NOTE FOR THE MODS

I’m surprised you allowed the title to this thread. Apart from being extremely provocative, this title is missing the word ‘alleged’.

If the video wasn’t made up in some Hollywood studio then the action must have happened in front of the camera attached to the marines helmet.

What part of the prosecutions case do you not believe?

Leaning to fire a bullet into the chest of the young Afghan covered in blood, a sergeant in charge of the group was heard to say: “There you are, shuffle off this mortal coil you c***, it’s nothing you wouldn’t have done to us.” Turning to other marines, he added: “Obviously this don’t go anywhere fellas, I’ve just broken the Geneva Convention.”

http://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/crime/marines-murdered-man-live-on-camera-court-martial-sees-graphic-footage-of-execution-of-injured-taliban-fighter-8899912.html

snafu, What do you think, if the boot was on the other foot? Do you think the Taliban would have shown the Marine mercy.
I don’t think so, but that’s just my opinion.

I believe I’ve already stated my opinion, but once again I shall say that I too imagine that the result would have been the same. But then the Taliban have not got a PR office trying to show them as being the good guys in white hats, willing to post images of happy smiling soldiers building schools or helping kids across a road. The point here is that if you were to sterotype the terrorists, they would be playing to type whereas the marines – the good guys – are playing a completely different game.
And please stop with the ‘mercy’ stuff – if you read the story from the trial you will see it was not a mercy killing, it was never going to be a mercy killing, and the way they handled it demonstrates that there were guilty consciences involved.

Unfortunately, until you’ve been put into a similar situation, seen your friends, colleagues and countrymen constantly attacked and killed in the most inhumane ways, and been witness to the atrocities that these monsters commit on their fellow countrymen, I don’t think you nor I could realistically predict how we’d act.

The actions of these Marines was wrong, but it’s entirely likely that they’ve become that way as a consequence of keeping us safe.

So we make excuses for their actions, rather than try to find out why they thought it was acceptable?
I was led to believe that the rules of war would be given to them before they arrived in theatre, like it was before the landings during the Falklands conflict, before the liberation of Kuwait, before the intervention in the former Yugoslavia. Troops in Northern Ireland had a booklet that told them what they could and could not do. The marine sergeant must have known what was acceptable – he even said that he had committed a war crime – yet possible discipline for his action was not upper most in his mind no matter how much it must have been stressed through out his career.

And I still don’t see how this abhorrent act is even in the same universe as the actions of a group that attack young girls for wanting to be educated, regularly decapitate innocents, and throw acid in someones face for not wearing a Burqa.

If you were captured by the Taliban, what do you think your chances would be of you living to see your family again? Anything other than never again in this lifetime is extremely unlikely, wouldn’t you agree?
You have now made a link between the Taliban and terrorism.
Are our troops terrorists? No, they are not meant to be yet if they do the sort of thing that we associate with terrorism – shooting prisoners, torture, etc – then terrorist are what they are. We don’t believe them to be terrorists because they are our soldiers, they are the good guys. But if you flip your own hat and became an Afghan then what would you think? You have terrorists who kill innocent people for a religious doctrine, torture and maim females because they are, and live up to their own PR. On the other side you have military men who claim to be there to protect you from the terrorists yet regard you all with suspicion, point guns at you, demand identification from you as you go about your business, round up large numbers of you for questioning for the slightest reason, and whilst these things might be inconsequential in the great scheme of things you might well be aware that they are above civil law and cannot be questioned about anything they may do on duty by your police or even their own authorities unless a senior office gives specific permission (a benefit the Americans shared with us). You will be aware of the large number of ordinary people classified as terrorists when killed by drones or in raids when trying to find arms dumps (harking back to Vietnam, when workers in paddy fields were fired at from helicopters – if they ran they were VC, and if they didn’t run they were well trained VC; either way it helped the body count).
This ‘abhorrent act’ might not compare with the kind of standard Taliban performance we associate with them, but it really is not what we expect from our troops, not our boys.

Errrr, Well, snafu, as I am still here, I think that answers your question…….:o

You might have had the head as a starter…;o)

Chop different types of meat into unrecognisable chunks and cook and you wouldn’t know the source

What, just like Tesco, Lidl, Findus, etc?

Yes Gary, Very true, I was looking at TOP GEAR the other night

Zzzzzzzzzzzzzz, snort, gruck, zzzzzzzzz…

and the trio were in some far Eastern Country, and stopped of to eat, birds, insects etc. turned me over just what these Orientals will eat. Customary for them, and I thought at the time, what would their reaction be to eating some of our food, like “Black pudding” etc. One of my favourites BTW.

Or haggis? Sausages used to be made from all the stuff that didn’t go for anything else. At least now its supposed to be from only one type of animal…

I agree with what has been said about it being over egged, and had it not been for the fatalities I would now have been doing much in the way of mocking soft Southerners! We’d just call that a reasonable Yorkshire Autumn… :p

I believe that the storm of 1987, complete with the infamous Michael Fish denial, and various other miscalls since have made the Met Office rather eager to make sure that the remotest chance of a damaging weather event gets the fullest publicity.

The end of the world was a little over rated…

Feeling tired so might cut it short tonight, apologies to all.

Was it dead?

Snafu

Enlighten us. What is your personal military history ? Let us exchange some actual experiences – I served in the Marines; No. 40 Commando. Let us compare so that we know whether our respective experiences are grounded in reality.

You’d have us believe that having military service under your belt would make it alright to carry out such an incident? The vast majority of our politicians have little military service (other than possibly CCF at their school). much like the public.
You were a booty – well done. But does that make you qualified to speak on this incident, other than as an expert on standard procedure? I expect the official procedure is that you do not shoot injured men dead, just as I’d expect you to defend the marines involved because they were fellow marines.
By the way you state ‘grounded in reality’ you seem to be implying that this incident is in some way made up or similar. The incident was captured on the camera of one of the three on trial – the essentials (the man being no longer a threat, talk of shooting him without being seen by the chopper, the dragging him into shelter and pretending to give him aid, and the eventual shooting) are all there for the court martial to see. Do you have experiences similar to that, one that might make a jury (not that there is one for a courts martial) understand the situation and exercise leniency?

It made sense. Robust measures, not unlike the subject of this thread but, born out of necessity, were used.

You pick up a gun and throw the rules out of the window, maybe, but you should never throw your own humanity out of the window. If you are prepared to shoot dead a wounded man who is no threat to you, where does it stop – before the women and children, surely?

There is a quotation that I cannot exactly recall but, it is something like this: “In times of war, you need rough men ready to do rough things “. The implication is that those ‘things’ are things that others are not disposed to do.

I believe the implication is more to do with having the ability to send men to their almost certain death without shedding metaphorical tears.

These marines might well be ‘rough men’, and the deed they did might well be described as ‘rough’, but it has nothing to do with the kind of honour implied in the quotation. These men plotted the murder of a wounded man, they moved him out of the sight of prying eyes whilst pretending to give medical aid, and they shot him. It was not a mercy killing, there was nothing humane about it, it was thoroughly unnecessary borne out of spite and malice.

Part of next doors fence came down, seen a few trees down too, but other than that…