Gurkhas, bravery, and the rules of modern warfare.

A Gurkha soldier from 1st Battalion, Royal Gurkha Rifles has been "sent back to England to face disciplinary action" because he removed

... the head off (sic) a dead Taliban commander with his ceremonial knife to prove the dead man’s identity

The soldier faces disciplinary action because ...

He is understood to have removed the man’s head from the area, leaving the rest of his body on the battlefield.

This is considered a gross insult to the Muslims of Afghanistan, who bury the entire body of their dead even if parts have to be retrieved.

British soldiers often return missing body parts once a battle has ended so the dead can be buried in one piece.

The dead man's head was removed because ...

[The Gurkha's] unit had been told that they were seeking a ‘high value target,’ a Taliban commander, and that they must prove they had killed the right man.

The Gurkhas had intended to remove the Taliban leader’s body from the battlefield for identification purposes.

But they came under heavy fire as their tried to do so. Military sources said that in the heat of battle, the Gurkha [unsheathed his kukri ... after running out of ammunition] and beheaded the dead insurgent.

It's an 'academic question' but, if the soldier had - because he'd run out of ammunition - used his knife to kill the Afghan this would probably be a story of great bravery and medals would be awarded.

But no, let's try to demoralise the soldiers even more by being 'politically correct' and culturally aware during enemy action, and conveniently forget the Gurkha's culture, and forget that the Taliban will happily behead hostages and record their actions to show the world what they did. The Taliban likes trying to frighten 'their enemy' into submission by doing things they know we westerners consider to be barbaric. Is it possible they will be amused to learn that one of our soldiers is being disciplined for beheading a corpse?

Mrs Rigby thinks it's important to remember that only three days ago we were mourning the loss of three soldiers of the 1st Battalion The Royal Gurkha Rifles. (pictures Mail)



Major James Bowman was shot dead whilst sleeping in his tent. Lieutenant Turkington and Corporal Arjun Purja Pun were killed when the murderer fired a rocket-propelled grenade into the shipping container used as the base's operations room. We have not been told of non-fatal injuries suffered by other soldiers.

And who did this? It was a 'rogue' traitorous soldier of the Afghan National Army - who has since been in contact with the BBC giving his excuses and attempting to justify his actions.

That 'soldier' is, apparently

... now the subject of a massive manhunt led by elite SAS troops.

Who will, Mrs R guesses, give him either a bunch of flowers or a box of chocolates when they find him, and maybe even offer him counselling to ease his trauma.

Ambush Predator has written about this. Mrs Rigby is only doing so because she spotted a link on All Seeing Eye to a poem. The poem offers an insight, showing the stark contrast in military 'ethics', and enemy action, between now and when Rudyard Kipling was earning his Nobel Prize for Literature. Kipling knew of the fierce loyalty of the Gurkhas, and how they might be expected to react to the death of one of their Officers - although this fictional poem is referring to the Indian Army of the time.

The Grave of the Hundred Head
by Rudyard Kipling

There's a widow in sleepy Chester
Who weeps for her only son;
There's a grave on the Pabeng River,
A grave that the Burmans shun;
And there's Subadar* Prag Tewarri
Who tells how the work was done.

A Snider* squibbed in the jungle,
Somebody laughed and fled,
And the men of the First Shikaris*
Picked up their Subaltern dead,
With a big blue mark in his forehead
And the back blown out of his head.

Subadar Prag Tewarri,
Jemadar* Hira Lal,
Took command of the party,
Twenty rifles in all,
Marched them down to the river
As the day was beginning to fall.

They buried the boy by the river,
A blanket over his face -
They wept for their dead Lieutenant,
The men of an alien race -
They made a samadh* in his honour,
A mark for his resting-place.

For they swore by the Holy Water,
They swore by the salt they ate,
That the soul of Lieutenant Eshmitt Sahib
Should go to his God in state,
With fifty file of Burmans
To open him Heaven's gate.

The men of the First Shikaris
Marched till the break of day,
Till they came to the rebel village,
The village of Pabengmay -
A jingal* covered the clearing,
Calthrops hampered the way.

