If you were in the military or were any speaking with any sort of governmental authority you would be infringing on the freedom of the press guaranteed by the first amendment.
Wihout the media exposure there wouldn’t be a trial.
Justice, yes…and at least an attempt to show the enemy that we see the act as a crime. That does make a difference to hearts and minds.
Without any public exposure of the film, there would never be an investigation. Nothing was even done at Abu Ghraib until the pictures got out.
This administration can’t be trusted to enforce any justice on their own. Only constant public exposure will spur any action at all. That’s why we have a free press…because governments can’t be trusted.
well, no the problem seems to lie w/ you, believing that the reporter’s tapes would be the only way the news would get out (and therefore blaming the reporter more).
THe abuses will get out. there were no tapes in Nam, ya know. Or Korea. and news about the gas chambers came before the films got out.
Options are:
1 Face it head on, and deal with the truth, hold people accountable for their actions, hope that others learn from it and lessen the number of incidents, lessening their effect as a recruitment tool.
2. COntinue to try and cover it up by blaming the reporter, getting rid of them, hoping against hope that no one else knows - that no Iraqis are ever around, no other troops ever tell, no other bystanders ever tell, ever see. hide your head in the sand, blame the reporter and ignore reality saying firmly, with fingers in your ears "it isn’t true it isn’t true, they can’t prove it therefore it isn’t true.
See, there’s always a potential of witnesses. your way suggests that the best alternative is to deliberatly increase these kinds of acts by suggesting to the soldiers that their best option is to make sure there’s no witnesses ever. you sure you want to go with that plan?
I’m with BubbaDog on this one. Let’s list the fuckups:
The Marine fucked up, but still deserves a fair trial that takes into account all of the circumstances of the day. Personally, I’m willing to give him a whole lot of leeway, and with the currently known set of facts I’d hate to see him get more than a stern talking-to.
His lieutenant fucked up by asking him, on film, if he had shot an unarmed combatant. The LT needs to be taken aside by his Captain and given an unofficial counseling on “taking care of your troops.” That LT’s perfunctory interrogation could mean the difference between that Marine living and dying. Furthermore, the LT fucked up by not immediately demanding that the tape be sequestered as evidence for the Marine’s trial. It’s hard to be a butter-bar, but somebody’s got to display sound judgment under fire. I understand that the Socratic Method is a great leadership and training tool, and that counselling your troops can’t always be private, but this LT fell just shy of the mark on two or three big decisions, and is ultimately to blame for not guiding the Marine and the reporter to the “right” decision.
The reporter fucked up by not immediately handing the tape over to the LT or the battalion commander as evidence for the Marine’s trial, and presenting himself as a willing witness.
The unit medic may or may not have fucked up in returning the Marine to combat after he was wounded. He may have saved several lives in the intervening day, and to lose anyone in your unit, especially your company or squad, while you’re not there, leaves you with incredible guilt about their death. Leaving a Marine out of combat for too long can end up getting him or his buddies killed. We have to trust the doctor’s judgment in this matter.
The decision to invade Iraq by March (rather than wait another 6 months to get international approval) is actually the prime mover of fuckups here. The Big Bang, if you will.
HELL, no. Embedded or not, they’re not military, they’re still part of a free press. If there’s legal grounds to requisition the tape, then fine. But the idea that every journalist should run to the nearest commander with any interesting tape saying “there might be something of interest to you on here, here’s my card” is quite horrific - who would actually do the independent reporting? (Obviously there’s completely separate journalistic ethical issues over broadcasting such a tape, but that’s a different matter.)
[QUOTE=wringYeticus - I don’t recall saying the soldier in question was a murderer. perhaps you would be good enough to find it for me? I recall saying that I didn’t see it as radically different from any number of cop shootings/movie scenes we see/hear about from time to time. And I recall pointing out that we don’t know if he was able to see that both hands of the guy were empty. And I recall pointing out that the prior days’ marines who left folks wounded had things to answer for, and I recall saying that the Administration had started this war on the theory of pre-emptive strikes to protect yourself were perfectly okey dokey. But I honestly don’t recall saying that the soldier in question was a murderer.[/QUOTE]
I meant to use your quote WRT the reporter’s 2 minutes of video…I did not mean to use your quote to admonish you over the term “murderer” (but in retrospect, it looks like it turned out that way), because I know you didn’t call him that, but others posters before you did and I failed to clarify that for your sake. My apologies.
I am amazed at how we can see the same set of facts and arrive at a different conclusion. I agree with so much of what you’ve said, but I ultimately reject your conclusion.
