The Tory government is shit on pretty much everything. The MP Johnny Mercer is on board with that. But he wants to go further. Namely by allowing soldiers to get away with (allegedly) murdering civilians, if said soldiers live past pension age.
Bad’s Army
To be fair, that’s not entirely accurate. Mercer wants all soldiers to avoid scrutiny.
The ones facing justice over events in the north of Ireland are quite old now. That isn’t because the victims’ families thought:
Let’s wait until the murderers get old so it’s really inconvenient for them to face up to their crimes.
No – it’s because successive UK governments swept the issue under the carpet.
Mercer has some support, though. The campaign group Squaddies Against Justice (SAJ) argued:
Do you know how much it costs to train a soldier? If we’re not constantly murdering people then all that money is going to waste.
Slippery slope
An SAJ spokesperson added:
It’s easy to criticise us for gunning down unarmed civilians. The fact is that the only sure fire way of stopping unarmed civilians becoming armed civilians is murder.
People have pointed out the Nazis had a similar philosophy. SAJ shot back:
We’ll be working to get German soldiers pardoned next. They were all just following orders, after all. If soldiers follow instructions, everything’s fine. It’s also fine if they use their own initiative. You know why?
The SAJ spokesperson showed us his gun.
“Yeah you know why,” he smiled.
Featured image via Wikimedia – UK Parliament
