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Labour plan to set up ‘Service Schools’ staffed by soldiers

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A new generation of “Service Schools” staffed entirely by former members of the Armed Forces could be set up across Britain under Labour plans to raise education standards, it has emerged.

A Labour policy paper suggests establishing the schools in every English region – and winning support for the plan from devolved governments – as part of a move to improve standards of discipline and promote a culture of hard work among pupils.

The proposal forms part of a radical plan designed to harness the “ethos and standards of our Armed Forces” in the state education system.

The Party is also proposing a huge expansion of Combined Cadet Forces (CCF) in schools and setting up a specialist “mentoring” scheme in which ex-servicemen are drafted into the classroom to act as role models to difficult pupils.

In a document, Labour said this was “currently a feature of many private schools” and could be put to real benefit in the state system.

The move is likely to be opposed by teaching unions who have criticised previous attempts to create closer links between schools and the military.

… Read more

Judge rejects bid to stop Olympic rooftop missiles

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The clear implication of today’s judgment was that “the MoD now has power to militarise the private homes of any person” even when there was no war on, or state of emergency declared.

Alarmed residents have lost their High Court battle to prevent surface-to-air missiles being stationed on the roof of a 17-storey residential tower block during the Olympics.

A judge ruled today residents at the Fred Wigg Tower in Leytonstone, east London, did not have an arguable case.

The tenants fear the missile base above their heads could make them the focus for a terrorist attack.

The Ministry of Defence (MoD), security service and police say there is “no credible threat” and the siting of the missiles is both “legitimate and proportionate”.

The block is one of six sites in the capital where missiles, including rapier and high-velocity systems, will be deployed to protect Games venues.

The Fred Wigg residents applied for permission to seek judicial review, protesting there has been a “disproportionate interference” with their human rights, and they were not consulted fairly and properly over the siting of the ground-based air defence system.

Their lawyers argued during a one-day hearing yesterday that those who wanted to move out should at least be relocated in hotels by the MoD for the duration of the Games, or a gantry should be erected away from the block to take the missile system.

… Read more

Open letter to the London Olympic Organising Committee expressing concern at involvement of Armed Forces in the Games.

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Peace, the root value of the Olympic Games

We ( Pax Christi and Westminster J&P Commission) are among the founding members of ‘The 100 Days of Peace’ (the Olympic Sacred Truce). This is an initiative of a network of Christian groups who believe that London’s hosting of the Olympic Games provides an excellent opportunity to promote and reassert, in London and beyond, our commitment to peace and reconciliation, unity, internationalism and cooperation. We believe we can build a real legacy of peace for our own London citizens – in schools, places of worship and community networks that will embrace the needs of the global community and extend far beyond the Olympic Games themselves.

This initiative is inspired by the Olympic Truce tradition and vision. Indeed, Lord Coe, the chairman of London 2012 Organising Committee (LOCOG) and representing the British Government, presented a resolution at the UN last October calling for a truce to be observed in all the world’s conflicts throughout the duration of the Olympic and Paralympic Games. 

Sport helps to mend broken communities
Some visitors to London this summer will be from countries in conflict, perhaps even facing internal repression. All the more important then that the message of peace and the creation of a community of ordinary people who can live, work and solve problems together should be central to this uniting of nations under the Olympic ideals.… Read more

Oldham school planned with all ex-forces staff

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The first UK school whose teachers have all served in the armed forces is actively recruiting prospective pupils with a view to opening in 2013.

Captain AK Burki is handing out leaflets in a busy Oldham shopping centre for the school he hopes one day to run as head teacher.

“All the teaching staff will be composed of ex-servicemen and women,” he tells passing shoppers.

“They will be able to bring a breadth of experience that only those in the armed forces can,” he explains to a mother, who is concerned about her daughter’s education.

It is a world away from the front line in Afghanistan, where Captain Burki completed a tour of duty in 2010.

“The elements of the armed forces we really want to instil in the pupils are the core values of the Army,” says Capt Burki. “Courage, discipline, respect for others, integrity, loyalty and selfless commitment.”… Read more

Brown backs army cadet corps plan for schools

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Controversial plans for pupils in comprehensive schools to sign up for military drills and weapons training are being backed by Gordon Brown in an attempt to improve the relationship between the public and the armed forces.

A major review of the military’s role in British society says that encouraging more state secondary school pupils to join the cadet corps would improve discipline among teenagers while helping to improve the public perception of the army, navy and air force.

However, anti-gun campaigners say that teaching teenagers to shoot would exacerbate the growing problem of gun crime among youngsters.

The government-commissioned review of civil and military relations, led by Quentin Davies, the Labour MP, was ‘alarmed’ at the number of schoolchildren who had no idea of military life. Davies wants secondary school pupils to receive basic military training as a means of developing greater affiliation with the armed forces.… Read more

Gove backs cadet forces in schools

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Military-style cadet forces could be introduced to all secondary schools in a Government bid to boost standards and discipline.

Education Secretary Michael Gove told the Sunday Express he had met a cadet at the Royal Military Academy, Sandhurst, and learned of the advantages the groups can bring.

Following the conversation, Mr Gove has told Children’s Minister Sarah Teather to work with Defence Minister Nick Harvey on the project.

