Category Archives: Spin Zhira

Spin Zhira

Burkini Ban

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French authorities in Nice and nearby Cannes appear to have been unnecessarily heavy handed in imposing a ‘burkini ban‘  on their beaches in the wake of the Nice attack.

Images of four armed policeman standing over a lone woman while forcing her to remove her clothing do not make great PR for the Gendarmerie.

Why are only male officers attending the scene?

Why didn’t they just escort her from the beach rather than insist she strip?

Whatever the rights and wrongs of the burkini ban, more thought and sensitivity is required in its imposition.

Burkini Cartoon

SPIN ZHIRA: Old Man in Helmand is the unauthorised, unvarnished and irreverent story of one man’s midlife crisis on the front line of the most dangerous district in Afghanistan where the locals haven’t forgiven the British for the occupation of 1842 or for the Russian Invasion of 1979. Of course, all infidels look the same so you can’t really tell them apart.

Spin Zhira

Major Joe Schofield, MBE

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One of the last great warriors of his generation, Major Joe Schofield, MBE who joined the SAS in 1941 and finally retired in 1979 has died at the age of 90.

Joe was one of the originals who served alongside David Stirling and Paddy Mayne in North Africa, operating behind the German lines to gain intelligence, destroy enemy aircraft and attack their supply and reinforcement routes.  He was still serving 32 years after the end of Word War Two when SAS ‘observers’ joined members of the West German counter-terrorism group GSG9 to storm Lufthansa Flight 181 in Mogadishu, rescuing all 86 passengers on board.

I wonder what Joe made of this collaboration with former adversaries? Although, in retirement, he was tireless in organising visits to France to lay wreaths on the graves of those members of the SAS who had been killed (and, in some instances, executed), I’m sure he recognised it as a sign of progress.

Rest in Peace, Joe.

SPIN ZHIRA: Old Man in Helmand is the unauthorised, unvarnished and irreverent story of one man’s midlife crisis on the front line of the most dangerous district in Afghanistan where the locals haven’t forgiven the British for the occupation of 1842 or for the Russian Invasion of 1979. Of course, all infidels look the same so you can’t really tell them apart.

 

Spin Zhira

Who ate all the pies?

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Until December last year, Sir Bernard Grey was the MoD’s Chief of Defence Procurement, hired in by David Cameron in 2011 to help tackle the ‘black hole’ in MoD equipment spending and to curb cost overruns.

On first impressions, Sir Bernard seems an odd choice as the MoD’s austerity chief. Leadership by example is a core tenet of our Armed Forces and he does not strike me as a man accustomed to self-restraint. ‘Fat Cat’ seems an entirely fair and accurate description of this particular MoD mandarin.

Whatever your opinion of former austerity-Chancellor George Osborne’s policies, his lean and hungry demeanour and his perpetually pallid complexion gave the distinct impression that he was practicing what he preached. Sir Bernard is, no doubt, a very talented man but belt-tightening is, quite evidently, not his area of subject matter expertise.

One of Sir Bernard’s first initiatives in his new job was to run up a £23,000 expenses bill. The MoD were so pleased with this they immediately awarded him with a £45,000 bonus on top of his £225,000 annual salary (nearly twice that of Chancellor George Osborne). In 2014/15 Sir Bernard’s pay increased in-line with his waistline to an impressive £380,000.

In order to avoid criticism for shelling out such large sums of public money to Sir Bernard, in April this year the MoD awarded a £60,000 ‘non-competitive’ deal to an external consultancy, Pole Star Strategy, to assess the effectiveness of his reforms.

According to Companies House, Pole Star Strategy has just two officers: Sir Bernard and Lady Kathryn Grey. The MoD insists Sir Bernard and his wife are ‘uniquely placed’ to conduct his performance review and will ‘provide best value for money’. Just so long as they do so under the guise of a private limited company.

Pole Star’s review is expected imminently. I think we can already guess the outcome.

SPIN ZHIRA: Old Man in Helmand is the unauthorised, unvarnished and irreverent story of one man’s midlife crisis on the front line of the most dangerous district in Afghanistan where the locals haven’t forgiven the British for the occupation of 1842 or for the Russian Invasion of 1979. Of course, all infidels look the same so you can’t really tell them apart.

