Prince Harry

[bluescreen]

Wtf? So they can lookup "dog bowl" or "frozen penis"?

No, so they can look up other people or even themselves.

 

[killer b]

Looks like they forgot to use a sock account when reviewing the book and used their verified Amazon account instead:

I don't think verified accounts exist like that on Amazon, and you've been suckered.

 

[bluescreen]

I don't think verified accounts exist like that on Amazon, and you've been suckered.

They do seem to exist, but whether that's one is another matter.

Amazon.com Associates Central - Resource Center - Amazon Influencers: Introducing Verified Profile

A Verified Profile helps boost your authority and reputation, as well as offers a hands-off way of keeping your community updated on your Amazon activity.

affiliate-program.amazon.com

 

[Monkeygrinder's Organ]

They do seem to exist, but whether that's one is another matter.

Amazon.com Associates Central - Resource Center - Amazon Influencers: Introducing Verified Profile

A Verified Profile helps boost your authority and reputation, as well as offers a hands-off way of keeping your community updated on your Amazon activity.

affiliate-program.amazon.com

Looks like you can self verify as an 'influencer'. It's obviously not them is it, I don't really see either of them posting glowing reviews of TP-Link network extenders tbh.

 

[killer b]

Looks like you can self verify as an 'influencer'. It's obviously not them is it, I don't really see either of them posting glowing reviews of TP-Link network extenders tbh.

or their outrage at receiving a poor quality phone case.

 

[ska invita]

or their outrage at receiving a poor quality phone case.

TBF it does sound like him

 

[platinumsage]

Well, it was a nice thought.

 

[friedaweed]

they were going to do that whatever he wrote tbf

Yep you're right but providing them with the headlines of his kill streak wasn't a well thought out manoeuvre. He could easily of said the same thing without putting a number to it.

 

[ska invita]

its interesting how we as a country can talk about the invasion of afghanistan as Oh something that happened, and the bad bit was that one of our aristocrats said how many people he killed whilst taking part and NOT think this whole thing was an illegal NATO war crime. makes watching all the delusional russian state tv about their latest illegal war make a lot more sense

 

[killer b]

Yep you're right but providing them with the headlines of his kill streak wasn't a well thought out manoeuvre. He could easily of said the same thing without putting a number to it.

No one but military fetish weirdos and raging gammons really care tho, so why would he bother going through with a fine tooth comb to take out any item the british press could misrepresent - if they weren't misrepresenting this, it'd just be something else.

 

[andysays]

Here is the full context from the actual book. It does not present as "boasting" to me.

The full 987-word extract is published below:​

We kept following the two motorbikes through several villages, while griping about the bureaucracy of war, the reluctance of higher-ups to let us do what we'd been trained to do. Maybe, in our griping, we were no different from soldiers in every war. We wanted to fight: we didn't understand larger issues, underlying geopolitics. Big picture. Some commanders often said, publicly and privately, that they feared every Taliban killed would create three more, so they were extra cautious. At times we felt the commanders were right: we were creating more Taliban. But there had to be a better answer than floating nearby while innocents got slaughtered.

Five minutes became ten became twenty.

We never did get permission.

Every kill was on video.

The Apache saw all. The camera in its nose recorded all. So, after every mission, there would be a careful review of that video.

Returning to Bastion, we'd walk into the gun tape room, slide the video into a machine, which would project the kill onto wall-mounted plasma TVs.

Our squadron commander would press his face against the screens, examining, murmuring- wrinkling his nose. He wasn't merely looking for errors, this chap, he was hungry for them. He wanted to catch us in a mistake.

We called him awful names when he wasn't around. We came close to calling him those names to his face. Look, whose side are you on?

But that was what he wanted. He was trying to provoke us, to get us to say the unspeakable.

Why?

Jealousy, we decided.


It ate him up inside that he'd never pulled a trigger in battle. He'd never attacked the enemy.

So he attacked us.

Despite his best efforts, he never found anything irregular in any of our kills. I was part of six missions that ended in the taking of human life, and they were all deemed justified by a man who wanted to crucify us. I deemed them the same.

What made the squadron commander's attitude so execrable was this: He was exploiting a real and legitimate fear. A fear we all shared. Afghanistan was a war of mistakes, a war of enormous collateral damage - thousands of innocents killed and maimed, and that always haunted us. So my goal from the day I arrived was never to go to bed doubting that I'd done the right thing, that my targets had been correct, that I was firing on Taliban and only Taliban, no civilians nearby. I wanted to return to Britain with all my limbs, but more, I wanted to go home with my conscience intact. Which meant being aware of what I was doing, and why I was doing it, at all times.

Most soldiers can't tell you precisely how much death is on their ledger. In battle conditions, there's often a great deal of indiscriminate firing. But in the age of Apaches and laptops, everything I did in the course of two combat tours was recorded, time-stamped. I could always say precisely how many enemy combatants I'd killed. And I felt it vital never to shy away from that number.

Among the many things I learned in the Army, accountability was near the top of the list.

So, my number: Twenty-five. It wasn't a number that gave me any satisfaction. But neither was it a number that made me feel ashamed. Naturallv, I'd have preferred not to have that number on my military CV, on my mind, but by the same token I'd have preferred to live in a world in which there was no Taliban, a world without war. Even for an occasional practitioner of magical thinking like me, however, some realities just can't be changed.

While in the heat and fog of combat, I didn't think of those twenty-five as people. You can't kill people if you think of them as people. You can't really harm people if you think of them as people. They were chess pieces removed from the board, Bads taken away before they could kill Goods. I'd been trained to "other-ize" them, trained well. On some level I recognized this learned detachment as problematic. But I also saw it as an unavoidable part of soldiering.

