Interview with Richard Kemp

By Michel Gurfinkiel

French Minister of Defense Jean-Yves Le Drian recently made an essential statement about the war against terror and the difficulties it involves for Western countries. In an interview with Europe 1 focusing on the French air strikes against the Islamic State, he remarked:

Daesh [ISIS] is organized in such a way that children, women, civilians are being put on front lines. Its leadership is hiding in schools, mosques, hospitals, making the action of the coalition in Iraq and the action of France and other partners in Syria difficult, because we don’t want civilian casualties. We pay as much attention to the targets we select as to the need to combat Daesh.

This is a frank admission of the human shield tactic practiced by Islamists and its crippling effect on Western fighting.

Undoubtedly, Le Drian is aware that the United States and other Western partners in the coalition against ISIS are facing the same challenge, and that Israel faces similar difficulties when counter-attacking organizations like Hamas, Islamic Jihad, Hezbollah, and Fatah-affiliated terror groups.

What remains to be seen is whether he and the French government, now having this experience with human shields, will reconsider their foreign policy regarding Israel.

We asked Colonel Richard Kemp, the former British commander in Afghanistan and an expert about war ethics, to comment on Le Drian’s no-nonsense statement.

PJM: Do Le Drian’s remarks come as a surprise to you?

Kemp: Not in the least. The Islamic State (ISIS) is adept at using human shields and locations protected under the Geneva Conventions. They are war criminals. The comments by Jean-Yves Continue reading →

Article published by the Gatestone Institute, 16 October 2015. © Richard Kemp

US Secretary of State John Kerry has shockingly justified the latest Palestinian murder campaign in Israel. His comments this week at Harvard University will encourage the continuation of violence and lead to further deaths of both Israelis and Palestinians.

Secretary Kerry’s remarks are particularly troubling because it is unimaginable that he would provide such justification other than for the killing of Israelis. His explanation for the widespread knifings, suicide bombings, shootings, arson, firebombings, vehicle attacks and lethal rock-throwing is either naive or mendacious; perhaps both. He asserts that the frustrations of Israeli settlement activity in the West Bank are responsible for the Palestinians’ murderous behaviour. Of course this is nonsense.

The reality is that this new wave of killings is a continuation of the aggression against Jews that has been going on in the territory of Palestine for many decades – since long before the re-establishment of the Jewish state in 1948 and pre-dating the first Israeli settlements in the West Bank that Secretary Kerry falsely brands as illegal. The violence is motivated by the same racist and sectarian zeal that drives the Islamic State and numerous Arab governments and jihadist groups that have sought to eradicate the presence of “infidels,” whether Jews, Christians or Yazidis, from land that they consider the exclusive preserve of Muslims. Continue reading →

Vladimir Putin is now calling the shots in Syria, says former commander of forces in Afghanistan, Colonel Richard Kemp

Article published in The Mirror, 3 October 2015. © Richard Kemp

Don’t be fooled by Vladimir Putin’s talk of fighting the Islamic State in Syria.

Russian forces are there for one purpose – to advance Russian interests in the Middle East.

In turn this will help Putin in his quest to restore the country’s global influence and – an added bonus – to humiliate his greatest enemy, the United States.

Swarming in to a vacuum created by American inaction and indecisiveness, Putin is now calling the shots in Syria and intends to do so across the region more widely.

Already Russian generals are “coordinating” in Iraq.

Putin is determined to keep Bashar al Assad in power – or to decide who replaces him. Continue reading →

Article published in The Mirror, 5 September 2015.

Two failures by the West are directly responsible for the refugee crisis Europe faces today.

The first was the decision by President Obama to withdraw all US troops from Iraq in 2012.

British forces had already left so we were no longer players.

The consequence of this stampede for the exits was that the successful US strategy that had put al-Qaeda on the backfoot was abandoned.

The door was open to the rise of al-Qaeda’s successors, the Islamic State.

The second failure was the 2013 vote rejecting military intervention. Continue reading →

Article published in the Daily Telegraph, 27 August 2015.

By Ben Riley-Smith, Political Correspondent

Another 9/11 attack could come from terrorists in Afghanistan if Western forces stop helping the country’s police keep the peace, Britain’s former commander in the region has warned.

Col Richard Kemp, who headed up the UK’s military involvement in Afghanistan in 2003, said there was a “big danger” the country could once again become a “safe haven for terrorism”.

