A lot of you will be aware of Colonel Tim Collins. He gave a very stirring speech to his troops.
Well according to many news outlets he may be in a bit of trouble. This Times article says
So early days and the man himself is denying all charges. Witch hunt or not this story seems to have legs. It will run and run and stir up crap from both sides no doubt.
Thoughts?
In a wartime situation, prosecuting an officer on the last two charges would seem to be a witch-hunt. Concerning pistol-whipping a civic leader, more details would have to be made available before I offer an opinion.
I don’t see that there is much debate here. If he did actually kick POWs and pistol whip a civic leader then of course he should be prosecuted for breaking the Geneva Convention. I wouldn’t think firing at the ground near civilians would justify prosecution though. If he didn’t do any of these things then he shouldn’t.
We really need more facts about this to debate anything, and it doesn’t look like the MoD is going to release any information for now.
i’m all for an objective war crimes investigation. It will mildly satiate cynics who want the coalition to be portrayed as war criminals by showing that coaltion troops & officers will be held accountable for legitimate violations. Just as long as the investigation is objective.
Yep. I was going to put this is MPSIMS but thought that it had a hijack potential of either a PIT/GD thread so put it here.
yojimbo: If this was an American Colonel being investigated then i’m sure it would have generated a heated argument!
According to this story though it is an American officer who is making the allegations. It sounds unlikely that someone who would make the speech he did would then risk his reputation by breaking the rules of war. But then why would an American officer lie to smear an allied British officer?
I guess we’ll just have to wait and see…
reading the papers today the insinuation was that it was an american who got annoyed at Tim Collins for chewing him out. What is interesting is that the UK military is backing off supporting Collins, alledgely because he is not from the right sort of ba ckgound and being too outspoken (being from Northerm Irish descent)
Latest background:
If it’s true, he should be roasted for it. If it’s not true, he should be acquitted. No debate really…
Loved his speech though.
It goes without saying that all alleged breaches of the Geneva Convention should be investigated and appropriate action taken.
However.
from Pjen’s link
When some elements of the Press and Public are howling for looters to be shot on sight, this seems (to me) to be a more proportionate response.
As to the motives of Major Re Biastre, this link may provide a clue.
Of course I don’t know what actually happened (I wasn’t there) and consequently I don’t know if Lt. Col. Collins’ fears were justified or reasonable.
However, as much as I dislike the common practise of attacking the messenger rather than the message (a mainstay of the UK government’s response to criticiism), I am wondering what action will be taken (or has been taken) in respect of Major De Biastre’s wilful disobedience of a lawful order from a superior officer.
AFAIK wilful disobedience may be defended if the order is not lawful, but it may not be defended if the junior merely dislikes or resents the command. Perhaps somebody who knows QR or the US equivalent can enlighten us.
According to today’s Sunday Times, De Biastre already received punishment for defying orders - a dressing-down from Collins, for which he made De Biastre wait 45 minutes. According to another (named) US officer, it was after this that De Biastre lodged his complaint, “out of spite”.
According to the Telegraph today, Collins has been totally vindicated. It trnspires that his accuser never saw any of the alleged incidents and his main source was a Baathist informer.
I hope that De Biastre is subject to discipline himself.
Update. He was cleared
Honestly, if the WORST accusation was hitting someone… I mean, you have to pick your battles. If you want to uphold the Genevan Convention, I’d rather go after the alleged war criminals who might have actually killed someone. There’s so many of them in Bosnia (and parts abroad where they fled to after the war) I don’t think the country has enough rope to hang them all.
Sounds like De Biastre is being a prick of the highest order. Assuming this was just a vindictive bout, I certainly hope this reflects on De Biastre at his next review, if not sooner. Certainly, this was ‘conduct unbecoming…’. IMO.
My original understanding of this was as per that Ananova link posted by jhonhcole; a small group of US part-time soldiers were attached to the Irish for recon, Colonel roasted them regularly for not being up to the mark (as is his style), someone in the US detachment decided to get revenge after the war by smearing Colonel with no-smoke-without-fire accusations – at least that’s the story that came out the backdoor of the MOD at the time all this blew up.
For a reason I’m not sure of, a reported on the Evening Standard was good for sources on this one (thislondon.co.uk, I belive).
I know he wasn’t popular with his fellow Officers in other Regiments because of the eve-of-battle speech, but I understand it wasn’t any of them who fingered him.
Anyway, whoever did the smearing presumably think they got the job intended.