Subadar Prag Tewarri,
Bidding them load with ball,
Halted a dozen rifles
Under the village wall;
Sent out a flanking-party
With Jemadar Hira Lal.

The men of the First Shikaris
Shouted and smote and slew,
Turning the grinning jingal
On to the howling crew.
The Jemadar's flanking-party
Butchered the folk who flew.

Long was the morn of slaughter,
Long was the list of slain,
Five score heads were taken,
Five score heads and twain;
And the men of the First Shikaris
Went back to their grave again,

Each man bearing a basket
Red as his palms that day,
Red as the blazing village -
The village of Pabengmay,
And the "drip-drip-drip" from the baskets
Reddened the grass by the way.

They made a pile of their trophies
High as a tall man's chin,
Head upon head distorted,
Set in a sightless grin,
Anger and pain and terror
Stamped on the smoke-scorched skin.

Subadar Prag Tewarri
Put the head of the Boh
On the top of the mound of triumph,
The head of his son below -
With the sword and the peacock-banner
That the world might behold and know.

Thus the samadh was perfect,
Thus was the lesson plain
Of the wrath of the First Shikaris -
The price of a white man slain;
And the men of the First Shikaris
Went back into camp again.

Then a silence came to the river,
A hush fell over the shore,
And Bohs that were brave departed,
And Sniders squibbed no more;
For the Burmans said
That a white man's head
Must be paid for with heads five-score.

There's a widow in sleepy Chester
Who weeps for her only son;
There's a grave on the Pabeng River,
A grave that the Burmans shun;
And there's Subadar Prag Tewarri
Who tells how the work was done.

Snider = British military rifle.

jingal = "... an 1880s enlarged copy of the Remington Lee Bolt action rifle (original calibre 45/70 or 43 Spanish)which were made in .60 calibre by Tientsin Arsenal, which also made the ammo ..."

samadh = can be directly traslated (sic) as shrine or death shrine

Subadar = An Indian Army mid-rank infantry officer equal to a Captain.

Jemadar = An Indian Army cavalry or infantry junior officer equal to a Lieutenant.

Shikaris = game hunter. Quote from e-book "Under ten viceroys; the reminiscences of a Gurkha" by Nigel Gresley Woodyatt.

"Every Gurkha is supposed to be a shikari. It would be much more correct to say ALL are shikar lovers, but only a very small minority has any real knowledge of game.
When you do get a shikari he is good, as good as they make them, and quite fearless. ..."

More about Kipling from Wikipedia

....

Democracy

They really don't understand the results of last week's general election do they?

There's Mr Straw complaining about the English

so-called decent hard-working families

who didn't vote Labour. See, Mrs Duffy, it's all your fault Labour didn't win, it's your kind who let them down - at least according to Mr Straw.

Oh, and it's because you're English too. Mr Straw probably doesn't think much of the English - who turned their electoral map blue. They did it because they could see through the lies, they could see through the threats and they could see through the pleas to vote Lib Dem to keep the Tories out, and keep Labour in power.

What part of Conservative 36.1% Labour 29% Liberal Democrat 23% and 'others' 11.9% don't they understand?

Not coming first meant Labour lost. They did not win. They've tried to 'spin' the results to make themselves look good, but if they keep on digging they'll end up with the Aussies.

A free election is called democracy.

But, they don't like that either, not really - as commenter 'Planet me' over at Penny Red says

Democracy does not work

And PennyRed herself says

People won't be patronised or wheedled into behaving. The public are not going to behave. We won't allow it.

Yes Penny, and you'd probably like there to be a law to make sure, wouldn't you?

And that is probably the main reason why millions did not vote Labour a week ago, because they'd had enough of the rulemakers making rules to keep the electorate under control.

A free vote is called democracy - anything else is a dictatorship.

..........
P.S.
Read JonhWardinMedway making a similar point

And an excellent 'Open Letter to Labour Members' by Dizzy

And LegIron

....

55%

Why is it that a 55% vote to force a general election in during a fixed-term parliament at Westminster is something bad, yet in Scotland the majority needed to achieve the same outcome is 66% - and is good?

