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Unacceptable! The Ministry of Defence is leaving no stone unturned in its investigations of the allegations against Colonel Tim Collins:
The Ministry of Defence said an inquiry into the death raised issues about the “wider military culture” within the unit which demanded further investigation.
Say it isn’t so!! A ‘military culture’ in the British Army? Has the world gone stark raving mad? ‘Military culture’ has no place in our armed forces and it must be rooted out forthwith.
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And the always entertaining Sun, reported that Collins’ case was tipped off by an American Major who dislike Collins’ style. Didn’t read the actual article, only the headline & the BBC’s slant on it.
What a gift to Princess Tony. Having castrated the political opposition he’ll be glad of the chance to show what happens to army officers who become known to the public, especially ones that have demonstrated such a gift for language as Collins has. No Colin Powells in his Magic Kingdom.
Will he back the Colonel? Or will he “Damn with faint praise, assent with civil leer”?
One journalist accused him of having an “agressive style”. He’s a ******* soldier!!! I’d ****** well hope that he was agressive!!
Are New Labour trying to make the army as useless as the police have become by turning them all into camouflaged social workers?
The American reservist officer who has accused him was by several accounts a slovenly jerk who did not like getting a taste of real military discipline (he was punished for insolence by the Colonel). As he had an axe to grind, I cannot see why anyone gave this piece of shit the time of day. The ‘civil leader’ the colonel hit was a hated local Ba’athist capo who ran a school and was indeed hiding weapons. War is not a tea dance, only with guns.
Reservists are civilians who goes to military camp around one weekend a month. They’re not career military. They inhabit the civilian world and live by civilian mores. Clearly, as Perry notes, this one little arsewipe had an axe to grind and his absurd complaint should have been taken no further by his American superior officers.
There is a certain type of American, low on the blue collar scale, who feels a deep sense of inferiority when confronted with a British accent. This should not be so, but it is a fact. To have been reprimanded by someone world famous for his rhetoric may have been bad enough, but that the reprimand was delivered in a British accent, I am guessing, pricked his pride. Why should he, an American, have to tolerate being lectured by a Limey?
Or was this individual just a saint, committed to the human rights of Iraqi criminals during the height of battle? Why is this being taken seriously except, as David Packer astutely noticed, Col Tim Collins, through the brilliance and genuinely held humanity of his rhetoric upstaged Princess Tony, who can only dream of ever coming across with such a profound and unforced ability to move people.
It would be interesting to know the educational background of the man who brought the complaint. I have a feeling we’re dealing with a real underachiever here. Just a guess.
>There is a certain type of American,
>low on the blue collar scale, who
>feels a deep sense of inferiority
>when confronted with a British accent.
As Hollywood knows well: hence all the well spoken British accented villains in their movies. Australians often feel the same way about certain British accents.
What we need here is a low key, rapid investigation, which will hopefully demonstrate that these charges are groundless. If it is clear that they are, then the accuser and his motives need to be investigated, and (in the interests of justice for Col. Collins) the results of such an investigation need to be made very public.
The “wussification syndrome” is slithering its way through all military units, world-wide, one slimy inch/centimeter at a time. How in hell any army is going to succeed if this continues is beyond comprehension.
I had no idea it was only “lowly” blue collar workers who make all of the trouble. I thought broadly indicting a whole class of people is something only socialists engaged in, but obviously I was wrong. Screw capitalism, screw government, screw technology, it was a mistake to ever leave the hunting gathering lifestyle.
If there are cases of gross misconduct like murder, rape and looting of private property of course we should prosecute soldiers like the criminals they are. But if I understand the allegations, he is guilty of swatting a Baathist around and forcefully maintaining order in front of a crowd of civilians. Christ, I thought that was what he was sent to do.
I trust and hope his name will be rapidly cleared.
