John Reid's Amazing Phychic Powers

Remember John Reid last week (it was Wednesday) and his "let us very slow to condemn our troops"? Clive asked "So, what's going on? Has Reid got wind of another Abu Ghraib-style war crime? Is he trying to cut something off at the pass?"

Today, we get the answer.

Pictures from a video allegedly showing British soldiers brutally beating a group of Iraqi teenagers have been published by the News of the World. The newspaper says the incident took place two years ago in southern Iraq. An unidentified cameraman is heard laughing and urging his colleagues on.

The News of the World article, with stills from the video, is here. They manage to sneak in a bit of speculative apologism from their "source":

I'm sure those Iraqis weren't innocent little boys—I bet they'd all been slinging rocks and maybe even explosives. But that's no excuse for a beating like that.

You get the message - maybe viciously beating what appear to be children into unconsciousness was a bit of an over-reaction but these kids were definitely guilty of something. "I bet".

Presumably the fact that he's betting this means there's no evidence of it on the recording. There is evidence of a British soldier kicking a corpse in the face. For fun.

On Wednesday, Mr Reid obviously knew this was coming. Plenty of advance warning from the friendly hacks at News Corp allowed John to start the damage limitation campaign nice and early. Officially, the NotW says it handed this over to the Ministry of Defense "last night". And the moon is made entirely of cottage cheese.

And what of Mr John Reid. Is he really intending to be very slow to condemn the actions of these soldiers? Has his moral compass become so totally disfunctional? Because there is no excuse for this sort of behaviour. And if Reid thinks otherwise, he's no longer fit for office.

Tags: News, Politics, News Corp, John Reid, Iraq Video