In 1995 the Scottish Constitutional Convention reported that

The creation of a new parliament is a rare and exciting moment, one which affords unique opportunity for change and renewal. The Convention sees the establishment of a Scottish parliament as a chance to effect fundamental improvements to the way Scotland is governed. It therefore expects that the parliament will provide through its practices and procedures a form of government in whose accountability, accessibility, openness and responsiveness the people of Scotland will have confidence and pride.

and

The parliament will sit for a fixed term of four years. In exceptional circumstances the parliament may be dissolved before expiry of its full term with the agreement of two-thirds of MSPs.

The Scotland Act 1998, in setting out the legislation controlling the fixed-term Scottish Parliament states that:-

3. Extraordinary general elections

(1) The Presiding Officer shall propose a day for the holding of a poll if—

(a) the Parliament resolves that it should be dissolved and, if the resolution is passed on a division, the number of members voting in favour of it is not less than two-thirds of the total number of seats for members of the Parliament

Mr Brown, ex-Prime Minister, was involved in preparing the constitutional framework for Scotland's Parliament. He, and all the others, swore an oath to ensure Scotland's best interests were served.

It is they who decided that a 66% vote would be needed to call an 'extraordinary general election' - and that percentage was greeted with approval.

Yet, it means that the reins of control remain largely with those in power - because it would be quite difficult to persuade 2/3 (66%) of MSPs to vote together against the leading party/parties, which means it's unlikely to happen.

We have seen, in Westminster, a government clinging by its' well-bitten fingernails to the constitutional framework. They had sufficient parliamentary majority to easily defeat any attempted simple majority votes of no confidence that might have triggered an election. In short, the last government could do what they liked, and the rest of us had to sit back and take it - and be told it was good.

This is what's proposed for Westminster

Legislation introducing fixed-term parliaments would also provide for dissolution if 55 percent or more of the House votes in favour

Mrs Rigby believes that this proposal actually appears to limit the powers of any leading party to choose/try to call an 'extraordinary general election' - whilst slightly enhancing the chances of opposition to demand one, especially with current figures because, according to Mrs R's calculator (and discounting Sinn Fein), if all the opposition parties (the rainbow) got together plus just 2 MPs from the government benches, they would have that 55% majority.

Yet the media is complaining about it killing democracy, Jack Straw is moaning and Tom Harris, who is usually quite reasonable, actually wrote, in response to somebody who thinks the same as Mrs R

That being the case, why not simply make votes of confidence illegal or unconstitutional? After all, if the top priority is to make it to the end of a fixed parliament, what is the point of a vote of no confidence in the first place?

Surely that can't be right Tom?

Surely you wouldn't approve a law that says a vote of no confidence is illegal or unconstitutional?

Anyhow, it's turning into one of those 'long days' here in Rigby Town, so if Mrs R has got it all wrong, please use the comments to explain where, why, and how.
..........

P.S.

Thanks to JohnWardinMedway here's a link to LibDemVoice where there's more discussion of this issue, including the question

Is 55% high enough?

Go and read it, and all the comments.

....

Power 2010 - passing on the message.

An email received earlier.

Britain is crying out for a change.

There's no questioning it - you and others across the length and breadth of the country have cast over 80,000 votes. The POWER Pledge is soon to take its final shape.

You've voted. You've had an undeniable effect on this campaign and, with your continued support, this campaign will have just as strong an effect on government and politics.

There are fewer than 12 hours left before we close the polls - click here to see which five ideas for reform are in the lead.
*** All active links to that site have been removed from this blog ***

Our work is far from finished, but we have achieved a lot - and we couldn't have done it without you.

Before the clock strikes midnight tonight, take one last look at our voting page. If you disagree with any of the ideas in the top five, there's still time to throw your support behind the others:

LastCall

Thank you, and best wishes,

Pam Giddy
Director
POWER2010

If you haven't already voted there is only a short time left. If you have voted, but only for one idea, then take another look below the leaderboard because there are other proposals to consider.

You can use either the link within this blog post or the one in the sidebar.

....