He warned that the Taliban want to regain control of Afghanistan and said there was a risk Isil could also increase their influence in the region.

It comes after Britain’s withdrawal from Iraq was followed by the advancement of Isil, who took control of large swathes of the country last year.

Barack Obama has pledged to close the remaining America bases in Continue reading →

Article published in the Sunday Express, 23 August 2015. © Richard Kemp

JEREMY Corbyn thinks the betrayal of our Armed Forces is a price worth paying to persuade the Labour Party’s disaffected anti-war activists to support his leadership bid.

That is what his proposed apology for the British involvement in the Iraq war would amount to: a betrayal of the 197 British troops killed, the hundreds wounded and the thousands who bravely fought for their country in Iraq. He would not only be telling those troops and their families their sacrifice was for nothing but also their actions were illegal, immoral and dishonourable.

Of course the war remains deeply controversial but Mr Corbyn’s unsubstantiated, rabblerousing declaration that it was illegal does not make it so and Britain’s involvement was not, as he alleges, based on deception.

I was working for the Joint Intelligence Committee at the time of the invasion.

I was not directly involved in the decision making or in the production of the weapons of mass destruction dossier but was aware of the war planning at the top level.

There was an absolute belief among the political and military decision-makers, based on intelligence, that the Iraqi government possessed chemical weapons.

Saddam Hussein’s long-term sponsorship of international terrorism, his regime’s associations with Al Qaeda and his hatred of the West meant the risk that he might transfer chemical weapons to Islamist extremists or use them himself simply could not be taken.
Continue reading →

Article published in The Algemeiner, 18 August 2015.

Europe is a “very weak continent lacking the willpower to stand up and confront the evil that Iran represents,” declared the former commander of British forces in Afghanistan, Col. Richard Kemp on Monday.

Speaking to The Algemeiner, Kemp called the nuclear deal struck by world powers including the UK, France and Germany, and Iran, “appeasement,” comparing the situation to 1930s and 1940s Europe, where a series of treaties between world powers ultimately led to the outbreak of World War II.

He said there is a “deafening silence” in Europe and a lack of leadership to stand up to Iran — which he predicted would undoubtedly move to acquire nuclear weapons — and noted an overwhelming “fear of hawkishness” throughout Europe, especially among politicians and military leaders, which Kemp said includes individuals “who should know and understand the realities of the Middle East.” Continue reading →

Article published in the Daily Mail, 17 August 2015. © Richard Kemp

At this very moment, Afghan interpreters who put their lives on the line for British forces in Afghanistan are being murdered by the Taliban. It is an act of betrayal for the British Government to do nothing to help them.

I have worked intensively with interpreters in the Balkans, in the Middle East and in Afghanistan. They are more than just translators – important as translation is. They are also vital for reading the situation on the ground.

The culture of a foreign war zone is often completely alien to the British soldier.

And it is the interpreter who explains the way things work, who can best judge sensitive, often dangerous situations, and who tells you what people really mean when they say something to you.

They have an in-depth knowledge of very complicated local loyalties, individual agendas and tribal alliances. Continue reading →

SPEECH DELIVERED TO THE UN HUMAN RIGHTS COUNCIL IN GENEVA ON 29 JUNE 2015

Mr President, I fought in combat zones around the world during 30 years’ service in the British Army. I was present as an observer throughout the conflict in Gaza.

Mr President, during the 2014 Gaza conflict, Hamas, to its eternal shame, did more to deliberately and systematically inflict death, suffering and destruction on its own civilian population, including its children, than any other terrorist group in history.

Hamas deliberately positioned its fighters and weapons in civilian areas, knowing that Israel would have no choice but to attack these targets, which were a clear and present threat to the lives of Israel’s own civilian population.

While the IDF made efforts, unprecedented in any other army, and exceeding the requirements of the laws of war, to save Palestinian civilian lives, including warning them to leave target zones, Hamas forced them to remain in those areas.

Unable to defeat Israel by military means, Hamas sought to cause large numbers of casualties among their own people in order to bring international condemnation against Israel, especially from the United Nations.

This was the cornerstone of Hamas’s strategy. It was Hamas’s strategy, not illegal Israeli action, as this report shamefully alleges, without a shred of evidence, that was the reason why over 1,000 civilians died in Gaza.

By denying this truth, and by refusing to admit the manifest Continue reading →