My answer to What one picture best describes your city/country/state?
Answer by Desmond Last:
This is Sergeant Andrew Blackman. He killed a Taliban Prisoner in Afghanistan. He carried out an act you or I could, given the same circumstances, also have carried out.
He is not evil nor is he a murderer. Such is the Establishment influence in the U.K that his senior Officers allowed him to be jailed for 12 years.
I have chosen this picture as to me as the injustice Andrew has had to endure typify’s the United Kingdom at its worst. Cameron and the Establishment needed a political scapegoat for military crimes that were committed in Afghanistan and elsewhere by Coalition Forces. Andrew was his choice.
What Andrew Blackman did was wrong – and his actions cannot be condoned.
But the circumstances were such that his emotional control was removed by the events he had to endure and witness. You cannot apply the parameters of murder in the context of cold rationale when judging a case such as Andrew’s.
If I were the Prime Minster I would have asked for the sentence to be commuted. I would have asked Andrew to use his experience to lecture to troops. New troops going into battle have absolutely no idea of the immense strain their emotions will be put under. Andrew’s experience has a lot of value to troops who have never been in conflicts.
Cameron and May have displayed their complete hypocrisy by sending missiles to Saudi Arabia to be used in the murder of civilians. They have also armed the Rebels in Syria who have killed civilians.
Libya is another Cameron and Obama nightmare as was Blair's Iraq. How many have died as a result of their failed Political Military intervention? Cameron is at home writing his £4.5 million memoirs – Andrew Blackman is in prison. Yet Cameron, Blair and Obama’s interventionist policies have resulted in the deaths of thousands.
We now have two legal systems. The one that gave Andrew 12 years for an act which was incorrectly judged in the context of legal rationale. The other is for the Governments who can kill civilians at will with no legal consequences.
This is the U.K. ‘Bend over Britain’. It no longer stands up for its own. A man who before the killing was seen as a hero is now a damning example of a weak military leadership that cares more for its knighthoods than its men.
Well I stand for Andrew Blackman. Should I ever be in the legal position to release him so that Andrew’s experience can be used to prevent such a circumstance occurring again I will do so.
What one picture best describes your city/country/state?
Share this:
