War Crime

[Halo Stickman]

Badly wounded enemy combatant is summarily executed by enemy soldier. Firing squads, death camp operatives, carpet bombers and every indiscriminate slaughterer of the innocents must be wringing their hands in shock and horror – not to mention the countless others who have done exactly the same thing as soldier A in probably every military campaign ever fought.

 

Until the happy-clappy day when every protagonist cheerily carries their wounded foe from the killing fields whilst whistling ‘he ain’t heavy, he’s my brother’, let’s just carry on deluding ourselves that war is simply a civilising process where the good guy fights battles for hearts and minds whilst the bad guy get punished for war crimes.

Edited 15 November, 2013 by Halo Stickman

[Antrimsaint]

Let anarchy rule then eh. Lets legalise necrophilia, peadophilia, bestiality etc. It goes on right. Its the happy clappy lot that denies its not normal isnt it. I agree no rules.

Lets see where that gets us.

Think about your world view before posting inane drivel.

[Sergei Gotsmanov]

Badly wounded enemy combatant is summarily executed by enemy soldier. Firing squads, death camp operatives, carpet bombers and every indiscriminate slaughterer of the innocents must be wringing their hands in shock and horror – not to mention the countless others who have done exactly the same thing as soldier A in probably every military campaign ever fought.

 

Until the happy-clappy day when every protagonist cheerily carries their wounded foe from the killing fields whilst whistling ‘he ain’t heavy, he’s my brother’, let’s just carry on deluding ourselves that war is simply a civilising process where the good guy fight battles for hearts and minds whilst the bay guy get punished for war crimes.

 

I emphasise with Soldier A and can understand why he did it but we are supposed to be the good guys and episodes like this give us the chance to take the moral high ground. What message would it send to the insurgent, if having attempted to attack and kill his foe, they simply tended to his wounds and put him in a camp.

[Halo Stickman]

Let anarchy rule then eh. Lets legalise necrophilia, peadophilia, bestiality etc. It goes on right. Its the happy clappy lot that denies its not normal isnt it. I agree no rules.

Lets see where that gets us.

Think about your world view before posting inane drivel.

 

What are you on about? Nobody’s advocating anarchy or condoning the actions of soldier A; however, when governments send young men to fight in bl00dy dirty wars it’s naive to expect every one of those soldiers, in the heat and stresses of combat, to adhere to the moral high ground of the cosy armchair generals.

[Antrimsaint]

I agree with you. I am not naive enough to believe war brings out the best in people but if you read through this thread there are people who think soldier A should get a medal.

I understand and empathise with the mental anguish and stresses involved with young men and war but lets be clear. Soldier A commited a premeditated murder not in the heat of battle but in a cold methodical matter of fact way.

A clear breach of the Geneva convention which the UK signed up to, of which he was found guilty by us the UK.

He should not be celebrated in any way.

Rant over

[Halo Stickman]

I agree with you. I am not naive enough to believe war brings out the best in people but if you read through this thread there are people who think soldier A should get a medal.

I understand and empathise with the mental anguish and stresses involved with young men and war but lets be clear. Soldier A commited a premeditated murder not in the heat of battle but in a cold methodical matter of fact way.A clear breach of the Geneva convention which the UK signed up to, of which he was found guilty by us the UK.

He should not be celebrated in any way.

Rant over

 

It may well be the case that soldier A acted "not in the heat of battle but in a cold methodical matter of fact way"; however, you must know as well as I do that soldier A’s state of mind on that day could well have been forged by the heat and stresses of previous combat experiences. A soldier can be highly trained to act in a particular way, but nobody can predict how an individual will react to horrific incidents that occur in wartime, especially when one horrific experience is insidiously piled on top of another. There are plenty of well documented cases where soldiers under great duress have carried on performing their duties in the exemplary manner to which they’ve been trained, only to crack and act completely out of character years later – often long after they’ve left the forces. This has long been a sad legacy of war, and whilst nobody should be handed a medal for behaving as soldier A did, equally, in my opinion, nobody, without walking a mile in his shoes, should be advocating he be locked away for life – nor, indeed, for any prison term commensurate with those handed out to the necrophiles, paedophiles, and committers of bestiality that you mentioned in one of your previous replies

[Antrimsaint]

Comitted murder. Should get life. In fact in law his crime is far worse than necrophilia, paedophilia etc. Suprised you think murder is less of a crime.

