I think what makes tbis different is that the suggestion is not that these are soldiers on edge making errors of judgement in the heat of battle - this sounds far more sinister, like weapons were dropped in advance in order to incriminate the victims? You don't do that if you want to claim any kind of ethical high ground - otherwise we'd just be nuking from orbit.
Boo… Labour bad…!!!
You might have noticed Kelvin that I have weak party loyalty. My primary focus isn't on blind tribalism but on what I perceive to serve the best interests of ordinary working men and women.
Which is precisely why I am more than happy, as I did in my first post on this thread, to give credit where due to Labour politicians who make a stand for Labour's founding values and aims.
I will criticise all politicians, including those who purport to be Labour, if imo their actions are detrimental to the interests of ordinary people.
In contrast you appear to prefer a more simplistic attitude in which everything Tories ever do is bad and everything Labour ever does is good. Your simple criteria to decide whether something is good or bad is to establish who said it.
Which leads you to the "boo hiss he's a Tory" attitude as you celebrate Johnson's demise, with complete disregard to the possibility that his replacement might very likely be worse. Your basic tribalism helps you to override such concerns.
I’ve voted for three different parties over the years. I’m not tribal. There is a clear divide here between two parties that you are not acknowledging. This government tried to pass legislation that would (in they eyes of UK law) put UK soldiers beyond the reach of law when acting abroad. They were stopped. By Labour. That’s the facts. Not bad for a party in opposition against a party with a majority. I’m not blinkered, I can see faults in the teams leading all the parties right now. But this pretence that Labour and the Tories are the same on this important issue (and many others) should be called out.
I could have guessed before opening this thread that any alleged illegal activities the SAS did in 2011 was the fault of Keir Starmer 😂
This is in no way condoning the alleged actions, but its easy to sit here and take the moral high ground with hindsight when we weren't there so don't know the whole story.
The rigours of combat can be some of the most highly stressed situations a person can be subjected to which can have a serious debilating effect on judgement and ability to reason. Given that these guys operate at a continuous level of anxiety and stress no average Joe in the street would ever get to or experience its little wonder the media are having a field day!
Not to mention the monkeys licking their lips with excitement at the prospect of actually doing some work! Other than traffic duty in Tid or Catterick (about all they are good for!)
Tobias Ellwood should be the next PM!
I know people broken mentally and emotionally by their service, including family members. I still have no real idea about how hard their jobs were. None of us that haven’t “been there” can do. But the law protects them as as well as places expectations on them. You can be made to do anything if nothing is illegal.
They were stopped. By Labour. That’s the facts.
And yet the link which you yourself posted to make the alleged point makes no mention whatsoever of Labour. I can't imagine why.
Just reading up and watching it now. Some pretty damning evidence. Haven’t figured out their obsession with curtains
but its easy to sit here and take the moral high ground with hindsight….
Yep, that moral high ground being don’t execute unarmed civilians; not much intelligence opportunities from a dead bloke and I think the army has had experience before that killing civilians doesn’t de-escalate issues in the long run, quite the opposite.
…no mention whatsoever of Labour.
The vote on the crucial amendment raised by a Labour member…
Can we drop it now?
Can we drop it now?
There has never been any dispute that the House of Lords voted against the bill, you are now making stuff up. In fact that was precisely my point - they voted against it, they did not abstain. So thank you for making my point even clearer by posting a pretty graph.
In contrast Starmer whipped his MPs to abstain from the vote and specifically instructed them not to vote against it. He went as far as sacking a Labour frontbencher for voting against it.
So yet again I return to my point - the political will does not exist to pursue such cases. And by that I mean neither among Tory MPs nor the majority of Labour MPs.
The House of Lords won't be pursuing the matter and their amendments were obviously due to concerns with regards to complying with international law.
None of this has anything to do with blaming Starmer for alleged illegal activities by the SAS in 2011, as argee seems to bizarrely think.
The worst part is that, all the cock ups were true, as was the conditions they faced in captivity, unfortunately all the heroic fighting stuff was made up. Even in that famous and heroic mission, they likely killed at least 1 unarmed civilian (claiming he was a uninformed solder) considered killing a shepard who ultimely tried to help them and stole a civilian taxi at gunpoint.
Michael Asher (ex SAS) wrote a good book called the real Bravo Two Zero. He spent a long time in the desert in the area, meeting with many of the Arabs who were there (he has spent years and years as a desert explorer living with nomads in various parts of the world). It's some years since I read it, but as I recall he pulls McNab's story apart. Definitely worth a read if your interested in that sort of thing.
