Alexander Blackman

Seems him commenting about keeping it quiet suggests he knew exactly what he was doing, and although ISIS/Taliban are complete scum of the highest order you simply can't do what he did.

What's with the 'cheeser' references to the enemy?
 
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diamount said:
Yes, that's what I'm saying he was completely in the right frame of mind if he wanted to make a quip about breaking the Geneva Convention, the combat was already over and the combatant was on the ground bleeding out and no longer a threat. Regardless, that's not his call to make - if he was going to die anyway, then that would happen while waiting for medical assistance. Their job is over as the threat was pacified. The comparison to Lee Rigby is a valid one, in their eyes Rigby was an enemy combatant and they were fighting a holy war, doesn't matter if he was unarmed and defenceless. Both fully aware of their actions and the consequences of such.
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The Lee Rigby comparison is not a valid one by any stretch - their perception of him or of their actions doesn't change that.
 
Good news. He is stupid for filming it though and should consider himself lucky. One of my best friends is in 1 Para and he's done a tour of Afghanistan in 2 Para, from what he has said it is a horrible, horrible place and I think it's too easy to judge someone from the comfort of a chair.
 
Having read about it I think manslaughter is fair.

I'd have left the taliban to rot personally, what he was thinking finishing him off on camera i'll never know.
 
TheLegendOfMart said:
Wat?

Soldier ≠ Military.

We have to lead by example. Even if they are fighting the scum of the earth as they are they should be treated how you expect to be treaded.
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How I expect to be treated.by them and how I would like to be treated by them are two very different things. And you know what...if they captured me I'd hope they just shot me there and then compared to what they normally do.
 
TheLegendOfMart said:
Wat?

Soldier ≠ Military.

We have to lead by example. Even if they are fighting the scum of the earth as they are they should be treated how you expect to be treaded.
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Leading by example is fine, until you start losing and lets face it, we are! You know, we send these brave young men and women to do an awful job under terrible circumstances, frankly the state should have their back and not throw them to the wolves like the now disgraced Phil Shiner.
 
scorza said:
Leading by example is fine, until you start losing and lets face it, we are! You know, we send these brave young men and women to do an awful job under terrible circumstances, frankly the state should have their back and not throw them to the wolves like the now disgraced Phil Shiner.
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I have huge respect for all who serve! If they are prepared to put their lives on the line for us, then the least we can do is protect their backs!!!
 
marl said:
I have huge respect for all who serve! If they are prepared to put their lives on the line for us, then the least we can do is protect their backs!!!
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Yes tbh I agree as long as what they are doing is legal. The issue is that the person he killed was a wounded person that his group had captured. We have rules in this country about what we do with people we captured and, while there's certainly an argument to be made about whether those rules should be changed, those are the rules as they stand. And he broke them, so I don't see a reason why he should be freed.
 
scorza said:
Leading by example is fine, until you start losing and lets face it, we are! You know, we send these brave young men and women to do an awful job under terrible circumstances, frankly the state should have their back and not throw them to the wolves like the now disgraced Phil Shiner.
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He broke the law?

He straight up murdered an unarmed, injured, combatant. Once you neutralise an enemy combatant you have a duty of care to them under International Humanitarian Law.

Of course I say this sat in the comfort of my chair the furthest away from a combat zone someone could be. I can maybe understand the conditions and situation but in the video he himself knows he did wrong and says "this goes no further".

The clearly did this to make an example of him. You can't set a precedent of "murder someone and you will get away with it when you get home".

These brave men and women knew full well what they were getting into. Obviously I am not trying to disrespect our military or the people that serve in it. I would have done it if it weren't for my disability. You can't use "look how brave they are" to try and dismiss something when they volunteered to do it.

Murderers go to prison, why is the army any different?
 
So what if he broke the law? I bet most people break the law every day and they don't get made an example of to satisfy the baying mobs of human rights lawyers. I say "humbug" to International Humanitarian Law, where was it when jihadi John was torturing and beheading his way through Syria? I don't see why a more appropriate punishment wouldn't have been for him to be busted back down to Corporal, or made to do extra stag duty. Let's make sure we win this war first and foremost, and we'll apologise later.
 
Give him a demotion for killing someone at a time where he wasn't meant to and then making a show of it?

