I was reading about this guy and how he is putting a minor spoke in the wheel with regard to Japanese president Koizumi’s attempt to bring all Japanese abductees and relations back from North Korea: **Robert Jenkins ** is married to one of the Japanese women kidnapped, now permanently back in Japan.
RJ is thought to have deserted the US army about 40 years ago and has lived ever since in North Korea. He does not want to go to Japan for fear of a US court martial.
Koizumi has asked GWB to forgive **RJ ** to ensure success in his mission but the US Army have refused and want to try RJ for desertion.
Assuming he did desert, should the US let bygones be bygones, since it was so long ago, and help close ally Koizumi achieve his goal or should military discipline win out as the over-riding concern?
I’m of the opinion that 40 years in North Korea has probably been punishment enough and he should be forgiven. What do you think?
I think we need to adhere to the rule of law here. Whether he deserted or not, it is clear that he went AWOL at some point, and there must be some accounting for his actions. So I say give him a day in open court- but just because you’ve managed to evade the authorities does not, in my book, let you off the hook.
He was a volunteer in the army (I’m correct on this point, right? If so I have even less sympathy for him) and he left the military without permission to live in the land he was sent to war in.
I think its pretty black and white here… Law is broken, lawbraker is found out, prosecution follows.
I agree with everyone so far. This is a great human interest story. Truly this man’s story is one of a kind and is really quite facinating, but he made his choice the day he deserted his post. You can’t back out of it 40 years down the road, and it appears he’s aware of that fact. I admire the strength of his convictions, but were he return, I would expect him to accept the consequences of his actions.
Here’s something to consider: Robert Jenkins’ wife has been successfully repatriated back to Japan, from where she was kidnapped by North Korean agents many moons ago. While nothing can bring back all that lost time, GWB has the power to ease her plight by giving her husband immunity from prosecution.
Should he do it for that reason?
After all, if the purpose of punishment is deterence from the crime, it’s not as though any other soldier is going to consider absconding to an inhospitable (to an outsider) nation for 40 years just because **RJ ** “got away with it”.
Ah ha…but would we need to worry about this ‘lost time’ if he hadn’t broken the law in the first place? I don’t think our government gives a damn about any of the Japanese kidnapped- the only reason I’d see is if one were married to an American. However, it also helps if that American is in good standing as a citizen and non-criminal.
And I contend that punishment is not simply about deterrence- if you have a policy (like no desertion), then you have to enforce it in EVERY instance. Every time a law goes unenforced, it weakens the integrity of the entire system. You might argue that this is not necessarily a bad thing, but in the case of desertion, I think that the government would be stupid to let it slide.
Please understand- I’m not necessarily advocating prison time, or execution, or anything like that- but he should be made to answer in a court. If a decision is made to be lenient, I don’t think anyone will mind- but the rule of law must be maintained. And who knows, he might even be able to exonerate himself if he was in fact held prisoner.
That may well be the case, but GWB was asked by Junichiro Koizumi, the Japanese prime minister, to waive the court martial as a favour to him, so that he could fulfil his mission: to bring back all abductees and family.
A favour for a staunch ally should be worthy of a damn, I would have thought.
I say let him go. I won’t comment on the irony of GWB, himself a deserter. refusing to offer clemency to another one. I also won’t comment on the irony of a miltary which officially sanctions the torture of innocent civilians and Reuters staffers and massacres women and children at wedding parties (then lies about it, inventing a phony story about a “safe house”) but can’t forgive a soldier who deserted 40 years ago. Our moral priorities are all screwed up here.
Before I even clicked on this I knew what your response was going to be. I wasn’t disappointed.
He’s a deserter, plain and simple. Bush has nothing to do with this, nor does the alleged official sanction of torture. He broke the law, he has to face the consequences of that action, same as if one of our traitors decided to come back from Russia. He knew what he was doing, and made a conscious choice. He gets zero sympathy from me.
Do you have sympathy for Bush? Should he face the consequences for his own desertion? If we’re going to exclude Bush from having to face consequences of desrtion then we have no right to punish anyone else for it.
>I won’t comment on the irony of GWB, himself a deserter. refusing to offer clemency to another one.
Cite for GWB desertion? Joining the National Guard is desertion? Unproved accusations of not being on base is desertion?
>I also won’t comment on the irony of a miltary which officially sanctions the torture of innocent civilians and Reuters staffers and massacres women and children at wedding parties (then lies about it, inventing a phony story about a “safe house”)
Cite for the unproven claims and rumors of wedding being hit being The Truth but the military’s claims obviously being Transparant Lies?
>can’t forgive a soldier who deserted 40 years ago. Our moral priorities are all screwed up here.
So you would claim also that someone who murdered 40 years ago (to use an extreme example of the same reasoning) should be ignored - if the law miscarried once in the interventing time, said law is bad and has no business doing anything?
Under the circumstances, as a favor to Japan, I say he should be court-martialed in absentia, given a probationary sentence, and warned to stay in Japan from now on, on the stipulation that if he ever returns to the U.S. he will be held fully accountable for his actions.
He’s a deserter. Period. I don’t care a whit what the Japanese Government wants…he’s a deserter from active duty and should be court-martialed.
By the way, DtC…when it is proven that Dubya deserted from active duty, then you are entitled to call him a deserter. 'Til then, you are talking through your admitedly pointed little hat.
Diogenes, I agree with the sentiment, but I don’t think that one excuses the other. The rule of law should be applied at all times. If someone manages to evade it, the appropriate response is not to allow everyone off the hook, but to redouble efforts to bring the others to justice (or vote them out of office, whichever the case may be).
My stance on this was explained a long time ago. How quickly you forget.
I’m satisfied that he failed to show up. I’m also satisfied that he was a substandard Officer. However, I am not yet convinced that what he did was unusual for the time. Convince me of that, and yes, I will absolutely agree that he should face some sort of penalty for desertion.
The biggest difference here, however, is that they had the chance to charge Bush while he was still in the Guard and did not, while this guy has never been made to face up to the responsibilities of his actions.
No, going AWOL for more than 30 days is desertion. It is well documented that Bush was AWOL for a year. Cite.
The miltary is claiming that they were shooting at “terrorists” but have offered no evidence to that effect. This statement by Army mouthpiece, Mark Kimmet makes the following claim:
This is a demonstrable lie. Photographs, videos, dozens of eyewitness reports as well as local reports from Irqai law enforcement and hospitals all show that a large number of women in children were killed. No explanation has been offered by the military about those photos and no shred of evidence has been produced to show that any of the victims were insurgents or terrorists (and frankly, the insinuarion about “men of military age” is so specious as to be insulting).
I call bullshit on the military.
Desertion is not murder. Desertion is a victimless crime. It’s also hypocritical for one former wartime deserter to refuse clemency to another one.