Olympics security is in the hands of good-natured but possibly inept individuals

In my review of the week for LOUDMOUTH, I touched upon the crisis surrounding Olympics security and G4S, the private company contracted to provide 13,700 guards for a fee of £284 million. But one paragraph could not explain how much trouble the Home Office is in over this, resulting in the deployment of 3,500 troops to fill the void left by G4S.

So what is G4S?

They are “the world’s leading provider of security solutions”, running operations in more than 125 countries and employing over 650,000 people. They were contracted by Locog in 2010 to provide 2,000 personnel for the London Games, before their stake was upped to provide another 10,000 guards including unpaid volunteers and students.

How good are they?

According to themselves, they are a “global leader” and they have a presence in worldwide bank security, border patrol and airport security, including Heathrow. But they have met criticism for their managing of major events in the past; BBC’s Newsnight found that an internal investigation was launched after security lapses at last year’s Wimbledon. The Guardian has revealed more recent trouble with G4S, saying how:

“Guards told how, with 14 days to go until the Olympics opening ceremony, they had received no schedules, uniforms or training on x-ray machines. Others said they had been allocated to venues hundreds of miles from where they lived, been sent rotas intended for other employees, and offered shifts after they had failed G4S's own vetting.”

If guards have not received proper training, what are G4S doing about it?

Well, nothing. GHS’ Facebook page for new recruits called “Securing London 2012” has a huge number of people complaining about their lack of training, calling it a “cock up” and a “shambles”. One person, a Sam Aston said:

“I still have no accreditation and no training. Wisely, G4S recognised this and offered me 3 more training days... After my first shifts. Now I'll be working as a team leader and if I have no role specific training at all, I feel sorry for those I manage because I will be worse than useless. This has gone beyond a simple G4S cock up. If something happens at the Games, this is probably criminally negligent.”

Another recruit, Daniel Sedgeley Broadbent said:

“The training & administration has been appalling, as well as promising certain positions & not fulfilling it. Still waiting for the SIA badge from the course completed start of March. G4S can stick there poxy job where the sun don't shine! Good luck to those who are continuing, this unorganised mess is just the beginning...wait till you start!!””

So if a number of guards have no training or experience, how safe are the Games going to be?

This is where the Home Office stepped in. Theresa May announced on Thursday the deployment of 3,500 soldiers to man the Games, on top of the 10,000 already promised by the Ministry of Defence. Some number of these soldiers has had to leave combat in Afghanistan and head to the London Games for their summer leave, before going back for another tour of duty. Brigadier Alister Davis, a former British Army commander, said it best: “Some things are simpler in the desert.”

With two weeks until the Games, is London ready?

The stadiums are built, the tracks are flattened and the sun is shining (not); the stage is set for a glorious Olympics games. But behind the gloss and the flamboyance is a real, genuine problem. G4S have failed to fully securitize the Games in a job they were paid £284 million to do. Their poor management of recruits, shoddy selection of candidates (some, who according to one recruit, could not spell their own name: “the staff were having to help them.”) and overwhelming incompetence has led to the drafting in of troops from their summer leave, already demoralised by cutbacks to battalions and poor conditions and pay. It may sound cliché in this current political climate, but this has been a complete shambles. But this is not a bureaucratic one which might affect something minor or trivial; this is the safety and security of real people in the hands of good-natured but possibly inept individuals. And that is not their fault. It is that of G4S, a company who bit off more than they could chew and who I hope might feel the slice of an axe through their neck at the end of it (although an athlete might feel it first).          

Spotlight: America's murderous drone campaign is fuelling terror by Suemas Milne

"In modern war... you will die like a dog for no good reason." - Ernest Hemingway

Suemas Milne has given us a chilling look into the new brand of modern warfare, in his piece for the Guardian on Wednesday 29 May 2012.

Milne talks about the U.S. army's use of Hellfire drones and Predator missiles to target terrorists in the Middle East, typically Pakistan, Yemen and Afghanistan. The campaign, which Barack Obama has called "overseas contingency operations", is brutal and relentless. The Bureau for Investigative Journalism estimates that 2,464 to 3,145 Pakistani people have been killed by drones since 2004. Of that number, up to 828 were civilians: 175 were children. Ironic in a week where the U.S. and other world nations have heavily condemned the massacre of 49 children in the Syrian town of Houla.

The Houla massacre and the U.S. drone killings should not be considered the same: one appears to be the work of a vicious civilian militia whilst the other is a campaign against extremist cells. But it does show the effects of two different types of war. Houla was door-to-door, slitting throats and executing people on the spot. The drone killings are intensely calculated and designed to eliminate targets with a minimum risk to innocents - sometimes not enough.

Warfare has become an exercise in risk management. The use of new technologies and unmanned drones are an effort to make precise killings, to destroy targets in urban centres with the minimum of fuss and to avoid innocent people dying like dogs. Has it worked? To a degree - yes. But if you asked that same question to the families of the 175 children, they would not speak kindly of the missiles raining down on them from a land across the other side of the globe.

This is the view that Milne suggests is growing in these areas. A Ministry of Defence study in 2011 called "The UK Approach to Unmanned Aircraft Systems" found that:

"The ill-considered use of armed unmanned aircraft offers an adversary a potent propaganda weapon…[enabling] the insurgent to cast himself in the role of the underdog and the West as a cowardly bully - that is unwilling to risk his own troops, but is happy to kill remotely."

