Sergeant Alexander Blackman, Michael Adebolajo and Michael Adebowale

[RedSauce]

And why do we get to decide the war zone and not them? Pakistan is not a war zone yet they are getting bombed there.

If we say we are in a war with the Taliban who are a global organisation then it is to be expected that they will attack British military targets here and by our reasoning that we use to justify our actions they are themselves justified.

What WMS

Birtish/US forces attack Taliban forces in any country they want. Should whoever authorised those attacks also get life in prison?

[Ticktock]

Very good post, I tried to ask something similar in the office yesterday but wasn't worded quite as well as this.

The media are a lot to blame, there was very little coverage of the Blackman killing compared to the Adebolajo/Adebowale one, when i mentioned it yesterday half the office weren't even aware of it. If 2 English guys went to Afghanistan and murdered a Taliban soldier in the same way as Rigby was slaughtered I'm sure many people wouldn't see too much of an issue with it and many of the DM readers would call them heros. These 2 situations have further reinforced my view that the British media and public are fundamentally racist.

The first point is there is nothing here about two people travelling to another country and killing a soldier - it was two citizens of a country attacking another.
Ignoring that and looking at your porints, I think it would rather depend on the circumstances.
Most rational people can see a difference between the two situations:
1. Soldiers were in a firefight, and then afterwards find an injured attacker and shoot him. I can certainly see a case for saying that this was done in anger and in relief at having survived the attack, rather than because they directly believed that killing him would send any sort of message to the Afghan people.
2. Men are driving around in a car, see someone who they did not know was a soldier (he was not in uniform, simply wearing a Help For Heroes top and walking near barracks), run him over, drag him into the centre of the street and try to decapitate him while stabbing him repeatedly. It could quite easily have been a civilian charity collector that they attacked. They then pronounce that this was planned and that it was done for idealogical reasons.

Neither are acceptable, but there are differences in circumstances.

In your example of two English guys travelling to Afghanistan and killing a Taliban soldier then again, it would depend on the situation.
1. I think if they were just driving about, saw a random guy who they presumed (and it turned out to be correct) was a Taliban soldier and attacked him in the same way Lee Rigby was attacked then they would be condemned, probably as psychopaths, rather than hailed as heroes.
2. If they shot and killed without trying to mutilate the body then I still can't see them being hailed as heroes, and they would probably still be convicted of murder (either in the UK or Afghanistan) but they would probably be seen as misguided or deluded, rather than full on mental.
3. If they were soldiers who assassinated a Taliban soldier based on intelligence then they would probably be excused, but I doubt they would be hailed as heroes, unless their actions directly prevented some act of mass murder that their victim was about to commit and they saved lives, while risking their own.

The fact that this reinforced your view that the British people are racists suggests that you are simply looking to re-affirm pre-existing beliefs, rather than to look critically at situations.

[sirja]

Both cases were murder pure and simple. However the media have tried to make excuses for Sgt Blackman, while painting Mike 'n' Mike in the worse possible light. They should all bee locked up and the key thrown away, but somehow I think Sgt Blackman will be a free man long before either of the Mikes ever is

[VectraMan]

This took place in a recognised war-zone. The Taliban combatant paid the price for being involved in a war, as have many British soldiers over the last decade.

Didn't the Afghanistan war officially end in 2001/2002?

Arguably killing an injured and captured soldier is worse than killing an active soldier who could go on to pose a further threat.

[gricerboy]

If our governments had ever had any cojones

FTFY

[doodab]

Well one is born of a particular nationality purely by chance, and would align themselves with other people who happen to have been born in the same country, which is really just a particular geographical region delimited by imaginary lines drawn onto a map. Those regional definitions are arbitrary insofar as there is no such 'thing' as a country - just people choosing to differentiate themselves from one another according to the geographical circumstances of their birth, which they had no influence over.

In the same way someone's religious views are generally entirely dependent on which part of the world they, or their families happened to be from. They are arbitrary, insofar as any choice is concerned, because the almost 100% majority of people in the world do not analyse the various religions on offer and pick theirs for any particular reason - they're just born into it, or their culture imprints it onto them.