[Viking Warrior]

Antrim . We might have signed up to the Geneva convention but the Taliban haven't how many atrocities have they committed . Have they ever been tried for war crimes or premeditated murder . .?

[Viking Warrior]

On another issue re the moral dilemmas in war .

What would you have done in this situation . An Argentinian soldier is badly wounded and has horrendous trauma he is also on fire and is screaming in agony . You can't get near him to give him first aid as the argies will not stop firing let alone go to the aide of this soldiers . What would you do let him die a horrendous death . Lose a few men trying to help him in the process despite the ever present danger or . Put them out their misery ?

[Viking Warrior]

THE BLOG. The huffington post . This puts a different view on what the prosecution focused on

The Royal Marine Murderer

Kevin GodlingtonNov 12, 2013

Clarification: The image previously associated with this blog did not depict any of the Royal Marines recently tried by court martial for murdering an injured Afghan insurgent in September 2011

 

Like the majority of the UK, I was disturbed by the recent conviction of a Royal Marine Commando, charged with murder. However, as much as the conviction in the eyes of the law and polite society is correct, and the law as we know must be upheld, it still leaves an extremely unpleasant taste in the mouth, for there is much more to the background of these incidents than meets the eye. It may be open and shut in the legal sense, but is not open and shut in the moral and ethical sense. The test maybe the law, but the proving ground is the battlefield. Now before you start getting all excited into thinking I am about to justify murder, wait one second and consider if you will some social mitigation.

 

The murder happened five months into an arduous six-month tour of Helmand province in 2011 with Marines A, B and C based at a command post. Their task was to bring stability and security to Helmand. Against this backdrop, the threat posed by so called enemy combatants determined to rid Afghanistan of ISAF forces continued as the annual fighting season began that summer. Every day patrols would come under attack.

 

The troops were expected to treat injured insurgents with dignity and respect. Those are the rules set out by international law, the Geneva Convention and the rules set out by the British Military, which we all as service personnel try to abide by. Those are the rules and rightly so.

 

Marine B was under attack every single day and there had been 10 casualties in just one 24-hour period.

 

Marine C said the deaths of his troop commander and the serious injuries suffered by two others in the bomb blast were 'pretty devastating'. "It was a serious loss to both our command post, the troop and the company four people that we were all good friends with, absolutely devastating really," he said. Obviously the gravity of the situation had further instilled the reality - things could very easily spiral out of control.

 

In total, the British troops carried out thousands of patrols, deployed on 92-partnered operations with the Afghan National Security Forces, and discovered nearly 10 tonnes of explosive. They also built 40 new schools and eight new clinics.

 

So, what makes young men shoot wounded and dying combatants on the battlefield, and not afford them the gentlemanly conduct afforded the enemies of yesteryear? The Germans, Argentines, Italians have all felt the brunt of the might of the British Military machine, all had their vast armies dissembled by our gallant advancing troops. Did atrocities happen? Sure. Were they limited to the few? Of course. What then makes this incident different? Where is the gentlemanly conduct, the white flag of surrender, the handshake of truce, the cup of tea with the British POW camp commander as you are led to medical attention and then custody?

 

I will tell you where it is. It is on rose-tinted old movies portraying the good ole chaps and their advance to contact in a glamorous-romanticized-chivalrous era of crap.

 

In reality, war is bloody, noisy, messy, the stinking stench of cordite and burnt flesh, the noise of attack helicopters overhead and 'danger close' bombing runs, the fizz of shoulder mounted rockets and whacks of RPGs, the screams of the enemy and your own "man down" or "help me please" or "I'm bleeding to death"; the petrified voices of young soldiers trying to attract a medic to come to their aid.

 

Expeditionary war is a dirty, bloody, abhorrent affair that involves young men taking metal projectiles laced with fast burning metals to cause as much sharp and blunt penetrative trauma of their flesh as possible, involving occasionally a close with the enemy that involves drawing bayonets. The reader will probably be unaware that British troops have killed with the bayonet only this last year! Out of ammunition and forced into such close proximity with enemy combatants that the order to fix bayonets was given and acted upon.

