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A dead enemy is safe

Just a small addendum to the Blackman Case.

Soldiers are there to do what Governments tell them and the moralities that they are taught are subservient to their orders, so morality cannot be judged by the same social understandings used in the civil world. Judgements on their actions, are therefore confined to a different set of parameters.

When one is on active service, a special set of circumstances exist, and a wounded soldier is still a dangerous soldier. Thus the law of group survival is in force.

You can, of course, ensure that the wounded enemy is both disarmed and and fully secured, but in the middle of a battle situation, it is rarely possible to do that, due to time and available resources restraints.

The second major factor is the absence of time for concerned reflection, it takes only a fraction of a second to pull a trigger; therefore it is not a matter of any other responsibility than that which one owes to ones own group.

In such circumstances, a dead enemy is the quick and safe solution.

This is why he has received such huge public support. And the people who should be considered for questions, are those who were so quick to judge him with totally inadequate understanding of military conditions. Even the senior military officers who showed antipathy to what he did, are driven by political factors not military.

BOB GRIFFITHS, Bruddel Grove, Old Town, Swindon

Israel must stand firm

FIRST of all, in response to Peter Smith’s latest letter regarding Israel (April 26), may I recognise his, I believe, sincere conviction that another Holocaust should never happen again, and I would, of course, agree with him on that.

However, there are those that would differ from him on this.

In 1929, the entire Jewish Community of Hebron was wiped out by the Palestinians, could it happen again?

Hamas, in its charter, calls for the complete destruction of Israel, and may Iran never get the bomb, the consequences of both becoming a reality are too horrific to contemplate - for Israel, the region and the world.

The persecutions and pogroms of their history are indelibly embedded in their psyche, and that is why Israel will never allow another Holocaust to happen to its people again.

Changing tack, can I ask Peter Smith why the Palestinians rejected their own first state and why do they keep rejecting it?

As he has made a direct reference to Jenin in the late 1990s when Israel had to search for more suicide bombers who had blown up more than 100 buses and killed 1,500 Israelis, may I respectfully ask Peter to quote official UN and Red Cross figures of the deaths of Palestinians which was 43, the vast majority being Palestinian fighters - their words.

Incidentally Peter, why did you not mention the reasons Israel had to enter Jenin?

Do you expect Israel just to roll over, let its civilian population get slaughtered and do nothing?

Finally, I often wonder what those who so vehemently oppose Israel do for the Palestinians, apart from issue protests full of hate and ignorance?

Israel gives them jobs, education and health care, pays them unemployment and many other benefits and organisations like Hamas and others will kill them if they don’t back them entirely.

Food for thought... well it is for those that are not wilfully blinkered on this issue.

STEVE JACK, Parsonage Court, Highworth

Council fails in its duty

YOU recently published my letter questioning the council’s closure of local recycling facilities throughout the Swindon area, inevitably leading to increased fly-tipping and associated costs.

Now, to add insult to injury, the council is cutting opening hours at the only remaining recycling facility at Cheney Manor.

This facility is already not accessible to many residents who don’t drive, or are elderly, disabled, etc.

And now it is also largely inaccessible to people in full-time employment.

The obvious conclusion to this policy will be a massive increase in fly tipping.

Has the council considered the cost implications of this, or are they relying on private landowners (mainly agricultural) or the wider authorities (eg Wiltshire County Council) to deal with the consequences and costs?

Is Swindon Borough Council failing to provide necessary facilities to its council tax payers that is the legal duty of a local authority?

PAT NORMAN, Highworth

Industry holds the key

IT SEEMS that from May 8 Swindon’s recycling centre in Cheney Manor is to close on Wednesdays.

The early morning starts have also gone with the new opening times starting at 8am and the only evening opening time will be on Thursdays.

Clearly, Swindon Council is still trying to save money. I had thought that the new parish councils would have sorted out the Swindon’s financial problem but clearly this is not the case.

Britain is now in a period of permanent austerity. The British economy is not flourishing.

Supporting British manufacturing industry is the only way out of this quagmire.

Britain runs a trade deficit of more than £1bn every week.

You don’t have to be an economist to realise that there is something very seriously wrong with the British economy.

This long painful period of austerity will continue until we divert Government spending into achieving a surplus in our balance of trade with the rest of the world.

STEVE HALDEN, Beaufort Green, Swindon