Murder Verdict

[tameelf]

BTW, can anyone remind me what the British army are doing in Afghanistan; are they fighting a war or keeping the peace?

 

they are there to stop the talaban destroying the poppy crop as auntie liz needs her cash fix

[Gladys]

 

 

The MR coverage of the Remembrance Sunday service this morning covered an address by some cleric or other who recounted that when he asked his father or grandfather if he ever shot anyone in the war, got the reply that he had aimed but missed. Rather telling if you think about it.

It certainly IS telling. If you do not reach a certain level of marksmanship then you fail Basic Training and you're out. Of course, that's just not possible in a massed conflict as any conscript who didn't fancy having the family jewels shot away would simply get on the firing point and just blaze away in the general direction of anywhere.

 

Mind you it's really surprising just how many people can't shoot straight. It really is a skill and a discipline.

BTW, can anyone remind me what the British army are doing in Afghanistan; are they fighting a war or keeping the peace?

You explain the difference and I'll try and answer.

Completely missing both points.

[P.K.]

Completely missing both points.

 

Really! Well that's a surprise... not.

 

 

My apologies to PK for mentioning history because I know he thinks it's boring - and I'm sure he's right in saying that killing people from a safe distance really is 'a skill and a discipline.'

 

Modern warfare, especially against a bunch of murderous thugs like the Taliban, is about winning. The best way to fight a war like that is to manoeuvre your enemy into such a position where they can essentially be massacred in safety. Anything else simply results in unnecessary losses to your own side.

[paswt]

 

BTW, can anyone remind me what the British army are doing in Afghanistan; are they fighting a war or keeping the peace?

They are simply re-enacting an historical event - and it's remarkable how accurate they're making it!

 

For example, they've installed a ruler from exactly the same tribal origins as the one they installed one from in the 19th Century. Not only that, but they're fighting against descendants of the same tribe who actually kicked their asses out of Afghanistan on that occasion!

 

My apologies to PK for mentioning history

Don't apologise you are probably spot on. My father, in a long RAF career (not aircrew) , ended up with medals for Kurdistan and north west frontier. I remember him telling me that the local "tribesmen" shot up the "Bristol Fighters" (?) with large bore , homemade (?) rifles from mountain tops. I still have his medals (8) hidden away ( which he claimed you won if you got up early and got to the front of the NAAFI queue ).

[wrighty]

Rubbish! It's about pretending you're winning. It's about pretending you've won and your presence is no longer required when you're actually running out on the people you've promised to help - usually with your tail between your legs. It's about paying loads of money to build things like Camp Bastion [which will eventually make a marvellous base for the Taliban] and spending huge amounts of money on armaments and explosives to blast a stone age countryside back into the ... er... stone age! It's about trying to convince people that the British military still has a relevant role in today's world rather than simply being used to make it look as though the Americans are acting unilaterally.

It is a load of bullshit that has, after many years and vast expenditure of resources, changed absolutely nothing - except to create a lot of grieving relatives.

 

Well I pretty much agree with that.

 

I have an Iraqi friend who is grateful that the West toppled Saddam, but even he will agree that in many respects the place is worse off now than before.

 

We went into Afghanistan as far as I can recall to hunt down Bin Laden after 9/11, when he was probably in Pakistan all along. As the Taliban were clearly evil (hangings on the football pitch etc) a side benefit was regime change, but it doesn't seem like much of a benefit to me, as the people put in charge are probably no better, and the Taliban are just waiting in the hills to come and take over again once we (the West I mean - do the Manx nationalists see themselves as part of 'the West' or not?) leave them to it.

 

Back to my original post - there's an interesting editorial in today's Times which argues that part of the problem is down to cuts in defence funding and the blurring of leadership structure (Quote: "I've just broken the Geneva convention" - "Yeah Roger that Mate" - not Sarge, or whatever) - and where this guy was in no way condoning the murder, he did offer a different perspective on possible mitigation. So it's not just me.

[The Border Terrier]

 

Or maybe they'll [correctly] say: "Serves him right for invading our country!"

 

These are the sort of savages who cut little girls' noses off for wanting to go to school. They aren't interested in due process.

 

Then there's the Iraqis - who we're told by Mr President himself - turf children out of Kuwati hospital incubators.

 

Or again from Mr P; Patriot missiles that are 100% accurate "Ten patriot missiles deployed, 10 incoming missiles destroyed". I'll bet some sucker bought a job lot of Patriots on the strength of that drivel.