Suemas Milne believes that the drone war "is feeding hatred of the U.S. - fuelling terror, not fighting it" and it is a legitimate point. Extremism is often fuelled by a hatred of the state, through their own personal experience. A dead son or daughter or brother at the hands of drone operatives a thousand miles away could push these people further into the arms of extremist groups. Anti-American sentiment could be spreading and the threat grows larger, so Obama authorises the use of more drones to curb this threat - a never-ending cycle with increasingly large death tolls.

But what is the alternative? If unmanned drones are seen as the safest, most efficient method of conducting this campaign, surely the only way is backwards. Men on the ground to eliminate terrorist threats in the same way that Osama Bin Laden was. But this is costly, inaccurate and can be dangerous for both the troops and civilians, who could become caught in the crossfire.

It seems that the nature of war means the innocents will always perish. But the seemingly safe drone war is a dangerous one, that might be causing more problems than it solves.

Budget 2012: The Conservatives' Frankenstein moment

Tax cuts for the top 1%, freezing the minimum wage for people aged under 21, a health bill that GP's do not want and the Granny Tax: are this government trying to make people hate them?

Yesterday's Budget has made headlines for all the wrong reasons. The papers tore into the "same old Tory party" for the removal of the personal allowance for pensioners, but cutting the 50p rate of income tax for people earning over £150,000. Within an hour of the Budget, "granny tax" was trending on Twitter and six years of Conservative modernising has been damaged.

Modernisation was the challenge for Conservatives in the last decade. Their attempts to "detoxify" the brand from a right-wing party for the rich fiercely divided party members. Modernisation gave David Cameron the leadership. Modernisation paved the way for an influx of young, energetic members. It even inspired the change in party logo: from a burning torch in an iron grip to a tree that looks like broccoli.

Today that work is not completely undone but it will require a solid defence. I imagine Conservatives in government have cold sweats at night about headlines such as "Osbourne picks the pockets of pensioners" or "Chancellor clobbers ordinary Brits." The next few days will likely see a flurry of facts and figures and statistics from think-tanks and pollsters, a defence mounted on the economic benefit of a fiscally neutral Budget.

Heads will also turn to the Labour party response. This is what they have been waiting for. It is an opposition's dream to be handed ammunition from the government's own policy. Up to now, Labour have been a weak opposition marred by a lack of direction, an inability to capitalise on unpopular Conservative policy and in-fighting between Team Ed and Team Dave. The polls said it all: an ICM poll for the Guardian on Monday 19 March found that the Tories had a three point lead, despite the passage of the health bill and the leak of the cut in 50p tax.

Labour must take this opportunity and show themselves to be a strong force for scrutiny and opposition. Yesterday was a fine start: Ed Miliband made a good speech, which included a fantastic quip at the Conservative front bench (albeit childish and a bit overdone.)     

The work begins today for Labour as a true champion for the jobless, penniless lower classes. You can picture the campaign adverts now. Images of a pensioner, cold and sad, because she is losing more money under the Coalition. It is raining outside and she stares through her window with a glum face. Cut to what she is looking at: a mansion on the hillside, bright with colour and noise, as the top 1% celebrate their savings of nearly £45,000 by having a money fight ("Look Gideon, flying notes!") 

This is exactly what the Conservatives feared and it is what they will try desperately to avoid. But it might be too late and when it does happen, Tories will have Tories to blame. This was truly a Frankenstein moment. 

Spotlight: The soldiers without a safety catch by Giles Fraser

A piece by Giles Fraser in Tuesday 13 March 2012's edition of the Guardian is worthy of a mention on this blog, which I hope to use more often as a way of promoting good, thought-provoking and engaging journalism.

Fraser focuses on the idea that soldiers are "dehumanised" to make them more efficient as killing machines in battle. Elements of their training are scrutinised by Fraser to explore this idea. For example, using realistic figures for shooting practice and the use of violent games and films to remove any sensitivity towards killing.

The piece is a topical one. It comes after the massacre of 16 Afghan civilians by a lone American soldier has sent shockwaves across the world. And personally, Fraser has touched on an area that I have particular interest in. My ambitions to be a war reporter are no secret; I dedicated a post to this after the death of Marie Colvin. The idea of dehumanised soldiers waging a brutal campaign against opponents, with no emotional or moral attachments sounds like the stuff of a grizzly, Orwellian novel. However like most Orwellian-style novels, the reality is a lot closer to the fiction than you think.

I am not suggesting that soldiers have no moral compass. After all they fight because they have morals. The coalition is fighting a war in Afghanistan because they believe in the right for people to live in a fair, free democracy. My criticism of military training is similar to Fraser's: the removal of the "inbuilt safety catch" harms progress in the battlefield, as opposed to aiding it. But the opinions that the Afghan people currently have of our forces tell the story here. After the aforementioned killings in Kandahar, the people asked why a soldier sworn to defend them would murder them. Yes, this was an isolated incident as the politicians and officials keep stressing. But it cannot be denied that there is a vicious undercurrent of brutality against Afghan citizens that threatens to undermine the good.

It is this good that interests me as a journalist. The dynamic between a peacekeeper and those people who they are keeping the peace for is an interesting one. This relationship has been damaged though. Whether this is because of one man with brain damage or a training programme that removes the human element from people and crafts them into soldiers, is a debate to be had. And when that debate does come, Giles Fraser's piece is a great way to get informed.