Turned on the PM news on BBC Radio 4 only to be confronted with the full on BBC whingeing mode on behalf of the inmates of Guantanamo. This time it’s newly released video footage of Omar Khadr being asked by Canadian officials in 2003 about events leading up to his capture by US forces that is causing BBC consternation. Khadr is accused of throwing a grenade that killed a US soldier in Afghanistan in 2002. Frank Gardner was promptly allowed to come on and pontificate about just how damaging this footage is to the image of the US around the world, and the Muslim world in particular. I agree with Frank and I share his outrage. I am outraged at the civil and caring manner in which the Canadians conducted the interrogation and I am even more outraged that Khadr was captured in the first place. If militant Muslims view the civilised manner in which we treat Gitmo residents they may continue their barbarism! How on Earth could we ever have conducted World War Two had the BBC behaved then as deplorably as it does now. It continually seeks to undermine our war efforts against Islamic terrorists and never fails to see things from the Jihadists’ point of view.
IT’S CLUB GITMO DAY.
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Cassandra: Spot on. Not so long ago there was a video of a young boy hacking the head off of a man. Yet another Muslim tradition.
http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2008/05/20/cbsnews_investigates/main4110408.shtml?source=RSSattr=HOME_4110408
The police raid with special forces and airstrikes it particularly risible.
The boy is a Canadian Muslim of Egyptian extraction,what was he doing in Afghanistan?
Some seem to have bought into,”He is a Muslim so it is logical” schtick.It is as logical as a good Boston Catholic boy of Irish extraction getting arms training in Columbia.
‘Reality behind crying Gitmo kid vid’
Jihadwatch report –
[Extract, from US Sgt. Morris]:
“My lasting image of Omar is of him crouched in the rubble waiting for U.S. troops to get close enough so he could take one of them out, and he did that successfully and that is the underlying reason why we’re all here in the first place,” Sgt. Morris said.
“Omar is not a kid that was just snatched up off the street somewhere and has been wrongly charged and judged unfairly. I think he is precisely where he needs to be. He’s earned that stay.”…
http://www.jihadwatch.org/archives/021798.php
meggoman | 15.07.08 – 8:02 pm:
They [the BBC] even had a story on the website yesterday about the Miss Universe contest (totally irrelevant in news terms as far as I am concerned) and guess what it headlined, not the winner but the fact that Miss USA stumbled over her evening gown. What a pile of bullshit to make a story that has no other objective than to portray the US in a bad light. It wasn’t news and it certainly wasn’t front page web news. Crap utter crap from the BBC.
Nicely observed. Maybe David Vance will invite contributions to this blog to highlight particular manifestations of the BBC’s various right-on biases for his forthcoming book – I have a ready collection of press cuttings about all sorts of aspects.
“My grandfather served in North Africa in World War Two. If a German had done what this little bastard did, they’d have left him to drown in his own blood”
PaulS:
Yes, that’s what I said, and I stand by it. If you are clearing a house and one of the enemy throws a grenade, he gets shot. In WWII he most certainly would not have got the medical treatment the Americans gave this one, he’d have been left to die. That’s war, they kill us, we kill them. The treatment he has received was a million times better than an “unlawful combatant” would have got in WWII, and that’s just a fact. The thanks the Americans get for saving the little beast’s life is to be accused of torture, and we get the BBC giving his lawyer free airtime to explain how his client was literally an innocent abroad. Bullshit.
Michelle Malkin’s got the family background on the kid –
http://michellemalkin.com/2005/02/10/the-story-behind-omar-khadr/
Even the notoriously tolerant Canadian media are running out of patience.
“”My grandfather served in North Africa in World War Two. If a German had done what this little bastard did, they’d have left him to drown in his own blood”
Slight correction,Omar Khadr would have been shot out of hand,”Hande Hoch” or not.
This is why the battles in the far East and the Pacific were so horrendous,the Japanese had the same non GC combat tactic.Since the Japanese hadn’t sign the Geneva Conventions,the Allies used flame throwers.
Of course if it had been a British or American fifteen year old,he would have had a starring role in a beheading video.
Perhaps the Americans should move this little shit to a normal US prison for a few weeks?
I reckon after a few weeks of being someone’s “bitch” not only will he need an anal operation, he’ll be glad to get back to Cuba.
Martin, have you always had an obsession with all things anal?
No. But most Beeboids do.
PaulS,
Two very young children locked in a car and driven through a road block manned by soldiers who think that the car is not a bomb because there are tots in the back OK? The driver gets out and leaves the tots in the car and the security troops think thats OK because the tots are still in the car(I mean who would explode a car with tots in the back?) OK? The driver then retreats and eplodes the car with the tots inside killing many OK? The moral of the story is?
The West is not fighting a human enemy OK? the West is fighting a kind of cruel evil that many of us cannot understand OK? To the Jihadist anything and everything is justified, any crime, any method and any cruelty OK?
But the real enemy is not the Jihadists OK? Its handwringing moral relativists who are actively helping the Islamist cause by fighting the Jihadists propaganda war for them OK? You can(and probably will)congratulate yourself on helping to sabotage Western public support for our troops and you may even smile a little when allied troops are killed or wounded viewing it as poetic justice? But at the end of the day the West is fighting an enemy that makes the Nazi SS look like Quakers!
Cassandra: PaulS is just your typical Beeboid. Like the other Beeboids here they attack anyone that thinks differently to them, but as soon as you ask them about the barbaric teachings of Islam, they go silent.
We’ve NEVER had an answer to the sorts of questions you’ve just put from a single Beeboid.
Cassandra:
Just a further note to PaulS,
“bear in mind the guy was only fifteen when arrested” A fifteen year old Jihadist can kill you and chop your head off just as well as twenty year old!
There is (or was till pulled, I think) a video posted on YouTube, by the Islamo-fascists on a 12 year old “islamo-boy” slitting the throat and chopping the head off a prisoner, in some Muslim shit hole country.
I’m sure it’s readily available on DVD in mosks in the UK, though for anyone interested in snuff video. I wish that last sentence was a joke, but it’s not.
Martin | 17.07.08 – 8:54 am
Cassandra | 17.07.08 – 6:27 am
David Preiser (USA) | 16.07.08 – 8:03 pm
PaulS is just your typical Beeboid.
I am not a beeboid as anyone who has read most of my comments here will know. Mostly I confine myself to commenting on the BBC’s anti-Conservative (or pro-Nulab) biases because that is something I know a good deal about.
..about the barbaric teachings of Islam
I am firmly against the kind of radical Islamism that underpins terror worldwide. But in confronting it I do not believe that we should take on the barbaric mindset of the enemy that Cassandra eloquently describes. I am against Islamism because it poses a threat to the Western values of decency, tolerance, magnanimity and liberty that I cherish.
To speak frankly, Martin, I fear that a world run by people like you (if you really are like your comments suggest you are ) would be no less brutal, bloodsoaked and illiberal than the caliphate the Islamofascists are cooking up for us.
Perhaps you should join the Army for a few years?
I did that already, thank you. I served 5 years.
It seemed as if you were saying that people here were calling for him to be tortured and killed now, while in custody.
If I gave that impression, David, then I am happy to clarify that was not what I meant at all.
However, I don’t think that any 15 year old (even those whose heads have been filled with hate in a madrassah) are beyond redemption. I doubt also whether they are capable of really understanding the political ideology that they serve at that age.
I think that a 15 year old kid with close family links to Bin Laden should never have been brutalized at Bagram and shipped off to Gitmo. Some kind of special handling of this prisoner could have paid dividends.
I read that this kid’s brother was turned and used as an informant for a while and also has made TV progs for Canadian television condemning bin Laden and espousing moderate Islam.
That’s a practical point. The moral point is that we should apply our Western values to the treatment of minors wherever we find them.
PaulS,
Thanks for sticking with us and staying calm.
