cope, are you going to have a nervous breakdown", I really dont know how I kept my temper.

Mortars continued to come in daily and the Jundie are so think they carry on playing football during the attacks. I can honestly say I have never met such an ungrateful bunch of people in my entire life, the US for example have spent so much money in Iraq that you could give each man, woman or child $10,000 EACH. The steal anything they can get their hands on to sell, then come back demanding that whatever was stolen is replaced.

So show what a bunch of dirty gits they are, despite there being huge 5.5 cubic meter skips near all the accommodation, they insist on setting trash piles alight then walk off and leave it, my record so far is 44 fires in one day, when the Iraqi commanders were challenged about the lack of discipline they actually said it was ghosts who set the fires.

After Ramadan the insurgents decided to concentrate on IED (Improvised Explosive Devices), next to our camp is a couple of towns, one day a convoy got hit three times, the insurgents always delay the detonation so that whilst the soldiers are putting the fires out from the first, the second goes off, then the third, one day I was asked by the XO to take the fire crew under military escort to douse a Humvee as there was body parts in it that needed to be recovered, they towed it nearer to the camp, after the perimeter was secured we doused it, the engine block was so hot the vehicle was enveloped in steam and the body parts became steam cooked, I nearly puked my guts up, took about 3 days before I could stop smelling it, whilst we were hosing the vehicle a fire fight started around us. Walter Mitty got all pissy with me again, he wanted to go out with the fire crew, but didn’t think he needed ballistic vest/helmet, got all pissy with me when I said no, XO was impressed and told him to piss off, the boss ignored me for about 2 days, god it was great.

Me being the diplomat that I am have had a few disagreements with little Hitler’s over here, on such occasions, I was given permission from a colonel to go through a particular checkpoint on one of the American Camps, this permission was negotiated by my XO and the Colonel, I get to the check point and little Hitler wont let me through, I explain what the situation is and he replies "I dont care what rank the person is, no one told me, I am in charge here and you are going to wait until I say you can go", I ask for his name and service number so that I can report it to the base commander, few days later he doesn’t speak to me as I cross the checkpoint, he had been "spoken" to.

Next time I was escorting some trucks from one base to another, the normal route from the search area was conned off, so I asked the marines which way I should go, then when I do an old geriatric Sgt gets all pissy, when I try and explain what had happened he just kept repeating the fact that I wasn’t allowed to go the way I did. Me being me, I immediately find his boss and ask them to put their heads together and make a decision, I explain what had happened, the Sgts boss apologised and said that they send him outside because he is such a dick. When the Sgt comes in he says it for a third time that the route I took is wrong, then one of the marines interrupts after asking me how much alcohol is in the UK and what the women are like, tells the Sgt the normal route was blocked off, not wanting to miss a dig I reply "Which is exactly what I was trying to tell you if you had listened, after all we are supposed to be on the same side", the rest of the marines start to snigger and the Sgt stomps off.

Pastures new

2006-03-27T14:54:00.000+01:00

During my time down South I was also based at a large transit camp for truck drivers, it was certainly interesting, despite the US Military having no frat rules there was rampant humping going on, there were a few pregnancies and quite a few guys with droopy dick. It even got to the point that the medic and I had to start giving out condoms when we caught a group of truck drivers banging away in the DVD room, I had a night mare trying to justify to my boss why I was requesting a gross of condoms.

Got to go on leave via Kuwait, went for a meal in a nice restaurant, weird thing is you cant drink alcohol or dance in Kuwait, but up stairs in the restaurant they had a disco for a load of people in their late teens, must have been real fun. Got to fly KLM home so was pretty good.

Met up with a few mates back home in Blighty then got transferred to a camp in the middle of the Sunni Triangle as punishment.

