Is working for the Armed Forces really indistinguishable from working in a supermarket?

The Supreme Court has set a dangerous precedent. The deployment of troops into Afghanistan was purely voluntary, the first Gulf war however presented necessitous circumstances, to stop and repulse a naked aggression. Is the Supreme Court seriously suggesting that we should have waited five years to develop the necessary equipment, during which the opposition would have been developing their own countermeasures?

War, by definition is uncertain and therefore regularly fought imperfect equipment. Such rulings put a core area of sovereignty at risk, however given the way politicians have usurped their power in such matters over the last decade this ruling was inevitable. If we are to ask people to put their lives on the line we at least should ensure to a reasonable level that they can defend and care for themselves whilst they are doing it.

Following from this judgement perhaps now, the police should be permanently armed.

Once again our unelected judges show themselves to be a joke. In any event if anyone should be sued over deploying troops with defective equipment it should be War Criminal Tony Blair? Right?

Is force feeding always illegal ?

We have a short Note on this issue in the new edition of International Criminal Law casebook by Paust, Bassiouni.

There should at least be provision of medical treatment for detainees who make the choice to die so that their death does not involve needless suffering.

If the US chooses to intervene in such a decision, the US should not engage in torture or cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment because such are absolutely unlawful under the laws of war, human rights law, and the CAT. But the critical criterion with respect to “torture” seems to be the non-self-applicative word “severe.” It appears that one criterion accepted by international tribunals regarding cruel or inhuman treatment is the non-self-applicative word “serious.” Of course, one wants to look at the trends in decision for guidance with respect to particular tactics or treatment.

If they want to starve themselves to death, they should be allowed to do so. Is this not a Human Right that should never be abridged ? As the anti-gun and "pro-life crowds make clear, government is supposed to force people that don't want to live to do so and it is supposed to deny them the means of killing themselves. So, the one thing these guys can do is refuse to eat. And what is the response? To torture them with forced eeding via nasal tube. Water boarding would have probably been less traumatic.

Margaret Thatcher

Thatcher was that rare politician whose persona and influence crossed national borders. Such as her belief in "ordered liberty" was a root principle argued in the Cold War conflict, and her faith in the "vigorous virtues" provided the most fitting materiel to prosecute that clash.

I seem to remember a left wing 'oh so clever' poster, based on Gone with the Wind, which denigrated Reagan and Thatcher for standing up to the USSR over missile bases and disarmament. Clever but typically wrong headed. Instead of instigating WW3 we won the cold war, broke down the Berlin Wall, the iron curtain, destroyed communism and liberated the whole of eastern Europe, and various Soviet republics, all without firing a shot.

She did this with the support of the Conservative party and opposed by the socialists and the wet liberals.
And to think there are some who say her funeral is not worth the money.

Whatever the domestic squabbles, there are many millions of people who appreciate her role in their current liberty. Almost a decade ago at another funeral, across the Atlantic, she spoke appreciatively of "the great liberator" being mourned, who'd helped bring on those peoples' liberty. Today, one can eulogize Thatcher with those same words.