My own 2c is that if you want to play with the big boys – its big boys’ rules.
He wanted the “upside” of his actions – heroism, adventure, jihad, whatever else. He’s got to accept the downside. Free healthcare and 3 meals a day. Maybe if he was 5 it would be a bit different. 15 year olds are allowed to drive a car here in New Zealand.
Maybe he should have just stayed in Canada with his x-box.
Jack Hughes | 17.07.08 – 11:36 am
Thanks for the words of encouragement.
While I understand your own 2c worh on this, I’d bet what this kid really wanted was what most kids of his age want – the approval/admiration of his father.
That’s why parental responsibility is so important – almost total in my view.
15 year olds are allowed to drive a car here in New Zealand.
Thanks for the tip. I’ll now definitely be hiring a 4X4 when I visit!
🙂
PaulS | 17.07.08 – 11:05 am |
However, I don’t think that any 15 year old (even those whose heads have been filled with hate in a madrassah) are beyond redemption. I doubt also whether they are capable of really understanding the political ideology that they serve at that age.
That’s fine if we’re talking about arresting some kid domestically for conspiracy or plotting or whatever. This kid was picked up on a battlefield, where other youngsters are legitimately (so to speak) engaged in armed conflict. It’s a different context, and nobody is going to look at him the same way on the spot.
I think that a 15 year old kid with close family links to Bin Laden should never have been brutalized at Bagram and shipped off to Gitmo. Some kind of special handling of this prisoner could have paid dividends.
Well, sure. If they knew that at the time. And I still don’t think he was brutalized any more than the average teenage gangbanger is in US police custody. He might have even been treated better than if he got arrested in the Rampart district of LA.
I read that this kid’s brother was turned and used as an informant for a while and also has made TV progs for Canadian television condemning bin Laden and espousing moderate Islam.
That’s a practical point. The moral point is that we should apply our Western values to the treatment of minors wherever we find them.
Not much to argue with here. All I can say is that this is probably too much to think about on the battlefield. And it may also be that the kid was doing the “crying and lying” routine from the word go, and the interrogators didn’t think it worth the effort. Bad judgment call, I suppose.
Sure, it would have been nice to turn him into another informer, but it’s a bit late for that now.
And I, for one, would never tar you with the epithet “Beeboid”. I reserve that for actual BBC employees.
Paul S: You may not work for the BBC but you have a Beeboid mentality. My way or no way.
The only people I’d get rid of Paul S are the ones who plant bombs on trains or busses.
“We should apply western standards” should we? Why? Because some left wing losers say so?
How on earth do you ever expect to win a war? You say you were in the army. I find that hard to believe.
When the Americans were faced with Japanese soldiers in the south Pacific who refused to surrender, the Americans soon stopped applying the Geneva convention and simply wiped them out like ants.
I assume you think that was wrong?
On and in the case of the 15 year old SHIT, perhaps you should read up on the story. Him and his Muslim mates had already killed some people who had tried to get them to surrender. Perhaps if you had been in the army you’d have put yourself forward to go and get these people to surrender?
The Taleban and Al Qaeda nad folloers are NOT a uniformed army. They don’t come under the Geneva convention. There is a difference t how these Muslim scumbags would be treated in the UK by our Police but on a battlefield (which Afghanistan IS) the rules are different. If you have served in the army as you say, you’d know that.
“However, I don’t think that any 15 year old (even those whose heads have been filled with hate in a madrassah) are beyond redemption.”
That is the problem,you are judging the case by western standards,this isn’t parental irresponsibility or a kid going off the rails.This is someone who believes you are inferior,that you should be subjugated or eradicated.
Religious and political fanatics are notoriously impervious to reform and rehabilitation.Radicals,will in fact,radicalise the rest of the prison population.
Here’s another link to conservative Canadian blog views on this, including an old photo of the Beeb’s poor little boy. He didn’t seem to worry about missing hands (and feet) back then.
http://tinyurl.com/6yq449
Martin | 17.07.08 – 6:53 pm |
“We should apply western standards” should we? Why? Because some left wing losers say so?