Spin Zhira

The secret life of an army officer

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Writing anonymously in The Guardian an officer reveals what life is really like in today’s army where ‘recent redundancies have left many people doing upwards of three jobs to cover the workload.’

SPIN ZHIRA: Old Man in Helmand is the unauthorised, unvarnished and irreverent story of one man’s midlife crisis on the front line of the most dangerous district in Afghanistan where the locals haven’t forgiven the British for the occupation of 1842 or for the Russian Invasion of 1979. Of course, all infidels look the same so you can’t really tell them apart.

 

Spin Zhira

#22 Kill #22 Pushups

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Everyone is joining in the 22 pushup challenge to raise awareness of PTSD amongst veterans, 22 being the number of American service veterans who commit suicide each day. As with all things viral it has its detractors and there is some scepticism about the accuracy of the statistics involved.

In the United Kingdom the Ministry of Defence maintains that mental health problems amongst its servicemen are in line with the general population – but the MoD does not have a particularly good track record for honesty when it comes to bad news.

Given the extensive and prolonged use of Lariam as the MoD’s anti-malarial of choice, long after the manufacturer identified it may induce potentially serious neuropsychiatric disorders, I’m personally inclined to disbelieve them.

Recent studies in the USA indicate that Lariam amplifies the effects of PTSD and some experts have suggested that the British Army now faces a mental health catastrophe.

Whatever the rights or wrongs of the statistics, servicemen suffering from PTSD deserve our support.

22 pushups is not a lot to ask.

Press up challenge

SPIN ZHIRA: Old Man in Helmand is the unauthorised, unvarnished and irreverent story of one man’s midlife crisis on the front line of the most dangerous district in Afghanistan where the locals haven’t forgiven the British for the occupation of 1842 or for the Russian Invasion of 1979. Of course, all infidels look the same so you can’t really tell them apart.

 

 

Spin Zhira

Innocence Lost

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The moving image of a five year old Syrian boy, Omran Daqneesh, sitting bloodied and dazed in the back of an ambulance has been widely circulated on social media. It highlights the desperate plight of the citizens of Aleppo, caught in the crossfire of an increasingly violent and vicious civil war.

The image has been compared with that of Syrian toddler, Aylan Kurdi, washed up on a Bodrum beach and has renewed calls for the West to do something to stop the bloodshed. But the question is what?

Migrant boat accident in Turkey

Images of children wounded in NATO airstrikes resulted in widespread condemnation for the interventions in Iraq and Afghanistan, both of which have proved disastrous for the citizens of those countries.

Injured Afghan boy

Painful images of innocence painfully lost have communicated the horrors of war in a way that words could never describe since Vietnam. Despite having witnessed lost innocence firsthand in the Balkans in the 1990s, I was still moved to tears in 2004 by the image of a bloodied Aida Sidakova climbing through the window of her school gymnasium in search of her mum following the Beslan school bombing by Islamist terrorists.

Beslan School Massacre

Our reaction to these images is instinctive and transcends religious or cultural divides but sadly does not endure. Tomorrow, or the next day, we will return to our lives of comfortable consumerism and forget about the difficult question of what to do in Aleppo – at least until the next image of innocence lost pricks our conscience.

Vietnam napalm girl

Spin Zhira

Did the UK leave Helmand too soon?

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Two years after British Forces pulled out of Camp Bastion, Jonathan Beale, the BBC’s Defence Correspondent asks: Did the UK leave Afghanistan’s Helmand too soon?

The answer is yes and no.

‘No’ in the sense that one definition of madness is to keep on doing the same thing over and over again and expecting something different to happen. US and UK counter-insurgency doctrine is childishly optimistic and doesn’t work. Two failed counter-insurgency interventions in Iraq and Afghanistan are clear evidence of this, but the doctrine still stubbornly persists. Staying in Helmand  on these terms would have done nothing more than prolong the agony.

