More about the Royal Marine murder of a Taliban insurgent

Now that the Royal Marine sergeant convicted of murdering a Taliban insurgent in Afghanistan has been formally named as Sergeant Alexander Blackman, the usual suspects (such as Colonel Richard Kemp in yesterday's Daily Mail) have begun a mendacious campaign calling for clemency to be shown to him, citing his father's death some months before the incident( why?-was he killed by the Taliban?)

Given the grotesque irony of a paper usually given to decrying alleged permissive and "softness on crime" towards crimes of violence( or at least those not committed by those wearing the uniform of Her Majesty's Forces, pace paratrooper Lee Clegg, Scots Guardsmen Fisher and Wright), I was tempted to chuckle at the palpable hypocrisy.

What Colonel Kemp conveniently overlooked was Balckman's own admission of criminality captured on tape "We've just broken the Geneva Convention fellas".

The Geneva Convention protects ALL combatants( arguments by some military sources that the Taliban itself does not observe the Convention or does not have the status of a conventional army are baloney)as they should and playing fast and loose with them(as the then Bush Administration tried to do with the so called "enemy combatants" at "Gitmo") could return to bite British servicemen in the ass in a future comflict and anyway the UK and US tried and executed German and Japanese commanders after WWII for murdering Allied POWs en masse( see Wikipedia entries for "Stalag Luft massacre" "Le Paradis massacre" "Malmedy massacre").

Anybody think as I do?

Terry

what is a royal marine?

A Royal Marine is a member of the Royal Marine Commandoes of the United Kingdom( did you think the US was the only country with a Marine Corps), see "Wikpedia" entry for Royal Marines. Much of the uncritical veneration of the military(in both the UK and US- I was kicked off a Catholic website for referring to the US military as "knuckle dragging, borderline psychopaths with a taste for trouble, citing a Vietnam era trope) , esp on the political Right makes me as an uncritical as the demonization of said military on the left!

Terry

So what you're saying is that you do not approve killing prisoners?

Also, do you really believe "the US military as "knuckle dragging, borderline psychopaths with a taste for trouble"?

Actually I DON'T( i was merely citing a Vietnam era trope), but as I'd been so generally critically of the US( this was during the Bush Administration remember?), I suppose that was the last straw for some of the more conservative administrators of the site . Whilst I concede that the armed forces of both countries have more than earned the respect of their fellow citizens, the "Our Boys can do nothing wrong" school of thought makes me acutely uncomfortable- respect is NOT the same of uncritical veneration. Sergeant Blackman may only have killed one POW, but to my mind even one such case is one too bloody many!- 'nuff said!

Terry