guardian: british soldiers to be prosecuted for war crimes

jul 19th

this is a curious situation.

on the one hand, it is clear that invading troops inflict human rights violations; therefore war crimes and crimes against humanity are likely to be perpetrated when there is an invasion, a resistance, etc.

on the other hand, it is hard to believe the resistance in iraq consists entirely of angels, given the frequency of murderous suicide bombings by what appears to be brainwashed terrorists.

is it fair to make soldiers scapegoats to stupid political decisions? this problem has been faced by the poor ordinary grunt in india too, who has the marxist establishment baying for his blood if he shoots a terrorist. does the soldier have human rights, too? what is he supposed to do when a terrorist is shooting at him? it would be instructive to send some of the bleeding-hearts to the front lines during a firefight with terrorist and to observe how conscious they are of the 'human rights' of the suicide bomber. there is no reason to accept that the 'human rights' of a terrorist are any greater than those of a normal person, but by default the marxists do accept this.

perhaps the americans were right after all to refuse to accept the authority of the international criminal court. therefore, their soldiers are not prosecuted.

http://politics.guardian.co.uk/iraq/story/0,12956,1532239,00.html