There was nothing - literally nothing - in the Alexander Blackman case to justify the grotesque 10-year sentence handed down to him by a British court for dispatching a Taliban fighter on the battlefield in Afghanistan. As far as I can see, the British government, its minions, and the Army indulged in a sordid vendetta to cover their own sorry arses. Some sort of sanction was evidently required - but a ten-year prison sentence? Ridiculous. Anyway, he'll be out in a couple of weeks, thanks to his splendid "lioness" wife, Claire, the author Freddie Forsyth, who brought this dreadful miscarriage of justice to the attention of Jonathan Goldberg QC (who I want defending me if I ever get into trouble), and everyone else - including those newspapers and fellow marines - who fought to get the soldier released. Well done, all of them. I want to make just a few points:
First, I wonder if those doughty social justice warriors who make television dramas ever worry that the climate of moral hysteria which made Alexander Blackman's conviction possible in the first place was partly created by them. I've lost count of the number of films and TV drama series whose fictional plots involve a former American, British or Danish soldier running around killing people at home in order to cover up the fact that he was responsible for the cold-blooded murder of an entirely innocent Iraqi or Afghan man/family/village - take your pick. I eventually stopped watching dramatic representations of such incidents, because (a) I refused to believe they were all that common, or Newsnight and the Guardian would have been ramming down them our throats day and night, (b) I thought they were aiding and abetting the enemy by fuelling the sense of victimhood to which Muslims enjoying the benefits of Western hospitality seem just as prone as those experiencing the delights of Islamic rule, and (c) they were undermining the will of Westerners to give unquestioning support to their troops when they were still in harm's way.
It seems reasonable for people to question the wisdom of our governments sending troops abroad to risk their lives against, say, Islamist barbarians while failing to halt the spread of the same poisonous ideology at home, just as it's reasonable to ask whether the actions Western troops are engaged are likely to help keep us safe. But when broadcasters use fictional and "factual" programming to sap the national will to fight - and to undermine the will of those actually risking their lives - well, you end up with the Vietnam War which, one suspects, the Americans would have won if its media hadn't gone full Tokyo Rose.
Should Alexander Blackman have shot that wounded Taliban fighter? No. Should he have been sentenced to ten years in prison (or any years in prison) for having done so? No, of course he shouldn't. Apart from the fact that I'm far too much of a coward to have ever found myself facing the same temptation as Sgt. Blackman, can I imagine myself doing something similar, having been through what he'd been through? Most definitely.
!!!VERY BAD LANGUAGE WARNING!!!
I know this will sound macabre (not to mention, heartless), but I couldn't help being struck by the remark made by Sgt. Blackman after he'd shot the insurgent: "There you are, shuffle off this mortal coil, you cunt. It's nothing you wouldn't do to us" It may seem an odd time to quote Hamlet (albeit unconsciously, one supposes), but given all the blood, gore, battles, soldiers and moral dilemmas in Shakespeare plays, not in the least incongruous. It's not hard to imagine the exact same sentiment being expressed in the exact same circumstances and with the same seemingly casual callousness, in any of the History plays.
The best of luck to Alexander Blackman.
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