Finally, they got their man! Osama Bin Laden is dead.

It has been announced earlier this morning (White House website) by US President Obama that an operation by US Special Forces had succeeded in killing the terrorist and al-qa'ida leader Osama Bin Laden at a location in Pakistan not very far from the capital Islamabad. (see also this BBC news report)



The mastermind behind the terrorist outrages in the US on 11th September 2001 has finally been taken out of action and his victims at least partially avenged. I write this not in a tome of triumphalism, as the death of any human being [even one so misguided and despicable as Osama bin Laden] is not an occasion for rejoicing, but I am certainly not sorry to hear of his death.

Unfortunately with his death it is highly unlikely that the threat of terrorism posed by al-qa'ida and its co-conspirator organisations is at and end. Indeed it is possible there may be retaliatory terrorist outrages in coming days or weeeks. Defending freedom against those who would seek to deprive us of it is never going to be easy - life, unfortunately, is not like that.

PS/ Although I watched most of the events 'live' on television from soon after the aircraft hi-jackings began I did not write about it immediately; this blog began only 6 months later. However in the comment area of my main website I did write an article on the general topic of Terrorism and Civil Liberties a couple of weeks later, once the impact of what had happened had begun to be absorbed. Like many others I sat open-mouthed in horror on that 11th September almost ten years ago, my only immediate analysis being that this was going to change the world in fundamental ways.

Talibanisation grows in Pakistan and is resurgent in Afghanistan

The Guardian has a truly shocking video of a young woman being thrashed violently for not conforming with what the Taliban considers the social norms. According to the Guardian article, one of the men holding her down, whilst she screams and whimpers "Please stop it - Either kill me or stop it now" is her brother, particicpating to restore the family's 'honour'. Warning - it is very difficult to watch and made me retch when I saw it.
(thru The Spectator - Coffee House here)

Meanwhile in Afghanistan, legislation has been signed-off by President Karzai (but has apparently not yet come into effect), under conditions of extreme secrecy (no doubt because of the international outrage it was undoubtedly realised it would cause), which explicitly allows marital rape and imposes upon married women an absolute obligation to provide sexual services for their husbands. I have been completing YouGov online surveys for a couple of years now and there was a recent survey gleaning attitudes towards our involvement in Iraq and our continuing involvement in Afghanistan. I supported the former and broadly-speaking also support the latter - but now I'm not so sure we should be supporting Karzai if this is the kind of appalling nonsense he is prepared to append his signature to in order to obtain the support of extreme elements there in the forthcoming elections; we should certainly not allow our continuing presence there to be used to support this kind of barbarism.

And these 'folks' are our allies???

I have considerable respect for Matt Drudge and linked to his website soon after I began this blog almost six years ago. However, I think he has committed a serious misjudgement with his decision to break the story that Prince Harry is on active service with the British army in Afghanistan. I quote below, word for word, what he writes in his flash page devoted to this earth-shattering(*) news:

PRINCE HARRY FIGHTS ON FRONTLINES IN AFGHANISTAN; 3 MONTH TOUR Thu Feb 28 2008 11:01:34 ET They're calling him "Harry the Hero!" British Royal Prince Harry has been fighting in Afghanistan since late December -- and has been directly involved in gun battle, the DRUDGE REPORT has learned. The prince, a junior officer in the Blues and Royals, and third in line to the throne, has been a "magnificent soldier" and an "inspiration to all of Briton." Prince Harry is taking part in a new offensive against the Taliban. Ministry of Defense and Clarence House refuse all comment. Army chiefs have managed to keep the prince away from media and have encourage fellow soldiers in his squadron to stay quiet. Developing...

According to the 10pm BBC1 news, which I'm watching as I type (it's one hour later in Spain), the story was broken some time ago by an obscure Australian website (shame on it, too!), but it was not until the story was leaked by the much more widely-read Drudge Report that the news became so widespread that it had to be acknowledged.

OK, so it's a 'scoop'. But what does it achieve? A carefully-negotiated agreement made by the Ministry of Defence with the British and some important foreign media outlets (including the Associated Press, from which emanates this story in the International Herald Tribune in the wake of Drudge's action) not to publicise the fact that the 3rd in line to the British throne is on active duty in Afghanistan until after his deployment there was over, has been broken. The MoD has now made a statement about what has happened, which reads in part:

"I am very disappointed that foreign websites have decided to run this story without consulting us. This is in stark contrast to the highly responsible attitude that the whole of the UK print and broadcast media, along with a small number of overseas, who have entered into an understanding with us over the coverage of Prince Harry on operations. "After a lengthy period of discussion between the MOD and the Editors of regional, national and international media, the Editors took the commendable attitude to restrain their coverage. I would like to thank them for that and I do appreciate that once the story was in the public domain, they had no choice but to follow suit. "What the last two months have shown is that it is perfectly possible for Prince Harry to be employed just the same as other Army officers of his rank and experience. His conduct on operations in Afghanistan has been exemplary. He has been fully involved in operations and has run the same risks as everyone else in his Battlegroup. "In common with all of his generation in the Army today, he is a credit to the nation. In deciding to deploy him to Afghanistan, it was my judgement that with an understanding with the media not to broadcast his whereabouts, the risk in doing was manageable. "Now that the story is in the public domain, the Chief of Defence Staff and I will take advice from the operational commanders about whether his deployment can continue. I now appeal to the media to restrain from attempting to report Prince Harry’s every move and return to our understanding."