No. In my experience acting in a civilized fashion is not particularly Left wing, in fact you could argue it was more a right of centre thing.
But it is a very English thing. We should behave decently because those values and standards are what make us what we are as a people and a society • better than the barbaric Islamists.
But not everybody. There are a small number of people in this country who, to judge by their brutish rhetoric and blunted moral sensibility, are as violent, disgusting and thuggish as the enemy.
If the cap fits, wear it.
the rules are different. If you have served in the army as you say, you’d know that.
Perhaps you’ve forgotten the rules, Martin. The army I served in gave all officers a handy aide memoire, which spelled them out very clearly. Including:
You MUST NOT attack:…enemy combatants who have surrendered or are no longer fighting as a result of their injuries.
You MUST:…Treat all persons who fall into your hands humanely and protect them from the dangers of war.
Ring any bells?
The army I served in gave all officers a handy aide memoire,
So what? The Laws of War only cover countries who are signatories to the Geneva Conventions.
And while their are general conventions protecting all civilians, as regards to illegal combatants….
What is it about the word ILLEGAL you don’t understand. Or “signatory.” for that matter.
Seeing that the laws of war were specifically drawn up to protect legal combatants and distinguish them from illegals, then by definition illegal combatants cannot have the same rights as legal combatants in combat.
For instance, two signatories fighting each other may assume that a surrendering force would not be trying to trick them, and therefore accept the surrender in accordance to the rule.
However, if the one combatant is not a signatory, the lawful party would be well within its rights to assume that the illegals were trying to trick them, as they have no assurance that the other party is adhering to the Laws of War.
Therefore they should continue to rain fire upon them for the protection of their own lawful troops.
If the army gave you an little booklet ordering you to treat illegal combatants in the same way as legal combatants, then the army was giving you orders contrary to the Laws of War.
That would sound be a war crime, wouldn’t it?
“You MUST NOT attack:…enemy combatants who have surrendered or are no longer fighting as a result of their injuries.”
It may say that on a piece of card, but I can assure you that in WWII an enemy soldier who tossed a grenade at your section, killing one of you, and then tried to surrender would have been wasting his time. Brutal no doubt, but true. When he was an old man my grandad told me a few shocking things about what happens in war, and it’s not nice, but you tend to fight the enemy the way he fights you. That’s why a lot of Germans were taken prisoner, and very few Japs were.
Jack Bauer | Homepage | 18.07.08 – 1:04 pm
So what? The Laws of War only cover countries who are signatories to the Geneva Conventions.
Britain and the US are signatories and our troops in Afghanistan are required by our own law (and military codes) to abide by the laws of war.
by definition illegal combatants cannot have the same rights
It’s not about the ‘rights’ of the illegal combatants, it’s a question of the duty of our soldiers to behave lawfully – irrespective of how the enemy behaves.
In the Khadr case, the US forces did behave lawfully.
Martin (and maybe you) appear to want our troops to break the law.
I think that’s wrong.
If the army gave you an little booklet ordering you to treat illegal combatants in the same way as legal combatants, then the army was giving you orders contrary to the Laws of War.
Rubbish.
We are very used to fighting enemies that disobey the laws of war, while at the same time obeying those laws ourselves.
The argies tried the very same faux surrender treachery you describe; the Iraqis have never exactly been sticklers for the Geneva Conventions, and PIRA/INLA only wore their ‘uniforms’ for funerals.
But we never had a legal right to shoot prisoners out of hand.
PaulS:
I think the point we are making is that most armies in most wars would have either killed him there and then, or just let him die of his wounds, and this includes the British army in WWII. Instead, the Americans gave him medical treatment, saved his life, took him to a place where he has received much better treatment than many of our POWs ever did (one of my uncles died in a Japanese POW camp along with so many others), and the thanks they get is to be accused of torture at length on the BBC by his fucking lawyer. In the circumstances I think if anything like this happens again it will hardly be surprising if it gets sorted out on the battlefield before the bloody lawyers get a look-in.
