To Every Little Action, There Is A Reaction


How far from this :



(This image, tailored to suit your favourite soccer side and their rivals, is on sale throughout the UK as a rear window sticker for the car. A lot of people have them.)


To this ? :






The Mirror's report sounds remarkably like what happens in Britain every week or two.

"He looked "like an alien" after being kicked like a football."

"Another said he was completely unrecognisable."

"Lads were taking turns giving him a right going over, smashing him in the face with weapons and stamping on him."

"The three others hit and kicked Adam and urged her to do the same, so she punched him in the head, chest and legs as well as in the face."

"He could only speak a few words, pleading 'No, mister' . No, mister'."

"He curled up in a ball and wept as he was savagely beaten."

"The assault lasted about three hours, possibly slightly longer."


Cultural ambassadors or what ?


UPDATE - when the photos first came out, some people commented on their remarkably good quality. Speculation is growing that they may in fact be fakes, and that the Mirror, intentionally or not, may have produced an untrue story which will damage relations between Arabs and Brits and probably cost lives.

The BBC reports

"Sources close to The Queen's Lancashire Regiment believe many aspects of the photographs are suspicious.

They believe the pictures may not have even been taken in Iraq.

They believe the rifle is an SA80 mk 1 - which was not issued to troops in Iraq.

They say soldiers in Iraq wore berets or hard hats - and not floppy hats as in the photos.

They also believe the wrong type of Bedford truck is shown in the background - a type never deployed in Iraq"

The Telegraph has some background on the Queen's Lancashire Regiment in Iraq.

I hope the images ARE fakes - but of course the damage will have been done. The people who believe no Jews went to work in the Towers on 9/11 will say it's a cover-up led by the British State media, and the Guardian bulletin boards will be full of witticisms about the Queen's Own Torturers and the Royal Regiment of Abusers. While there are undoubtedly a fair number of people in the UK capable of such acts, I hope that the Army is still capable of turning them into good soldiers. Good soldiers don't do such things. And if they had eight hours to spare torturing some random individual, maybe our armed forces aren't as stretched as we thought.