The original sentence on him was to show that the rules are there to be obeyed. Go easy on someone when they so clearly announce their wrong doing and you set a terrible precedence. From the army's point of view, it is better to lose a soldier to prison temporarily, than it is to send a message that breaking the law is okay if you are a soldier. In sending him to prison, they make an example of him.

Where would we draw the line when it comes to soldiers acting out on their own?

Are they okay to pillage or rape the enemy?

What about the civilians that are caught up in it but not actively fighting?

What if those civilians are suspected of supporting the enemy through one means or another, what can they do to them?

It may be easy for you to draw the line from the comfort of your desk but its much harder for soldiers in the thick of it, as shown by this situation. The more you allow soldiers to break the law and get off easy, the more the line is blurred. You want a mob of trained fighters, let them do what they want but if you want an army, make them obey the rules.

Obedience is worth more than a soldier shooting a dying man and getting away with it. I would be fine with a heavily reduced sentence if the disobedience was not so clear and obvious.
 
Just for comparison:
http://www.independent.co.uk/news/w...ng-palestinian-wounded-attacker-a7591061.html

An Israel Defence Force (IDF) medic who shot a Palestinian assailant in the head when he was immobilised on the ground last year has been sentenced to a year and a half in prison after being found guilty of manslaughter by a Tel Aviv military court last month.

The landmark ruling against the now 20-year-old Sergeant Elor Azaria marked the first time a member of the IDF had been convicted of the charge in 12 years.

The prosecution had sought a sentence of between three and five years, although manslaughter can carry a sentence of up to 20 years under Israeli law.

Azaria, who on Tuesday was given 18 months of jail time and 12 months on probation for the killing of Abdel Fattah al-Sharif, had asked beforehand for the judges to "show mercy" to him and his family. The medic was also demoted to the rank of private.
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Blackman was convicted of murder and sentenced to a minimum of 10 years, reduced to 8 on appeal.
 
I'd heard on R4 the other day that they'd gone back out to do a combat assessment following an apache strike - Paraphrased from the guy being interviewed 'there's not usually much left, just bits of human beings'. So I'm assuming rockets or 30mm cannon - you know those negative thermal images where you hear the dag dag dag dag dag dag of the cannon, followed by the splash of the rounds on the screen and the glowing bits of people that gradually fade out as they cool?

Under those circumstances it might be seen that the most humane thing to do is to put a bullet into anyone you find clinging to existence. Who knows.

The guy on the radio also said it was a common tactic of the taliban to use our humane treatment of injured fighters against us when medical evacuation was deemed necessary; in other words they'd try and ambush those trying to save one of their own. He mentioned that many british soldiers thought this was an unnecessary risk to take.

Too many shades of grey here. However despite my regard for my fellow man, I don't believe most of these radical fighters can be reasoned with. So, is it worth the risk of your life for the few who might reform, to hold out your hand toward a rabid dog in the hope it wont bite you. Or is it more sensible and pragmatic to just kill them when you encounter them and be done with it and move on and accept the reality that nothing about fighting any kind of war is going to leave your hands or your conscience clean?

Fortunately for most of us here, we are considering this from our comfy chairs and not in some godawful desert **** hole where your next step could be your last.
What is the right answer? I don't know.

I do know that underneath the thin veneer of civilisation, human beings are brutal and ugly and it doesn't take much to bring that out in most people given time and the right stimuli. So perhaps it's worth protecting that illusion as far as we must to convince ourselves that we're better than that; even regarding those who we train to kill for politics and ideology.
 
jumpy said:
The guy on the radio also said it was a common tactic of the taliban to use our humane treatment of injured fighters against us when medical evacuation was deemed necessary; in other words they'd try and ambush those trying to save one of their own. He mentioned that many british soldiers thought this was an unnecessary risk to take.
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That's because unlike our weak, naive leaders, the Taliban leadership actually want to win their war and will do whatever it takes to achieve it - like we used to.
 
I used to think he was in the right. That he shouldn't even be prosecuted maybe...

An interview with an ex marine on TV last week changed my mind on it. He felt that what Blackman had done could only make things worse for our forces

His point was that a Taliban fighter who thinks he will be executed when captured is a much tougher fighter to fight against. That they are now fighting for their lives when beforehand they would always have in the back of their heads that they could down weapons and let themselves be captured

Obviously a tough job but it sounds like he had time to think about it and knew exactly what he was doing and how wrong it was by the ways he attempted to cover it up.
 
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