PaulS: You’re wrong. You fight wars to win them. On D-Day allied soldiers didn’t even stop to take care of their own dead and dying. I was watching a programme on allied tanks where a tank commander describes how on D-day they had to drive their tank over the bodies of thier own soldiers on the beach, they didn’t know if any of them were still alive.
As has been pointed out above by others, the Geneva convention applies to uniformed armies of nations.
Yes I would treat prisoners the way I’d like to be treated. Can you please give one single example of where Muslims have treated OUR soldiers as per the Geneva convention?
Our politicians are snivelling little twats. For example, we are not allowed to shoot back at or bomb mosque’s even if being fired at from them? Why not? If you’re being shot at from there, blow the fucking thing up. Muzzie’s want it both ways. If it’s a house of God they should treat it that way. They don’t because they are wankers.
You might like to look into a man called Jason Obert who who was filmed wounded after his helicopter was shot down. He had serious injuries and pleaded for his life before those rag head c**ts machine gunned him to death.
Muslims don’t take prisoners and neither should we.
http://mypetjawa.mu.nu/archives/Islamic_Army_Iraq_helicopter_graphic2_American_give_me_a_hand.php
PaulS,
You have detailed knowledge of legal definitions and the requirements of the Geneva convention? Now, you must have either been a busy bunny looking this up OR you are in fact a yuman rites spiv/vulture or flunkie? But heres the thing, you are very good at telling half the story but why not tell us the rest? The Geneva convention contains detailed intstructions and advice on the treatment of terrorists/bandits/armed criminals etc and the rules are quite different to those governing warfare between nations OK? The Taleban are NOT a nation and its terrorists are NOT uniformed soldiers of a recognized state and therefore they do NOT have the same rights and priviliges as uniformed soldiers under the Geneva convention OK?
For some reason you are ‘mistaking’ the two quite separate issues of the battlefield application of the Geneva accords? Hmmmm, I wonder why? You seem very keen to ignore the difference almost as though you are part of a pressure group that is pushing for the amendment of the Geneva accords to give equal treatment of terrorists/out of uniform guerillas/armed bandits and legal uniformed national soldiers on the battlefield? Your arguments are consistent with this conclusion I think?
IF you are part of this ‘pressure group’ that would if you like ‘give legal parity between all terrorists and the lawful national armed forces who hunt them down’ then I think you should come clean’N’fess up, so we all know where you really stand yes?
Cassandra | 18.07.08 – 4:26 pm |
You have detailed knowledge of legal definitions and the requirements of the Geneva convention
I can’t think where you got any of that. Actually I have not read the Geneva accords online or anywhere else.
The only laws I have referred to are the laws of the UK and those contained in military law governing the conduct of military operations. The US have more or less identical laws.
The Taleban are NOT a nation and its terrorists are NOT uniformed soldiers of a recognized state and therefore they do NOT have the same rights
This may be so. But it’s entirely irrelevant. I have already made the point that what’s at issue here isn’t the ‘rights’ of unlawful combatants, but the duty of soldiers to behave lawfully.
Whether combatants are treated as POWs or criminals once apprehended is more a matter for governments than for soldiers conducting operations.
Whether or not the Geneva Conventions on prisoner status apply to a particular group does not affect the question of whether they must be decently and humanely treated rather than murdered at will.
as though you are part of a pressure group that is pushing for the amendment of the Geneva accords
Actually, I don’t think terrorists should be given PoW status.
I can take it by your slippery reply that you are not part of Amnasty International or allied anti western/pro Islamist agitation group? Slippery as an angry eel in a barrel of johnsons baby oil I think?
Cassandra | 19.07.08 – 6:06 am
I can take it by your slippery reply ..
I don’t see what is slippery in my reply. It was dead straight and perfectly clear and to the point.
No I am not (and never have been) a member of Amnesty or any similar org.
As for the idea that I might be pro-Islamist, you have only to read my earlier comments in this thread to know that is an outrageous lie.