Still had some entertainment from ps.com, always good for a laugh was Boromir, he not only had a rose tinted glasses on but think has rose tinted eye balls. Well I got to my new camp which was an old RAF base during the Second World War, got my own room which was pretty good so I could watch DVD's and just chill out. It was here that I cam to realise what a complete and utter waste of space a large part of the Iraqi Army is, in all the years of involvement with Military/police I have never met such an unprofessional organisations, at this camp the Jundie do one of 4 things, steal everything that isn’t bolted down, vandalise it if it is bolted down, shit everywhere including in the corner of their bedrooms and the worse of all screw each others brains out, they are not even discreet about it, I have lost count of the amount of times we have caught them, there were 4 of them banging away in the doorway on one of the main roads, then there were two whacking off in the shower, it got so bad none of us in our team would go anyway unless we were in pairs as we kept getting proposition.

Just before I arrived the XO of the camp a Captain in the USMC was having a shower, one of the Iraqi Officers walked in after being on leave, stripped to have a shower ( a rarity for Iraqi Soldiers), he noticed the Captain and walked up and hugged him saying "Hello My friend", just at that point one of the young American Lieutenants walked in, saw what was happening, turned round laughing and told everyone, the Captain had to put up with jokes the rest of his time on base.

When I arrived I found out I was the only Brit, apart from the obvious Iraqi's, there were also Americans, Indian, Pakistani, Sierra Leon and loads of South Africans.

The new XO had an excellent sense of humour, so we started a US-V-UK banter, to start with he thought I was innocent, but he made a couple of comments, so I managed to "acquire" a picture with his face on, so I got a mate to put his face on a few embarrassing pictures, I put the poster up and around the military compound, he nearly died laughing, everyone got the blame except me, then e found out.

Despite there being large 5.5 cubic meter rubbish skips next to their barracks they Jundie insist on dumping their rubbish at spots around the camp. In the end the only safe way of disposing of the rubbish was to set fire to it, so we doused it with fuel then set it alight, only problem was some thick twat left a AK47 magazine in the rubbish, then there was an almighty bang, the Captain and I almost needed a change of shorts.

Mean while back home the forum became more and more of a white wash, they don’t understand that their comments and actions reflects on the whole service, the in crowd treat anyone who has the guts to have an individual opinion with disdain and what is tantamount to bullying just because people have the conviction to have a thought other than the official one spoon fed to them by the PR department.

The forum is such a friendly environment that the moderators have a private area were they discuss members who have no access to the data, then compile dossiers on people and forward them to people forces, hardly an action that upholds the principles of the code of conduct, if anyone dares to even hint that a moderator may be wrong they get jumped on and told “its my sight I run it how I like”

The people on there are so stupid they make facetious comments hinting that I made up the whole thing about working in Iraq.

During all this time I had the pleasure of running convoys between two camps in the most delightful area of Iraq.

Met a couple of little Hitler’s on the camp, little NCO’s in the US Military who think they have allot of power, I always like to give them enough rope to hand themselves, then pull the chair out from under them.

Going darn sarf

2006-03-27T10:34:00.000+01:00

Until recently I had the utmost respect for the RAF, not any more, I flew down from Baghdad to Basra, after I got my stomach off the ceiling of the C130 I found out that the take off was poorly to see how many passengers would be sick.

I am enjoying it down South, I will now be working with the British Military, I have put up some new pics in the gallery of my apartment in Kuwait City were I am staying with a nice lady called with ten same surname as me from South Africa.

Well the camps down Sarf are a great deal better than the ones up North, there’s no Iraqi Soldiers here, there is a definite difference in the working practices of both the US and UK Military, to the extent that British Military Convoys are not allowed to overtake US Military Convoys as the Americans think its funny to point their 50 Cal machine guns at the British Soldiers or throw stones at them.

I was visiting one US Base down south, they stopped an Australian Military Convoy and made every soldier show them their ID, they even made the gunner get out to show them their id, I can really understand why the US Military have such a bad reputation, especially after incidents were they forced one old man off ten road driving his small bongo with all his produce on when he was going to market, due to ten road conditions the old man couldn’t have gone anywhere, but the American convoy forced him off the road and his truck rolled onto its back destroying the produce which he was taking to market to earn money for his family. The head of the Private Security detail that would transport me around was American, and ex Special Forces, but didn’t have good thing to say about the US Military in Iraq, in the bar we gave him a certificate and made him an Honary member of the British Empire.

