I'm glad the Gurkhas are on our side; beheading incident.

[SlowwHand]

Talk to Daniel Pearl's family.

[DinoDoc]

Well well well, I guess you agree that the Taliban can do it as well then ? Which is exactely what will happen in retribution BTW.

Agreement hasn't stopped them from doing it already. What's the real source of your problem with this other than a literal interpretation of orders wrt identification?

[dannubis]

1) Look a 2 posts down

2) Think for 5 seconds

3) Error

[DinoDoc]

dannubis: So there really was no point to you posting in this thread other than to make some asinine comment, correct?

[Wezil]

Is that a problem?

[SlowwHand]

It's not an isolated problem. Big difference.

[dannubis]

dannubis: So there really was no point to you posting in this thread other than to make some asinine comment, correct?

There is a difference between gloating and not really caring. Try again.

And besides, coming from you this is really rich.

[Elok]

Well, as:

1. The dude was already dead
2. He was killed in a combat situation
3. He was a valid military target
4. The kukri would have sliced the head cleanly off in about a third of a second
5. The decapitation was performed for purely utilitarian purposes

I don't think this is more than superficially comparable to Berg or Pearl. The Gurkha should have received only a polite but firm order not to do such things in the future, if they're worried about this.

[MikeH]

What if they'd already had an order not to do it?

[MOBIUS]

dannubis: So there really was no point to you posting in this thread other than to make some asinine comment, correct?

Says the king of contributing nothing other than asinine comments!

[Elok]

What if they'd already had an order not to do it?

Had he? If he'd been specifically told not to mutilate corpses, etc., that would change things, yes. Did I miss that?

[MikeH]

We don't know. But there being a standing order for the British Army not to mutilate corpses, or do anything provocative to enrage the local population seems probable.

[Elok]

Yeah, I'm pretty sure there's gonna be one of those now, at any rate! But it's entirely possible that nobody thought to give such an order before, from my POV. I mean, I've never been in the military or anything, but hacking off body parts is some fairly hardcore ****. Specifically banning it sounds almost like specifically banning impromptu executions in the streets; it's something that you just unthinkingly assume won't be done--until one practical Gurkha applies his problem-solving skills.

EDIT: Actually, no, there may very well be a standing order against public executions. I'd forgotten about that incident in Vietnam where a captured VC got his brains blown out at point-blank on camera. So, yeah, that was a bad parallel.

[Dinner]

We don't know. But there being a standing order for the British Army not to mutilate corpses, or do anything provocative to enrage the local population seems probable.

That wouldn't surprise me as commanding officers in the US Army love to issue excessively broad, vaguely worded catch all standing orders which usually amount to "don't do anything I don't like". There sole purpose is just to allow cowardly officers to cover their asses and pretend like they were halfway decent officers, which they are not. Maybe I'm channeling my inner lawyer but these things need to be extremely specific and well defined in almost legal sense and not the vague , generic catch all phrases which are so common.

[MikeH]

"Don't mutilate corpses" doesn't sound like a fatuous standing order.