Posted to Liberty Belle, I’m disturbed by your attack and hope others will come to my assistance. I never said ‘lowly blue collar workers’ were the ’cause’ of anything, much less ‘all of the trouble’. In the context of the complaint against Col Collins, I said there are some blue collar Americans, not all, who feel intimidated by British accents, and I also indicated that there was no reason for this to be. I am guessing that some people who feel inferior in their own society, feel more offended when reprimanded by someone with an accent they have been conditioned to regard as somehow superior. I have never thought a Brit accent superior to an American or Aussie accent, as we all speak the same language and the cross references constantly enliven all of us. But there are people who are intimidated by accents, including Americans who are intimidated by Bostonian accents. As though we were all swanking about instead of speaking normally.
I hope someone will come to my defence here, because I certainly didn’t say anything incendiary. To crash down on me like this is inexcusable. I didn’t invite such viciousness. [Unless you are Tony Blair. Then, OK, guilty. Whatever the context, I’d like the blame. Thanks.]
What do all Majors want to be? Colonels. This little shit thought he was playing Pentagon Leap-Frog. To quote a Sgt about a Major from the movie Heartbreak Ridge, “Rumor has it that he reads the Marine manual before he mounts his old lady, just to assure he does it in a orderly proficient military manner.”
Some twit writes:
“I had no idea it was only “lowly” blue collar workers who make all of the trouble. I thought broadly indicting a whole class of people is something only socialists engaged in, but obviously I was wrong.”
Did Liberty Belle use the word ‘lowly’ – or did you just chuck that into the stew because, without it, you wouldn’t have a meal?
You may, wilfully, have chosen to take offence at what, to any other reader, would be a perfectly understandable (not to say useful) generalisation, but the thoughtful reader might be more worried by *your* use of the phrase: ‘…a whole class of people.’
It looks like it was you who bought the Marxist package, not Ms. Belle.
Your slovenly low blue collar American worker is a counselor at a highschool and a part time police officer. Intimitaded by a British accent……I’m waiting for the punch line. I can’t believe an adult wrote this.
Well, Lisa, I can see that you don’t get out and about much. My experience of the world would appear to be considerably more extensive than your own. When I lived in the US, there was a certain type of person who ludicrously tried to change their own way of speaking when talking to me, and the ‘high school counsellor’ genre would have been one of them. People insecure in their status who go through life on high alert to perceived threats to that status. Many, by no means all, of these people are intimidated by accents, whether British or Mainline Philadelphia or Boston.
In any event, a high school counsellor is accustomed to getting respect from adolescents. Someone who is a “part time policeman” is consonant with the personality type. This person may well resent being reprimanded by anyone at all, but especially by someone outside his own experience – someone more literate and with international name recognition and, what’s more, career military – yet who comes from a country he considers inferior. I don’t know what he had done to attract a reprimand from Col Collins, but this whole thing reeks of injured pride and a desire for revenge.
How bizarre that you seem to equate blue collar with ‘slovenly’, for I certainly didn’t – and don’t. This comes across as insecurity-based prejudice. It also, sorry, Lisa, old girl, comes across as exactly the chippy attitude to which I referred in my original posting.
Col Collins is a career soldier with a distinguished and unblemished record in half a dozen theatres and is a man who commands respect from the men serving under him. President Bush had his eve of battle speech to his men pinned up in the Oval Office. You will just have to accept that we take it badly when some ignorant, provincial little high school counsellor, “part time policeman” and part time soldier has a problem with that.
As to your comment that you “can’t believe an adult wrote this”, I’m sorry I’ve taxed your credulity. Go take a Xanax and lie down in a dark room.
Liberty Belle, while I support the Colonel as much as most American Servicemen do, I think you are over-analyzing the Reserve Major a bit. During Vietnam, our country sent servicemen into a war not too popular and there were attrocities – illegal acts involving US personnel, enlisted and officers alike. Since then, or, as long as I have served, we recieve extensive training on how POW’s and Non Combatants are treated during War. You, nor I, were there. I would like to think that the Colonel used necessary force. Being overseas, myself, I’m limited to what I’ve seen on the internet. I hope he is exconerated, but if the Major thought what he did was wrong, he is required to report it. Let’s not go into whether the man is educated or “blue collar”. In my view, he’s serving his country, which is alot more than I can say about many of my fellow countrymen. As an enlisted man, I have seen officers I did not care for, just the same. But their “class” never entered into it. Thanks,
A Soldier standing on the wall.