I don't see how choosing to fight on the side of those who happened to be born somewhere near you is any more logical than choosing to fight on the side of those who happened to be born into circumstances such that they share the same ideological values that you do.

If anything fighting for a common ideology makes MORE sense, because there is at least the (admittedly unlikely as i've already mentioned) scope for some kind of choice in the matter which could be based on some kind of value judgement.

Grouping with those in geographical proximity leads to shared economic interests, and usually shared genes if they aren't already there. It makes the utmost sense for such people to stand and fight together.

[gricerboy]

There are mitigating circumstances for soldier A. What he did was obviously wrong but it was not cold blooded murder. 5 years or so would be about right.

What those 2 thugs did was pure evil and there is no excuse except for the fact that they'd become warped through exposure to the likes of Anjem Choudary et al.

Cold blooded murder. I hope they throw away the key

[doodab]

And why do we get to decide the war zone and not them? Pakistan is not a war zone yet they are getting bombed there.

If we say we are in a war with the Taliban who are a global organisation then it is to be expected that they will attack British military targets here and by our reasoning that we use to justify our actions they are themselves justified.

WHS. Afghanistan is a war zone because we made it one. The whole world is a war zone as far as al queda is concerned. Let's not forget the twin towers attack that kicked all this off, or July 7th closer to home.

Personally I find both crimes abhorrent, the Rigby one more so because of its sheer barbarism. I can perhaps understand more easily what marine A did, but it appears to be a cold blooded execution, not death in a fire fight, so shouldn't be excused as the 'heat of battle'. Of course if I'd actually seen battle I'd likely feel different, and I'm sure many do. I also doubt the Taliban have signed the Geneva convention, I can't imagine they would respect the rules either.

War is a barbaric activity, regardless of how we try and sanitize it.

[doodab]

The first point is there is nothing here about two people travelling to another country and killing a soldier - it was two citizens of a country attacking another.
Ignoring that and looking at your porints, I think it would rather depend on the circumstances.
Most rational people can see a difference between the two situations:
1. Soldiers were in a firefight, and then afterwards find an injured attacker and shoot him. I can certainly see a case for saying that this was done in anger and in relief at having survived the attack, rather than because they directly believed that killing him would send any sort of message to the Afghan people.
2. Men are driving around in a car, see someone who they did not know was a soldier (he was not in uniform, simply wearing a Help For Heroes top and walking near barracks), run him over, drag him into the centre of the street and try to decapitate him while stabbing him repeatedly. It could quite easily have been a civilian charity collector that they attacked. They then pronounce that this was planned and that it was done for idealogical reasons.

Neither are acceptable, but there are differences in circumstances.

In your example of two English guys travelling to Afghanistan and killing a Taliban soldier then again, it would depend on the situation.
1. I think if they were just driving about, saw a random guy who they presumed (and it turned out to be correct) was a Taliban soldier and attacked him in the same way Lee Rigby was attacked then they would be condemned, probably as psychopaths, rather than hailed as heroes.
2. If they shot and killed without trying to mutilate the body then I still can't see them being hailed as heroes, and they would probably still be convicted of murder (either in the UK or Afghanistan) but they would probably be seen as misguided or deluded, rather than full on mental.
3. If they were soldiers who assassinated a Taliban soldier based on intelligence then they would probably be excused, but I doubt they would be hailed as heroes, unless their actions directly prevented some act of mass murder that their victim was about to commit and they saved lives, while risking their own.

The fact that this reinforced your view that the British people are racists suggests that you are simply looking to re-affirm pre-existing beliefs, rather than to look critically at situations.

Exactly, I think that if there were arbitrary death squads of British squaddies roaming the streets of kabul there would be outrage here.

[original PM]

And why do we get to decide the war zone and not them? Pakistan is not a war zone yet they are getting bombed there.

If we say we are in a war with the Taliban who are a global organisation then it is to be expected that they will attack British military targets here and by our reasoning that we use to justify our actions they are themselves justified.

Careful - you are pretty much saying the war has been bought to the Uk and therefore all potential enemies (e.g. Muslims) should be killed.....