At this rate there is more likely to be a lynching than a coup in the party of Her Majesty’s Official Opposition. Not sure who might be the first to go though.
Well yes, but in an ideal world, who wouldn’t. But as the MP states in the article, that’s not realistic. And unfortunately when Corbyn chooses to focus on this, rather than unequivocally supporting the fact this murderer is no longer going to be an issue, he focuses the debate on a criticism of the wrong people.
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You don’t have to live in a utopia to recognise that straying so far from your values is a dangerous thing. One of the supposed virtues of the West is the rigorous application of the rule of law. As hoofinruth points out, the relatives of the victims wanted a trial, so they don’t feel justice or closure.
Corbyn is correct to point out that we can’t go around just murdering people that are perceived to be hostile to the regime, even if the evidence happens to be overwhelming. The way British justice works, and this is not normally an ideal, is that anyone accused of a crime is presumed innocent until proven guilty, that is, so that a jury of twelve are satisfied so that they are sure the evidence supports the conviction.
“But hey pap! This Jihadi John bloke is a complete cunt. How can you support him?”
I’m not, or at least not directly, but we’re living in a time when sensible people are ostensibly willing to ditch the very values that make us who we are in order to kill a boogeyman. Today, it’s Jihadi John. Precedent is a bitch; in the future, it could be a cunt you know marked for death by the government. Is that really what Britain is about?
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Downvoted you Pap, because that completely grossed me out!
I’m obviously shifting dimensions again. In this reality, I really can’t be arsed seeking clarification from the vague. It’s glorious.
This seems completely daft to get worked up about. All Corbyn has done is state the bleeding obvious, and one of his MPs has taken a swipe at him for it.
i would love to have put that sick bastard on trial, however in the absence of any viable method of getting at him, I think a tomahawk missile through the bedroom window is an acceptable alternative.
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Personally, I don’t have much of an issue about what he said, it would be better if he could have been put on trial. Completely unfeasible however, and if it were up to him we wouldn’t even have the chance to put him on trial, as he doesn’t support ANY kind of military intervention.
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Eloquent and to the point. Just wondering what the consensus would be in the media had Blair been PM right now?
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Evening Standard headlines: “Jihadi John blown to pieces by US drone strike.” Good, shame it probably did not have time to hurt though.
I think it’s easy to state he ‘deserved to die’ - he was afterall a hideous human being - anyone who can behead other people is obviously sick, twisted and a complete and utter cunt. But I dont want to appear flipant but Tolkien probably said it best in LOTR - ‘‘Many that live deserve death, but many that die deserve life. Can you give it to them?’’ Add in the simple fact that that we have a rule of law and I have to admit, it makes me feel very uncomfortable.
Sorry but seeing Cameron state it was the right thing to do, just underlines what a total cunt he is - knowing full well it will resonate with plenty of voters…
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I find this shot of Corbyn at Remembrance Day quite startling in consideration of bowgate. He’s flanked by the warmongering ghouls Blair and Cameron, both of whom have been engaged in campaigns of aggression, and he gets flak for not bowing enough.
I wouldn’t have any of those cunts carrying my coffin.
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Downvoted for not having the good grace to upvote Pap for what was a pretty unanswerable point.
Originally posted by @areloa-grandee
I think it’s easy to state he ‘deserved to die’ - he was afterall a hideous human being - anyone who can behead other people is obviously sick, twisted and a complete and utter cunt. But I dont want to appear flipant but Tolkien probably said it best in LOTR - ‘‘Many that live deserve death, but many that die deserve life. Can you give it to them?’’ Add in the simple fact that that we have a rule of law and I have to admit, it makes me feel very uncomfortable.
The problem is that these aberrations get easier with both time and repetition. You only need to look at what suddenly became acceptable, and how widespread it became, during the War on Terror. We’d never officially done torture before, yet the US government was admitting to it in euphemised terms such as waterboarding, and we were helping them to detain and transport people to blacksites all over the world.
