Rob Semrau vs.Christie Blatchford

Rob isn't out of the woods with yesterday's verdict, but his career is likely in a fatal stall. What this means is he will likely be consigned to staff work even if the "Disgraceful Conduct" doesn't get him booted out.

I've met Rob, and he's a real soldier who would have no problems in a real war. A "real war" is one where you have a job to do; that job is killing the enemy, AND that enemy doesn't wear your uniform. I have no certain knowledge of this, but I believe that he did finish that shredded Taliban guy off. It wouldn't have caused a blink in WW1, WW2 or Korea, and it was the right thing to do under the circumstances.

I do therefore take exception to this "verdict" from Christie Blatchford:

Yet every soldier I asked about it said pretty much the same thing: The Geneva Conventions, the International Law of Armed Conflict and the Canadian soldier’s bible on such matters, Duty with Honour: The Profession of Arms in Canada, all are firm that once a soldier is injured and hors de combat, French for “out of the fight,” he is considered a prisoner of war, and deserving of every protection.
...

I wonder if that distinction between Canadian soldiers and every other guy with a gun in Afghanistan now will be more difficult to establish.

Christie and perhaps "every soldier" she asked missed one thing; this was no "soldier" under any of those conventions. He was a franc-tireur, insurgent, what have you, and not protected by those treaties and agreements. Technically there is no obligation to take them prisoner, but in today's environment shooting any kind of "detainee" is a no-go, so why worry about the conventions?

As for Ms Blatchford's "distinction" exit line, give me a break. Even if this was a widespread practice (and it's not) we aren't the ones executing kids for having American money on them, slaughtering anyone who disagrees with us, subjugating all of the females and doing our best to deny an education or any kind of progress to the population. And, oh, yeah, we wear uniforms and don't use the people as human shields. If that isn't enough of a "distinction" between us and the Taliban/drug runners/general bandits over there then I don't know what she expects.

Get a grip Christie; you've been over there, you should know better than to come out with this sort of melodrama.