Friday, November 8, 2013

Fun with al Qaeda

There is a trial in-progress in England for three Royal Marines charged with murder in the death of an  'insurgent' in Afghanistan.  The man was wounded and the events that followed were recorded on a helmet camera worn by one of the Marines.  One of them asks what they should do with the man and another offers to shoot him in the head.  Another says that would be too obvious.  After the sound of a shot one of them says we just violated the Geneva Convention.

The Marines are not identified in the news except for the terminology used in court (i.e. Marine A, Marine B, Marine C) and they have offered various excuses for why this happened.  One said he thought that man was already dead.  Yah, makes perfect sense to shoot him again when he's already dead, doesn't it.  Another said he thought it was dark comedy and no-one would really do anything.  Perhaps but he didn't object when the man was actually shot.  And so on ...


In the Very Next Story, the heads of GCHQ (the Brit analog of the NSA) were complaining of how security leaks have damaged Britain's position with regard to al Qaeda.  How can those bureaucratic buffoons possibly imagine that a security leak does more damage than what those Marines did.  How can anyone believe that is the only murder of that nature that was committed as the only reason these ones were caught was due to the singular stupidity of one of the Marines who kept the video record where someone else found it.

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