This may be true or it may simply be a made-up piece of pro-Corbyn propaganda but it is most unusual in my experience to find someone who has been subjected to the British military's brainwashing programme to give his backing to the Labour Party.
This writer on mainstream social media seems to feel quite strongly after his experiences in various theatres that Corbyn has it right with his policies and would prove to be a good PM.
Here is what he has to say:
From Rowan McCallum, an ex soldier supporting Jeremy Corbyn and Labour, who believes the country is safer with Jeremy as the PM...........
"I will be voting Labour on 8th June.
As a veteran of Her Majesty’s Armed Forces for seven years, I served in Iraq, Northern Ireland and Gibraltar and remotely worked on Kosovo, Sierra Leone and Afghanistan. So, my backing Corbyn may be a surprise to many people.
Please allow me to explain why, as a soldier and an intelligence analyst, I believe Jeremy Corbyn isn’t a threat to national security, but a massive asset as compared to PMs May and Cameron.
Firstly, let me emphasise I have not always supported Labour. I have failed to be inspired by any party leader since John Smith. One of my final acts before deploying to Iraq was to post my party membership card back to PM Blair, explaining why: whether or not there were weapons of mass destruction to be found, there was no long-term plan that would invoke any kind of stability in the country, we were expected to “improvise, adapt and overcome” while the people became more and more angry that there was no delivery on the promises made by our politicians and fundamentalist clerics came over the border from Iran to take advantage of the power vacuum and disenchantment. Incidentally, May also voted in favour of "liberating" (invading) Iraq.
As many in the intelligence community predicted, this situation created the environment for ISIS to replace Al Qaeda as the main Islamic Terrorist threat. After all, we had just cut the head off the Al Qaeda snake; it was searching for another one and we gave it ideal conditions to thrive.
Since then, our Tory government has treated most refugees as sub-human, assaulting them with apparently no recourse, building more fences, arrest and detention without trial, skewed interpretation of reports as to the safety of their homelands, deportation of some to face certain death, destruction - even criminalization - of basic life support services for refugees in northern France denying them food , shelter, medical care, community and reneging on agreements like the Dubbs amendment.
The Conservatives' chronic lack of compassion, understanding or caring about the lives of people from the Middle East and other places has only served to produce more terrorists; while at home cuts to public service budgets, benefits and the health service have resulted in the deaths of several people and many more lives have been put at risk without reducing the overall budget deficit at all. They have also slashed Arts funding to the extent it barely exists, even the great British Bulldog Churchill refused to cut arts funding in favour of the 2nd World War effort. His response? “But then what would we be fighting for?”
Jeremy Corbyn has been smeared spectacularly since becoming leader of the Labour party, being called a Marxist for advocating policies that would have been normal only a few years ago, and are still considered quite centrist in most other European countries. Even the Independent described his manifesto as radical, but that is more a barometer of the right leaning nature of our press than it is of his policies. Blamed for crushing a cameraman’s foot when it was a police officer at the wheel and clearly the cameraman’s fault. Reports of his having been arrested for supporting the IRA are false. He wanted peace and advocated talking instead of shooting or internment without trial, yes he talked to terrorists, so did Major and Blair. He was arrested for obstruction while peacefully protesting the legal process as it was being applied. He wasn’t even charged with anything, let alone found guilty, and I believe we’re still innocent until proven guilty in this country.
It is actually Corbyn’s activist past that gives me faith in him. Far from being a dangerous wafty hippie, his policies are plausible, sound and well thought out. It’s the man’s ability to stand up for what he believes is right, and his ability to survive snipers from both within and without his own party that makes me believe he has both the courage and conviction to be a great leader.
If you think otherwise it is because he has been relentlessly slandered by the media,corporations and his colleagues, who are actually terrified of his ability to lead and to change things for the better for us and the worse for them. He’s even been criticised for saying that he would be cautious about using the nuclear deterrent. Thinking twice before going ahead and vaporising a few thousand civilians? That’s a mark in his favour if you ask me."
Tom
