A British Deserter Describes The Afghan War as “unlawful”!

A soldier facing court martial over his refusal to serve in Afghanistan is expected to claim in his defence that the war is unlawful.
Lance Corporal Joe Glenton, who appeared in court for a preliminary hearing into his case yesterday, maintains that British soldiers are dying in the interest of American foreign policy and should be brought home.



L/Cpl Glenton, 27, of the Royal Logistic Corps, did not enter a formal plea during proceedings in Wiltshire yesterday, where he was charged with desertion. He had been active in a campaign organised by the Stop the War Coalition and delivered a protest letter to Downing Street. The soldier’s counsel, Hugh O’Donoghue, indicated that his client would deny the charge and may call an expert witness to give evidence on the lawfulness of the war.
Prosecutor Gemma Sayer said she would be calling witnesses who were currently serving in Afghanistan and Kuwait and that there may be additional charge connected to the alleged desertion. L/Cpl Glenton is due to return to duties with his regiment at his base in Abingdon, Oxfordshire, where he will be interviewed by the Royal Military police. Having joined the Army in 2004, L/Cpl Glenton, from York, went absent without leave in 2007 before handing himself in after two years and six days. Judge Advocate Alastair McGrigor adjourned the case to 4 September.
Before his court appearance L/Cpl Glenton said: “I always expected to divide opinion and I understood it would happen. I welcome the debate and appreciate some people don’t agree with me. But at the end of the day, what I’m doing is what I feel I have to do and the positive thing is that the whole Afghanistan issue is being discussed – there are places in the world where people don’t get the chance to do this.”
RAF officer Flight Lieutenant Malcolm Kendall-Smith was sentenced to eight months in prison in 2007 and fined £20,000 for refusing to serve in Iraq. A handful of other British service personnel were allowed to leave the service after refusing to serve in Iraq.
From The Independent

Pakistan bigger threat for uk then helmand-report

A House of Commons report published on Sunday concluded that the UK faced more threat from inside Pakistan than from Afghanistan’s Helmand province where, the report asserted, British soldiers were sent on ‘an ill-defined mission undermined by unrealistic planning and lack of manpower’.
The Labour-chaired Commons foreign affairs select committee report raises the alarming spectre of Al Qaeda, ‘which has shifted its focus into Pakistan’.
Professor Shaun Gregory, an expert on Pakistan at Bradford University, told the committee that a direct attack on Pakistan’s nuclear weapons infrastructure could not be ruled out.
According to the Observer, MPs concluded that there was now a ‘strong argument to be made’ that the Afghan insurgency was no longer an immediate threat to Britain, adding: ‘That threat in the form of Al Qaeda and international terrorism can be said more properly to emanate from Pakistan’.
The report concluded that, while the military campaign in Helmand might be gaining traction, Afghan support for the troops had been damaged by civilian casualties and ‘cultural insensitivity’, and there was no evidence the war on drugs had reduced poppy cultivation.
A weak, corrupt police force was driving Afghans back to the Taliban to seek justice, it argued, while cultural assumptions about women were barely changed.
The Observer said Whitehall was braced for the publication this month of a review of the Afghanistan campaign by General Stanley McChrystal, commander of US forces there, which was expected to trigger a fresh debate over troop numbers. Some MPs believed parliament might even be recalled from recess to debate Afghanistan.
The Foreign Office admitted on Saturday night that the insurgent threat in Helmand was ‘greater than anticipated’, but said the aim of denying Al Qaeda a safe haven remained unchanged.
The committee suggested that Whitehall was distracted by Iraq during its planning, made wrong assumptions about Afghan expectations and gave unclear direction to the armed forces. It noted that ‘most analysts believe the initial UK strategy failed primarily because of a lack of manpower and a poor understanding of the local situation’.
Meanwhile, a memo from Major Brian Dupree leaked to the newspaper showed that Britain’s war effort in Afghanistan was being hindered by a number of frontline troops ‘too fat to fight’.
The Ministry of Defence confirmed that it had directed military chiefs to ensure units were following army fitness policy after concerns were raised over a ‘worrying trend of obesity’.