Has a ready turn of wit does yon President...

 

Tony Blair and his insistence on WMD in Iraq. Even with the benefit of hindsight, does anyone still believe him?

 

And perhaps the most bizarre for a good while; Flight 77 crashing into The Pentagon. Arguably the most defended building in the history of man and not one single frame of cctv footage of a Boeing 757 flying into it.

Incidentally, if anyone can post a legitimate photo of said Boeing on here, I'll donate £100 to a registered charity of your choice.

 

So now do you implicitly believe what you're told in the papers?

 

TBT.

[P.K.]

Rubbish! It's about pretending you're winning. It's about pretending you've won and your presence is no longer required when you're actually running out on the people you've promised to help - usually with your tail between your legs. It's about paying loads of money to build things like Camp Bastion [which will eventually make a marvellous base for the Taliban] and spending huge amounts of money on armaments and explosives to blast a stone age countryside back into the ... er... stone age! It's about trying to convince people that the British military still has a relevant role in today's world rather than simply being used to make it look as though the Americans are acting unilaterally.

It is a load of bullshit that has, after many years and vast expenditure of resources, changed absolutely nothing - except to create a lot of grieving relatives.

 

Tut tut tut. If you and your slavish acolytes want to make an impression on here then you really should keep up. From ten months ago...

 

 

Next up are the likes of the Taliban. You know, those reasonable, well-adjusted, fair-minded people who will shoot a schoolgirl in the head for wanting an education. In strategic terms in places like Afghanistan they are beaten. The several years they were there the US lost approx 60 of their soldiers in the Korengal valley. The Taliban would lose twice that number in an afternoon. The situation evolved into a strange sort-of cat and mouse arrangement. Now and again the Taliban, or more likely a local who had been paid $5 to do it, would fire off a magazine on a US outpost. Eventually it would come to nothing - as per

 

 

So the US would mount patrols until they got ambushed and then it was a question of them staying alive long enough to call in air power to destroy the Taliban they had engaged. The Taliban gave it up as they were losing so many men in the firefights. So they resorted to roadside bombs - a nuisance but basically all they had left they could do. But the main point is you can't topple governments with roadside bombs.

 

It's possible that the only reason the Taliban are there is because the UN is there. As the UN troops withdraw we will see. If the Taliban start to try and remove the gov in Kabul then the UN will be back. They have to. Because if Aghanistan falls the next target will be very fractured and fragile but nuclear armed Pakistan just next door. Then they are on the borders of the largest democracy on the planet. We will see.

[Chinahand]

Sigh.

 

First the original issue - I think I pretty much agree with the opinion most people are giving - this was a crime, it is right to charge the soldier and make clear that shooting wounded combatants is unacceptable. It is pretty irrelevant what the Taliban etc would have done - the British Army isn't the Taliban and shouldn't use their standards to justify what they are doing.

 

The soldier knew what he was doing was wrong, and the authorities can't just turn a blind eye to this once it is discovered.

 

Now, does he have mitigation for stress, dehumanization etc etc. Well, his defence haven't yet made this case - if it can be made and shown maybe that can be used to lessen the sentence or the charge, but basically a jury of his peers looked at the evidence and found him guilty. I don't think there is a miscarriage of justice here.

 

The Bush/Blair wars have been disasters. Blair was basically a neo-con wolf hiding within the sheep's clothing of a democratic socialist. I think he, in a slightly messianic Christian fervour, genuinely thought he had a duty to go out and take on the white-man's burden of civilizing the savage nations with Saddam being demonized ("uniquely evil") and Blair wasting lots of blood and treasure trying to civilize Afghanistan.

 

Surprise, surprise that doesn't work. Without the acceptance of the local population an insurgency isn't going to be defeated no matter how many enemy combatants you kill. And come on PK - the Taliban are Combatants and are given protections under the Geneva conventions just like the Viet Cong etc etc. War has to be a continuation of politics and killing Talibs in the hundred is absolutely irrelevant to ending the conflict - there are millions of fighting age Afghans, and thousands of radicalized Muslims willing to join them.

 

The UK always thinks it is so much better than the Yanks at winning hearts and minds because of Malaya etc but frankly in Basra and Helmand they were just crap at nation building.

