The Royal Marine Murderer

I don't know whether the Marine was intrinsically evil Mishap. I understand why posters with strong links to the military, speak out strongly abut the man's behaviour. I find it impossible to consider this case, without feeling compassion for the Marine who killed the injured Taliban fighter, the man who died, and the 2 colleagues who witnessed and were therefore contaminated by an act that breached the Geneva convention, as the Marine himself said. I've already commented that PTSD is often undiagnosed. I don't know enough to judge this Marine, is my conclusion

Are we to assume that this man, who had served in the army for many years and had an unblemished record, is intrinsically evil? - or do we wonder whether the things he had seen and the things he had done had some detrimental effect upon him? I suspect the latter.

I totally agree with all you say FlicketyB, this senior man broke EVERY rule in the book even down to the implication of his comrades, totally disgraceful. I don't see any mitigating circumstances here.

How do you know he had been brutalised by the actions he is obliged to take in our name? Nothing I have seen suggested that.

Many thousands of soldiers have fought for our country and seen terrible things. The majority continue to lead normal lives under the usual norms and with out any mental side affects. Some do have mental problems afterwards and they should get all the help they need. But even they do not go out and shoot people in Afghanistan or anywhere else in the cold calculating way this man did. The nature of the action that frontline shock troop units, like the marines and SAS see, will attract what would, in other circumstances, be described as hard men and some who are brutal.

We need to remember he made two junior soldiers complicit in his crime and did nothing to protect them from being charged as accomplices (thankfully they were acquitted). He undermined morale and compromised team discipline in a team where all members must trust each other absolutely, because quite literally their lives depend on it.

In military terms he broke every rule of trust and responsibility in the book, betrayed the men he led and put their lives at risk.

I have no axe to grind on behalf of the military, but I just see this man as a human being who had clearly been brutalised by the actions that he is obliged to take in our name, whether we like it or not.

Sorry Eloethan, I didn't see your post there and was replying to Mishap.

I'm afraid we will just have to agree to disagree. While I can up to a point understand shooting this enemy in a moment of fury in the heat of the moment, what I cannot get my head round is the deliberate mental and physical torture beforehand - you may kill a fly but you don't tear it's wings off first, that surely is inhuman.

I think it is wrong that army recruitment campaigns are directed at 16 year olds and that these young people can be deployed at the age of 18. I don't think that many people of that age are emotionally and intellectually mature enough to make such a decision. These campaigns are often focused on areas of high unemployment where young people see them as a way to avoid the hopelessness of being perhaps permanently unemployed, or scratching around for temporary, low paid jobs.

This marine was older and experienced and, as well as committing murder, his actions set a terrible example to those over whom he had control. One wonders why he felt so confident that his actions would be acceptable to those around him and would go unreported - perhaps such incidents are not as uncommon as we'd like to think.

My own feeling is that killing other people and seeing one's own friends killed must affect even the best trained soldier. But if an Afghan were to behave in the same way, we would not call for leniency, whatever atrocities he may have witnessed.

Our taxes pay to teach young men and women to kill. We cannot get too indignant when something like this happens. We cannot know what this training does to a person, particularly a young person, as we have not been through it ourselves.

I too share the sense of horror at the apparent cold-bloodedness of this abhorrent action; but I also ask myself what drove him to it. What had he witnessed beforehand? What atrocities had he seen meted out to his colleagues and friends?

I believe that he should have been charged with manslaughter, the mitigating circumstances being all that he had been though prior to the event. I do not necessarily regard this as "calculated cruelty" - the balance of his mind may have been disturbed by all that had gone before. It must be so hard to be faced by people who could not give a flier about the Geneva convention, to watch one's friends being summarily slaughtered and still to hold back.

The training contains a central paradox: we teach people to kill and then ask them to show super-human forbearance and restraint.

I fear that he is in a sense a scapegoat as the British army need to be seen to be upholding the Geneva convention.

I do not come from a military family and firmly believe that we should not be in Afghanistan at all; but I am trying to understand what drove this man to behave in such a way, and I think that we all bear the blame to some extent.

We don't take young men in the prime of youth etc, THEY volunteer. (No conscripts any more which is a good thing) It is made crystal clear to them during their training what they will probably face and what is expected of them, and that they will almost certainly be facing an enemy who play by completely different rules to them, a barbaric, violent, cruel adversary. Nobody makes anyone join the forces or makes personal stay if they clearly have problems of whatever nature which are difficult to, or can't be addressed. The whole point is that we DON'T play by Taliban rules and that hopefully we can convey that to the local population in the brilliant work done by our troops in ensuring that girls can go to school, markets can operate, clean water is available, medical care and so much more which we and others are trying to put into place. Torturing and murdering a POW is hardly conjusive to the very difficult job of convincing the locals that we are there to defend and help them. I for one am glad this came to light, if only to make sure that it never happens again as it may well not be the first incident, but let's now hope it's the last. If this man felt he was under pressure, suffering from flashbacks due to his previous experiences, or whatever may have been troubling him, he should, as an experienced senior NCO have sought the appropriate medical help, not resorted to calculated cruelty.

When the judge makes his decision on this matter I presume he will have access to the marine's previous service history and to his psychiatric evaluation; the judge will then take this into account when sentencing. This is common practice and rightly so. I don't expect the judge to either 'make an example' of this man or to be unduly lenient.

