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

[moondog]

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

Ruty,warfare isn't arm to arm combat anymore,so even people who are technically 'in combat' probabnly aren't fighting in the way we would define fighting.

Much as I disagree with TB,it's nonsense to say he isn't fighting a war.
Of course he is!

(My butcher is seriously considering a career change.He likes the flexibility my job offers.)

Maybe but he's had a terrible time and I suppose manners weren't uppermost in his mind. The fact is he has said thank you.

no a flight from kuwait was uppermost in his mind at the time
even though the militry offered him an raf jet to take him home

Bet he was in business class (and didn't say no to a drop or two of fizz either)

for goodness sake, since when did someone have to say thank you to be worthy enough of being saved from death? Give the man a break.

Que??

As a pedantic point, the majority of people supported some sort of action against Iraq. They may like to "remember" otherwise, but like Vietnam it started off with good support.
Would it really have made it more "moral" if there had been a UN mandate ? Don't see it myself, but I've never seen how murdering people in vast numbers can fit within law, even when necessary.

As for the relative ethics of those who rescued him and Mr. Kember himself, they are quite independant.

The recuers did what they believed was the right thing in spite of him being a pain in their arse. That fits the "Good Samaritan" defintion of a moral act, which as you may recall labours the fact that it is your duty to be good to people you don't like as well as those you do.

Same applies to Mr. Kember. He genuinely feels he can help. I personally think he stands absolutely no chance of making a difference of any kind, but he is at least trying, and to fight against stupidly high odds with little chance of success strikes me as quite noble.

He has been less than gracious in thanking his captors, and thus finds himself in the position of the politicos he despises. To get things done, you have to work with people you see as bad. You can keep your hands clean, but at the price of simply being a distant ineffectual voice, like the hordes who wandered streets protesting against the war then went back to their nice warm safe homes.

Very good points DC.

Same as all foot soldiers (in every sense of the word) are supposed to.

Warfare is NOT arm to arm any more ?

I don't know what TV channels you watch or what papers you read, but every single scene on my TV screen of Iraq involves street to street, door to door, face to face fighting.

They started out bombing the hell out of them, now they just go into their homes and shoot them, and according to a couple of incidents last week, if there are any woman and children about as "witnesses", they shoot them too.

No I don't like terrorists.

But I can't see how shooting babies and children helps our moral superiority and our so-called democratic cause ?

Perhaps Cherie would like to send her sons out there do a hunting down of Iraqi militants ?

Look at it as a real life experience, better than working in MacD's for the summer holidays, eh ?

Gosh DC and moondog ! I should have known, are you two related by any chance ?

Coming late to this thread - don't know what NK is - but heard an interesting view on local radio this morning from a mother who has a son in Iraq - she described him as a 'very silly man', and pointed out that whilst his rescue from kidnap cost the taxpayer £1million, and put soldiers' lives at risk, the soldiers themselves are still having to pay for their own equipment themselves.

Whatever you think about the war in Iraq, and our continued presence, as a mother of a son who has no choice about being there (the army don't choose where to go, and individual soldiers don't choose whether to invade or not) it must be hard to see your son's life put at risk by someone who needn't (or shouldn't?) be there.

kk,if I'm related to DC,you must be bessie mates with peachskin.
She rode a very high horse too....

Who or what is peachskin ?

Yes but again it comes down to who actually is to blame for her son being out there in the first place. The government sent them, the government decided on the war and at grassroots her son chose to be in the army.

Did you say horse ?? No had to compalin to my butcher about that too ! Hated the taste

ledodgy - quite right !

Just adding to the 'people who climb' debate. Of course those who climb mountains ill-equipped are foolhardy but for those who are experience, well-equipped climbers, they can run into bad luck just the same as the person crossing the road in front of an absent minded car driver. The people who save them, the mountain rescue service, know this. They are climbers themselves, they do not tell people never to do it they just tell people to make sure they take all the right precautions.

What a boring old world it would be if we all just sat on our arses at home because others deemed it too dangerous to go out!!! I remember the Alison Hargreaves incident and I too was furious that she got such flak because she was a woman and the suggestions that she should have been at home with the kids!!!

so what if people choose to join the army
still doesnt get the old ungrateful codger off the hook with his attitude
does it

have you got figures for that DC? That the majority of people supported going to war with Iraq? And even if that were true, [which i don't think it is] lets not forget that this is an Illegal war - the reasons for going based on lies and inaccuracies. And moondog - yes, Blair is experienced in making decisions off his own back to suit his own motives - in and out of war - this does not make him know what he is doing any more than NK. I think NK was prepared to die for his beliefs. I think the troops who rescued him were brave and trying to do the right thing, as they do all the time out there. But they should not be there, they are there illegally, let us not forget.

Well said Ruty!

Individual soldiers can of course choose not to go.

Depending upon how they choose to express this a variety of things may happen, but at worst it's a short spell in prison.
If a soldier genuinely felt that the war was wrong, then he has the option of sitting in a cell with occasional bits of being shouted at by people skilled in that art.

The British army does not shoot people for refusing to serve any more. Thus anyone over there is either under their free will, or willing to put their own morality less than a few months of unpleasant conditions.

i have no problems with the soldiers. But i think they should be home with their loved ones and not putting their lives in danger in an illegal war that has decimated Iraq and its people in a way Saddam Hussein could only have dreamed. Its not the army's fault, obviously. The fault lies elsewhere.

thanks ledodgy!