 

The Taliban does not like surrendering. It hides behind non-combatants, and often lays down mortally injured where it fell with hidden grenades and booby traps waiting to take you with them to their paradise.

 

But what makes this story in Afghanistan all the more poignant is that we are not fighting a uniformed, gallant, courageous and disciplined enemy who wants to toil laboriously in combat by aligning itself with the Geneva Conventions or rules of war. They do not follow any rule or any law, save as for the one where it is acceptable to hide behind women and children, sit inside a mosque and use it as a fortification. Where an enemy that thinks nothing of executions in public of captured British and American soldiers or citizens, sawing their heads off whilst they are still alive and putting images all over the internet. Half the American and British soldiers I know do not want to be there, we are not fighting for the liberty of our sceptred isle, or for freedom. We are fighting a ridiculous insurgency with ridiculous odds, without much provenance to support the counter terrorism theory behind it all, and with cowards in Whitehall pretending to understand leadership. It is a game with us all pretending it is honorable and just. Well guess what? None of it is just, honourable or chivalrous. Get real people.

 

During this tour, where the murder occurred, seven marines were killed with more than 40 injured, many maiming injuries. Marines A, B and C saw the deaths of their company commander and another marine, who died together in a massive IED blast.

 

The Taliban hung body parts from dead and wounded Marines on trees. A mark of tribal, archaic and medieval misery not seen since Vietnam and Korea.

 

Marine B said he was under attack 'every single day' and there had been 10 casualties in just one 24-hour period. He said, "My friend's legs had been put in a tree; I picked my mate's brains up. I have no good memories of that tour. My way of coping with that was to put it away in a box at the back of my head and essentially as best as I could delete it from memory."

 

So, do we need to ask what makes men with adrenaline coursing through their bodies in the spur of the moment commit acts like this? What made this marine shoot a man at close range in the heart, euthanising him from his already presumed fatal injuries? Let's explore that for a moment.

 

We are raised to know that spitting at someone on the streets is assault; we are not witness to citizens dying from disease in the streets of London as our forefathers were. We live healthily and well with one of the longest life expectancies in the world. Yet every now and then, we send our brave, well adjusted, socially developed, none-spitting-at-people-in-the-street troops into combat with bayonets fixed and teeth gritted, to thrust, cut and penetrate enemies of the state. Medieval brutality occurs, a prime evil default setting comes to the fore, in stark contrast to back home. We send these troops into harms way to watch their friends cut up and hung in trees, to see their mates die by the roadside begging for their mothers. Then when one of them silences a dying fatally injured combatant with a single gunshot to his chest while blubbing a few stupid and bravado riddled words, showing off no doubt to the younger marines, we sentence him by the same standards we would back home. Murder. Life in prison.

 

We allow ourselves to enter these vacuums and then seek to legitimize, criminalize and militarize the same. That surely is the one true crime.

 

Let those who are without sin, cast the first stone..

[Antrimsaint]

Entitled to his opinion. Doesnt make him right. No justification for murder. It is black and white. There may be mitigating circumstances and this will be taken into consideration for sentencing.

Justice has to be seen to be done. If only to show that the RM act within the law. We then have the right to the moral high ground.

[Halo Stickman]

Comitted murder. Should get life. In fact in law his crime is far worse than necrophilia, paedophilia etc. Suprised you think murder is less of a crime.

 

Do you think a paedophile raping a child is less of a crime then?

 

It’s all very well accusing him of “committing premeditated murder in a cold methodical matter of fact way”, but weren’t, for instance, the WWII aircrews acting in a premeditated cold methodical matter-of-fact way when they dropped their bombs on the innocent citizens of Coventry, Dresden, Hiroshima et al? Were they murderers?

 

Yes, soldier A defied his training, breached the Geneva Convention, and has to be punished. But to bracket his crime alongside those of paedophiles or of someone who murders (say) an innocent member of the public is, in my opinion, extremely unfair.

