QUOTE OF THE MONTH

‘The blame for Colonel Mendoca’s ordeal can be laid squarely at the door of the politicians who dreamt up the Army’s ill-fated venture in Iraq and that of the desk-bound generals heady on the scent of political power who do the Government’s bidding, even though many of them have been nowhere near a battlefield.

These people, ensconced in their ivory towers, in the thrall to the opinion polls and the media, are happily prepared to sacrifice an officer when it’s needed.

In the 17th Century the French writer Francois La Rochefoucauld noted: "The love of justice is simply, in the majority of men, the fear of suffering injustice." Well it strikes me there is little justice and certainly no shame either in Whitehall or Westminster where the desk jockey generals and the ministers will throw another officer on the fire if it helps divert public attention from their own manifest failings.’

Colonel Tim Collins, writing in the Daily Mail.

[Colonel Mendoca has just been acquitted of some trumped up war crimes charges at a court martial.]