http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/uknews/defence/10439494/Petition-leniency-for-Marine-A.html
They have actually got a petition going, asking for 'leniency' for a convicted murderer. I just don't know what to make of this it's so fucked up. They usually resist any sort of sociological explanation for any kind of crime, and say its a product of morality. In this case, they want to look at the circumstances:
The case of Marine A will go down as a brutal incident in a brutal war. A badly wounded Taliban captive was executed at point blank range by a British soldier on the field of battle in Helmand in 2011.
Sign the petition here
Perhaps, the shaky camera footage will, as warned, prove to be a gift to terrorist propagandists. But the murder conviction - the first time a British serviceman has been convicted of murder during the Afghan (or Iraq) conflicts – needs to be viewed in context.
The pressure cooker of Afghanistan, where soldiers have been subjected to daily sniper attacks and the ever present threat of IEDs and suicide bombings, has placed intolerable mental strain upon our soldiers. Since 2009, the number of Afghanistan veterans seeking help from the charity Combat Stress has increased by an average of 50 per cent each year. For those like Marine A, an experienced sergeant and veteran of tours in Northern Ireland, Iraq and Afghanistan, the risk of developing mental trauma is high. As he told the court martial, he took the shot on the spur of the moment because of pent up emotions.
We do not seek to justify Marine A’s actions, nor condone murder. Instead, we call for leniency when he is sentenced by the Court Martial Board on December 6. This is a man seemingly pushed to the brink by a war in which he was fighting for his country - his country should stand by him now.
...and just for extra fun, thieving MP should be let off for an 'honest mistake'. It's only members of his class who get to make 'honest mistakes', though, remember that:
http://blogs.telegraph.co.uk/news/j...s-owned-up-and-apologised-we-need-to-move-on/
Shall we go for the hat trick? ok, if you insist, here's James Delingpole :
"In every single sphere of British influence the upper echelons of power in 2013 are held overwhelmingly by the privately educated…." fo
rmer Prime Minister Sir John Major has complained in a speech.
Well the solution is obvious and I'm surprised Major didn't spell it out. We need a cull – a major cull at every bank, barristers chambers, law firm, FTSE 100 corporation, accountancy firm, hedge fund, advertising agency, hospital trust, regiment and aircraft carrier in the land. Only around 7 per cent of Britain's schoolchildren are educated privately and this needs to be reflected, as a matter of urgency, in the composition of the senior staffing at our major institutions. Yes, indeed it may be true that the privately educated may, ceteris paribus, be more confident, self-disciplined, articulate, motivated and academically able than those who have been stuck in the resolutely anti-elitist state system. But just because they have a greater aptitude for Britain's top jobs doesn't mean they should get them. Not in the modern age, anyway. Personally, I'm with Major: we should end all forms of pernicious discrimination by adopting some sort of quota system so that everyone, whatever their race, colour, creed, sexual orientation, class, ability or IQ level gets a fair crack of the whip.
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Why, for example, is there currently not one surgeon in Britain who suffers from cerebral palsy?
Why are there so few disabled people playing in the premier league?
Where are the transgender Apache pilots in Afghanistan?
When, oh, when are our hunts – the Northern ones especially – going to move with the times and finally appoint their first Islamist Master of Foxhounds?
...what a fucking imbecile. Privately educated people are just more academically able and self-disciplined, it's not their fault they just are. Their private education made them that way. And having institutions that are representative of the people they serve is just the same as insisting that you have to have disabled people in football teams! He didn't choose that analogy by accident, did he? Being state educated is compared here to having cerebral palsy. He seems to be saying that both are terrible afflictions that render the sufferer unfit to practice medicine.
