British Army - Shameful

[DaBeeeenster]

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk/4184279.stm







Hoon needs to resign. Now.

[Skii]

Hoon needs to resign. Now.

Yeah. sure he will...

[Big RICHARD]

Why should Hoon resign? He wasn't punching the Iraqis and the perpetrators are being tried for these crimes.

[DaBeeeenster]

He is responsible.

[Big RICHARD]

How is he responsible? He wasn't even in the same country and I very much doubt that he ordered our troops to do such dispicable things.

[Flibb]

I think Hoon is a complete (insert expletive), but cant see how this can be blaimed on him. If you put a large number of people through what those troops went through some will go off the rails.

[Stewart]

Why should Hoon resign? He wasn't punching the Iraqis and the perpetrators are being tried for these crimes.

Well said.

[DaBeeeenster]

He is responsible; he is at the top of the chain of command. Soldiers were instructed by their superiors to "work them hard"; I fail to see how Hoon is not complicit.

[nichomach]

Lieutenant Colonel Nick Clapham, prosecuting, told the hearing the camp's commander Major Dan Taylor had ordered looters should be "worked hard".

This breached the Geneva Convention, Lt Col Clapham said.

"The order to work by Major Taylor was an unlawful one but, even though the order was unlawful, had the defendants done no more they would not face the charges they face today," he added.

So a major gives an admittedly unlawful order that captured looters should be put to work; how on earth does that translate into the abuse that we've seen? It doesn't. Did Hoon instruct that the order that prisoners should work be given? No, and he wouldn't have either. Did the major order that those prisoners be beaten or suffer abuse of a sexual nature? No, he didn't. The three soldiers (out of 65,000) who did this (assuming they are guilty) did this of their own volition and without ANY sanction from their chain of command. They have been caught, they are being court-martialled, and if found guilty they will be severely punished. Saying that the Secretary of State for Defence is complicit in their shameful and unsanctioned act is rank idiocy, I'm afraid, and any suggestion that Hoon should resign is just silly.

[Zak33]

I shall keep my head in the sand and state:

A soldier is created to hurt people. If they spend week after week being terrified for their life and losing friends and colleagues, who are being massacred and mutilated...then there are bound to be a few lose canons rolling around the deck who simply need to vent their frustrations.

I DIDNT say I agreed with it. I dont. Well... I do understand it. Sorry.

But it is an inevitability of war. What we DIDNT see was the 10 seconds previous to these photos, when the prisoner may have injured another soldier in an attempt to escape. Once again, I did not see that, nor did you. Even if it doesnt exist and this is simple pure evil on the part of the blamed soldiers, it is STILL inevitable.

They will be tried and sentenced accordingly. Maybe they simpy need medical and mental help. If I'd been shot at, blown up, shelled and cornered in a war, my friends had died around me, and my best pal was captured or mutilated....(I am guessing as to my reaction and I might not do this)...I might just blub in a corner and plead to go home..plead to be let outof thearmy and go back to my mummy. But if I turned nasty...which I cant gaurantee I wouldn't, would my Mother hate me after? If I was in that picture? Nope...she'd support me. And my Mum is a nice person. Those are people's children out there, under 30 years old, being asked to kill people one minute and look after them the next.

These are SOLDIERS who are trained to deal death. Its their job. Bound to happen.

And Hoon.....god knows about him. I sure don't.

[Rave]

To clarify the story for everyone, this abuse happened at an army aid camp that was responsible for distributing food to the Iraqi populace. AFAIK, it happened after the war was over. The Iraqis in the pictures had been caught trying to steal some of the food.

The pictures came to light in May 2003 so this isn't a new scandal. I personally don't think that the responsibility for this episode, shameful as it is, extends any higher than the commander of the camp.

Rich :¬)

[Butuz]

It only takes a few rotten eggs to ruin any situation, the army is no different.



Butuz

[RVF500]

Boys and girls as young as 18 are put into situations not of their asking, but by their willingness to stand up and be counted as a deterrent force, by our so called leaders. They then suffer stresses that the self same leaders and other detractors will never undergo nor understand. Then they are to adhere to standards of behaviour under continuing extreme levels of stress that our leaders can't even adhere to in their cossetted and comfortable environments.

Let's not forget that 6 military policemen in an effort to find a peaceful solution to a difficult situation were murdered in cold blood. High price to pay for adhering to standards of behaviour.

Ok, these fusiliers were wrong and have committed a crime for which they will be punishe dif found guilty. Trust me, they will have a much harder time than if they were in front of a civil court.

But shouting out 'British Army Shameful' Do you write for the Sun? 3 men out of 65000 who have served in Iraq. Not to mention Bosnia, Kosovo, Northern Ireland, Rwanda and whatever other God forsaken spot Blair may have sent them to prior to Iraq. On any given day in the countries surrounding Iraq in any civil prison infintesimally worse abuses are being carried out on inmates. Where is your link saying Saudi Arabia shameful?

[DaBeeeenster]

But shouting out 'British Army Shameful' Do you write for the Sun? 3 men out of 65000 who have served in Iraq. Not to mention Bosnia, Kosovo, Northern Ireland, Rwanda and whatever other God forsaken spot Blair may have sent them to prior to Iraq. On any given day in the countries surrounding Iraq in any civil prison infintesimally worse abuses are being carried out on inmates. Where is your link saying Saudi Arabia shameful?

These images cast shame on the British Army. The British Army ought to be ashamed. Dont you find it funny that people are constantly expressing the fact that the British Army "know what they are doing" and wont "fire at anything" like certain other armies (that shall remain nameless, of course). Curious how it turns out that, at the end of the day, there appears to be little to tell them apart.

This may just be 3 people (although to be quite honest I'm sure this goes on more often than we hear about - the only reason these images and those at Abu Ghraib came to public attention is because of inneptitude) out of 65000, but that is 3 people too many. Soldiers have an enormous responsibility and it is one that I would not like to shoulder, but to suggest that this is somehow ok because "they have been sent into some god foresaken place" is absurd. This sort of behaviour is 100% unnacceptable. The reason I am not talking about the Saudi Army is because they do not represent my country.

[Kumagoro]

I wonder how wide spread it was.... what about things which didnt get photographed.
I reckon it worse then they make out.

[RVF500]

So by that account if some pupils from your school were caught shoplifting you should have hung your head in shame. But you didn't, of course you didn't because it was a few less upright individuals and nothing to do with the school as a whole. This is the same concept. Whenever individuals are in conflict then someone will always go over the top. From what I can see (and I'm sure someone will correct me if I'm wrong) these events took place over a single day. If so this is hardly a protracted campaign of abuse. It is not in the same league as Abu Graib.

I didn't say it was ok because of previous postings. I was drawing a comparison between people who live in very comfortable, often in positions of importance, lives not being unable to measure up to those high standards they expect of soldiers and drawing attention to a wider picture. That is that some of the places these men may have served could well have had a detrimental effect. Enough times we hear of thugs having poor backgrounds etc rolled out as an excuse for bad behaviour. It seems that the same doesn't apply to soldiers. No, they are in fact less than human and you can mentally abuse them with no untoward effects.

Also I have stated that if found guilty they will be punished. And that they have done wrong if guilty. My main gripe is the howling of shame, not least our own prime minister, from people who quite proabably couldn't stand the pressures that those guys had gone through up to that point. That and tarring the whole of the army with the same brush. Simplistic and short sighted.