Former general says UK-US military cooperation under threat

19/10/2018 18:32

        The former commander of American forces in Iraq and Afghanistan warned that the United States' military cooperation with the U.K. could be threatened by the growing use of human rights laws to target British soldiers.
        
        Writing in the Times of London, retired Gen. David Petraeus says the European Court of Human Rights is increasingly extending domestic human rights legislation to the battlefield. This has led to British soldiers being charged with human rights abuses — sometimes decades after the events in question.
        
        He said Britain's fighting capacity will be reduced if it can't reform the legal framework under which it operates.
        
        He said the United States has not had to deal with situations such as that of Northern Ireland, which he said was marked by "the relentless and seemingly unending pursuit of veterans from the 1970s."