Today we learn the sad news that Dennis Hutchings has died aged 80. Mr Hutchings served this country for 26 years as a soldier but the “peace process” in Northern Ireland meant that he was pushed into an early grave by this wretched faux Tory Government.
Had Mr Hutchings been an IRA killer who had butchered a priest, a six month old baby, a nun, a grandmother, a grandfather or so many small children he would have been given an amnesty under the Good Friday peace process and would have enjoyed a happy retirement singing songs about the good old days or, perhaps, becoming a “respectable” politician in Sinn Fein. Heck, he would not have had to apologise for even one killing during “the troubles.”
But Dennis was in the British Army and whilst he did almost certainly kill for his country it is not what he did but who he was fighting for that ensured that his last years were a misery. Dennis fought for the army that targeted combatants but occasionally killed civilians in error rather than the “army” which targeted civilians as well as combatants and funded this butchery and ethnic cleansing with money made from drugs and extortion.
And so, for the past years Dennis has suffered an enquiry and was in the process, aged 80, of going on trial for his alleged war crime. The British state pushed him into an early grave.
I do not say that the British Army should have been offered a carte blanche for what happened in Ulster but surely anyone with half a shred of decency can see that putting 80 year old loyal servant of this country in the dock, while those who were shooting at our young men back in the 1970s enjoy another celebratory rendition of “Come out ye black and tans” in the local boozer, is a monstrous injustice and inequity.
That the wretched Government of Boris Johnson seems unable to appreciate this is yet another stain of shame on is already appalling record.