Press censorship

So, the commercial tv news producer has been barred from MOD support in Iraq. Whilst they may go independently and face the risks as did Terry Lloyd, this ban goes further. Individual soldiers will be punished if they speak to the isolated journalists. We have seen in the front-line TV reports from Afghanistan just what a soldiers' life is and heard from the horses mouth about the difficulties they face in terms of supply and back-up. Meantime, the self-imporant Ministers, Secretarys and even the POTUK himself will spin, lie and disambiguate to suit their own agenda. They saw what happened to Clarke at the Home Office when the cat of real truth got out of the bag.

There is another reason for this banning. Last week the ITN evening news programme did a series of reports on what happens to wounded and ex-soldiers. Traumatic stress mishandled, no attention to housing needs, medical treatment of wounded - all came under the spotlight. Grown men have admitted crying at the remark made by a down on his luck ex-sldier "We were proper people once". None of it was good for the government already on the back foot re the way in which the NHS was treating our wounded. This vindictive school bully attitude of the gobment does it no favours.

I care not what happens in Iraq. They had their chance and wasted it. It is the wrong venue or arena for any Global War On Terror. The blind coalition is being led by the blind incompetent and corrupt Iraqi government of today as to what is really being achieved. The whole damn place is not worth the life of one more soldier - nay, any injury to one soldier. No, better yet - not worth the life of an Army explosives detector dog. Everything the war touches it spoils. The premise - whatever it was in the way of WMD, regime change, AQ, oil, Democracy, keep terrorism out of USA, Middle East stability, von Rumsfeld's tight trousers, you name it, has been proven wrong. State a very short term date for leaving - something on a calendar and not in the mind of a duplicitous politician like B.Liar. Tell everyone what this date and time is. Then, with bands playing and flags flying, all troops and NGO together with private contracters move to departure points. Locals told to stay away. Do not even look on. Tell them that if they fail to do this they will be shot down there and then. Say it, mean it, do it. If the trouble that ensues looks to cause the rest of us any problem, well, surely we have long range missiles. Use the place for demonstrating to people like North Korea what real nucleur bombs can do. In the coalition homelands, make it very clear to dissidents that they are here on sufferance. Their demands, opinions and desired life styles are nothing to us. If they are scared to live in Syria, go to some other Arab state. This option would apply to anyone who stepped out of line. If there are indigenous people who want to change their beliefs to anything contrary to what Britishness or American means, they also should choose a new country to go with their new beliefs.