 

War by its very nature is an extremely horrible, messy business, and one of its main aims is to kill people. Whilst it’s right and proper that combatants adhere to such things as the Geneva Convention, unfortunately, such niceties often become little more than semantics . For example, Viking Warrier mentions an incident that occurred in the Falklands War; I recall a similar incident in the same conflict where an Argentine soldier was disembowelled by his own explosives, set alight, but remained fully conscious and in terrible pain. As an act of mercy, to end his suffering, a British officer shot him dead. The British officer’s action was fully endorsed and indeed praised by the Argentine’s commanding officer. However, as I recall (please someone correct me if I’m wrong) this incident occurred when the British ordered the Argentine prisoners-of-war to move their defective explosives away from a civilian building. I believe this order may have breached the Geneva Convention, but, as far as I’m aware, no one was ever prosecuted for this breach.

 

Like I say, I may be wrong with some of the details concerning the above but the point I’m trying to make is that people often play fast and loose with such things as the Geneva Convention: I suspect that if everyone who breached these conventions in wartime was prosecuted, prisons would be fairly full. I’m not saying its right; I’m simply saying sadly that’s often how it is. The only sure fire way to prevent incidents such as that of soldier A is to find a way to avoid fighting wars in the first place

Edited 15 November, 2013 by Halo Stickman

[CHAPEL END CHARLIE]

The above blog is an elegantly put example of a philosophy sometimes termed 'Moral Relativism' - IE Human behavior is relative to, and conditioned by, our environment (war in this case) therefore questions surrounding the existence of our 'Free Will' and the moral choices we make, or even the very validity of ideas such as good/bad/right/wrong are all subjective. Where a moral choice is made impossible by our environment, then there can be no true guilt or innocence.

 

If we absolve a young man from a war crime because of the combat stress he has surely endured on the battlefield, then should we also absolve another young man who has committed murder here on our streets because of the terrible abuse he may have suffered from during childhood? Our prisons are full to bursting point with damaged and dysfunctional people, do they all truly deserve that fate? A question easier posed than answered methinks.

 

But not every traumatized soldier decides to execute a hapless enemy prisoner, for that matter nor does every abused child go on to commit a serious crime. So perhaps our environment goes only some of the way towards explaining our behavior ... and explaining Human behavior is not quite the same thing as excusing it.

[Halo Stickman]

The above blog is an elegantly put example of a philosophy sometimes termed 'Moral Relativism' - IE Human behavior is relative to, and conditioned by, our environment (war in this case) therefore questions surrounding the existence of our 'Free Will' and the moral choices we make, or even the very validity of ideas such as good/bad/right/wrong are all subjective. Where a moral choice is made impossible by our environment, then there can be no true guilt or innocence.

 

If we absolve a young man from a war crime because of the combat stress he has surely endured on the battlefield, then should we also absolve another young man who has committed murder here on our streets because of the terrible abuse he may have suffered from during childhood? Our prisons are full to bursting point with damaged and dysfunctional people, do they all truly deserve that fate? A question easier posed than answered methinks.

 

But not every traumatized soldier decides to execute a hapless enemy prisoner, for that matter nor does every abused child go on to commit a serious crime. So perhaps our environment goes only some of the way towards explaining our behavior ... and explaining Human behavior is not quite the same thing as excusing it.

 

Ah yes, Charlie, that hoary old chestnut, namely, the free-will versus determinism debate! We are all simply products of a complex equation involving our genetic inheritance and our environment; free-will is just an illusion, and we have as little choice over our actions as we have over the colour of our eyes. Psychopaths, paedophiles and dysfunctional soldiers have had no control over their destinies; they have simply been determined by genetic and environmental forces outside of their control. Is it then justifiable to imprison them for crimes they were almost bound to commit? Well, on the basis that psychopaths and paedophiles are a danger to innocent members of society, I would say yes. But can the same yardstick honestly be used for soldier A?

Edited 15 November, 2013 by Halo Stickman

[Viking Warrior]

antrim

 

you talk about "Justice has to be seen to be done".