With regard to the topic of discussion. Quelle surprise. No question in my mind that things like this happened, and the story of covers up rings true.
Is it condonable? No. Understandable? Maybe, as mentioned above you're fighting an enemy who definitely don't play by the rules. When you've seen your mates blown up tortured, killed..
If it is true, it should be investigated and perpetrators should be prosecuted. Of course, as soon as you do that it may be very difficult to find people prepared to go into those situations in the future..
Kelvin and Ernie, Ernie and Kelvin( so there is no favouritism) why don’t you just meet somewhere private and have a square go? It will save the rest of us having to wade through your attempts to outdo each other on far too many threads.
Is it condonable? No. Understandable? Maybe, as mentioned above you’re fighting an enemy who definitely don’t play by the rules. When you’ve seen your mates blown up tortured, killed..
Bear in mind the unit the BBC investigated didn't suffer a single casualty.
Is it condonable? No. Understandable? Maybe, as mentioned above you’re fighting an enemy who definitely don’t play by the rules. When you’ve seen your mates blown up tortured, killed..
Is it understod ?, completely. But the problem is its not the people who they are going up against that are being killed, but everyday people who happen to be in the wrong place at the wrong time.
We have to prosecute, or every Ukrainian civilian what has met the same fate at the hands of the Russians we can say the same for. Those Russians have been in combat situations, and have seen their mates, killed, tortured etc, but the Russian troop then go on to shoot civilians who they find in the areas where their operations have taken place. Those are wrong, those are illegal, so as far as international law is concerned, the UK troops are equally guilty.
If we say our troops are exempt- for whatever reason you'd like to bring, then that is effectively the end of international law and rules of engagement because anything and everything is then justifiable.
Can those who are trying to justify the actions of the soldiers please read the ****ing article!
I'm a forces brat, I went to an MOD school, I lived and breathed that stuff and even I can see there is absolutely no morally correct way to justify the picture that has been painted.
For those that actually read books (Commando comics and Soldier of Fortune don't count) does this not sound like the exact same as what folk were doing in Vietnam? Pretty sure shooting folk and dropping guns was a common practice. Again, lack of scrutiny and poor leadership allowed these things to happen.
It will save the rest of us having to wade through your attempts to outdo each other on far too many threads.
A very fair point duckman. These days I mostly deal with it by generally not bothering to read Kelvin's comments, including ones directed at me. Whatever point I make it is pretty much garranteed that Kelvin will challenge it, as of course happened today.
My mistake for bothering to read what he wrote. Initially I ignored it but his editing drew me in. But yeah, I really shouldn't allow him to draw me into another pointless "debate". Comment noted.
Being a pad brat isn't quite the same! Unless you were forced to do bed blocks and show parades by your parents!
@superram was probably there…
I was. Not SF though. Unless you were there, seeing your friends killed and injured, then you’ll understand why I personally don’t want a witch hunt for those guys. Birds of a feather and all that………
@superram, so you, like me, went through OPTAG and got the LOAC briefings? You got the brief that, under the ROE of “courageous restraint”, no weapon meant that you could not shoot them, right?
This is not about a witch hunt, this is potentially about murder by rogue individuals and a lack of leadership to bring them to heel. If the people that were killed had weapons planted on them, then they were, at least to my interpretation of LOAC, murdered.
Must be very difficult to have respect for 'the rules' when your enemy doesn't. Its very easy for us sitting at home condemning people sent out to carry out confused objectives to sit in judgement.
Rules of war are a political smoke screen, in reality the moment you commit active troops atrocities will happen. At least ours aren't blatantly indiscriminate shelling of civilians as the Russians are doing. Mind you wasn't that ling ago we were quite happy to fire bomb whole cities and burn / suffocate whole civilian populations. We have moved on a bit.
Willard, UKSF operate routinely on completely different ROE often mission specific, OPTAG for them is run internally by the task force and again is focussed on their current tasking, not generic like the rest of us had to go through.
What they have allegedly done is a breach of LOAC, Geneva Conventions and defence captured personnel (CPERS) rules (they’re the consolidated points from LOAC, Gen Conv and NATO guidelines)
Waffling about ROE when you have no idea what they were operating under nor what their targeting parameters were is just a fap fest for the eternally unfulfilled.
It's amazing how quick some of you are to wave away war crimes.
Who? I haven’t. If they executed detained persons, combatants or not, they’ve committed a crime. The rules give specific protections to CPERS and civilians.
Doesn’t necessarily mean some get a brew & a hug, but they certainly don’t get shot.
