Britain's lawmakers Tuesday granted posthumous pardons for soldiers executed during World War I, ending years of campaigning by the families of men condemned to death for cowardice.
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"(The act) recognizes that execution was not a fate that the servicemen deserved," the Defense Ministry said.
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"The executed soldiers deserve better treatment than to be remembered as cowards; instead, they should be remembered as brave men who were willing to fight for their country in difficult conditions," Dubs said.
Look, under the norms of the day, the actions of these soldiers earned them a death penalty. We can look back decide that something like that should not occur in the present, but you can't as a nation try to assuage your feelings of guilt by issuing a pardon. They were condemned to death and then they were put to death. Live it with it, remember it, and if you really think it was wrong, don't do it again. These postumous pardons 80 plus years later don't really do much for the dead except to hide their history under another layer of information.
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