I'm now watching Question Time and 'Gorgeous George'. Predictably he is making the point that the British Army should not be there at all. Fair enough, it's a point of view.

However, the whole point of the 'embargo' on news of his presence there was both to protect him and, just as importantly, to protect the lives of all those other soldiers serving there with him who might, because of his presence there, be at increased risk. If he and they are now at increased risk because of this revelation by Matt Drudge and some harm does now fall on him or them then I hope the finger will be pointed at least partly at Matt Drudge!

Perhaps the title of this post is somewhat unfair to our allies the Americans. After all, citizens of the US are individuals with both rights and responsibilities - just as every individul citizen of the UK has rights and responsibilities. It is probably therefore unfair to heap blame on all Americans for the folly of one of their citizens who has revealed this information for reasons of professional and perhaps personal vanity, without understanding (or perhaps even caring) that by doing so he may well be placing the life of Prince Harry and those he serves with at increased danger. I stick with the title of this blog post.

(*) I had no idea that Prince Harry is serving in Afghanistan, but it does not suprise me. After all, we knew that that he had been prevented from going with his regiment to serve in Iraq and had expressed visceral disappointment at this turn of events. The fact that his regiment is now serving in Afghanistan, a fact which is I imagine not entirely a secret, might therefore have acted as a pretty good clue that he might be there too - particularly as we have not seen him falling out of a nightclub in London of late. (I expect there are many upper class, rich kids who fall out of nightclubs pretty drunk in the wee small hours - I've done the same in years gone by myself and I'm not 'upper class', nor am I specially rich, but this mostly went unnoticed because I don't happen to come from the family he does.)

Send a Parcel to our Boys/Girls in Iraq & Afghanistan

IMPORTANT - Please see update at end





Surprise Supplies is a scheme which aims to send parcels to every single member of the Armed Forces currently serving in operations in Afghanistan and Iraq. A lot of them receive little in the way of support parcels from home and they really do make all the difference. We are all aware of the disagreeable circumstances these soldiers are working in and this is a small way of our acknowledging what they do on our behalf.

The scheme is very simple and all you need to do is to put together a small parcel containing a few goodies and then send it in the post addressed to one of the addresses below. It will mean such a lot to these wonderful men and women serving so far away from home to know that people are thinking about them and that we value and appreciate the sacrifices that they are making.

It would make even more of a difference if you could organise for a group of people (your friends, colleagues or staff for example) to put together as many parcels as you can. Please forward this blogpost to all your friends and family and ask them to do the same. There are over 14,000 servicemen and women serving overseas in Afghanistan and the Middle East so the more parcels that we can send out the better.

How does it work?

All you need to do is to put together a parcel (or parcels) containing a few ‘goodies’ with a value of not more than £10, address the package to one of the addresses at the end of this post and then take it to the post office/put it in the post.

Royal Mail will deliver the parcel free of charge to the British Forces Posting Office who will then ship it on to the relevant BFPO number.

Padded jiffy bags and old shoe boxes are the best for packing things in but any kind of old cardboard box or packet will do. Use tissue paper, newspaper, bubble wrap and anything light to stuff the package and stop things rolling around.

Postage is only free of charge if the parcel weighs less than 2kg and they are very strict about this so we recommend that you weigh your parcels before taking them to the post office.

There are lots of women serving out there too so although the mailing labels says ‘a Serviceman’ if you would like to put a parcel together for a woman please just amend the label accordingly and it will be given to a female.

What do I put inside?

One of the main elements of this scheme is to provide a bit of variety. Therefore if you can, use your imagination to the full and think of a cross between Christmas stockings and tuck boxes and you will be on the right track. It is very hot in Afghanistan so please do not send things that melt such as chocolate. Alcohol (and pornography!) are forbidden but this still leaves plenty of goodies such as:

Biscuits, cake - homemade wonderful but bought wonderful too – but think long life like fruitcake, gingerbread or malt loaf. Anything in a tube, vacuum pack or tin to perk up their rather basic rations is great - toffee sauce, (M&S does a good range of savoury and sweet sauces in tubes) condensed milk, salsa dip and cheese straws, cream cheese, fish paste, chutneys, chorizo sausage, dried fruit and nuts, mint imperials, chewing gum and everyone loves Jelly Babies.