‘Yes’ in the sense that, with the right doctrine, more could have and should have been done. But it requires a shift in mindset as well as doctrine. Current political and military thinking is based on minimums. The minimum number of troops committed for the minimum amount of time. The best logic for staying in Helmand is to honour the sacrifice of the fallen, so that they did not die in vain. This is not a winning formula.

If we are to return to Helmand it must be with a new counter-insurgency doctrine, a clear understanding of the desired outcome and a realistic time-frame measured in decades rather than years.

SPIN ZHIRA: Old Man in Helmand is the unauthorised, unvarnished and irreverent story of one man’s midlife crisis on the front line of the most dangerous district in Afghanistan where the locals haven’t forgiven the British for the occupation of 1842 or for the Russian Invasion of 1979. Of course, all infidels look the same so you can’t really tell them apart.

Purchase your copy of SPIN ZHIRA

Spin Zhira

Incompetence and Arrogance at the MOD

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The Times, 05 November 2012
Alfie and I make the front page of The Times today. Apparently Alfie’s application for enlistment into the Reserves has been delayed by red tape.

In November 2012, Deborah Haynes, The Times Defence Editor used a photo of Alfie and me to illustrate an article she had written exposing failings in Army Recruiting. Four years later and she is still writing about it.

It is yet another example of the extent of the incompetence and arrogance at the MoD. Despite obvious failings, little has been done to address the issue. As General Melchett once said, ‘If nothing else works a total pig-headed unwillingness to look facts in the face will see us through’.

The impact is considerable. It creates significant gaps in our defence capability, leaving the army undermanned and the nation vulnerable. The knock-on effect is to increase the demands on our serving soldiers who are required to do more with less to fill these capability gaps which, in turn damages morale and well-being.

But perhaps the most depressing aspect of this astonishing mismanagement and waste is that it appears to have gone unchecked without any apparent accountability or culpability. Even now the MoD seems to be in denial, insisting ‘action has been taken’.

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SPIN ZHIRA: Old Man in Helmand is the unauthorised, unvarnished and irreverent story of one man’s midlife crisis on the front line of the most dangerous district in Afghanistan where the locals haven’t forgiven the British for the occupation of 1842 or for the Russian Invasion of 1979. Of course, all infidels look the same so you can’t really tell them apart.

Purchase your copy of SPIN ZHIRA

Spin Zhira

In a new low for the Afghan conflict, UN figures reveal civilian casualties reach record high.

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Linear Regression

In July 2012, using data unwittingly supplied by Regional Command South West (RCSW), I forecast that public perception of the Afghan Government would fall below that of the Taliban. My report was deemed “off-message” and suppressed. General Gurganus, the US Marine Corps General who commanded RCSW insisted ‘We are winning and the Taliban are losing.’

Yesterday’s report from the United Nations Assistance Mission in Afghanistan (UNAMA) sadly confirms my analysis. Not only have civilian casualties reached record levels, not only has the Afghan government largely abandoned the population it is mandated to protect but its own troops are responsible for 23% of those casualties.

UNAMA report 1

“Every single casualty documented in this report, every woman, girl, or boy denied access to education or adequate healthcare and every man or woman deprived of their livelihood, represents a failure of commitment and should be a call to action for parties to the conflict to take meaningful, concrete steps to reduce civilian suffering and increase protection. Platitudes not backed by meaningful action ring hollow over time. History and the long memory of the Afghan people will judge leaders of all parties to this conflict not by their well-meaning words, but by their conduct.” Tadamichi Yamamoto, United Nations Special Representative of the Secretary-General in Afghanistan, Kabul July 2016

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Children Bear Brunt of War

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Reuters: Civilian Casualties increase as Afghan Troops Battle Taliban.

The United Nations Assistance Mission in Afghanistan (UNAMA) reports that 1,601 civilians were killed in the first half of the year with a further 3,565 wounded. These figures do not include the more than 80 killed in Saturday’s suicide attack in Kabul.

The report describes the figures as “alarming and shameful” and identifies that 24% of those killed were children.

In March 2015, in an interview with the BBC Tony Blair claimed “It’s important to understand that for all the challenges in Afghanistan there have been huge gains.” I wonder whether he still clings to that fallacy today?