'Some veterans have even been handed the letters personally and quizzed on their doorsteps by taxpayer-funded detectives'. Lexi Finnigan: the Daily Telegraph
IN 2010 THE MINISTRY OF DEFENCE (MoD), set up a group to look into the behaviour of our solder's fighting in Iraq. The team are known by the acronym IHAT (Iraq Historic Allegations Team) and were created in response to complaints made by ambulance chasing lawyers. In the beginning IHAT were investigating 152 allegations; this has since grown to 1500.
The latest victim of this witch-hunt is a British sniper who shot and killed an enemy at a range of 1200 metres. The sniper is apparently being investigated for not issuing a warning before discharging his weapon. The insurgent was about to launch a rocket-propelled grenade at an army base when he was killed by the British sniper.
Fortunately, there are very few veterans of the Second World left alive to witness this spectacle; for no doubt, they would also be seen as war criminals according to the modern parameters of what is acceptable and unacceptable in modern warfare. Without knowing the nature of the charges being sought by the lawyers; 95 per cent of those they accuse of war crimes would never have been charged or even considered for such a fate after 1945. I would bet that today there are more human rights lawyers in existence than front line soldiers in the British Army, all ready to crawl over every individual soldier's behaviour in Iraq.
As someone who was born five years after the end of the Second World War, and whose father had fought in Burma; this kind of dissolute and dissipated behaviour of the type this sniper is being subjected to by an IHAT inquiry and by the modern legal profession, is beyond my comprehension; as I believe it is among the vast majority of the indigenous population who are still the majority, but, in several decades time, stands a very good chance of achieving minority status in their own land.
What I consider a war crime is sending millions of Jews to the gas chambers along with other minorities such as gays; as well as lining up your enemy; unarmed, tied and feeble, to be executed by Hitler's Germany. This was the parameter 71 years ago regarding war crimes; while an act committed by this British sniper would be applauded at the time: at the time even our enemy would pay little attention. For all of its many faults, Nazi Germany (although of course they thoroughly abused the concept as far as, civilians, minorities were concerned) believed that all was fair in war as far as all armed combatants were concerned.
Lawyers, on the whole, study law, not history. They have prospered due to the encyclopaedic growth in human rights law, which, after company law, is probably the most financially lucrative part of the law considering the role EU law plays in the process.
IS IT LITTLE WONDER that recruitment to what is called our 'weekend army'; by which of course I refer to the reservists which Cameron promised would see 20,000 added to our military capability after reducing our professional armed forces by an equivalent amount. The last figure I read was that such recruitment has so far resulted in barely five thousand of the needed 20,000 had volunteered to join – and is it little wonder that this is the case when those who fight for us are subject to the overview of IHAT, along with the predatory impulses of lawyers snapping at their heels. The British army is in a perilous state. If the army were to be subjected to this kind of flim-flummery, then why should people join unless, that is, they are masochists?
The present state of the British military including all three services is hog-tied by the actions taken by individuals among them who are sent into battle. Restrictions upon the way they act and fight are prescribed by, in the first instance, politicians fearful of either losing office; or at an individual level, a seat in parliament.
During the Afghan war, I read of another British sniper; this time targeting three Taliban planting an improvised explosive device (IED) in expectation of destroying part of a British convoy. The sniper had those planting the device in his cross-hairs and was ready to kill them: but had to seek permission from a senior officer before being allowed to fulfil his task. It was not until this permission was received that the sniper on this particular occasion was allowed to take out those planting the IEDs. Is this the way to conduct a war? Of course not: even in this age of nail-biting liberal guilt; should such occurrences be tolerated? Of course not: but they are. They are tolerated by our high command who flit about the MoD and are in hock to their political masters who they serve without complaint until they retire and get their pensions and a seat in the House of Lords; by which time they are prepared to speak out.
Wednesday 20th January
IN TODAYS PRESS comes further evidence of the sinister nature of IHAT. Those recruited into IHAT are usually ex-police officers and are reportedly earning £33 an hour: 145 have been selected and are eagerly and feverishly touring army households and behaving as if they had some kind of legal authority to demand the information they are seeking. They present themselves as would be police officers when they knock on the door of an ex or serving soldier and hand them a letter. When the soldiers refuse to cooperate the investigators tell them they could be arrested if they did not cooperate with their investigation. The defence correspondent of the Daily Mail, Larisa Brown writes; 'Typically, two detectives turn up on the doorsteps of veterans and hand them a letter asking them to give evidence about their involvement and the role of other soldiers.' After which they try it on, using the official nature of the letter to hopefully make the receiver think the correspondence has more authority than it actually has in order that they can frighten them into cooperating.
By their behaviour toward those soldiers who served in Iraq, IHAT should be re-Christened the Stasi. For it is no exaggeration to suggest that some of the behaviour of these investigators can be compared to the Stasi. They have been turning up at soldier's homes (as well as a military barrack) performing their bent copper act that probably flourished when they were once on the Force.
What surprises me in all of this is that human rights groups such a Liberty should be speaking on these soldiers behalf. Amnesty International is another group who should at least denounce such behaviour; but no, up to now the silence from such groups is deafening; and it should come as no surprise because both pick and choose whose rights they will defend; and the British Army does not find favour with these liberal bodies' sensibilities.
Something is happening that the authorities wish to be kept quiet. If it is IHATS's intent, as I am sure they believe, to help clear as well as expose the guilty; then it would not have allowed its investigators to stoop to such levels by using dirty tricks in order to seek out the truth. Under the law, when such an approach of the type these so-called investigators make; then the individual should be made aware that they have the right to legal representation before questioning them; and not threaten them with arrest if they do not. But these creatures have no legal status, as Liberty and Amnesty would readily substantiate, being two of the foremost bodies covering human rights law.
It is called a witch-hunt (another reason Liberty and Amnesty should be involved) and the name will stick because it is a witch-hunt – a political witch-hunt tolerated at the very top of government. It was our government that sent these young men to fight (and let us not forget with their hands tied behind their backs) in Afghanistan and Iraq; and although this current hunt refers to Iraq, how long will it be before another one takes place targeting those who fought in Afghanistan if this hunt is successful?
Why should any young man choose to join-up when after being sent into battle they have to face this kind of persecution by the country that sent them to fight in the first place when they return home? It is a wonder that any young man or women still wishes to join the British army. If I were young, I would not be tempted into joining such an army only to find myself under investigation by IHAT.
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