# Hate Crimes and Gang Warfare Appropriate Legal Responses \[Haditha massacre\] **URL:** \ **Category:** Great Debates\ **Created:** [June 1, 2006, 6:26pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/hate-crimes-and-gang-warfare-appropriate-legal-responses-haditha-massacre/359044 "2006-06-01T18:26:56Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 13\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![Pjen](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/3d9bf3/32.png) [@Pjen](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Pjen)\ **Post date:** [June 1, 2006, 6:26pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/hate-crimes-and-gang-warfare-appropriate-legal-responses-haditha-massacre/359044/1 "2006-06-01T18:26:56Z")
So a gang discovers that one of their members has been taken out by their opposing gang- a gang of different ethnicity and rules. They go to that gang’s 'hood and they “snapped after seeing one of their own killed”. They “were just blinded by hate … and they just lost control”. They killed 24 innocent people who were of the same ethnicity and background of the opposing gang. “Investigators say that photographs of the scene taken after the attack show bullet-riddled walls and victims killed with point-blank shots to the head and chest, considered a sign of an execution-style killing.” “Those killed include women and children as young as three, with one mother and her child found bent over on the floor as if in prayer.” So what is the appropriate response to the above Hate Crime? > **[Murder charges possible in Haditha massacre](https://www.theguardian.com/world/2006/may/31/usa.iraq)** > **[TIME | Current & Breaking News | National & World Updates](https://time.com/)** > > Breaking news and analysis from time.com. Politics, world news, photos, video, tech reviews, health, science, and entertainment news. ---
**Author:** ![BwanaBob](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/bwanabob/32/2985_2.png) [@BwanaBob](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BwanaBob)\ **Post date:** [June 1, 2006, 6:32pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/hate-crimes-and-gang-warfare-appropriate-legal-responses-haditha-massacre/359044/2 "2006-06-01T18:32:08Z")
Define your terms clearly; equating a nation’s military with an unlawful gang shows where you’re coming from and will earn you rolling eyes more than nods of agreement. ---
**Author:** ![Ludovic](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/7ab992/32.png) [@Ludovic](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ludovic)\ **Post date:** [June 1, 2006, 6:34pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/hate-crimes-and-gang-warfare-appropriate-legal-responses-haditha-massacre/359044/3 "2006-06-01T18:34:50Z")
I’d think that “snapping” is the very opposite of a hate crime. Not that we’d want anyone susceptible to that in the services, if events turned out the way some allege. ---
**Author:** ![Giles](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/giles/32/60_2.png) [@Giles](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Giles)\ **Post date:** [June 1, 2006, 6:36pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/hate-crimes-and-gang-warfare-appropriate-legal-responses-haditha-massacre/359044/4 "2006-06-01T18:36:51Z")
Yes, this isn’t gang warfare. Members of a nation’s military should be held to a higher standard than members of a gang, since they represent their nation in the eyes of the world. And they have superior officers who have the duty to imposer that higher standard, for that reason. So, what was the question again? ---
**Author:** ![Nanoda](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/ce73a5/32.png) [@Nanoda](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Nanoda)\ **Post date:** [June 1, 2006, 6:45pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/hate-crimes-and-gang-warfare-appropriate-legal-responses-haditha-massacre/359044/5 "2006-06-01T18:45:21Z")
Is there a reason you seem to expect people to think it would be ok for soldiers to do that as opposed to ‘gangs’? 'Cause we don’t. :dubious: ---
**Author:** ![Pjen](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/3d9bf3/32.png) [@Pjen](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Pjen)\ **Post date:** [June 1, 2006, 6:49pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/hate-crimes-and-gang-warfare-appropriate-legal-responses-haditha-massacre/359044/6 "2006-06-01T18:49:43Z")
If all this happened as reported and the people are found guilty, what would be an appropriate legal response? ---
**Author:** ![Askia](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/96bed5/32.png) [@Askia](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Askia)\ **Post date:** [June 1, 2006, 6:53pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/hate-crimes-and-gang-warfare-appropriate-legal-responses-haditha-massacre/359044/7 "2006-06-01T18:53:51Z")
[QUOTE=Ludovic] I’d think that “snapping” is the very opposite of a hate crime. Not that we’d want anyone susceptible to that in the services, if events turned out the way some allege. [/QUOTE] Is premeditation a significant factor in hate crime statutes? I wasn’t aware it was. ---
**Author:** ![Ludovic](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/7ab992/32.png) [@Ludovic](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ludovic)\ **Post date:** [June 1, 2006, 7:05pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/hate-crimes-and-gang-warfare-appropriate-legal-responses-haditha-massacre/359044/8 "2006-06-01T19:05:17Z")
I shouldn’t have used the intensifier _very_, but I can’t really see how one can commit a hate crime without being previously disposed to it. After all, hate doesn’t just appear in someone out of whole cloth. In fact, if it were shown that someone “snapped” out of stress or violence, I would hold that as a mitigating factor as to whether or not it _should_ be classified as a hate crime. Actual hate crime statutes are so disparate and frequently seemingly arbitrary that I don’t want to research the dozens or hundreds of them to be found. ---
