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Absolutely and courts are not there to judge the morality of issues (which is disputable), but legality
Indeed;
It seems like they didn't even defend their actions. Therefore I am inclined to believe that the jury decided they were not guilty on the basis of a moral belief that what they were doing was right.
Anyone can have any moral belief though. Someone who has their wife or husband leave them may think it's justifiable to kill them. Should the jury again go in their favour? 'Yea I killed him but he was an arse'
In the immediate sense yes, but then it begs the question 'is the law working?', and does it conform to the norms and values that are functioning in society?
if not then either there needs to be a change in the law, or there needs to be extra space for discretion.
That's for sentencing...
I can't see any justification for the sabotage of military equipment, others can. I'm not sure which one conforms to society's wider view (which I actually think is split) - that's why moral views shouldn't be included in deciding whether the law is broken as it comes down to individual views on morality.
Obviously I agree with that in legal terms, but I'm morally with them on their reasons and conduct.
Isn't it?
Alternatively there's lots of reports of the bad sections, but very little about large parts of the country where there's normalcy 99% of the time.
However, I wasn't speaking about public opinion being split on Iraq (where it seems the majority want a pull out), but on whether you should sabotage military equipment, which potentially put the lives of servicemen at risk (less from crashes as from the fact a broken piece of equipment might be need urgently and can't be used if its lying on a runway being repaired).
Well as far as I am aware the Kurdish north has missed alot of the fighting, and a few places seem to have missed the worst violence. However, the effect upon the whole nation has been an unmitigated disaster; infrastructure, healthcare, sanitation, economy...whichever way you cut it really.
And to be honestly I don't think its legitimate to suggest that we should focus on 'the good' areas, meaning those that aren't in a state of collapse. Comparatively they were fine before we got there, so we can't really take the credit for normality.
I'd go further actually; I'd say that most people might be against such action, the problem is that citizen participation in major foreign policy has taken a holiday, and thats what drives people to this. And lives lost; whose lives? the servicemen not receiving support or the people who may get caught in the crossfire?
Or if it just exploded on the runway, sending shrapnel into the cargo bay, maiming hundreds of servicemen who were being sent home?
Would they still have been let off because the cause was "just" i wonder?
It was an act of protest not an attempt to kill anyone.
I think it is important to have an up to date and relevant legal system so people don't pick and choose which laws they obey. Here either we have a discrepency where the law needs rewriting, or in fact a miscarriage of justice has been carried out because they have broken the law and got away with it.
However, in the time they've got their ublicity, wasting police time, wasting CPS time, legal aid, the jurors time, in fact they really haven't shown any regard for anyone except themselves. So I can't see them as martyrs or heroes but simply cowboys who should have had the book thrown at them for good measure.
Which is eaxctly what i'd say I was going to do if I were caught. It's only their word we've got to say their intentions were peaceful.
We've all seen the actions of "protestors" who send hatemail and dig up relatives of workers who experiment on animals, i bet if they're caught with a spade before they've done the deed no doubt they'll have a story ready as well
Not all Muslims who want Sharia law as a form of private ordering are terrorists, and not all people who protest at anything are granny-nicking animal rights hooligans...but you knew that already. Its a silly comparison to draw with no empirical merit.
Why would they want to actively sabotage with intent to harm? They're peace campaigners; also this is an established tactic that has been used before in the past, for just this reason.
It's all conjecture, i'm merely stating that just because they say they are peace activists, who would never harm a fly, doesn't mean we take it on face value.
I'm sure the guys are harmless, who like Jim says only wanted to disrupt operations, either way we'll never know for sure.
I brought up the granny-diggers as an anallergy,
ASIDE: Absolutely off topic and nothing to do with anything but... 'anallergy' - i'm not having a dig at spelling (i get things wrong all the time) but I think you might have invented a new word here. 'anal' + 'allergy' - denotes someone allergic to trivial or nit-picking posters
Sorry, i'm an idiot, please explain
I'm not presuming them innocent at all, merely stating what could have possibly been the result of them carrying out their plans, and that what they said in court (we only intended to disable the plane, not to kill) could in fact be a load of bollocks.
lol
To follow up this story, it looks like some others have been found guilty.
I assume it's a different jury, but it looks like with this one the 'justified' defence didn't work.
That said I'm little confused why there were charged with conspiracy, whereas later in the story it said they did £10k worth of damage. I laways thought conspiracy was that you were planning an offence, but failed to carry it through