Here are some phrases I used in earlier comments that touch upon the subject:
I am against Islamism …
….those values and standards are what make us what we are as a people and a society • better than the barbaric Islamists.
…no less brutal, bloodsoaked and illiberal than the caliphate the Islamofascists are cooking up for us.
…whose heads have been filled with hate in a madrassah
No intelligent person reading those phrases would conclude that their author was ‘pro-Islamist’.
Then you imply I am ‘anti-Western.
Perhaps you got that idea from these parts of my previous comments in this thread:
the Western values of decency, tolerance, magnanimity and liberty that I cherish…
..we should apply our Western values…..etc.
Hardly sounds anti-West does it?
So I must conclude that you are either remarkably stupid or plain dishonest.
Which is it?
Or are you a stooge from MPACUK sent here to stir up trouble on this site by rude, aggressive and irrational comments?
PaulS
don’t feed the troll.
There is a cassandra who posts comments on this blog and a cassandrina too – but neither normally goes in for the deranged use of question marks so this is probably a fake.
PaulS,
Lets forget the insults and move on to the issues OK?
Those highly selective quotes from you ealier posts hide the message that they came attached to?
Right, lets start with the classic definition of a moral relatavist shall we? A person who judges all combatants/political ideals/belief systems/methodology as equal, am I getting close?
You stated in an earlier post your sympathy for the evil little taleban killer currently residing in GITMO and how in your ‘view’ how terrible it was that the Americans could so mistreat a mere innocent child, the inference in your post was clear yes?
In answering your posts I can only react to what you write and I stand by my assertion that you are highly selective when posting replies as is my right yes? This is a free blog where posters can speak freely yes? Perhaps you misunderstood the purpose of ‘biased bbc’?
Quarterback,
I can assure you that I am the original Cassandra! Troll moi? never! Perish the thought N all that.
Dont like the message? dont like the style? Er, tough titty Quarterback, Ive been posting here for a while and in the same style and I aint gonna change cos some newcomer takes exception!
PaulS,
Just spotted a line in your reply:
“the western values of decency,tolerence,magnaminity and liberty that I cherish”
Yeah well said, only I hear that kind of high minded drivel from leftists who force it down our throats but would never think of putting their precious little socialist lives on the line by donning a uniform and taking up arms, its always much easier to sit back and cherish/ pontificate about high moral principles when some poor Tommy/GI joe has to do the dying for you.
But hey, I may well have got you all wrong! You may well be Colonel Blimps grandchild steeped in military pride and conservative values? If this is the case then please accept my most sincere regrets for painting you as a leftist beeboid scumbag.
Quaterback, I’m pretty confident this is the same Cassandra as the one with a severe chip on her shoulder.
PaulS, all credit to you for not resorting to insults.
Cassandra | 19.07.08 – 12:52 pm
Lets forget the insults and move on to the issues OK?
Fine by me.
let’s start with the classic definition of a moral relativist …A person who judges all combatants/political ideals/belief systems/methodology as equal
I am not a moral relativist. I’m not afraid of judging people/ideas/things as good, bad, pernicious etc.
am I getting close?
I don’t know. Can’t tell where you’re heading or where you’re coming from half the time.
You stated in an earlier post your sympathy for the evil little taleban killer currently residing in GITMO and how in your ‘view’ how terrible it was that the Americans could so mistreat a mere innocent child
Leaving aside the fact that he isn’t Taleban and may well not be a killer • yes I did say I thought it neither smart nor right to put someone his age through the Bagram/Gitmo system.
My own son is one year younger than Khadr was when arrested. My boy is clever, has had a close loving family and is very well adjusted. But no way is he equipped either intellectually or in terms of general social/moral maturity to hold a political ideology, make judgments about complex geopolitical issues or decide on the rights and wrongs of invasions or insurgencies. His views on political matters (so far as he has any) are what you’d expect them to be • childish.
