Royal Marine commando Sergeant Alexander Blackman was given life in prison two years ago for having “murdered” a Taliban insurgent while on patrol in Afghanistan.
The Taliban gunman was already fatally wounded when Sgt Blackman finished him off with a shot to the head. There was no possible way, in such hostile territory, that the dying insurgent could have been treated in the field, or medevaced, without seriously jeopardizing the safety of Sgt. Blackman’s men. The insurgent was a goner and the young NCO did him a favor by ending his misery.
Sgt. Blackman, a well decorated and respected marine for his service in both Iraq and Afghanistan, is now the victim of his own government. You would think that his government would stand behind and support him at all costs; but instead, his own chain of command had this to say:
Bill Dunham, Deputy Commandant General Royal Marines, called the incident: “Truly shocking and appalling”.
The then head of the Armed Forces, General Sir Nick Houghton, said: “Murder is murder, this is a heinous crime.”
Sgt. Blackman actions were not a crime. I believe this was a PR exercise designed to show the Muslim world that Britain will hang their own soldiers out to dry; to send a message that British are the good people in this war. What I find hard to understand is why the military’s top brass is playing along with it.
Why are they so sympathetic towards the feelings of a terrorist who, just a couple of months before, placed an IED in the road that killed LT. Augustin and Sam Alexander, along with others who lost limbs?
The Taliban also displayed Royal Marine body parts in a tree that were torn off in another explosive blast, to taunt and demoralize the survivors with the kind of medieval barbarity that would surely be enough to test any man’s state of mind.
On another occasion, Blackman and his men had to hunt for a missing soldier who was subsequently found after being horribly tortured, executed and dumped in a watercourse. The Taliban put out a message that if any British soldier were caught, they would be “skinned alive and beheaded”.
In my eyes, what Blackman did was honorable and humane. If it would have been me, I would have left that insurgent to die slowly and to suffer every single minute he had left in this world and to the feel pain that our fellow brothers have felt when killed by these cowards.
Let’s stop worrying about the feelings of scum of the earth terrorists, who on a day-to-day basis rape young men and treat women like cattle. These people – if we can call them that – do the most inhumane things possible to their own, but now we have to worry about their feelings? Makes all the sense in the world, doesn’t it?
Imagine if we had no Geneva convention, we would have hit them hard years ago and it would have put fear into these terrorists’ hearts, making them think twice before attacking any military supporting the effort in Afghanistan and Iraq.
Dear British government and military generals,
I applaud you on the message you’re sending your troops, that it’s ok to fight, bare scars of war, and die for your country. But the very own people you swore to protect will attack and condemn you the moment you show an act of kindness towards the enemy. This should be the new recruiting commercial for the young men who are thinking of joining the British military.