Soduko books and magazines – Nuts, Zoo and FHM we are reliably informed are the most popular but also the Week for current affairs and any kind of magazine will be very welcome, the more varied the better as there is lots of time for reading and magazines get swapped and shared around.

Candles (for illumination, not scent), lip salve, moisturiser, medicated talc, deodorant, toothpaste and cotton socks (M&S do a great range of cotton socks that are v. popular – black and olive green are good colours). They also have to drink vast quantities of water so any powder flavourings in a package like Berocca, Vitamin C sachets etc. would be both light and immensely appreciated. Finally old fashioned pick ‘n mix sweets are particularly recommended but please keep the contents within £10 for the sake of equality.

Who will get my parcel?

Your parcel is being sent to one of two addresses in either Iraq or Afghanistan. From there they will be distributed throughout theatre. You won’t know who has received your parcel but you can be sure that a deserving soldier will be very grateful. Please do write an encouraging message inside your card for your soldier but please sign with your Christian name only and do not give your address as we do not want the soldiers to feel obliged to write thank you letters.

What is Surprise Supplies?

Surprise Supplies came about because of an idea Lexi Douglas had whilst her son was serving in Afghanistan in 2007. She regularly sent him parcels stuffed full of cakes and other nice things and when Charlie wrote home he said how appreciated they were but that not all of the boys received parcels from home so he would share his out with them. Lexi told her friends and they volunteered to send parcels and the idea grew from there. You can read more about it HERE

Send your parcels to:

(For parcels to AFGHANISTAN)
A British Soldier
c/o Capt. S Beattie MBE
HQ Task Force Helmand
Lashkar Gah
BFPO 715

and/or

(For parcels to IRAQ)
A British Soldier
c/o JI Branch
HQ MND (SE)
Op Telic
BFPO 641


PS/ I sent off a parcel to each of the addresses today and now that I have assembled the 'goodies' for each, I know roughly what to buy for the other packages I plan to send over the next couple of days (I plan to send 4 more packages to each of the addresses, so that I will have sent 10 packages in all by the time I have finished). Each package with the contents below weighs just under 1 kilo (about 2lb) and the contents cost just a little more than the £10- suggested in the rules, but not so much more that I can be said to have completely ignored the suggested maximum; the contents listed below cost £12.45 for each parcel, with the cost of the 'Jiffy' bag, the Christmas card and the decorative bows and sticky 'Greetings' labels being minor extras. Each parcel I have sent/will send comprises (this is just my idea, you can vary it to suit your own tastes):

- Padded envelope ('Jiffy' size 3);
- Christmas card with a personal message inside, signed with forename only;
- a couple of small decorative bows (the kind you stick on presents); the package should be fun and colourful as well as useful;
- a small SuDoKu puzzle book (gift-wrapped: everyone needs to be able to unwrap at least one present, whether you're a child or an adult);
- small bag of 'Liquorice Allsorts';
- packet of almonds and raisins;
- tube of high-strength vitamin C 'fizzy' tablets (nice to drink and good for you);
- small tube of Lip salve;
- small bottle hand-cleansing gel (does not require water)(*);
- small tube of intensive hand cream (*) - you could instead send a small tube of foot cream.

(*) I got small 'travel' packs in the travel accessories section of my local Tesco superstore. I bought everything except the SuDoKu books in Tesco, the SuDoKu books came from Borders. No doubt other supermarket chains have the same or similar items.

If you can afford to send even one parcel it will I'm sure cheer up the brave soldier (male or female) who receives it. Please give as generously as you feel able.

PPS/ I have marked/will mark all my 'Jiffy' envelopes with the following: "Suitable for a male or a female soldier".

PPPS/ Most of this blog post is reproduced verbatim from here; I do not otherwise link to this blog because I have a personal disagreement with the writer, but I am happy on this occasion to link to and to acknowledge the source.

Note: The first link above is to a page on the Telegraph newspaper website, but for the past few days this seems to be completely unavailable (perhaps it is a DoS or simple excess activity over the festive period), so here is a .PDF link to the original source, with the main website address here.

Important UPDATE - the period for sending out parcels for Christmas to troops in Iraq and Afghanistand has now ended (on 7DEC07). I have myself had difficulty in desptaching the parcels I prepared as I have been told that the whole basis of this scheme was unworkable, because MOD regulations specify that parcels may be sent only to named soldiers. This is just a big a disappointment to me as anyone else, specially as I am now left with the contents of 10 parcels to make use of, probably by handing them to the Salvation Army or other similar charity.

Prresumably this doesn't apply to women servicemen too!

This is logical I suppose and will apart from anything else no doubt add warmth in the high mountain air of Afghanistan, but I suppose that any female personnel serving there aren't expected to try and grow beards as well.