Let’s keep our fingers crossed that Soldier F has a long and miserable life during which he wakes up every night screaming. The Saville report is making him the target of all the opprobrium for the Bloody Sunday killings and judged by his own evidence he does seem to be a world class psychopath. As such he’s an indispensable stock character in the ranks of any imperialist army carrying out a counter insurgency operation.
Bloody Sunday was not a one off event. Six months earlier in August 1971 the Parachute Regiment had murdered eleven civilians over a three day period in the Ballymurphy area of west Belfast. The big difference was that these killing were committed in the absence of cameras and thousands of witnesses. The big similarity was that the investigation was a whitewash. A detailed account of the events is available here.
Six civilians were shot on 9 August:
- Francis Quinn (19), shot by a sniper in the nearby army base while going to the aid of a wounded man.
- Fr. Hugh Mullan (38), a Catholic priest, shot by a sniper while going to the aid of a wounded man. The local priest had attempted to administer the last rites to a man he saw shot by the British Army.
- Joan Connolly (50), shot as she stood opposite the army base searching the streets for her children.
- Daniel Teggart (44), shot as he stood opposite the army base.
- Noel Phillips (20), shot as he stood opposite the army base.
- Joseph Murphy (41), shot as he stood opposite the army base.
One civilian was shot on 10 August, and another four were shot on 11 August, these were:
- Edward Doherty (28), shot while walking along Whiterock Road.
- John Laverty (20)and Joseph Corr (43) were shot at separate points at the top of the Whiterock Road. John was shot twice once in the back and once in the back of the leg. His body was discovered in a derelict yard, showing signs that he had been beaten before being shot dead. Joseph Corr was shot multiple times and died of his injuries on the 27th of August.
- John McKerr (49), shot while standing outside the Catholic Church, died of his injuries on 20 August.
- Paddy McCarthy (44) got into a confrontation with a group of soldiers. One of them allegedly put an empty gun in his mouth and pulled the trigger. As a result, McCarthy suffered a heart-attack and died shortly thereafter.
We’ll have to wait for Soldier F to confirm if he was responsible for any of these murders. In a sense that’s not terribly important. The British Army’s leadership knew that it had under its control units which were willing to repeatedly murder unarmed civilians. These were the units they chose to send to Derry to smash a peaceful demonstration. Whether or not they knew just how unhinged F and the other killers were is a secondary question. Men who in a normal society would be in secure psychiatric facilities were pumped up with racist imperial propaganda and turned onto the streets with high velocity rifles. The politicians, civil servants and senior commanders who made this happen are infinitely more responsible for the mass killings in Ballymurphy and Derry than the men who pulled the triggers.
That’s the conclusion Saville ducked.
Liam redux 
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