**Author:** ![Pjen](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/3d9bf3/32.png) [@Pjen](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Pjen)\ **Post date:** [June 2, 2006, 4:59am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/hate-crimes-and-gang-warfare-appropriate-legal-responses-haditha-massacre/359044/9 "2006-06-02T04:59:53Z")
Maybe the ‘gang’ is bigger than was thought, and maybe the ‘hate-crime’ is more widespread: [http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20060602/ap\_on\_re\_us/marines\_iraqi\_death\_8](http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20060602/ap_on_re_us/marines_iraqi_death_8) \*Military prosecutors plan to file murder, kidnapping and conspiracy charges against seven Marines and a Navy corpsman in the shooting death of an Iraqi man in April, a defense lawyer said Thursday. ADVERTISEMENT Click to learn more… The eight men are being held in the brig at Camp Pendleton Marine Corps base north of San Diego, said Jeremiah Sullivan III, who represents one of the men. The Iraqi man reportedly was dragged from his home west of Baghdad and shot. Both the Los Angeles Times and NBC News said troops may have planted an AK-47 and shovel near the body to make it appear the man was an insurgent burying a roadside bomb.\* > **[BBC NEWS | Middle East | New 'Iraq massacre' tape emerges](http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/middle_east/5039420.stm)** > > The BBC obtains new video evidence that US troops may have deliberately killed 11 Iraqi civilians in March. \* The BBC has uncovered new video evidence that US forces may have been responsible for the deliberate killing of 11 innocent Iraqi civilians. The video appears to challenge the US military’s account of events that took place in the town of Ishaqi in March. The US said at the time four people died during a military operation, but Iraqi police claimed that US troops had deliberately shot the 11 people. A spokesman for US forces in Iraq told the BBC an inquiry was under way.\* ---
**Author:** ![E-Sabbath](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/e19adc/32.png) [@E-Sabbath](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/E-Sabbath)\ **Post date:** [June 2, 2006, 12:33pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/hate-crimes-and-gang-warfare-appropriate-legal-responses-haditha-massacre/359044/10 "2006-06-02T12:33:20Z")
A: Pjen, your op is… designed in an amazingly outstanding way. It all but assures that people will not pay attention to the content of your post, as the structure has so much horribly wrong with it. Are you even thinking about the actual issue? Is this simply a loaded and very stupid metaphor? It’s not even close to accurate. Would you rather we spent time dissecting the reasons why your metaphor is amazingly wrong, or would you rather discuss the far more serious issues you wrapped within it? Please do tell us. B: Well, the appropriate thing to do is have an inquiry, investigate these reports. if they’re plausible, conduct a trial, find them either guilty or innocent under the UCMJ, and then have appropriate punishments applied, up to and possibly including ‘hung by the neck until dead’. The same thing that you do with any potential murder cases. What else should be done? Does anyone think the investigations will be blown off? That’s a different issue entirely, after all. And, of course, considering Pjen’s apparent definition, it seems the ‘gang’ has 130,000 members, for the Iraq branch. We’re lucky a single Iraqi is left alive. ---
**Author:** ![Larry\_Borgia](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/larry_borgia/32/156_2.png) [@Larry\_Borgia](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Larry_Borgia)\ **Post date:** [June 2, 2006, 5:43pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/hate-crimes-and-gang-warfare-appropriate-legal-responses-haditha-massacre/359044/11 "2006-06-02T17:43:11Z")
[QUOTE=Pjen] If all this happened as reported and the people are found guilty, what would be an appropriate legal response? [/QUOTE] Long prison terms. What’s your point? ---
**Author:** ![MEBuckner](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/mebuckner/32/2896_2.png) [@MEBuckner](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/MEBuckner)\ **Post date:** [June 2, 2006, 7:47pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/hate-crimes-and-gang-warfare-appropriate-legal-responses-haditha-massacre/359044/12 "2006-06-02T19:47:55Z")
**Moderator’s Note:** **Pjen** , if you have a point you want to make in Great Debates, it is best to make that point, not to play games about what it is you’re saying (however thin the disguise on your OP may be). Attempting these sorts of “gotchas” tends to engender a lot of hostility from other posters, to the detriment of actually getting anyone to listen to the argument you’re trying to make. ---
**Author:** ![Lemur866](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/lemur866/32/434_2.png) [@Lemur866](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lemur866)\ **Post date:** [June 2, 2006, 8:03pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/hate-crimes-and-gang-warfare-appropriate-legal-responses-haditha-massacre/359044/13 "2006-06-02T20:03:06Z")
Hmmm. How about a trial? If a US soldier commits murder they should face the exact same outcome as any other murderer. And your point is what exactly?