It’s your ignorance that is showing. The major lives right outside of Niagra Falls. It is a well know international tourist area. I’m sure he has contact with people with accents from all over the world. 25% of students in the US are immigrants. They come here with ACCENTS. Everywhere I go in this country people are speaking with accents. The 90s was one of the largest periods of immigration this country has every had. The major was attacked to the RIR for months. I’m sure he had time to adjust to the British accent.
“My experience of the world would appear to be considerably more than your own.” Appear being the key word in this sentence. There you go again, ASSuming you know something about other people that you’ve never met. Do you have a dossier on the major or myself?
“I don’t know what he had done…….”
Why ever not, you assume to know everything else? Making judgements about an event on one hand and on the other admitting I don’t have the information about some portions of the event. A description of the perfect fool. He passed out candy to children. His job as as the civilian affairs liason was to establish contacts with the villages around the oil fields.
And your colonel isn’t a famous as your think. By the time his speech made it into the papers most people why glued to tv media coverage. He didn’t get much international tv media coverage.
He commands respect, yes, that’s why the clergy attached to his regiment had filed a complaint against him.
“Half a dozen theaters.” And your point. What do you know about the major? Was he at one point full time military? Did he serve anywhere else? BTW the RIR didn’t see any combat at all. They guarded the oil fields and the POW camp and partrolled small villages outside the oil fields.
“Someone more literate.” What a nasty habit you have, inebriated with your own verbosity and gifted with an imagination that somehow leads you to believe you have an inside track on the unknown.
Neither the high school counselor who listened patiently to my teenage whinging nor the part time policeman who waited while I made a phone call and walked me back to my car in what he termed a “dangerous neighborhood” seemed remotely ignorant, provincial or little to me.
I too hope that the investigation turns up nothing untoward; but if the soldier felt that what he saw warranted reporting, so be it. I would feel the same if the national tables were turned. No one should be deemed above reproach. If the allegation is spurious, it will be duly revealed.
While people seem to have found a new game to play this holiday Sunday (let’s bash Liberty Belle) I think we’re in danger of overlooking the blindingly obvious, which is that this issue has played right into the hands of the liberals and Leftists.
No doubt Colonel Collins can be a difficult man. But the worst he is accused of doing is having hit a Ba’ath party bigwig with the but of his pistol, having fired few bullets into the carpet of a Ba’thist thug who refused to surrender his Kalashnikovs and of shooting out the tyres of a truck that wouldn’t stop. And that is even if the accusations are true!
The Leftist media have used this as an excuse to start braying about ‘war crimes’ and the Geneva Convention. It is manna from heaven for them. It has also been a useful wedge to drive between the victorious British and American forces – something the Left has been trying to do since the moment the invasion began.
We should not add to their pathetic little triumph by falling out among ourselves.
Nancy, Thank you for your reasoned and compassionate comments. Col Collins was in the home of a Ba’ahist capo di capo who had been terrorising the neighbourhood for some years. Col Collins demanded weapons. Ali-bin-Soprano said he didn’t have any weapons. Why would anyone think he had weapons? So Col Collins gave him a reminder tap to the head with his pistol. Nothing too severe. Just to clear his mind. This miraculously jogged Ali-bin-Soprano’s memory: Oh, yeah, when you ‘splained it like that, he could remember a couple of Kalishnikovs he might have somewhere. But he forgot where he put them. One shot to the floor, absolutely ruining the carpet! – caused another miracle: he remembered where the Kalishnikovs were. Col Collins also shot out the tires of a truck which refused to stop at a checkpoint. He didn’t shoot the gangsters within. He shot the tires. Those disregarding military checkpoints should expect military vigour. .