How even less well equipped would be a boy who never had a stable home life, was snatched out of his Toronto elementary school to be taken to some basket case Islamic republic and then abandoned by his father in the care of a bunch of terrorists?
values of decency, tolerance, magnanimity and liberty ….I hear that kind of high minded drivel from leftists
You need to learn your left from your right.
These are classic conservative values • always have been, always will be.
The leftist/socialist prefers equality to liberty; ruthlessness to magnanimity; political correctness to tolerance ….and though theoretically capable of being decent, very often isn’t.
its always much easier to sit back and cherish/ pontificate about high moral principles when some poor Tommy/GI joe has to do the dying for you.
When I did my own military service I never saw a single instance where a British soldier tortured or murdered a prisoner. Anyone who had done so would have been treated as a pariah who’d brought shame on his unit. And then prosecuted.
Soldiers have a pretty clear moral outlook: it’s right to fight creeps like Hitler, Galtieri, Saddam, Milosevich etc. because they are murdering, torturing bastards. No one wants to be like the enemy.
The brutal machismo that you champion is never the style of a good soldier. It is more frequently the mark of the imitation-hardcase, the Walter Mitty type, who reads Soldier of Fortune magazine but is more likely to wear a parking warden’s uniform to work than a military one.
You may well be Colonel Blimp’s grandchild steeped in military pride and conservative values?
There was nothing remotely blimpish about either of my grandfathers, but I see nothing to apologise for in either military pride or conservative values.
Since you seem to despise both left-wing and conservative values, maybe you could tell us what it is that you stand for?
I can only react to what you write and I stand by my assertion that you are highly selective when posting replies
I think I have replied pretty fully to every substantive point you’ve brought up • at least, all those where I could see (or guess) what your point actually was. If you think there’s anything I’ve missed, perhaps you could clarify precisely what you mean and I’ll happily answer it directly.
“Whether or not the Geneva Conventions on prisoner status apply to a particular group does not affect the question of whether they must be decently and humanely treated rather than murdered at will.
This is the strawman pile you keep repeating.
Though I am glad to see you admit to cassandra that you know NOTHING about the LAWS OF WAR.
These, apparently are trumped by your bleeding heart outpourings of what you “feel.” Like so many of our politicians who care more about hamstringing our own military than killing our enemies.
So I really could care less about what your “”commanding officers” were forced to do by gutless politicos in fighting enemies, which you seem to think adds a patina of “humanity” to you.
The government sees the British army as a branch of social services. As do you apparently.
As the Iraqis are now so humorlessly joking, after beating al-kayda in Basra, (after we were forced to abandon) maybe they should be training the British army?
Or how about the national humiliation by Iran when they took our sailors and marines last year.
Who knew our rules of engagement meant surrender on the high seas? Now our enemies do.
If we send out troops into harms way, they need one instruction, to kill as many of the enemy as possible and then to get out. Try reading Patton.
You sir are NO conservative. Please stop claiming to be one.
Jack Bauer | Homepage | 20.07.08 – 10:38 am |
Jack Bauer | Homepage | 20.07.08 – 10:38 am |
Finally I see what you are driving at.
You appear to be under the mispprehension that our troops are constrained by some flaky international laws.
They’re not.
The laws they obey are our laws, passed by our Parliament or established in common law.
They are hardly new, or passed by ‘gutless politicians’ who confuse war fighting with social work.
The broad thrust of them hasn’t changed for centuries.
If you want to live in a country whose army is a murderous, indisciplined rabble, go live in Africa.
Jack Bauer | 20.07.08 – 10:38 am
If we send out troops into harms way, they need one instruction, to kill as many of the enemy as possible and then to get out. Try reading Patton.
That can be dangerous for the ordinary grunt.
In 1943 Sergeant Horace West of the 45th Division was charged and court martialled for murder for shooting 36 Italian prisoners.
In his defence he claimed to have been inspired by Patton’s famous speech before the invasion of Sicily about killing as many of the enemy as possible.
It didn’t do Sergeant West any good.
He got life imprisonment.