Interesting thread.
redefined1cycle
Shafiq (the muslim – barbaric ain’t they!).
I might be misreading this, but... What?
Tough one this. Part of me is saying we need to have a full investigation and the perpetrators need to be brought to justice.
The other part of me is fully aware of what happens during operations. For those who have never served, whose life was never at risk, who have never seen what happens in battle, I can see why you would say immediately there is no grey area.
Here’s a story……
You’re patrolling in a small village, lots of non combatants, an IED goes off, 5 of your troop you are responsible for blown to bits and you’re injured, temporarily deaf and quite a bit of skin missing. The non combatants become a mix of combatants and non combatants and you and the remainder of the troop are now under heavy small arms fire.
While you can you then start collecting the body parts of your dead troop putting them in bags, friends you have known for years, bits you have trained since they were just out of school.
Do you call in an air strike on the village to allow you and your troop to be medivac’d? You know the air strike will kill a lot of non combatants, even children. Or do you allow yourself and your troop to be killed?
After the medivac, and you know who was responsible for your ambush and the death of your troop. The people you feel responsible for. But you know full well that the weapons will be long gone. Can you honestly say you would leave it be? You know who did it.
(The above is what happened to a very good friend of mine, a RM Sgt)
But I completely get there is a need to follow the rules. We can’t criticise Russia or other countries when we have in fact carried out similar. We can’t have soldiers being judge and juror. But equally, I get how this happens.
I get that that situation would be harrowing. But...That's not what's going on here. Here people are being arrested/kipdnapped? and then once under control (including plasti-cuffs) are then killed and (perhaps) spurious reasons given - "he reached behind a curtain (like a magician) and had a hand grenade", "he had a gun" Even the rest of military found the whole thing unbelievable. One email suggested that "It's so incredible - You couldn't MAKE IT UP"
nickc - how do you know the background to the raids? Do you think the soldiers just turned up at any house and killed random individuals?
I do love the 2nd hand dits going on in here. Nothing worse than a badly told 2nd hand dit, please just stop because it adds nothing to this conversation.
That doc was a pretty poor piece of work and imo not up to the usual standards I’d expect from Panorama.
Do you think the soldiers just turned up at any house and killed random individuals?
I don't know whether the men the SAS soldiers were alleged to have killed were "random" but that doesn't really matter. The point is that 54 men have been killed on raids and in a number of the reports very similar reasons were given as to why they were killed. One email by an officer reported on the "latest massacre". Another report questioned whether it was a deliberate policy as it was happening so frequently. One report alleged the victim had "brandished a hand grenade" his family have testified that when they buried him, they had to cut off the plasti-cuffs that had tied his hands together behind his back.
That doc was a pretty poor piece of work
They've been investigating for 4 years, and it's so bad that the MOD have asked for the evidence so that they can investigate themselves (again). I'm pretty certain the MOD will find no evidence this time around either, as no Govt will want to get into the situation of having to prosecute it's own soldiers.
The other part of me is fully aware of what happens during operations. For those who have never served, whose life was never at risk, who have never seen what happens in battle, I can see why you would say immediately there is no grey area.
Here’s a story……
You’re patrolling in a small village, lots of non combatants, an IED goes off, 5 of your troop you are responsible for blown to bits and you’re injured, temporarily deaf and quite a bit of skin missing. The non combatants become a mix of combatants and non combatants and you and the remainder of the troop are now under heavy small arms fire.
While you can you then start collecting the body parts of your dead troop putting them in bags, friends you have known for years, bits you have trained since they were just out of school.
Do you call in an air strike on the village to allow you and your troop to be medivac’d? You know the air strike will kill a lot of non combatants, even children. Or do you allow yourself and your troop to be killed?
After the medivac, and you know who was responsible for your ambush and the death of your troop. The people you feel responsible for. But you know full well that the weapons will be long gone. Can you honestly say you would leave it be? You know who did it.(The above is what happened to a very good friend of mine, a RM Sgt)
A reminder that the alledged atrocities in no way resemble the above - the squadron investigated suffered no injuries in their six month tour, the targetting was "pressured and rushed" (which is not the unit's fault), and they made multiple reports of detained personnel reaching for weapons (an action which no other unit reported).
These do not appear to be 'heat of the moment' bad decisions
The MOD statement prior to airing days very different. Like it or not, there’s no case to answer as far as they’re concerned.
Being a pad brat isn’t quite the same! Unless you were forced to do bed blocks and show parades by your parents!
Not my parent's, no, but we did parades, barracking beds, 10 minute reports and all that stuff for either ceremonial or disciplinary reasons. You learn drill rather fast (if you're smart) when you're 10 years old and being marched about by an RSM with obligatory pace stick.