Perhaps if the Americans (ill-disciplined, by the accounts of all the Coalition forces) hadn’t been so busy shooting civilians, they might have stopped the looting of the museums.
This is nothing against America. The world owes the Americans, over several generations, a debt that can never be repaid. But, like most men, they are far from perfect and their ill-disciplined behaviour in battle was commented upon by all the fighting forces within the Coalition. Your technology was truly awesome.
Believe me, we are grateful for America. But little jerked up arseholes – even tbose from ‘right outside of Niagra Falls’ – fighting their personal grudges on such a huge canvas, are dicing with America’s reputation as a generous and beneficent victor.
As an American, I can say the only British accent that intimidates me is the one they speak around Glasgow. A Scots friend played me a comedy recording in that dialect, and to me it was gibberish interrupted by laughter. You guys ought to recruit them as Code Talkers, like our Navajo radiomen in WWII.
Mitch – Your good natured comment has lowered the temperature on this thread, for which much thanks.
G Cooper, you quite rightly said we shouldn’t be falling out among ourselves. And I agree. So I won’t add any more fuel to the fire, other than to say the “part time policeman” is a part time traffic cop, he’s a highschool counsellor and was in Iraq as a civilian-military liaison officer. He held a grudge against Col Collins because Col Collins had ordered him to stand at attention for 45 minutes after Major Sensitivity disobeyed his order not to distribute candy to local children. As The Telegraph reports today, hoardes of children were darting back and forth between fast-moving military vehicles begging “with feral intensity” for candy. Col Collins placed an embargo on candy distribution. This Biastre disobeyed his superior officer. He was reprimanded. Disobeying a superior officer’s serious. The American military might want to investigate this chap.
I think the commenter above who suggested that Tony Blair or someone else in the government has been jealous of Collins’ fame hit the nail on the head. They just cannot stand it that someone who does something difficult and dangerous – being in the Army – is also so much more educated and intelligent than most of the losers and schemers who make a career in politics.
Anyway, I write this on Monday after having just seen the papers and it looks like Collins has been cleared.
So I guess the Baghdad Broadasting Corp, the Guardianistas and the other pondlife of the pro-Saddam crowd will shift their attention elsewhere.
Of course, let’s not forget, it was always about the ooooooiiiiiiiilllllll!
WTF? – “Perhaps if the Americans (ill-disciplined, by the accounts of all the Coalition forces) hadn’t been so busy shooting civilians, they might have stopped the looting of the museums.”
Where the hell did that smear come from? Haven’t we all gotten over the discredited looting charges by now? How can anyone say that the Amercians were ill-disciplined, or were busy shooting “civilians?”
If this was intended to be sarcasm or irony, it missed its mark. If it was intended to be serious commentary, it seems to have been lifted straight from the Noam Chomsky Manual of Anti-American Smears.
The reason I called him ‘slovenly’ is that the accounts all over the newspapers say he was punished for sloppy saluting and an insolently unmilitary bearing. This might pass with little comment in maybe some parts of the US Army (though probably not the USMC), but this guy was attached in a liaison function to the British Army and was in an area under British military control. That he pissed off a British colonel who was in command of the area in which he was operating by telling him to ‘mind his own business’ does rather suggest this guy is a complete dickhead.
I’m glad to see Col Collins has been exonerated. Indeed, it sounds like O-4 Biastre (I cannot honestly refer to him as a Major) should himself be investigated for conduct unbecoming an officer. To swear an affidavit based only on things one has heard with apparently no corroborating evidence is wrong, and frankly dishonorable. O-4 Biastre should immediately have stopped handing out candy upon Col Collins’ order, and discussed his concerns in private, as any professional officer would have done. As a retired major myself, that’s how I operated. Most likely Col Collins would have been more understanding and would probably have explained where he was coming from – the best officers will do this, especially with a fellow field-grade officer. Instead, O-4 Biastre chose to act un professionally, and didn’t care for the consequences.