Whilst I was down in Southern Iraq I also went to the Temple and ruins at Ur, the birth place of Abraham, walked up the top of the temple and nearly dies, the view was spectacular though.

One thing that surprised me, at one camp, that also happened to have a bar, got chatting with one of the guys from the Royal Navy, turned out not only was he from the same town as me but his dad was also a police officer at the same station as me.

Although the camp was pretty small and there wasn’t much for me to do, I always had to stay the night, me along with the Royal Marines and Royal Navy had to educate the Civilian Site Manager from South Africa the British Military tradition of bar games and bar rule, poor guy got so drunk and having a hangover when its 52 degrees Centigrade is not a good thing, went out on one of the FAB’s it was excellent got to see the Iranian coast.

My eyes are opened even more

2006-03-27T09:35:00.000+01:00

Well life was pretty interesting at my first camp, I really got the grasp with the fact that the Iraqi soldiers have no comprehension of what an effective military unit is, I then got sent up to Tikrit, joy of joys got to go by road, only problem is driving in full ballistic armour in an un air-conditioned vehicle is a real bitch, especially as it was shortly after the insurgents got their hands on a load of Iraqi Police Uniforms and set up a false roadblock and opened up fire on a passing security convoy.

After getting ditched at the base at Tikrit, did my thing, then when I contacted my boss to see about transport back to Baghdad got ignored for a few days then when I contacted his boss, got told by mine that I must remember that I am in Iraq and not London and that security are not a taxi service, gee I would never have guessed.

The sun is great during the day, but there are small sand storms in the evening, am still waiting to hear when I am going back to my own Camp.

One thing I have come to realize since being out here, and before people get on their Anti Iraqi war soap box, this was happening long before the Coalition came here, is the squalor that some of these people live in, at the Camp I am based at one of the workers was Tortured by Saddam's regime because he did not want to join the Army, he still has the visible scares. Does he go on about it no, he is one of the hardest workers I know and every morning he greets me with a smile when I see him.

When I am working with people like that it makes some of the arguments that go on the forum (www.policespecials.com) and in general back home seem quite pathetic really.

I was well aware of the type of things that I would be exposed to coming out here, but seeing it face to face gives you a whole new perspective on life and make some of the issues we have back home seem petty.

I know there are many people who are against Britain sending troops here or the whole Second Iraq War, but folks reality check, it is easy to make comment when you are sitting in a nice and safe house, with heating, plumbing and running water and a kitchen full of food. Many of the bases over here have used existing Military Bases and the Palaces Saddam had, the difference in the accommodation and luxury is astounding, I don’t seem to see the Anti War Campaigners showing what life was like before Saddam was toppled or tell you about things the brave people were subjected to.

I fully respect their right to believe in what they want, but next time they start condemning the Military or Governments they should do some research.

We all know the Intelligence used by both HMG and USG to justify the war with regards to WMD was erroneous, we needed to do it, we were just told the wrong reasons.

Well last night was the last BBQ or Briar as the South Africans say, at this Camp, spent the early part of the night arguing over who had the best rugby team.

Got steamed out of my head and started talking to some Hungarians soldiers who had been invited to the BBQ. Had a great laugh.

Worse things was getting woken up by the Air Raid Siren because of incoming Morta's, god did my head hurt.

Yesterday reached 43C today its about 45. During the summer it gets around 50 at some times.

Off to Sunny Iaq

2006-03-27T05:02:00.000+01:00

Well after having god knows how many blood tests managed to get my medical results through, the company I was going to work for even wanted a test to show I wasn’t suffering from Anthrax, when I asked the Doctor for it they laughed, saying if you had it you would be dead.

Finally got to Heathrow and got my tickets for Royal Jordanian Airlines, the royal in their name bares no resemblance to the quality of service, the interior of the cabins looks like a tacky 60's room, the chairs are broken and the ear phones have two volumes full or off, I finally got to Amman and signed an open ended contract.