Another reality that couldn't be changed.

Not to say that I was some kind of automaton. I never forgot being in that TV room at Eton, the one with the blue doors, watching the Twin Towers melt as people leaped from the roofs and high windows. I never forgot the parents and spouses and children I met in New York, clutching photos of the moms and dads who'd been crushed or vaporized or burned alive. September 11 was vile, indelible, and all those responsible, along with their sympathizers and enablers, their allies and successors, were not just our enemies, but enemies of humanity. Fighting them meant avenging one of the most heinous crimes in world history, and preventing it from happening again.

As my tour neared its end, around Christmas 2012, I had questions and qualms about the war, but none of these was moral. I still believed in the Mis-sion, and the only shots I thought twice about were the ones I hadn't taken.

For instance, the night we were called in to help some Gurkhas. They were pinned down by a nest of Taliban fighters, and when we arrived there was a breakdown in communications, so we simply weren't able to help. It haunts me still: hearing my Gurkha brothers calling out on the radio, remembering every Gurkha I'd known and loved, being prevented from doing anything.

As I fastened my bags and said my goodbyes I was honest with myself: I acknowledged plenty of regrets. But they were the healthy kind. I regretted the things I hadn't done, the Brits and Yanks I hadn't been able to help.

I regretted the job not being finished.

Most of all, I regretted that it was time to leave.

So he's saying that he opened fire and killed people without waiting for orders, and slagging off his squadron commander for good measure.

Maybe we should start calling him Dirty Harry.

 

[DotCommunist]

AN Wilson has just compared his book to mein kampf so thats godwins. Public sphere full of asinine wankers

 

[andysays]

I watched all of that Colbert interview. Harry said that it had been 10 years (almost to the day) since he had provided the info on Afghanistan. He also said that the reason he was/is so specific was that he wanted to be open - that many veterans don't feel they can be. He said that he wanted to think that his openness would lead to fewer veteran suicides.

He "wanted to think" it would lead to fewer suicides sounds to me like idle speculation based on very little, unless he's now an expert on treating PTSD.

Regardless of his royal status, the guy is a fucking loose cannon and really needs to shut the fuck up.

 

[andysays]

Or maybe she really was trying to get her members an increase in pies..?

Possible, I suppose

 

[killer b]

He "wanted to think" it would lead to fewer suicides sounds to me like idle speculation based on very little, unless he's now an expert on treating PTSD.

I dunno, he seems to have spent quite a bit of time after leaving the army on work with disabled ex-forces types, I'd imagine he probably has a better idea of that kind of thing than you do.

 

[cesare]

He "wanted to think" it would lead to fewer suicides sounds to me like idle speculation based on very little, unless he's now an expert on treating PTSD.

Regardless of his royal status, the guy is a fucking loose cannon and really needs to shut the fuck up.

I was paraphrasing btw, they're not his exact words.

 

[andysays]

I was paraphrasing btw, they're not his exact words.

Fair enough, but it still sounds like a bit of a stretch to me.

 

[Yuwipi Woman]

It’s the way he holds it using his fingers like a tripod or snooker rest that’s the most interesting thing

Far be it for me to judge anyone else's tastes.

 

[killer b]

Fair enough, but it still sounds like a bit of a stretch to me.

seems a weirdly strong opinion to have about an interview you didn't watch, about a book you haven't read.

 

[Orang Utan]

Many daft pearls are being clutched on this thread.

 

[Kevbad the Bad]

seems a weirdly strong opinion to have about an interview you didn't watch, about a book you haven't read.

Well I agree wholeheartedly with andysays , even though I haven't read his post.

 

[platinumsage]

It’s the way he holds it using his fingers like a tripod or snooker rest that’s the most interesting thing

It’s not a bad technique actually - good control of direction and ability to pinch the flow, whilst having a lower risk of piss fingers than many other methods.

 

[A380]

Many daft pearls are being clutched on this thread.

Feature not a bug.

 

[Aladdin]

So he's saying that he opened fire and killed people without waiting for orders, and slagging off his squadron commander for good measure.

Maybe we should start calling him Dirty Harry.

He didnt say that.

 

[iona]

Can you all stfu about Harry so we can get this thread back to whatever the current / next topic is, please?

 

[A380]

My father, my own, ex Communist Party full timer, life long republican and Morning Star columnist father * has brought a copy. He says he got it on Audible as his free book of the month but still I am shaken to my core.

(*TBF whilst he is normally a sane and rational man, when he watched Paddington he did say he was impressed by how they trained the bears they used...)

 

[moochedit]

My father, my own, ex Communist Party full timer, life long republican and Morning Star columnist father * has brought a copy. He says he got it on Audible as his free book of the month but still I am shaken to my core.

(*TBF whilst he is normally a sane and rational man, when he watched Paddington he did say he was impressed by how they trained the bears they used...)

It may be time to consider a nursing home

 

[Elpenor]

Many daft pearls are being clutched on this thread.

You’ve seen the Prince Willy picture too then

 

[littlebabyjesus]

My father, my own, ex Communist Party full timer, life long republican and Morning Star columnist father * has brought a copy. He says he got it on Audible as his free book of the month but still I am shaken to my core.

(*TBF whilst he is normally a sane and rational man, when he watched Paddington he did say he was impressed by how they trained the bears they used...)

They'll still get royalties for that.

 

[A380]

It may be time to consider a nursing home

Gulag