 

No matter how many bazaars they built and insurgents they shot (they used to call it mowing the grass if I remember correctly) they didn't have the numbers on the ground to give the population security and so the killings they brought just alienated all their efforts.

 

What a sad waste of life on all sides.

 

Given their political options available to them and the mandate given to them by craven politicians it's hardly surprising they've failed.

 

Most of that blame goes to the politicians with the squaddies and generals doing their best in an impossible situation.

 

I'm sure a small number of individual squaddies behaved badly, and individual officers were sometimes incompetent, but generally I do believe the Coalition forces were attempting to bring security and development to one of the least secure and least developed places on earth. The trouble was they never had the political strategy to actually do it, and so most of the effort has been wasted.

 

That is mostly the politicians fault.

 

Sadly it looks like Afghanistan and Iraq are going to be unstable for years to come and that instability will probably have global consequences. Don't pretend that when the last troops leave that is the end of it. Sadly we'll be feeling the consequences of Bush and Blair's wars for years to come yet.

[P.K.]

Sigh.

 

Surprise, surprise that doesn't work. Without the acceptance of the local population an insurgency isn't going to be defeated no matter how many enemy combatants you kill. And come on PK - the Taliban are Combatants and are given protections under the Geneva conventions just like the Viet Cong etc etc. War has to be a continuation of politics and killing Talibs in the hundred is absolutely irrelevant to ending the conflict - there are millions of fighting age Afghans, and thousands of radicalized Muslims willing to join them.

 

You're having a laugh!

 

As the Taliban suffered more and more casualties they responded by being even more brutal to the locals. And those locals want the Taliban to take their insurgency elsewhere. In one engagement in the Korengal all of the Taliban were wiped out and it was estimated that the vast majority were Arabs and very few were Afghans.

 

By the way, this Geneva Convention malarky, care to tell us when Taliban will be appearing in court for crimes against humanity?

 

Incidentally the British cameraman who took that rather amusing clip in my previous post, Tim Etherington, was killed in the uprising in Libya. However along with Sebastian Junger they produced a film called Restrepo and a book called, simply, War. So Mr Chinahand, if you actually want to know what you are talking about maybe you should read it as it's written by those who have been there in the shit...

 

As to nation building it's possible that only dictatorships can hold together countries of many religions and/or ethnic types. There are something like 6 to 8 various ethnic groups in Afghanistan alone. It was also obvious what was going to happen in the Balkans when Tito died and it didn't take long for it to splinter apart.

 

Good job I know my history...

[tameelf]

history

 

On 1 January 1842, following some unusual thinking byElphinstone, which may have had something to do with the poor defensibility of the cantonment, an agreement was reached that provided for the safe exodus of the British garrison and its dependants from Afghanistan.^[8] Five days later, the withdrawal began. The departing British contingent numbered around 16,500, of which about 4,500 were military personnel, and over 12,000 were camp followers. The military force consisted mostly of Indian units and one British battalion,44th Regiment of Foot.

They were attacked by Ghilzai warriors as they struggled through the snowbound passes. The evacuees were killed in huge numbers as they made their way down the 30 miles (48 km) of treacherous gorges and passes lying along theKabul River between Kabul and Gandamak, and were massacred at the Gandamak pass before a survivor reached the besieged garrison at Jalalabad. The force had been reduced to fewer than forty men by a withdrawal from Kabul that had become, towards the end, a running battle through two feet of snow. The ground was frozen, the men had no shelter and had little food for weeks. Of the weapons remaining to the survivors, there were approximately a dozen working muskets, the officers' pistols and a few swords. The remnants of the 44th were all killed except Captain James Souter, Sergeant Fair and seven soldiers who were taken prisoner.^[9] The only Briton to reach Jalalabad was Dr. William Brydon.

[Domino]

Grow your own weed then ay!!

[Merkin]

I rather miss MDO's input in these military related threads. Where is he these days anyway?

[P.K.]

history

 

On 1 January 1842, following some unusual thinking byElphinstone, which may have had something to do with the poor defensibility of the cantonment, an agreement was reached that provided for the safe exodus of the British garrison and its dependants from Afghanistan....

 

....The remnants of the 44th were all killed except Captain James Souter, Sergeant Fair and seven soldiers who were taken prisoner.^%5B9%5D The only Briton to reach Jalalabad was Dr. William Brydon.

 

No air cover!

 

Not even a Reaper Drone.

 

P x 6 ....