Imagine if US Navy Seals charged with Bin Laden murder

Saturday's News Letter front page headline was correct in highlighting the two crises which face our beleaguered and hapless Stormont Executive the Renewable Heating Incentive (RHI) scandal and the arrests and forthcoming trails for murder of two British Parachute Regiment soldiers in their 60s for the shooting dead of an IRA member Joe McCann in April 1972.

The RHI scandal has in itself received more publicity than any other scandal, but it is the scandal that two British soldiers now in their 60s facing trail for the killing of Joe McCann which is equally as important and indeed deserves more attention from those in government at Westminster and unionists at Stormont.

A few weeks ago on Remembrance Sunday we saw our prime minister and leaders of our political parties all standing at Whitehall to remember the sacrifice made by our military in wars and conflicts throughout the world, yet within a matter of weeks we see two soldiers prepared to put their own lives at risk for serving in a hostile environment which Northern Ireland was in 1972 under command from the government and military chiefs at this time.

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What was the difference between what these soldiers did in 1972 shooting a terrorist that what the US Navy Seals did in May 2011 when they went into a compound in Abbottabad Pakistan and shot dead Osama Bin Laden also a terrorist at the command of President Barack Obama and the US administration and indeed this whole military operation was watched by President Obama and Secretary of State Hillary Clinton and other leading cabinet members and military chiefs?

Imagine the outcry in the United States if these Navy Seals were to be arrested and tried for unlawful killing or murder?

President Obama or President Elect Trump wouldn’t allow it so why should it be allowed to happen in Northern Ireland?

The problem is that in Northern Ireland unionists have put IRA terrorists into government who are pursuing this witch hunt against our military and the DUP are powerless to stop it.

Walter Millar, TUV Cookstown