Only if you penalize the reporter for not handing it over. If you can convince him that it’s better for everyone to sit on the story until the military can at least announce a trial and ship that guy out, you’ve done everyone a favor.
It’s the LT’s duty to make sure that’s not true. I know that’s not how it always happens, but the LT can at least say, “give me seven days, then release it.”
…and in those seven days, we tell them what we’ve done. We find his family and tell them we’re sorry – their culture at least permits us to financially reimburse them for their loss. Some cultures would see it as an insult, and then we’d be up a creek.
Not true – remember during the trial there was that one Light Colonel who kept demanding something be done? About the time he got sent back stateside, there would have been hell to pay. Like so many posters noted, it always gets out eventually.
I am scared to death of my government, but I trust my chain of command with my life. At some point waaaay up there, one becomes the other and I have to believe that my Colonel or General will protect me from those vicious power-mad bastards in D.C. I agree that if it were up to the administration, there’d be no trial – but it’s ultimately up to that lieutenant, and his supervisor. If the two of them stand shoulder to shoulder, and demand a fair trial for this Marine, they’ll get it.
Just curious, DtC - have you ever served in the military? I think our failure to see eye to eye on this is because I have an almost boundless respect for and trust in the lieutenants and captains on the ground. I tend to see the junior officers as corrective influences on their Marines, and give the Marines about half-again as much credit for good judgment as I’d give any civilian teenager. The kids with guns are going to fuck up, and their officers will square them away. “Fucking up” will cost lives, and that’s war, and it sucks; I trust the officers to decide when they see murder and when they see a mistake.
As for the gold-bar who ordered his SSgt to “put that man out of his misery,” the only thing I would have done differently would be this: If he was truly going to suffer and was certain to die, then I’d have dismissed my men and quietly done the deed myself.
Man, so much fucking douchebaggery in one fucking post
Why would you be willing to give him any more leeway than what the law requires? Should the UCMJ be enforced? Yes or No? If he committed murder as defined by the UCMJ should he still just get a “stern talking to?”
Not incidentally, the “currently known set of facts,” to wit, the fucking video footage, nail this cocksucker cold as a murderer. Case fucking closed, motherfucker. Verdict: GUILTY!
Fuck you, asshole. “Taking care of your troops” does not mean covering up a murder.
How the fuck could it make a difference between him living and dying? What are you, fucking stupid or something.
The officer had no legal right to make that demand. First Amendment, bitch. Freedom of the Press.
And if it wasn’t for the press, there would be no repurcussions for war crimes like this.
Under fire? What fucking fire? This wasn’t a fire fight.
The “right decision” is what? To cover up the crime? I think you have your “right” and your “wrong” mixed up.
The reporter had no obligation to do any such thing, at least not without a court order.
Completely irrelevant.
We finally agree on something. The entire invasion is illegal and illegitimate, the Iraqi people quite rightly despise our presence and we just keep making it worse by showing an absolute contempt for human life there.
On reflection, I agree with you that the reporter’s first reaction should not be self-censorship. I’m glad you clarified that his first reaction should also not be to broadcast it to the world.
I think the solution is in the middle: he should discuss with the LT, out of the Marine’s presence, what the consequences of releasing it might be for that Marine, for the unit, and for the war. You’re absolutely right that he should flex that 1st-Amendment freedom, but the reporter should also try to get a read on what the consequences could be for all involved, and I don’t think he can make an informed decision on that without talking to the LT, the unit commander, or a JAG.
From my experience in the military, I think the commander would be too biased towards censoring the tape, and the JAG too biased towards stifling it as evidence. I think the LT is your best bet.
…it’s just my opinion, and I’ve been wrong before.
1st Amendment? I don’t believe they’re on American territory (yet ), and there’s plenty of non-American reporters embedded with US troops. As I can see it, the only discussion should be whether there is an obligation to hand over the tape (and to do so without making copies). And that’s the type of thing that’s supposedly constantly monitored within the embedding procedure anyway. If there’s no actual reason for the journalist to not keep the tape, then it’s up to them to do what they feel is right. And after Abu Ghraib, I suspect many journalists feel that the only way that shocking footage can have any effect is by massive publicity.
Ayyyy-men. Although I suspect we’re talking about different posts.
I’m not willing to give him any more leeway – but I want to give him exactly as much leeway as the law requires. And in order: Yes, yes again, and no.
That video is not “the set of facts” – it’s a subset of the facts. Did you ever have a box of crayons? Ever notice that there was a color in there that wasn’t quite black and wasn’t quite white? It’s called “gray.” That video comprises the few most damning seconds from two days of possibly mitigating events. But then, you seem unwilling to acknowledge that anything could mitigate his actions. Am I right?
