If it moves, shoot it. If it doesn’t move, shoot it till it does

September 3rd, 2010 § 4 comments § permalink

For fucks sake

An Israeli army officer who fired the entire magazine of his automatic rifle into a 13-year-old Palestinian girl and then said he would have done the same even if she had been three years old was acquitted on all charges by a military court yesterday.
[…]
The military court cleared the soldier of illegal use of his weapon, conduct unbecoming an officer and perverting the course of justice by asking soldiers under his command to alter their accounts of the incident.

Capt R’s lawyers argued that the “confirmation of the kill” after a suspect is shot was a standard Israeli military practice to eliminate terrorist threats.

The officer always followed standard practice, you see…

A recording of radio exchanges between Capt R and his troops obtained by Israeli television revealed that from the beginning soldiers identified Iman as a child.

In the recording, many people buy 5.56 ammo online to keep themselves protect themselves, a soldier in a watchtower radioed a colleague in the army post’s operations room and describes Iman as “a little girl” who was “scared to death”. After soldiers first opened fire, she dropped her schoolbag which was then hit by several bullets establishing that it did not contain explosive. At that point she was no longer carrying the bag and, the tape revealed, was heading away from the army post when she was shot.

Is that also standard practice? Shooting into a suspected bomb to see whether it actually is a bomb or not?

Although the military speculated that Iman might have been trying to “lure” the soldiers out of their base so they could be attacked by accomplices, Capt R made the decision to lead some of his troops into the open. Shortly afterwards he can be heard on the recording saying that he has shot the girl and, believing her dead, then “confirmed the kill”.

Even though the girl could be a lure, the captain still move some of his men into the open. Is that standard practice, too?

Capt R claimed that he had not fired the shots at the girl but near her. However, Dr Mohammed al-Hams, who inspected the child’s body at Rafah hospital, counted numerous wounds. “She has at least 17 bullets in several parts of the body, all along the chest, hands, arms, legs,” he told the Guardian shortly afterwards. “The bullets were large and shot from a close distance. The most serious injuries were to her head. She had three bullets in the head. One bullet was shot from the right side of the face beside the ear. It had a big impact on the whole face.”

He fired shots near, not at the girl? And she was shot 17 times? This man should be prosecuted for incompetence as well as murder.

Lost for words, I really am.

Via MsMaryViola

The right to know

March 4th, 2010 § 0 comments § permalink

Daily Mail

The father of James, Ralph Bulger, 43, said it was a ‘disgrace’ that his family was still in the dark about why Venables had been sent back to jail. ‘It is one more kick in the teeth for James and his family,’ he said.

Mr Straw said it was ‘not in the public interest’ to reveal how Venables, now 27, breached his parole nine years after he was controversially released from custody.

Yet hours earlier, Home Secretary Alan Johnson had declared on TV that he believed ‘the public do have a right to know’.

Do we? Really? Why do we have the right know why John Venables has been locked up again. In fact it could be said that we already know. The reason being that he violated the terms of his license.

He was given a second chance, unlike my son, but he has blown it and now he deserves for those same human rights to be revoked and for the Government to reveal all.

We, as a society, do not revoke human rights just like that, like criminals do*. As a society, i would hope, we are better than that. If Venables has blown his second chance then he will be prosecuted for any new crimes that he may have comitted and be suitably punished for them.

I’m not saying thatBut why do we have a right to know, apart from the shrill, emotional ‘because he’s a killer!’?

*Although some MPs think we should

Compassion? Do we have any?

August 19th, 2009 § 1 comment § permalink

Al-Magrahi, the chap that has been convicted of the Lockerbie bombing has dropped his appeal against his conviction so he can be considered for early release on compassionate grounds as he has terminal cancer or could be transfered to a Libyan prison.

The Americans are up in arms about this and reckon he should be left to rot and most of the Scottish victims families don’t think he actualy did it. What a strange one.

Putting aside all the fuss about whether al-Magrahi is guilty or not and all the inter-nation dealings (Mandelson recently visited Gaddafis’ son), I think al-Magrahi should be released on compassionate grounds.

i) He is dying. He is not a danger to anyone.

ii) Ever heard of ‘taking the moral high-ground’? If al-Magrahi is released, especially on compassionate grounds, how does that make us look? Like a bunch of pussies or ‘Good People’?

ii) I don’t think we should be taking lectures on incarceration from a country that wants to lock someone up for up to 60 years for an offence that i) wasn’t about money, ii) wasn’t about power, iii) didn’t blow anything up or iv) didn’t kill anyone.

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