Outrage as Brave Marines are Defamed

As five Royal Marines are charged on suspicion of murder over the death of a Taliban fighter in 2011, morale within the military sinks to a new low and questions are being asked whether anyone will ever want to take up arms again in the British Army for a political regime that criminalises and vilifies it’s own fighting men?

The servicemen are understood to have been arrested after a video was discovered by police on a laptop belonging to a Royal Marine.

The clip appears to show members of a Royal Marine patrol in the aftermath of an engagement with insurgents. As the Taliban fighter lay injured on the ground, the marines are seen apparently discussing what to do with him and whether they should administer first aid, but the film is said to cut out before anything happens.

 It is believed the Taliban fighter subsequently died of his wounds.

The Royal Military Police have referred the matter to the independent Service Prosecuting Authority (SPA) and following direction from the SPA the marines have now been charged with murder and they remain in custody pending court proceedings.

This incident is another in a lengthening series of post-event prosecutions of British service personnel stretching back to the Falklands War and the ‘Troubles’ in Northern Ireland, which most members of the British public will at best struggle to understand and which most front line service personnel will find utterly demoralising.

Kow-towing to political correctness, the MoD are reported to have stated that the arrests have demonstrated the Armed Forces’ determination to ensure servicemen “act in accordance with their rules of engagement and our standards”. However, what they represent is an unrealistic attempt to, retrospectively and with 20:20 hindsight, apply peacetime standards of conduct to soldiers in a war zone.

Soldiers in a war zone, who minutes earlier may have been under fire from an enemy intent on killing them cannot be expected to suddenly switch into ‘caring mode’ and demonstrate the same levels of concern for the enemy injured that would be expected of a paramedic arriving at the scene of a roadside accident during peacetime.

Furthermore, when one considers the numbers of British service personnel who have been killed and injured while on duty in Afghanistan, often by renegade individuals from within the very Afghan police and armed forces that they have been involved in training, most British people will be enraged at this misguided policy of prosecution adopted by our military authorities.

It is no wonder that the British Army struggles to find recruits, as anyone who might otherwise have volunteered enthusiastically for a life in the services will think twice before opting to place their lives at risk in an organisation that has a track record of betraying its own personnel in the interests of political correctness.

We at Western Spring call upon the British government to quash ill-considered prosecutions of this sort, which are an affront to the honour, patriotism and courage of our armed forces.

By Max Musson © 2012

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