Focus Groups and Power2010

Do you want a sponsored 'Focus Group' to make your decisions?

No?

Then go and read what the Devil has to say

When you've done that please make sure you vote for English Votes on English Laws *** over at Power2010.

*** active link removed by blog owner ***
(see post dated 31 March 2010)

....

Democracy - the 'new' way to do it.

These articles need reading in full.

From this article

Labour is planning to install the leader of the National Union of Mineworkers, who was convicted of a public order offence after a football match, in a safe Labour seat.

Ian Lavery, the union’s president who was on the front line of the miners’ strike in 1984-85, is likely to be selected on Monday as the party’s candidate in Wansbeck, Northumberland, which has a solid majority of 10,500. 

and

The Wansbeck seat was expected to run an all-women shortlist to select the Labour candidate, but this was quashed amid allegations of interference from allies of Mr Lavery.

Instead, the all-women shortlist has been imposed on North Tyneside, prompting the resignation of a local official, Eddie Darke, who said that senior party figures appeared keen to ensure Mr Lavery’s selection.

From this article

Yesterday, more than 70 councillors with responsibility for social care wrote to The Times to say that the generous arithmetic in the Government’s Personal Care at Home Bill imposes a cost on local authorities far in excess of Gordon Brown’s public promises. They went on to say that it is wrong for the Government to raise the expectations of vulnerable people that help is at hand when, in fact, the proposals are quite unrealistic.

and

The signatories to the letter were mostly, but not entirely, Conservative and Liberal Democrat councillors. However, as the afternoon progressed, those Labour councillors who had put their names to the letter began mysteriously to fall away.

From here

All five Labour authorities that signed a letter to The Times criticising Mr Brown’s free home care idea as flawed and unfunded issued retractions within hours of the Department of Health learning of the existence of the letter. It also emerged that Downing Street knew of the operation to silence the Labour councils.

From here

The way has been opened for Jack Dromey, deputy general secretary of the Unite union, to stand as Labour candidate for the relatively safe seat of Birmingham Erdington in the wake of the unexpected decision of Sîon Simon, the culture minister, to stand down as an MP.

and

Dromey, ..... had previously aimed to stand in Leytonstone, the seat vacated by Harry Cohen, but was meeting hostility from the local party in east London. He ..... was the centre of controversy after it was claimed that he was being parachuted into a seat in 2007. Dromey will hope that in Erdington (Labour majority 9,575) his background in a manufacturing trade union will stand him in good stead when it comes to the selection meeting.

and

A bid to allow local constituency officers to attend shortlisting meetings conducted by Labour's selection panel was rejected .....

also

Sîon Simon announced ... that he wants to be mayor of Birmingham, a post that does not yet exist. On Thursday a special Labour selection panel decided that the seat should be an open contest, with no all-women shortlist.

 And away from politics, from here

Andrea Charman stepped down (that's 'resigned' in old-speak) from Lydd Primary School — which she had steered out of special measures — for “personal reasons”, but it is understood that she was hounded out after an internet campaign that saw threats to her and to the school. 

The campaign took an ugly twist when personal threats to Mrs Charman were posted online and another Facebook page called for her to be banned from teaching altogether. Others wrote on the internet that they wanted the school burned down.

but

the decision to slaughter the lamb had been approved by the children’s pupil school council, with a 13-to-1 majority, and by the board of school governors. 

Nowhere in the article does it suggest the local Police arrested, or even interviewed, any of those who threatened to burn down the school.

....

No Heathrow third runway inquiry?

Surely parts of a village can't be tarmacked over without residents being able to voice their concerns?

Seems so - if this article is true

Ministers are set to rush through planning permission for a third runway at Heathrow without a full public inquiry, the Standard can reveal.

Official documents show the Government is prepared to make the decision itself instead of waiting for a new planning system to be introduced.

Under government reforms all decisions will be made by a new independent Infrastructure Planning Commission, due to start work next March.

But the commissioners cannot take a decision on Heathrow until ministers have drawn up a new national strategy on airports. It means the Transport Secretary will retain the power to make the final decision on Heathrow — and will not have to hold a public inquiry.

Such is democracy.