As we say here, Have a go, ya mug! 
His alleged actions also expose the shallowness of other Western politicians and observers who talk endlessly about the need to launch wars against evil forces overseas — everywhere from Yugoslavia to Iraq to Syria — yet who would never deign to get their manicured hands dirty by actually picking up a gun. Where earlier leftists trekked to Spain to physically fight for their moral beliefs, the greatest exertion that today’s laughably self-defined heirs of Orwell are willing to undergo is to flick through a thesaurus to come up with the juiciest words possible to describe their anger at the various wicked things happening overseas...
Ours is age in which too many people live vicariously through the military interventionism of Western armies. Bereft of the old, clear politics of left and right, lacking any serious moral or political vision, politicians and observers alike prefer to stage fantasy battles between Good and Evil in far-off fields and then watch them on their TV screens in the hope that they will imbue their sad, anchorless, post-ideological existences with some clout and meaning. And the fact that these interventions make things worse, turning tinpot states into post-states in which all manner of odious forces can take root and take power (think Afghanistan, Iraq, Libya)? Don’t mention that. All that matters is that, for a few weeks or so, Westerners who have watched politics and morality at home fall apart can temporarily reconstruct it on the rubble of someone else’s war and hardships.
http://www.spiked-online.com/newsit...ff-to-fight-the-islamic-state-brilliant/16518
More here...the legal juju is interesting.
http://www.abc.net.au/news/2015-01-...-and-what-may-happen-to-matt-gardiner/6051596
Combat engineers are specialists in activities including minefield clearance, field defence systems and water purification among other things.
Mr Gardiner also became an engineer surveyor when deployed by Australia to a conflict in Somalia in 1993.
Engineer surveyors are involved in construction of airfields, bridges, railways and roads, and are trained in infantry fighting.
After leaving the Defence Force, Mr Gardiner studied nursing and after becoming a registered nurse worked in the emergency department and operating theatre of the Royal Darwin Hospital.
His alleged actions also expose the shallowness of other Western politicians and observers who talk endlessly about the need to launch wars against evil forces overseas — everywhere from Yugoslavia to Iraq to Syria — yet who would never deign to get their manicured hands dirty by actually picking up a gun. Where earlier leftists trekked to Spain to physically fight for their moral beliefs, the greatest exertion that today’s laughably self-defined heirs of Orwell are willing to undergo is to flick through a thesaurus to come up with the juiciest words possible to describe their anger at the various wicked things happening overseas...
Ours is age in which too many people live vicariously through the military interventionism of Western armies. Bereft of the old, clear politics of left and right, lacking any serious moral or political vision, politicians and observers alike prefer to stage fantasy battles between Good and Evil in far-off fields and then watch them on their TV screens in the hope that they will imbue their sad, anchorless, post-ideological existences with some clout and meaning. And the fact that these interventions make things worse, turning tinpot states into post-states in which all manner of odious forces can take root and take power (think Afghanistan, Iraq, Libya)? Don’t mention that. All that matters is that, for a few weeks or so, Westerners who have watched politics and morality at home fall apart can temporarily reconstruct it on the rubble of someone else’s war and hardships.
http://www.spiked-online.com/newsit...ff-to-fight-the-islamic-state-brilliant/16518
More here...the legal juju is interesting.
http://www.abc.net.au/news/2015-01-...-and-what-may-happen-to-matt-gardiner/6051596
Combat engineers are specialists in activities including minefield clearance, field defence systems and water purification among other things.
Mr Gardiner also became an engineer surveyor when deployed by Australia to a conflict in Somalia in 1993.
Engineer surveyors are involved in construction of airfields, bridges, railways and roads, and are trained in infantry fighting.
After leaving the Defence Force, Mr Gardiner studied nursing and after becoming a registered nurse worked in the emergency department and operating theatre of the Royal Darwin Hospital.
Maybe - maybe not, there's no confirmation yet of exactly who it is.
