I suppose anything is possible, but it doesn’t sit well with my picture of the man. Then again, I thought the same about priests once.
http://theaustralian.news.com.au/story/0,20867,21661162-28737,00.html?from=public_rss
I’m not surprised. I’ve seen similar stories on “Monty” as well. The book “Old Man in a Baseball Cap” was a real eye opener for me.
Old Man in a Baseball Cap
http://www.amazon.com/Old-Man-Baseball-Cap-Memoir/dp/0060932279/ref=pd_bbs_sr_1/002-9229915-8608816?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1178202565&sr=8-1
Bill Slim was a master of war, if not ‘the’
Master, in WW2.
I have no sympathy for those that abuse youngsters, sadly, he isn’t herer to answer to the charges as he’s been dead for 37 years.
All that I have heard of him, from those that new or served with him and, indeed, all that he ever said of others, was praise-worthy.
Guilty or innocent, he obviously was not the perfect human being. He was one who had to send thousands to their destruction.
Either way, for me, he will remain the best general Britain has produced since Wellington.
If we continue to destroy our positive, role models, who then beome the role models?
The allegations against him are controversal and have yet to be made factual. Dont just label him as a sex offender just because of a single news article.
Agreed.
While reading that article I was wondering whether the boys might be mistaken about the identity of the person who molested them.
I expect that a visit from the GG was a big event at Fairbridge and that the boys might remember it and the GG clearly, but it might be that someone else in his entourage did it. And who told them he was Slim. There’s a reference to two men molesting boys at the same time in the GG’s car. One of them couldn’t be Slim. Maybe the other wasn’t. There’s also a reference to the chauffeur driving boys around all day, although without anything untoward from that boy’s statement.
All we have is the ‘evidence’ the newspaper has chosen to present. Anyone with any experience of the fourth estate knows just how unreliable they are. But in this case it appears to be based on other research into Fairbridge, so it can’t be discounted as journalistic sensationalism.
I’m not disputing that Slim might have been a rock spider. Obviously I suffer from a degree of disbelief, but I’m long past believing that anyone isn’t capable of such conduct just because they seem like good blokes. Many years ago my wife and I knew a very manly and well-regarded Catholic priest who committed suicide. Just after he was, as it subsequently appeared rightly, accused of abusing a number of boys during the period we knew him, and for a long time before.
I might say I’ve had a bit to do professionally with victims of childhood sexual assault and, apart from a few attention-seekers and nutcases, most people who allege it have probably been victims of an assault. The offenders often have a better chance of getting off than being convicted. Or even charged, especially if they’re prominent people, such as a Supreme Court judge here who committed suicide a few years ago after being exposed as either a gay prowler or a rock spider who’d been at it for many years. Here’s a couple of versions of his lengthy history http://www.uow.edu.au/arts/sts/bmartin/dissent/documents/health/yeldham.html
http://www.abc.net.au/4corners/stories/s72790.htm
I don’t trust anyone any more.
The iconoclasts.
Just like the self-important ‘investigative journalists’ and other sensationalists of modest intellectual and lesser moral capacity.
Then we are left with ever decreasing circles of destruction, which find no good in anything and destroy everything.
Or we can take a different view, which is:
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We all sin.
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Some sins are worse than others.
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Nobody is beyond redemption.
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Contrary to Shakespeare, both the good and evil that men do should be allowed to live after them.
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The evil should be condemned.
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The good should be acknowledged.
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Nobody is perfect.
Okay, so it sounds a bit like Christ, as distinct from the miserable churches which spout rubbish in his name, but I thought it up all by myself. As have so many other people who accept that a good man can do bad, and vice versa.
Good men, usually, do good for the right reasons.
Bad men, usually, do good for the wrong reasons.
It’s easy to crticise, but we are all imperfect - except me! 
How do we decide when a person that is perceived to be good, is bad?
This is all very deep.
What about me! 
How do we decide when a person that is perceived to be good, is bad?
It’s not rocket science.
When the bad that people do, readily judged by ordinary people, outweighs the good that they do, we call them bad. Hitler. Stalin. Mao. Hussein. Kim Jnr. Bush Jnr. Blair. Shrub. Mugabe. Etcetera. But it’s not the same thing as saying that they are wholly bad people. They all had good aspects, and did good things. Just not enough to outweigh the bad.
This is all very deep.
As long as it’s deep and meaningful all is well.
The problems occur when it’s deep and meaningless. 
No, you are right, it isn’t rocket science. It’s about perspective - terrorist or freedon fighter - whow well informed one is, and thinking out of the box.
Exactly.
From the Western perspective, my comment about Bush, Blair and Shrub being bad would be widely regarded as ridiculous.
Iraqis are entitled to a very different view.
It’s like beauty, or badness, being in the eye of the beholder.
Which then leads us into allowing that fruitcakes like Mr bin Laden are entitled to deterimine badness, and respond to it. On that front, I think he and his kind have forfeited any entitlement to judge and react to others’ alleged badness by their own atrocities, which offend every standard of reasonable people, which they aren’t.
Getting rid of very bad people is a good thing. The trouble is that we usually don’t try to do it until it is too late.
I suppose it depends on which side of the fence we are on, and which side we perceive as being best able to look after our interests. Which sort of brings us back to hearts and minds. If the other people think the likes of Bin Liner is fighting their corner, they need to be educated, persuaded, convinced - I don’t hold much with the doctrine of grabbing them by the balls and their hearts and minds following.