Justice ?

[observer]

Having sent our troops out to kill Taliban terrorists in Afghanistan, we've had the bizarre spectacle of seeing a Marine convicted of murder for doing just that. Finally, common sense seems to have prevailed with a reduced charge and sentence for Sgt Blackman. Perhaps time our soldiers were protected from being stabbed in the back by these HR lawyers ?

[Davy51]

I think if Sgt Blackman had been the injured party ,a Taliban chap coming across him would not have been as humane in dispatching him to his maker. The man was in a war zone in a kill or be killed situation.

[observer]

The problem is Dave, that the PC liberals balk at the oppression and suffering of the world's people, and commit us to interventions. Then the poor squaddies are sent out there with one hand tied behind their backs, with rules monitored by HR lawyers from the comfort of their offices. The fact is war itself is the crime, but if embarked on, it has to be total, and stuff and nonsense about rules, are merely an impediment to success and an added risk to our troops. We've got the same nonsense in every report from the BBC about "civilian casualties", often being used as shields by ISIS; as if there are such precision forms of weapons to avoid it. Bombs explode killing everyone in a given area, they don't choose between the good and the bad.

[Evil Sid]

Quote

Bombs explode killing everyone in a given area, they don't choose between the good and the bad.

a true statement, but then you have to ask how do you tell the good from the bad, especially these days when a person with a gun can shoot at a soldier leg it round the corner and become an upstanding pillar of the community within twenty feet with sworn statements from twenty people and three priests that they have not even left their house for the last three years.

Perhaps part of every soldiers kit should include his very own HR lawyer to point out who to shoot and who not to shoot. seems to be plenty of HR lawyers knocking about so if one or two get taken out by an "innocent civilian" with an ak47 and a manic grin they would not be missed. (as long as it was done to the rules that is.)

Shoot first and ask questions later has taken on a whole new meaning in recent times.

[Davy51]

I find it hard to believe that terrorists follow rules of war & as such should be regarded as fair game.

[observer]

Rules have been included to sanitize war, thus making it acceptable: to the point of the ridiculous EG: having once been told by an NCO, NOT to clean my bayonet with "brasso", as it could cause blood poisoning and is thus contrary to the Geneva Convention !   This in a world with enough stockpiles of WMDs to vapourise us all three times over.

[Davy51]