h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk/6348811.stm

Hello Blues,

Re this post and your number 38.

I would like you to be aware that I have never asked for the pilots to be named. I asked if they should face a C/M.

I think you are being remarkably sanguine about the MoD'd duty of care and its' duty to the family.

I am sure that if you lost a loved one in a motor accident, and the police denied that they had any associated evidence, and worse wouldn't tell you what had happened or even eho was to blame 0 your interest in closure wouldn't be as dismissive.

And it is no good saying that soldiers die in war. We all risk death on our roads each day.

Novo

<>

Ah, but I do!

Vicky

So Della if there was a Rwanda/Cambodia esque genocide going on somewhere would you not advocate the use of force to stop it?

"
Ah, but I do!

Vicky "

In that case you would have thought the soldiers should have not shot at the group if it was enemies so the problem is the attack not that they attacked friendlies.

Novo - It ake your point but I see little point in getted exciting about it.

The US refuses to allow their troops to co-operate with any form of tribunal that might result in Court Martials or the like. These pilots are NEVER going to face a court martial, so there is no point in even discussing the possibility. I doubt that most of the US is even aware that this incident has happened.

Therefore the only point in discussion is whether they should be named. And the answer to that has to be an emphatic 'no'.

Mmmmmmm,

I am mostly 'with you', part of my original post was rhetorical.

It is the MoD's behaviour which I find so reprehensible.

I recall the time of my youth in the '50's, in a town surrounded by USAF bases, that if a girl got pregnant by a US airman, and he told the base commander, he was reposted to Weisbaden within 12 hours, his papers with hime, so that when the irate father of the girl went to the base, the guilty man apparently had never been there, ever....

That is a commendable Duty of Care!

Novo

I'm not sure that any Army is terribly good at 'duty of care' under those circumstances.

I'm not sure what the MoD is supposed to have done? The information was in the remit of the Pentagon, and even if it wasn't I'll bet you any money you care to wager that it was covered by the Official Secrets Act.

And if not, I'll bet it had a D Notice.

My point all along has been that the Mod 'knew' what had happend, 'knew' the circumstances but chose to pretend that the tape, or other evidence didn't exist. Could the widow not have been told under the Official Secrets Act?....it would have been kinder than making her wait nearly 4 years. ( my previous example to you relates)

Novo

What does knowing the contents of the tape change?

The Corporal was killed by the Americans in a friendly fire accident.
That was known 4 years ago.

Is he any the less dead because of the tape?

A lot of fuss over nothing, caused by the MOD's automatic reaction to deny in all circumstances.

SWL,

Read my post 42 to Blues. It might explain my view.

<>

In this case, irrelevant. The point is, that our friends in the American Empire bombed the hell out of Afghanistan and invaded Iraq in the pursuit of oil, and lied like troopers to do it. I think all but the wilfully naive now know that neither war is justified, and a 'friendly fire' incident just shows that the death of one white man matters more to the world's media than any number of Muslims - men, women or children.

Why all the hysteria about Darfur? Because it suits the septics, - the first article I ever saw about it, presented it as genocide of sweet peaceful pagan Africans by evil Islamofascist Arabs... The article was by that well-known honest, objective decent all-round good guy Phyllis Chesler...

I look forward to 60-75 years from now (though I hope I don't live long enough to see it from here on earth) when school-children speak the name of Bush with the same abhorrence they use now with the name of Hitler, and Guantanamo and Fallujah are names with the same resonance as Bergen-Belsen and Khatyn...

Why the hell would a Rwanda-esque situation need 'Merkin bombs and tanks to stop it?



Vicky