Domestically, both the UK and the US passed some terrifying legislation during the panic. which remains an ongoing threat. Theresa May is looken to broaden the definition of extremist, consistent with the Conservative policy of identifying an enemy within and demonising it. They’re doing the same broadening of scope with another target of hate, so called “troubled families” (there may be a thread on that soon). The problem with any blanket label, especially when applied to law enforcement, is that you always have the arbiter problem.
Who the fuck decides what counts? Police Commissioners have already expressed concern that Theresa May’s proposals are a potential threat to democracy; so many restrictions are already in place, and the Old Bill haven’t traditionally been overburdened with extra power; they love them.
Sorry but seeing Cameron state it was the right thing to do, just underlines what a total cunt he is - knowing full well it will resonate with plenty of voters…
Yep. We’re talking the destroyer of Libya, a conqueror with absolutely no clue what to do next. History will not judge him kindly.
I didn’t realise there was a formula for these things. At least I’ll know how to better behave with ‘good grace’ next time. (Whether I choose to or not).
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Originally posted by @Cracked-Rib(s)
I think it’s easy to state he ‘deserved to die’ - he was afterall a hideous human being - anyone who can behead other people is obviously sick, twisted and a complete and utter cunt. But I dont want to appear flipant but Tolkien probably said it best in LOTR - ‘‘Many that live deserve death, but many that die deserve life. Can you give it to them?’’ Add in the simple fact that that we have a rule of law and I have to admit, it makes me feel very uncomfortable.
This summarises my viewpoint pretty well.
I went through a lot of emotions when I heard the news - all very quickly.
Initially I thought ‘good’. Then it occurred to me that he hadn’t had a trial. Then I thought that a British citizen had been killed by the US - without a trial - in a country that was neither the US or the UK.
As with your point Cracked Rib(s), I still stand by my initial reaction of “good”. But like you, I feel very uncomfortable with the fact that central tenets of the laws that underpin our society are being so easily pushed aside.
Perhaps that’s justified in some circumstances? Perhaps it’s not. But one man dying on one man’s say-so is not a healthy path to continue along.
The odd thing is, and it shows how conflicted I am about this, but if he had died as a n other combatant in ‘the war on terror’ as opposed to being targeted, I think I’d feel less queasy about it.
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How would you feel if Batman had killed Jihadi John? He’s a funny one, isn’t he? Operating outside the law, deciding who should live and die, even if he does it for the right reasons.
See I have this thing that Jihadi John was, himself, judge, jury and executioner on people that had done nothing wrong except having the wrong viewpoint in life. He, on video, decapitated people so what need for trial, a trial that would have had him fighting extradition for years, then, eventually if the West did manage to get him back to these shores, he would have been tried, found guilty and then spent the rest of his year in a comfortable cell being lavished by the very society he hates. In short we would have wasted huge amounts of resource to give hime a life he refused to give to others.
Now I know that resource is probably less than the cost of the missile/drone and it would probably have been more of a punishment to keep him here in a society he detests but why should he have that option when he didn’t give it to others.
I know it makes other uncomfortable that he didn’t get tried, and I fully empathise with those views, but IMHO he was a special case that fully deserved the lack of trial. Will another Jihadi Jeff will raise to fill the void?
Yes, I know, where do you draw the line! In truth he was an enemy combatent and was “fair” game, was he targeted or was it just oppurtunist in that a spy on the ground saw him? Who knows but I shed no tears over his passing and I feel no qualms about the way he passed!
What if the bloke they killed wasn’t Jihadi John? Is that still a price worth paying? What if it Janitor John, the local primary school caretaker?
Understand your point but I’m sure that they wouldn’t have publicised the attack if they hadn’t have killed their intended target. And , yes, there are probably innocent victims of this “conflict” that we don’t hear about but, again, can we really sit back and do nothing and let these people carry on??