It was quite entertaining sitting at the gate in Amman Airport, you could tell all the American security, talking about how they carry spare parts for their weapons and can strip and replace a defective part under fire in less than 2 minutes, are these people for real.....

I got to Baghdad and got conned out of $10 Visa by the sodding Iraqi, not a good start, from there got sent to my first posting, the Iraqi Equivalent of RMA Sandhurst, what a joke. I saw a British PTI taking some Jundie (Iraqi Soldiers) for a run, thought the veins in the poor soldiers neck was going to burst.

In its day the camp was pretty good, in my time in the police I had gone into some real crappy houses, the type were you wipe your feet before you leave, but nothing prepared me for the site of how Iraqi soldiers live.

Now in the Police I had seen a fair amount of weird stuff, one night I was leading a Public Order van when I saw a pair of legs sticking out from under a bush, when we pulled up I saw a guy sitting on the floor with his trousers around his ankles with a bird riding him, my mate turned on the blue strobes and sirens, poor guy nearly shit himself, I thought that was funny, but nothing would have prepared me for the site of a group of Iraqi soldiers screwing each others brains out in the middle of the barracks, what’s worse they invited me to join them, "Hey Mister, you fiki fiki", I nearly had car accident as I drove off so quickly back to the safety of my room.

Throughout all this had a steady stream of entertainment from a police website forum I joined when I was still in the police, www.policespecials.com there are some real anal retentive gimps on there, just before I left for Iraq there was a "social", it didn’t turn out to be very social, by this point a few of them knew I was coming out to Iraq, so the majority of the people there including some of the esteemed all singing all dancing knows everything about the police moderators also completely ignored me, still managed to get pissed with some mates though.

Not long after arriving at the Camp I had to get my Military ID card, got all the paperwork sorted, took my passport and went to BIAP (Baghdad International AirPort) were there is the main base. The road leading into the airport is one of the most heavily attacked in Iraq, it was there we met Major Secret Service as we named him, a true example of what is bad about the US Military and the reason they have a bad reputation, he was a USMC Major, he decided to get in an argument with out Private Security Detail, at the first Checkpoint surrounded by Iraqi’s who hadn’t been checked or searched he decided to shout “I know more about security than you micky mouse outfits, I am in the secret service, I guard the President of the United States”, after deciding to make us wait for three hours just because he had a bit of power he went, as soon as he had gone we were let through

The boring bit about me

2006-03-27T04:41:00.000+01:00

Well, I have been about a bit and I don’t mean sex, have had a bit of a varied career to date, spent over 6 years as a Special in a County force, transferred out when the Area Officer/County Commandant became to anal retentive to cope, went out of their way to make things difficult, rather than encouraging specials to work with regular officers they wanted to control everything and get them to work with other specials.

Allot of the Specials including most of the supervisors were as useful as a chocolate fire guard, there was a couple of times when my supervisors said openly in front of probations "You know more than me so I will let you take the lead". All my time did in the county force was to show how useless specials supervision, what is needed is for more stringent appointment process for them, it should be knowledge based as well.

Cant say I had much faith in the Area Commander either, he was to concerned with figures rather than the morale of his officers, during my time on division I had 3 Area Commanders, the first was excellent, when he was Duty Superintendent, he would turn up on division in one of the sector offices and double crew with someone, he would also hold monthly meetings with officers to find out how they felt and ask if there was anything he could do as commander, his replacement stopped the meetings immediately and after he left the force having screwed up the division got the QPM, the next one was even worse.

After my time in the counties I went to a busy force which covered a large City Centre, didn’t last long there, got into a conflict with a mini Hitler, another Section Office who got their post knowing sod all about policing, the SO and one of their cronies beefed up an allegation about me, completely circumvented the law by having a time honoured specials tradition of an "Informal chat", following that was forced to resign, went to a solicitor after a bit of a battle and the threat of going public with a Judicial Review got a letter from them saying they had acted outside of the regulations but was not prepared to accept me back. From there I went to see how life was in Iraq.