Category Archives: Society

Government, Policing, Scotland, Society

View of policing is ‘old-fashioned’

POLICE SCOTLAND

A POLICE watchdog has said the idea that policing is solely about law enforcement is “old-fashioned”.

HM Chief Inspector of Constabulary in Scotland Gill Imery said maintaining the view that the job of police officers was confined to catching criminals was a “stunted” belief.

She has spoken out amid concern over the expanding range of duties officers have beyond enforcing the law, such as administering naloxone to save overdosing drug addicts.

However, the comments come following an explosion in rape cases and an increase in violent offending, with prosecutors admitting there is “absolutely no sign” of a sustained fall in serious crime.

Speaking at a recent meeting of the Scottish Police Authority (SPA), Mrs Imery said: “It’s an old-fashioned and a stunted view of policing to think that it is limited to law enforcement.

“Police Scotland have done a huge amount to demonstrate a much wider responsibility of policing – a much wider desire to impact in a positive way on people’s life chances and life choices.”

Backing the use of naloxone by officers to treat overdosing addicts, Mrs Imery said: “I think it is hugely positive on the part of Police Scotland to take that step to prevent harm and ultimately loss of life, which I think is absolutely integral to the purpose of police constables.”

In July it emerged that police administered an anti-overdose treatment to one person a week on average during the first three months of carrying the therapy. Officers in Falkirk, Dundee and Glasgow East had been equipped with naloxone since March 1 as part of a six-month pilot project.

The move came amid a rise in drug deaths to record levels, with Scotland having the worst drug-related facilities in the EU.

Police Scotland said earlier this year that drug related crime is to be considered a public health problem as the force vowed to “drive national improvements in health and wellbeing”.

It announced a partnership with government health quango Public Health Scotland (PHS) in a bid to prevent offending by working with the NHS and others to tackle poor health, “health inequality” and other issues.

Police in Scotland are also keen to adopt a “trauma-informed” approach – taking into account the welfare of suspects and criminals.

Some police officers have criticised this approach, with one officer saying the “hypothesis that reducing trauma prevents crime isn’t backed up by credible evidence” – and condemned the strategy as “motherhood and apple pie”.

Last month, figures showed the number of rapes reported to police had risen by nearly 35 per cent in a year, as sex crime soared to the highest level for six years.

Violent offending overall shot up by nearly 13 per cent in the past year, according to Police Scotland.

Prosecutors have admitted there is “absolutely no sign” of a sustained fall in serious crime. The Scottish Government claims Scotland is becoming safer.

David Hamilton, chairman of the Scottish Police Federation, representing rank and file officers, said: “I don’t think anyone disagrees with Gill Imery that policing is and should be about more than just law enforcement, but it remains our primary function.

“As the service of last resort, we are increasingly having to pick up where others have failed, and the danger is that we commit or overstretch ourselves filling those gaps.

“Officers are concerned that we are already having to fulfil additional roles such as educators, paramedics, social workers and mental health nurses.”

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. Half of police officers in Scotland want to be issued with a firearm whilst on duty

MORE than half of Scotland’s police officers want to be issued with a handgun as part of their safety equipment, a survey has indicated.

In the past three months, 22 per cent of officers have been the victim of assault while on duty, prompting calls for extra measures to ensure their protection.

A survey carried out by the Scottish Police Federation has found that 53 per cent of Police Scotland rank and file would like access to a handgun.

A further 7 per cent of officers said they would like to be trained to use the weapon in case it was necessary.

Of the nearly 1,700 questioned, 47 per cent said they did not want to carry handguns and 37 per cent indicated they would not like to be trained in their use.

However, 84 per cent said they would be happy to carry Tasers.

Scottish Police Federation chairman David Hamilton said: “This demonstrates not just the frequency of attacks but the gravity of them, too.

“Officers consider knives to be the greatest risk to them and firearms are the appropriate last defence to being attacked by such lethal weapons.”

A spokesperson for Gun Control Network said that unless there was a change in (policing) culture society would become too much like America where guns are drawn for any reason – and that is not the way policing has been conducted in the UK. Insisting that it certainly wouldn’t protect the public any more, the Network says that the implications are much wider than what it means to an individual officer on duty.