No, but it does mean you don’t ask them to further incriminate themselves when they may not be aware of the deep shit they are in.
That’s me - a fucking stupid blue-suiter. But get this: I live and die by the UCMJ, so I’ve studied it, as has every officer in our armed forces. And we know (though you seem not to) that the penalties for murder range from imprisonment to the death penalty. To wit, the difference is in how clear-cut the case is. By asking those questions, that LT may have turned the Marine’s 20-year prison sentence into a capital case. What are you, fucking uninformed or something?
I’ve covered that above, and retract my use of the word “demand”. He should, however, do what he can to arrive at a solution that tempers the repercussions on the rest of his men, who as far as we can tell, did nothing wrong. That’s his job.
Again it’s clear that you don’t trust anyone but the reporter to do the right thing – we are not going to agree on this score.
I use “under fire” to mean “in a combat zone where the body writhing on the ground may very well have been a bomb intended to kill Marines”. I hope that’s not too much of a stretch for you.
No, not to cover it up – but to ensure that the Marine gets a fair trial for the incident, and to see if the video can be released in a way that doesn’t inflame enemy passions and endanger the rest of his men. I’m not saying the reporter has to agree – but the LT should push for that solution.
Conceded above.
Agreed; just trying to point out that he may or may not have made a mistake by sending someone who was insane back into contact with the enemy.
Yeah, I’m pretty much with you except on that last bit. I think the Marine’s survival instinct and battle fatigue are what made him shoot – not a “contempt for human life”. A Marine is expected to kill the enemy, and he decided that the man on the ground was his enemy. It remains to be seen whether or not he was justified in making that decision, even though hindsight tells us the decision was wrong. I agree that he made a bad decision, and that the Iraqi is now dead because of it – I’m just not yet certain that the Marine was unjustified in that decision.
Oh, and you didn’t answer my question: did you ever serve? I suspect that you did not, and that you distrust the junior officers because you don’t really know how much legal and ethical training our officers receive, and how heavily integrity is used as a criterion for officer selection.
Erg, another cross-post. I don’t want to get into it here, but I’d be interested in finding out where and when, and what kind of officers you served with.
I’m interested to hear from people who have any concept of what it’s like to be in those circumstances…how likely is it that a soldier who was menatlly unfit for duty would nonetheless be sent back out? And do such decisions as this shooting tend to occur more often with battle-fatigued personnel? (Obviously all IMO-questions)
Short answer: I joined the Navy just out of High School in 1984. I trained and served in Orlando. I was not cut out for the military, even though I came from a military family. I got out as soon as possible. It was not the life for me.
The officers were the usual mix, most were ok, some were assholes, some were incompetent (and the assholes and the incompetents were not necessarily the same officers, they were more often one or the other), some were superb.
Oh…and my father was an officer in the Air Force for 20 years. He has about as much personal integrity as anyone I’ve ever known.
This thread is closed, because Diogenes and I have reached an airtight, iron-clad accord. The rest of you fuckers can sit and spin.
bzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz…
But seriously, folks. If you can’t discern sarcasm, let me clear it up for you: I, too, think Bill O’Reilly is a clever entertainer whom I would never go up against in a debate, especially when he always controls the forum. There’s “no spin” because inconvenient facts don’t seem to get mentioned, and opposing views come out of the mailbag only when he has the ammo to shoot 'em down, or needs to appear magnanimous by conceding a trivial point. Name and town please, if you wish to opine.
DtC, do we agree that it is possible that the Marine was justified in his decision, even though in hindsight it was the wrong one? That is, do you admit that the Marine could not have known conclusively whether the Iraqi posed a threat or not at the time he fired the shot?
Do you think the LT would be justified in asking the reporter to not publish (nor hand over) the tape for at least a day or two while the LT sorted out what happened? Knowing what you do of officers, do you trust the average Marine LT to make an honest attempt to see justice served? Lastly, do you think the reporter should lend any weight to the LT’s (at this point purely hypothetical) discussion of the consequences of publishing the tape?
), and there’s plenty of non-American reporters embedded with US troops. As I can see it, the only discussion should be whether there is an obligation to hand over the tape (and to do so without making copies). And that’s the type of thing that’s supposedly constantly monitored within the embedding procedure anyway. If there’s no actual reason for the journalist to not keep the tape, then it’s up to them to do what they feel is right. And after Abu Ghraib, I suspect many journalists feel that the only way that shocking footage can have any effect is by massive publicity.