Schools Commissioner Dr Elizabeth Sidwell also backed the idea of the Combined Cadet Force (CCF) in an interview with The Sunday Telegraph.

Mr Gove told the Sunday Express: “I met this amazing guy, a 17-year-old an Afro-Caribbean lad, who joined the cadet force and told me how it had transformed his life.

“He was the perfect advertisement for what it can do.

“I’ve tasked the Children’s Minister to work with Nick Harvey at the Ministry of Defence to bring this to all schools and they are very keen to roll it out.”

The CCF includes wings linked to the army, Royal Air Force and navy and is made up of youngsters aged 13 to 18.

It uses military orientated training to build self-reliance, resourcefulness, endurance and a sense of service to the community.… Read more

Not just waving poppies, but drowning thought

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“There may well be a boom in poppy sales, but the act of Remembrance itself has been cheapened by a failure to back up words with action, particularly when it comes to successive governments’ care for victims of war, but equally in terms of the appalling the lack of resources put into peacebuilding.”

Simon Barrow

When politicians rush to claim that something is ‘non-political’ (as has been happening around Remembrance Day over the past week or so), you know that some healthy suspicion and careful examination is due.

The unfortunate reality is that, at present, the national ceremonies in the UK that (rightly) show respect to those who have died in war are also drenched in militaristic assumptions and symbols – ones which it is hard to say have no political content or bias.

The Prime Minister has also recently stressed the association of red poppy wearing with tub-thumping “national pride”, as my colleague Jonathan Bartley pointed out in an interesting exchange about ‘the politics of poppies’ on BBC2’s Newnight (11/11/11 – see iPlayer) with Gordon Corrigan, author of Mud, Blood and Poppycock: Britain and the Great War (Cassell Military Paperbacks), a revisionary account of the First World War.

Questions about the rightness or wrongness of armed conflict, concerns about particular wars (like the recent ones prosecuted in the Middle East); attempts to highlight alternatives forms of conflict resolution; the need to remember enemies, civilians and objectors, as well as soldiers… these and many other serious issues are all-too-easily swept away as the media and politicians encourage a frenzy of ‘patriotic’ poppy waving, while objecting to any attempt to consider or reflect on different perspectives.… Read more

The red poppy: a compromised symbol?

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“The growing compulsion to wear a red poppy and to acquiesce in the remodelling of its purpose has diverted our attention from the more enduring and demanding aspects of remembering the destruction, personal, collective and environmental, which is the outcome of military action.”

Jill Segger

To be a child in the 50s and 60s was to be familiar with the sight of men, still young, who had been lamed or disfigured by war. Many more – my father among them – carried wounds in their psyches which were impediments to their becoming the husbands and fathers they would have wished to be.

My father frequently said “ war makes men mad” and from both him and my grandfather, who had, at least physically, survived the Somme, I absorbed the concept that those who had not “been there” could easily be led into falsity when speaking or writing of war and remembrance.

Combined with a religious and cultural unease over ‘outward forms’, this has given me a lifelong disquiet about Remembrance Day, and, in recent years, of its red poppy symbol. Even in childhood, I shrank from the marches, flag-bearing and official solemnity. I have never doubted the need to ‘remember’ but I am grateful to have been taught by the then unfashionable and unpopular witness of my parents that it was our calling to remember the dead of both sides and all the victims of war who never wore uniforms or bore arms.

… Read more

Army to increase security at London 2012 Olympics

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Up to 6,000 troops could be drafted in as security guards at the 2012 Olympics in London, as officials reassess the manpower needed to cover next year’s Games, it has emerged.

It is believed the soldiers would work alongside private security guards at the Olympic Park in Stratford and venues across London.

The move brings to the forefront the security risks surrounding the Games, as London’s organising committee (Locog) increases the number of security staff needed from 15,000 to 20,000, the Financial Times reports (£).

Locog has already contracted G4S, the private security company that polices high-profile events including Wimbledon, to provide 10,000 guards for next summer’s events.

But officials involved in planning for the London 2012 Olympics have told the FT that “advanced talks” are in progress with the Ministry of Defence over bringing in the Army for extra support.

The MoD previously dismissed the idea that troops would be provided for the London Olympics, saying it was a “big ask” at a time when defence resources were stretched by overseas missions.

… Read more

How soldiers deal with the job of killing

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“We talk about destroying, engaging, dropping, bagging – you don’t hear the word killing”. This article explores the effect of killing on people in the military, how many are unable to kill and others live with the effects of having killed for the rest of their lives. Also see The Kill Factor radio broadcasts.

When soldiers kills someone at close quarters, how does it affect them? This most challenging and traumatic part of a soldier’s job is often wholly overlooked.

Soldiers kill. It goes with the job, and they do it on our behalf.

But it’s an aspect of their work which is widely ignored – even by the soldiers themselves – and this can cause them great psychological difficulty, experts say.

“A central part of what we do with our careers is we kill the enemies of our country,” said Lt Col Pete Kilner, a serving officer in the US Army who has done tours in Iraq and Afghanistan.

“So it’s very important that we understand why, and under what conditions it’s the morally right thing to do to kill another human being.”

Lt Col Kilner also lectures at the West Point Military Academy. He calls himself a “soldier ethicist” and has talked with countless fellow soldiers about their experience of “intimate killing” – taking the life of someone up close, who they can see.… Read more