A reminder that the alledged atrocities in no way resemble the above
As I said, I doubt most of those defending have actually read the article. If they had they wouldn't be coming out with the war fantasy nonsense.
Yep, and I'm not surprised. The MOD after all don't in any way have a history on finding absolutely nothing wrong ever, when it's very convenient.
Such is the way of the world. Won’t be the first time, not the last.
Neither will it be media organisations embellishing things to keep the revenue up.
Nothing like a good bit of SF action to get the war hawks and fantasists out the woodwork though.
Shit dits and whataboutery rule the day.
This. That’s a terrible dit that misses many important details and is a completely different context. Just stop.
A reminder that the alledged atrocities in no way resemble the above – the squadron investigated suffered no injuries in their six month tour, the targetting was “pressured and rushed” (which is not the unit’s fault), and they made multiple reports of detained personnel reaching for weapons (an action which no other unit reported).
These do not appear to be ‘heat of the moment’ bad decisions
Such is the way of the world. Won’t be the first time, not the last.
Yep, their history of covering up their own mess is probably the envy of more accountable Whitehall depts, Deepcut, endless N Ireland inquiries, Iraq, Gibraltar shootings, and those are just off the top of my head, says nothing of the endless cases of just run of mill normal workplace bullying endless sexism, homophobia and so on that's swept under the carpet on a routine basis. But it's Soldiers and so they're largely politically untouchable. C'est la vie.
This. That’s a terrible dit that misses many important details and is a completely different context. Just stop.
I'm prepared to be corrected if you have anything other than "shit happens" to base it on?
You don't need me to tell you this but I'm not ex-military, so all I have to go on is the story as reported - I'm fully prepared to accept that the reality is not exactly as it was reported, but I'm not prepared to dismiss the allegations out of hand solely because the MOD said nothing went wrong, or because of fantasist imaginings that the unit in question were at the end of their collective tethers and made some bad choices in the heat of the moment.
Pondo, is a combatant someone who is in uniform carrying an RPG, therefore fair game to be killed on the battlefield?
Is a combatant someone who has planted an IED/land mine, killed soldiers. Then hidden their small arms and gone to bed? Or are they then non combatants because they’re asleep?
Guerrilla warfare makes things an awful lot more complex than the reports you are reading.
Im not going to go into too much details (I served in war zones, fortunately not Iraq and obviously not SF or a chef….), but there is so much wrong on all sides. The Geneva Convention only works when it is followed by both sides.
Ah - so we're fine to raid suspect houses in the night and shoot the occupants after we've safely detained them?
I KNOW there's nuance here, but if the SAS have been carrying out extrajudicial killings, it has to be investigated and the perpetrators bought to justice. Not least because it's exactly this kind of behaviour that supports the radicalisation of others.
Guerrilla warfare makes things an awful lot more complex
Not really; LOAC is still pretty clear If they wear a uniform, if they openly carry weapons, or it's clear who they are; then enemy combatants, if none of those things are clear they still must be given equivalent protections if captured. I think the first of the "It's forbidden" section makes it pretty plain that once captured, you can't shoot folks and you must treat them as if they're PW. Do not torture injure or kill PW is pretty straightforward.
If only war was as black and white Nick. I’m not trying to be condescending, I don’t like what had happened, but I do have some context to certain situations (not in anyway related to the reports or to SF, but to how the enemy behave, the sights we see and the situations we deal with)
I don’t have access to Afghan newspapers, but I’m presuming there is similar outcry about the torture and murder of westerners (soldiers and civilians)over there?
Think the guys who had laid the land mines had read the LOAC and are now worrying about being dragged to court?
Conventions have to be followed by both sides. This isn’t a game of chess or Call of Duty. Real horrible things happen in war.
The days of WW2 and clearly identifiable targets is over. The enemy do not follow the Geneva convention. If caught you will be tortured, likely to be killed. You are walking around an area that is likely to have illegal land mines.
I don’t think it’s fine to raid houses. I’m saying I’m torn. That means I know it’s wrong. But there’s a lot of wrongs happening. Should it be investigated? I don’t know. Part of me says yes. I certainly don’t think it’s as simple as what the rules of engagement say or the law of armed combat, especially when one side is clearly not following those same laws.
w00dster
Full Member
Tough one this.
Mate, one unit executed 54 people after they were in custody. There's nothing tough about that in the slightest.
I understand British patriotism will let you hide a lot of sins, but come on take the blinkers off.
