Good As You, Sir!

Speaking at a US Senate hearing on allowing gay people to serve openly in the US military, former Supreme Allied Commander, US General John Sheehan, has claimed that Dutch forces failed at Srebrenica because of poor morale over openly gay soldiers.

He said Dutch leaders had told him that the presence of gay soldiers had contributed to the Bosnian massacre.

Dutch officials have, not surprisingly, rejected Sheehan’s claims as rubbish and told him to ram them where no soldier has boldly gone before.

He will certainly get the support of Neo-Christian Right "Family Value" politicians.

He might though, want to follow the example of an earlier military mental-man, a certain Field Marshal Heinrich Himmler who, in the 1930's, created the Reich Central Office for the Combating of Homosexuality and Abortion (here’s me thinking they were mutually exclusive but, there you go.)

And just to gee things along a bit they might consider some night getting hold of some long knives and . . .

Personally, I’m all for Gays in the military. Why should they get to stay at home discussing  cushions and curtains while the rest of us are dodging bullets and spending long, lonely nights in foxholes?

The Queen’s Own Racist Rifles

The MoD has launched an investigation after a photograph of a soldier who had an offensive message written on his kit appeared in its official magazine.

The serviceman's left kneepad has "Get some Paki" scrawled on it. His picture featured in January's edition of Soldier magazine published for the UK armed forces by the Ministry of Defence. It has been photoshopped out on the website.

Quite right too.

One would hope that it would at least be someone in the Taliban that he was going to ‘get’.

"An investigation is currently underway to identify the soldier," said the MoD.

Well if this photograph is anything to go by – he’s a black guy.

As for his superiors – they've no doubt gone to spec-savers where there’s a ‘2 for the price of 1’ deal on excuses.