Amazing coincidence that the soldier on trial for murdering a Taleban geezer is called ‘A’. His name could have been B or G, Schwartz or even X, but A is just a great name for a defendant. I wonder if he’s related to another A who was on trial in 1974 for IRA atrocities? Amazing coincidence otherwise.

Anyway; we need to talk about A.

Because its rather a fascinating case that involves layer after layer of irony, inconsistency, rights and wrongs, morality, humanity and a fabulous recipe for cous-cous.
Sorry, that was on the next page.

Soldier A is on patrol in Afghanistan with 2 muckers when he comes across a wounded Taleban person on the floor. The 3 men discuss the ‘problem’ (what do we do about Mo?) and decide that shooting him is the preferable option. Which they do. ‘Putting him out of his misery’. Kind’a.

The issue would not have surfaced into the great wide world if A had had the presence of mind to turn off his helmet-cam which recorded this lovely event, plus the debate and all else, for posterity. Like an afternoon at Disneyland.

So irony number 1: soldiers can kill as many enemy as they like in a war or insurgent situation BUT they mustn’t murder. An extremely fine line indeed. They crossed it and entered ‘Geneva-convention-land’ in which men in grey suits make judgements named after a country so neutral they’ve never been in a war. Just a few punch-ups after a Zurich night out.

Yet A and, well, B & C are not men in grey suits in oak-panelled rooms in Geneva. They’re camouflaged front-liners in the war on terrorism and have a very different mind-set to sanctimonious ‘civilians’. Because they live, eat, drink and breathe danger, enemy and have a different mind-set as well as different rules. They live in a very kill-or-be-killed world in which patching up a wounded Talebanite is actually creating your own assassin for tomorrow.

So they reached a decision and ‘took the necessary action’ which could be misconstrued as ‘premeditation’ in some circles.

Their justification was also based on ‘what would he, the Taleban-Man, do if the sandal was on the other boot (?). He’d kill them, no doubt at all. Possibly torture them first; maybe behead them on video. Nice.

Yet it is murder, pure and simple. The man was unarmed, defenceless and, although probably smelly, no immediate threat otherwise.

I don’t think anyone, certainly not anyone in Geneva, can know the mental state of soldiers in such a horrible, unpredictable and hostile environment. Certainly with no degree of subjectivity.

So whilst the soldiers have the support and sympathy of everyone who is not in the Taleban, they are morally wrong. And this ‘war’, if it can be so called, was started as a moral crusade by Blair and Bush and therefore the ‘what would they do?’ argument is invalid. Because by adopting the moral high ground, WE must do it better. And these guys didn’t do that.

Its all so fucked up, and with no proper football this weekend, what are we supposed to do? Maybe cook some cous-cous.

Happy sunday

A xxx