In 2018, the Police Investigations and Review Commissioner (Pirc) condemned an action by Police Scotland which saw officers point guns at 11 people during an “unwarranted” operation.

The force later apologised to eight people – including two women who were strip-searched. In 2016, shoppers in Dingwall, Ross-shire, spoke of their shock when they saw four officers armed with handguns sitting down to breakfast in a café.

The force’s Assistant Chief Constable Mark Williams said: “There are no plans to move away from being an unarmed service which has an armed capability.

“Being assaulted should never be part of the job and tackling the concerning trend of increasing assaults on officers and staff is a priority. The Chief Constable has underlined his commitment to achieving this goal by providing people with the tools they need to do their jobs.

“Recently, we have improved our infrastructure to support an enhanced roll-out of Taser and work is under way to uplift the number of Taser-trained officers by 1,500 over the next three years.”

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Afghanistan, Britain, Government, Politics, Society, United States

We must do deals with the Taliban

AFGHANISTAN

THE retreat from Afghanistan is over, the humiliation complete. The question facing Western leaders now is something that would have been inconceivable just a few months ago: Can we do deals with the Taliban?

Many will still find it unimaginable that the West could even consider negotiating with the heirs of the barbarians who facilitated the 9/11 atrocity.

Because of the Taliban’s record of supporting al-Qaeda’s terrorism in the past – and, in the last few days, their brutal repression out of sight of the Western media – it seems utterly immoral to have anything to do with the new government in Afghanistan.

Yet, unpopular though it may be in the traumatic aftermath of the West’s debacle, we must try to rescue what we can from the disaster.

We have to negotiate with them to try to save the lives of those poor souls we left behind, as well as doing all we can to prevent the country from again becoming a haven and training ground for terrorists’ intent on attacking the West. Of course, after our humiliating retreat, our leverage is very weak. Threats of sanctions and other financial strangleholds could simply encourage the Taliban to deal with the Chinese and Russians who would happily take advantage of any new influence they could secure. And the fact is the Taliban might not want to deal with us at all.

Yet there are incentives for the new regime in Kabul to be less brutally blinkered in its approach to dealing with the West than its predecessors 20 years ago.

One of the things that led to a flow of popular support from the corrupt former government to the Taliban was the economic plight of so many Afghans.

Drought has left millions dependent on international food aid. Keeping that aid flowing from the West and the prospect of getting Afghanistan’s money held in foreign banks gives the Taliban an incentive to restrain hardliners wanting to confront the world.

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WE also have an enemy in common. The Taliban loathe the even more hard-line Islamic State – or Isis-K – group. Taliban fighters executed the local Isis-K leader when they captured him in Bagram prison, and they are only too aware that the attack on Kabul airport was aimed at destabilising the Taliban as well as murdering the US soldiers and departing Afghans there. Certainly, there are hideous dogmas shared by both the Taliban and Isis-K, but the new Taliban leaders seem anxious to avoid the mistakes of their predecessors in 2001. Whereas Isis-K wants to re-use Afghanistan as a base to attack the West, the Taliban want to avoid provoking another Western intervention.

The Taliban are well aware of what has changed since 2001. More than half the population has been born since then. The younger generation grew up loathing the corrupt Ghani regime and did not want to fight for it. These young people have also been socialised by mobile phones and social media rather than in rigid Islamic madrassas.

Keeping hordes of discontented, jobless young people from becoming a problem is a priority. Letting some of these unhappy people emigrate is one way to keep a lid on things while appeasing Western concerns.

Kabul is already mindful of a massive refugee crisis on its borders, particularly with Pakistan – a country that helped foster the Taliban – which has said that the West must engage with the new Afghan government to ensure it “remains moderate.”

The fact is that the West must engage. We should make best use of the few carrots we have – like aid money and diplomatic recognition – to reduce the terrorist threat.

Since our diplomats have long dealt with fundamentalist regimes like Saudi Arabia, the Foreign Office should be able to adapt to the Taliban’s new norms. It is depressing to admit defeat but swallowing our pride could still rescue something from the horror.

. Appendage

– A Boeing C-17A Globemaster III left Kabul (KBL) for the final time on Monday for Qatar. Shortly after taking off, an orbiting KC-135R tanker refuelled the aircraft.
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Afghanistan, Britain, Society, United States

Taliban’s £62bn haul of US military equipment

AFGHANISTAN

THE Taliban have seized American military equipment worth an astonishing £62 billion, a US politician has revealed.

Jim Banks, a Republican member of the House of Representatives, said the “negligence” of Joe Biden’s administration had allowed the militants to acquire an astonishing cache of weaponry.

Mr Banks said the Taliban may have taken 75,000 vehicles, 600,000 guns and more than 200 planes and helicopters.

In an emotive speech on the steps of the US Capitol building, he revealed the militants now had more Black Hawk helicopters than “85 per cent of the countries in the world.”

Astonishingly, the Taliban also have access to biometric devices, which have the fingerprints, eye scans and biographical information of the Afghans who have helped the Allied forces since 2001.

All the military hardware was donated to the Afghan army by the US over the past 20 years to help fight the insurgents. But the speed of the US withdrawal has meant much of it was abandoned by Afghan soldiers.

Mr Banks, who served in Afghanistan as an officer in charge of supplying weapons, revealed the militants also had US-issue body armour, night-vision goggles and medical supplies. He said: “Due to the negligence of this administration, the Taliban now has access to $85 billion (£62 billion) worth of American military equipment. Unbelievably, and unfathomable to me and so many others, the Taliban now has access to biometric devices.

“This administration still has no plan to get this military equipment or supplies back.”

US National Security Adviser Jake Sullivan admitted he did not have a “complete picture” of how much of the missing inventory could now be in the hands of the enemy.

“We don’t have a complete picture, obviously, of where every article of defence material has gone, but certainly a fair amount of it has fallen into the hands of the Taliban,” he said.

Attempts were made by Allied forces to destroy some of the bigger weapons.

One US official said: “Everything that hasn’t been destroyed is the Taliban’s now.”

Current and former US military chiefs say there is concern that those weapons could be used to kill civilians or be seized by other groups such as the Islamic State. There are also fears they could be sold to China and Russia.

Michael McCaul, who sits on the US foreign affairs committee, said: “We have already seen Taliban fighters armed with US-made weapons they seized from the Afghan forces.

“This poses a significant threat to the United States and our allies.”

Video footage has emerged within the last few days of militants with a £4.4 million Black Hawk helicopter at an airport near Kandahar.

The chopper taxied on the tarmac but the pilot was unable to get it into the air.

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WHEN British soldiers deployed to Helmand 15 years ago their Taliban counterparts were shabbily dressed in tattered traditional outfits and armed with decades-old Russian rifles and grenade launchers.

While they possessed guile in spades and knew every inch of the jungle-like “Green Zone” where battles were fought, they were poorly equipped and poorly trained.

Now, following the withdrawal of international forces, the Taliban has been bequeathed a £62 billion bounty of military equipment, including hundreds of fixed-wing aircraft and tactical helicopters, tens of thousands of armoured vehicles and hundreds of thousands of weapons. The transformation in the group’s appearance and capability could scarcely be more vivid or disturbing.

Sandals and shalwar kameez have been replaced by combat boots and tailored camouflage uniforms.

Ancient AK47s are nowhere to be seen. Instead, today’s Taliban carry US Green Beret-issue M4 carbines with telescoping sights. The Taliban of 15 years ago were seldom if ever seen wearing helmets. But today their headwear is more expensive and more advanced than that worn by British troops.

The group appears to have helped themselves to the state-of-the-art MBITR-2 (Multi-band Intrateam Radios) favoured by US Green Berets but denied to most conventional UK personnel. They were issued to Afghan government forces.

What’s more, their weapons appear immaculately clean and well maintained, their uniforms looked washed and ironed and they carry their weapons as British soldiers are taught to carry theirs.

The UK and the US have picked up the tab not only for the eye-wateringly expensive hardware, but also the training budget – as the Taliban’s ranks have been swollen by defectors from the Afghan National Security Forces.

The irony is that the Taliban’s newfound arsenal was supposed to prevent Afghanistan falling into Taliban hands.

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