I’m not suggesting that CWO Welshofer should have been given a pass. I’m saying, as plainly as I know how, that every person on that court martial could imagine themself in the defendant’s position. Given the inconsistent guidance, the quasi-public declarations that the ordinary rules of warfare no longer applied, the involvement and the probable primacy of non-military agencies in the process and the involvement of special operations people, that imagining has enough basis in reality that a lenient finding of guilt and a soft sentence should be no surprise. To that you have to add the reluctance of career soldiers to concede that one of their own did wrong, thereby implicitly condemning their own organization. We had enough trouble with the MyLai prosecutions when we were dealing with an army made up of temporary and reserve officers. The problem appears to have become immeasurably more difficult with an armed forces that has become increasingly insular, separate and tribal.
This is the sort of offense that a court martial is both superbly equipped and remarkably unqualified to judge – but it is the only available forum.
I don’t know how Americans will see this, but I am regrettably certain some of Mr. Mowhoush’s friends and family will see fit to exact justice in another way.
Which is why this sort of shit can go on for years.
I know how I see it … a complete travesty of justice, just like the one that got Lynndie England convicted, but virtually no one on the chain of command that led from Rumsfeld and President Torture Boy to her convicted. The military courts have made America look like shit. Way to go, boyos.
I’ve always been opposed to juries for just this reason, even in a military trial. Are judges perfect? No, look at the recent outrage in France. But I think a judge is far less likely to acquit/convict based on emotion, and far less likely to base his sentence on emotion. It’s not that juges aren’t human, and cannot be swayed by emotion, but they’re professionals. They’re trained to look past the emotional and look at the factual, they’re experts in the law and have strong qualifications for deciding how it ought to be applied.
In the military you do have to recognize that the upper brass can exert “influences” on trials. Look at how the guy who ordered the My Lai massacre got a virtual slap on the wrist considering the immense gravity of his crimes.
The ones that get killed with bullets are killed because they’re firing guns at us. Unless the guy had a gun in that sleeping bag, I think the circumstances are a bit different.
There is adequate leadership in the treatment of prisoners. It’s just that it’s bad (maybe evil is a better description) leadership.
High authority from the President, Vice President and the Attorney General on down are arguing in public statements and legal opinions that in these special circumstances a little torture is justified. Congress doesn’t act to outlaw the practice for months and then only after they actually have to have a debate on whether or not torture is bad and when the President signs the bill he says that he won’t follow it’s requirments. And, as we have seen on SDMB, a significant fraction of the public agrees with that posistion.
The outcome can’t be unexpected since the act isn’t clearly forbidden by the chain of command, there is no national consensus to the contrary and the result can be dismissed as an unfortunate and unintended “accident.”
When someone with the shallow outlook of a sophomoric frat boy is in charge, fraternity hazing carried to extremes isn’t at all unexplainable.
The point I’m trying to stress here is: War and Humanity are somewhat oxy-moronic if you ask me. So I’m not going to get worked up over people dying when they were engaging in something so savage to begin with…
Trite but true: Live by the sword die by the sword.
Do you realize that the USA attacked Iraq in the first place, don´t you?, so what is to be said about a nation that starts a war of choice then?; by your standards, a war waging nation is savage and inhuman.
You are not helping your side in this one.
BINGO! That’s also the point I’m trying to make. I’m sure it’s no surprize to you that not all us Americans were behind this war in the first place.
I don’t know how much more clearer I can put it. BOTH sides are acting like Asses. put the fucking guns down already. I mean jeez! If our political leaders are so intent on war; let THEM pick the fucking guns up and start shooting at each other.
But somehow me thinks, if that were to actually happen. They might um… Oh I don’t know… Work things out with out violence? I mean that’s just a wild guess here.