Norman Kember-honourable and brave or a bit of a pompous arse??

[moondog]

I'm plumping for the latter.....

yes, he has but people hear what they want to hear - spooky he's just come on the news - thanking the soldiers!

Good point re 'our boys' mentality.
We'll all be sporting bumper stickers proclaiming our sentiments and tying bloody ribbons around trees before long to say nothing of aforemnetioned tiresome candlelit vigils..

You've really got it in for candlelit vigils, haven't you?

They're ok with copious amounts of wine and the Rolling Stones playing....

they were okay when i was at uni and smoking cannabis. :o

Basically ok as long as no mention of peace activists involved....

seems like nothing less than an American style 'Oscar' thank you speech, complete with tears is good enough.

fwiw I think it was an ill judged decision to go to Iraq, indeed he is reflecting on that very point himself, I still don't think though he deserves the vitriol meted out here.

I complained at the time at the books of condolence for Ken Bigley - couldn't understand it at all but certainly would never say he deserved to be shot!

I don't think everyone who goes to these places is just greedy. Some are desperate.

I know someone (a family member) who has gone because he used to be in the army, has left now because he didn't want to sign up for 25 more years or whatever, but simply couldn't get another job which enabled him to pay his mortgage - or any other in the area he lives. After six months of unemployment where he literally spent every day looknig for jobs, having spent all his and his wife's savings and being 3 months away from re-possession, he's gone to Iraq because with the money he makes there, he'll be able to pay his mortgage off within a year and then get a low-paid job which are all that seem to be available and keep his house. If he survives of course.

Agree about the oscar thing Jools. There's something so vulgar about demanding an immediate gushing gratitude speech.

Who was the woman who was kidnapped and killed that worked for the RC or something? Was an iraqi citizen and married to an iraqi?

FWIW, i am feeling rather uncomfortable at the judgements being made here about someone we actually know very little about other than the "facts" the media have presented.

Don;t think the government are embarrassed and so are kicking upabout him going think they are pissed off that they have told people to stay away because it is a war zone and so is DANGEROUS and they have to risk their soldiers lives rescuing these people.

Lets hope that when the next one is rescued the soldiers that do it arenlt hurt because if it wree my DH out there having to put life and limb on the line for these pricks I would be fuming!!

Oh and I would rather us be living on the street having to prostitute myself than DP go over there to pay the mortgage and then be happy that he can get a nice little low wage job and have no mortgage - silly person (sorry had to tame language!!) he could come back mentally scarred for life by what he has seen and then his little wifey can spend the rest of her life being grateful that she has no mortgage but a screwed hubby to look after as well as the kids up or mayb a dead husband - oh but a nice paid for house!!

that was Margaret Hussein, VVV. An Iraqi national married to an Iraqi native. They denied her husband's request to at least give her body back to him so he could lay her to rest properly. B*stards.

Twinkie,I am in agreement with you.
Cal,same argument could be used to 'justify' the presence of those cockle pickers who drowned so tragically in Morecambe Bay.
Big article on it in yesterday's Telegraph which made the blood run cold.

I'm not justifying what he's doing. I'm just saying that some people will take stupid risks because they're desperate.

Twinkie, his wife isn't happy with his decision but understands his logic that as he was in the army anyway, and had been to Iraq as a soldier, he was doing almost exactly the same job that he'd been doing the previous year for about 20 times the money.

I wonder if you think soldier's wives should go and prostitute themselves rather than sending their husbands to Iraq. Because in effect, it's no different to what this particular bloke is doing, except that he's getting paid an awful lot more and apparantly the level of security he gets is slightly higher. But he's not one of "our boys" any more, so doesn't have the saintly status of a soldier that he had the year before.

Well C,your example graphically illustrates what a can of worms the whole thing is..

Personally, I think people like NK should be forced to take out "Tw*t" insurance, as should anyone else who undertakes something exceptionally foolhardy which is bound to end with them needing to be rescued at great expense to the taxpayer e.g. climbing Ben Nevis in a pair of flip flops or taking to the Atlantic with 2 kids in a rubber dinghy.

hahhahahahahha!!!!

at T*at Insurance.

You are quite right though.

The soldiers deserve to be at home with their loved ones. the Iraqis deserve to have peace and stability and have clean water to drink and electricity and not have raw sewage running in the streets and not have to live in fear for their lives 24 hours a day. Norman Kember was prepared to die for his beliefs. He may have been naive going out there but he was also brave and I think he believes that the army would not bother to rescue the Iraqis who get kidnapped and killed every day, and I think maybe this is why some have gleaned a hint of 'ungratefulness' though of course he did thank them. Amazing how he has inspired so much hatred here though.

I don't think insurance companies will issue twat insurance!

rescuing him is a drop in the ocean to the tax payer - when you think of how our economy is going to be affected by the iraq war as a whole - now that is no laughing matter.

Yes nez.i wish the tossers who had taken thei two three and four year olds up Snowdon (my area0 the other day in appalling weather had taken this out.
They thought they could get the train down,but didn't check if it was running so by the time they got to the top,with darkness falling and their children near death (I am not exagerrating-one of them was described as 'like a rag doll-floppy and barely conscious')they had to call out a helicopter.

Even as it landed,they were busying themselves photographing it.

Arses.
I think they should be presented with the bill.

Exactly Ruty, some of the people who are complaining most about the cost to the taxpayer, don't bat an eyelid about the cost to the taxpayer of the illegal invasion of Iraq.