Well put, nightowl. Having watched an army veteran with PTSD having flashbacks of the terror he experienced in a suicide bombing in Helmand, watching his comrade be blown up, I could understand his problems with drugs and his triggers to violence that put him in prison. No-one can condone these acts of (seemingly) gratuitous violence, but compassion is needed when deciding how best to punish offences committed in war zones.

Yes me too zephrine

Very well put nightowl .

I can't help seeing the pictures in my head of smiling Afghans working "happily" alongside our soldiers hours before they massacre them.

I always think it strange that we take men in the prime of youth and at a high level of fitness, we then hone and increase that fitness to extreme levels, we train them to kill and provide them with the most sophisticated and deadly weapons, we send them into hellish situations to do unimaginable things in our name (whether we agree with war or not, I'm talking generally) and then we tell them they can only kill in certain ways and under certain conditions. The rules of war are a complete mystery to me I'm afraid but I am reluctant to judge a man who has seen things the rest of us would not want to even imagine. Of course what he did was wrong, but I think compassion and leniency in sentencing should have been shown. Just because he appeared to act in cold blood, away from the immediacy of battle, does not mean he had not been deeply affected by all he had experienced over years of service.

Again, I agree with you entirely FlicketyB. Bearing in mind the seniority of this Marine, the trust and reliance put in him and the nature of the conversation recorded for all to hear, I see no mitigating circumstances whatsoever.

I wonder what the Taliban would have done should the situation have been reversed?

I am sorry all this sympathy about what he had experienced in his war service etc etc leaves me cold. This man was not a young squaddie, well trained but still young and relatively untried. He is a senior NCO, a Sergeant, experienced and promoted because of his character and skills to lead and by his actions inspire the trust and support and control the behaviour of junior ranks

Above more than almost anyone else, including some junior officers, he is the seen as the source of experience and to be looked up to.

This man, coldly, calculatedly and with malice afore thought chose to do what he did. Not only that but he forced two junior soldiers to be complicit in his crime.

As I said before the judge is taking time to consider the sentence but I can see few mitigating factors.

I think he said 'who wants to give this idiot first aid, to which one of the two juniors with him is heard to reply 'nope'. He was so calm, cool and collected, no loss of control here, almost premeditated, very keen to hide his tracks, mentioning the Geneva Convention, hiding from the overhead aircraft and making sure that the shot that killed him could be assumed to have been sustained during the battle. I'm sorry, if this had happened in the heat of the moment, than I would feel some understanding, but it wasn't, and nothing excuses cold brutal torture and murder of a helpless person.

I'm with Nigglynellie on this.

He was also heard saying something like "who wants to give this man first aid, no-one?" to which the others, presumably subordinates, agreed.

It wasn't in the heat of battle - that would be understandable. He had time to think about what he was doing, even quoting the Geneva Convention.

No argument there nigglynellie, I don't condone this, but do feel some compassion for the man who fired the shot, and shouldn't have. I suspect this man reached some kind of point of no return. I agree, he shouldn't have, but we can only imagine what experiences he'd had in his many years of service, and what the long term impact on him has been. I am not opposed to the trial, or the guilty finding, but I for a sentence that reflects the crime, but recognises this (seems to have been ) a one off dreadful loss of control.

Yes, the Taliban fighter was badly injured during the TWO sided gunbattle which made him a legitimite target; he was then discovered by these guys in a completely helpless state, no threat to anyone AFTER the battle, when he SHOULD have been picked up, attended to with first aid and handed over to the appropriate authorities and treated in exactly the same way as the enemy both in Europe and the Far East were treated in the two w.wars AFTER a battle, ie as a POW, not tormented, tortured ,and shot in the chest because shooting him in the head would be too 'obvious'!! So no of course the gunner on the gun ship can't be accused of anything - he was doing his duty during a battle when no doubt he was being shot at as well as often happens in battles! What we're talking about here is AFTER the battle and the murder of a defenceless prisoner.

The other worrying thing is that they uploaded the footage of it to a laptop presumably to 'share'. Apparently the helmet cameras are not sanctioned. By the powers that be.

Wasn't it the case that this Taliban fighter had already been badly injured by the helicopter gun ship? Should the gunner who shot him from there be held culpable also? I find all the high-mindeness expressed from the safety of our own homes rather difficult to swallow frankly. I am sorry that this incident ever came to light and I would like to see the marine sergeant sentenced leniently.

I come from an army family. Father, two brothers and two nephews all served in various conflicts and I know how bloody and horrendous they are. The Taliban must think we are nuts to be trying this man!

Is part of the problem that this war is part war/ part guerrila war where the opposition don't adhere to the rules?

This just the point berdie. It is the 'fall out' from this incident that will now be a worry both for this Marine's comrades and the security of the UK. As you say, the perfect excuse for jihad! The subject of this man's calculated cruelty was in all probability the victim of a far reaching sinister political agenda by people who no regard for human life and decency including his, in other words a pawn at the mercy of both camps. We don't know this of course, but it would seem probable. As I said before, we are not talking about conscripts here or raw recruits, but a highly trained, (in all respects) and trusted Marine Sergeant who knew perfectly well that what he was doing was completely against both his training, the ethos of the Armed Forces and the Geneva Convention.