 

What about Martin Mcguiness and his friends

 

Oh he was a freedom fighter and therefore there is a different rule for the likes of him and others

[Viking Warrior]

Syria are signed up to the Geneva convention and protocals but still used chemical weapons against non combatants

 

Are the likes of assad to be charged for premeditated murder, I doubt it.

 

Many countries who are signed up to the geneva convention and protocals breach these protocols

[pap]

Syria are signed up to the Geneva convention and protocals but still used chemical weapons against non combatants

 

Are the likes of assad to be charged for premeditated murder, I doubt it.

 

Many countries who are signed up to the geneva convention and protocals breach these protocols

 

Well done VW.

 

The UK and US governments searched fruitlessly for proof that Assad was responsible. They didn't find it, so I'm glad you have.

 

Have you telephoned William Hague yet? He'll be thrilled to hear your news.

[badgerx16]

What about Martin McGuiness and his friends

 

Oh he was a freedom fighter and therefore there is a different rule for the likes of him and others

 

How many Israeli Presidents and Prime Ministers were 'terrorists' complicit in the deaths of British troops ? Far too much trouble in the world today is due to wanting revenge for historical slights - real or imagined. This is why South Africa held the Truth and Reconciliation Committee; be pragmatic, acknowledge the past, but break the cycle and leave it behind.

[View From The Top]

Entitled to his opinion. Doesnt make him right. No justification for murder. It is black and white. There may be mitigating circumstances and this will be taken into consideration for sentencing.

Justice has to be seen to be done. If only to show that the RM act within the law. We then have the right to the moral high ground.

 

Did you catch your wife being butt f**ked by a booty as you are so off the scale of righteous indignation about the hastened departure of a insurgent that there has to be something behind it?

[buctootim]

Did you catch your wife being butt f**ked by a booty as you are so off the scale of righteous indignation about the hastened departure of a insurgent that there has to be something behind it?

 

What a ****ing dumb post. I imagine given his name something like first hand experience of how prejudice, sectarianism and shootings by the army of innocent people created 30 years of terrorism and wasted hundreds of lives has something to do with it.

[Viking Warrior]

Badger re your point

How many Israeli Presidents and Prime Ministers were 'terrorists' complicit in the deaths of British troops

 

You are totally spot on with this .

Had my dad not been out on patrol while the other half of his platoon were sleeping, then there is every likelyhood i would not be here today. Yes the Hagana butchered 7 of his mates while they were sleeping. He was with 5bn Parachute regiment So i know all about that and who were members of that organisation and then became prominent politicians. I have pictures of the military funeral in Ramallah

with one showing my dad being one of the pall bearers as well as pitures of him and some of those that died which were taken about a week earlier.

 

My dad never talked about that day, it was too painfull for him right till the day he passed away. All I know is that he never had time for the israeli politicians and it was only after he died I found the real reason he did not have any time for the Irsaeli politicians etc.

 

They murdered some of his best mates

Edited 15 November, 2013 by Viking Warrior

[Viking Warrior]

and finally in response to pap

 

Thanks Pap

 

Well done VW.

 

The UK and US governments searched fruitlessly for proof that Assad was responsible. They didn't find it, so I'm glad you have.

 

Have you telephoned William Hague yet? He'll be thrilled to hear your news.

 

Thank you for correcting me. I have know need to phone Mr Hague

You could well be right , Maybe it wasnt Assad directly , no one really knows, the weapons belonged to his forces even if they were captured by the opposition and used by them . I was quoting a number of recent media outlets and have not seen any final un report as to who was to blame

 

Syria are signed up to the GC protocals and the weapons should never have been used. Fullstop

[View From The Top]

What a ****ing dumb post. I imagine given his name something like first hand experience of how prejudice, sectarianism and shootings by the army of innocent people created 30 years of terrorism and wasted hundreds of lives has something to do with it.

 

Boll*xs. The bloke wasn't innocent, he was an insurgent. He was happy to kill booty's so tough luck, he got killed by one.

[Viking Warrior]

Given the recent life sentence of the Roya Marine this article from the huffington news puts everything into perspective . While the letter of the law is right I still disagree with the harshness of the sentence.

 

Duplicate post

Edited 15 December, 2013 by Viking Warrior