Category Archives: War Commentary

Where’s The ACLU (Part Two)?

…and what are they going to do about these phone tappers?

The Sunday Telegraph newspaper quoted a document sent to soldiers of the Territorial Army’s (TA) London Regiment, which has soldiers fighting in Iraq.

The document warned that insurgents in southern Iraq had managed to obtain the home telephone numbers of British soldiers using electronic intercept devices.

It said there had been many instances in the last weeks of relatives and friends of personnel serving abroad on operations getting nuisance phone calls”.

Where’s The ACLU (Part Two)?

…and what are they going to do about these phone tappers?

The Sunday Telegraph newspaper quoted a document sent to soldiers of the Territorial Army’s (TA) London Regiment, which has soldiers fighting in Iraq.

The document warned that insurgents in southern Iraq had managed to obtain the home telephone numbers of British soldiers using electronic intercept devices.

It said there had been many instances in the last weeks of relatives and friends of personnel serving abroad on operations getting nuisance phone calls”.

Where’s The ACLU (Part Two)?

…and what are they going to do about these phone tappers?

The Sunday Telegraph newspaper quoted a document sent to soldiers of the Territorial Army’s (TA) London Regiment, which has soldiers fighting in Iraq.

The document warned that insurgents in southern Iraq had managed to obtain the home telephone numbers of British soldiers using electronic intercept devices.

It said there had been many instances in the last weeks of relatives and friends of personnel serving abroad on operations getting nuisance phone calls”.

Perspective

Whenever you hear someone talk about 2500 deaths in Iraq over three years, recall (or learn about), almost ninety years ago, the Battle of the Somme:

The first day of the battle, codenamed Z-Day, was generally accepted to be the worst of them all, with some battalions suffering losses of more than 90 per cent.

The Battle of the Somme was supposed to be won by the Allies on that first day of July. It was partly thanks to this overconfidence that the generals allowed Malins access to the trenches. Instead, the battle lasted until November – long after the finished film had been screened at home. By the end of the offensive, there were more than one million casualties from both sides. After five months of bitter fighting, the Allies had advanced just five miles.

As horrific as the battle was for the British troops who suffered and died there, it cost hundreds of thousands of French and German lives as well. One German officer famously described the Somme as “the muddy grave of the German field army”.

Among those to experience the horrors of the battle from within the trenches were a young JRR Tolkien, later to write the epic Lord of the Rings, the poets Robert Graves and Siegfried Sassoon, future British Prime Minister Anthony Eden – and an Austrian corporal named Adolf Hitler.

Hoist By His Own Petard

Almost literally:

Iraqi security sources said a lieutenant of Al Qaida network chief Abu Ayoub Al Masri was found killed in a car on its way to an insurgency strike. The sources said a bomb inside the car blew up prematurely and killed the lieutenant and three other Al Qaida operatives.

Don’t you just hate when that happens? No virgins for them.