US Soldiers killing Afghani civilians.

[straight_man]

@Marley23

The Afghan justice system, of course, is well known worldwide for its fairness, recititude and progressivism. The OP is right that this is a difficult situation- it’s a terrible crime against Afghan civilians, and there’s reason to think the trial could be a joke no matter who handles it.

Oh, definitely. I do not mean to say that there is a good solution, other than longer-term things like doing more to stop coverups and, if RNATB is right, work a lot harder at getting witnesses. I don’t think we disagree with each other. It’s just that posts like this one:

@Martin_Hyde

That’s the tough pill to swallow of real human rights and real freedom: it applies even when you don’t feel it should on a personal level.

<snip>

The alternative that you guys may be suggesting (and perhaps inadvertently) is a system in which the President personally makes sure any soldier who is charged with a war crime is convicted and executed, regardless of what a court may think because that is the “right thing to do.” To me, that is a far worse thing than what this soldier did in Afghanistan. This soldier committed murder, but if we were to just “insure” he himself were put to death that would be a crime against the very fabric of American society, a far worse thing than a simple violent act by either a mad man or a simple homicidal monster.

I always find it interesting, liberals are typically soft on domestic criminals. They roll their eyes at conservatives who mutter about how someone ought to “take care” of bad guys who beat the rap. But when a soldier who is accused of a crime “beats the rap” it’s a sign that America is the worst country in the world, that our military justice system is irredeemably corrupt and etc.

…deserve some eye rolling. It is a travesty when murderers miss out on consequences, it gets worse when there is no real dispute over who did the killing (like at My Lai and Haditha), and it does undermine military justice when it happens more than once. You don’t have to support summary executions to be disgusted.

[Really_Not_All_That_Bright]

@straight_man

Oh, definitely. I do not mean to say that there is a good solution, other than longer-term things like doing more to stop coverups and, if RNATB is right, work a lot harder at getting witnesses.

I’m not necessarily saying this is something we could fix. If you were some hapless villager, would you leave your job and family to travel halfway around the world to testify against a member of a foreign military in his own country’s courts?

Especially considering what the average Iraqi knows of his own country’s former military justice system?

[UltraVires]

@Giles

Why does Virginia get him in court, but Afghanistan not get the US soldier in court?

Virginia would give him more due process than he gets almost anywhere in the world. Afghanistan would give our guy a show trial. No way in hell would I send any American to be tried in Afghanistan, and I can’t believe some people even think of it.

Should we turn our female soldiers over to the Saudi government for driving Army jeeps? Why not? Shouldn’t we respect local custom?

[Martin_Hyde]

@straight_man

…deserve some eye rolling. It is a travesty when murderers miss out on consequences, it gets worse when there is no real dispute over who did the killing (like at My Lai and Haditha), and it does undermine military justice when it happens more than once. You don’t have to support summary executions to be disgusted.

I haven’t seen a strawman of this size in a long time. I never once said it is desirable that murderers miss out on consequences. However it is an undeniable fact in a real criminal justice system bad men will go free sometimes, but as I’ve shown (with cites of men jailed for life sentences for killing civilians) the U.S. doesn’t just send guys involved in the Iraq and Afghanistan conflicts to some joke court that never punishes anyone.

You guys seem to be suggesting American citizens in an American jurisdiction who are in American custody should be turned over to some third world court system where they will have no likelihood at all of a fair trial.

It’s easy to do that when we’re talking about a mass murderer who killed 16 civilians, mostly women and children. That’s precisely why you don’t do it, American concepts of justice apply just as much to Ted Bundy as they do to you or me, we’re all entitled to a fair trial.

[Martin_Hyde]

@straight_man

Just to clarify: in the Haditha case, as has already been linked to, eight soldiers were charged with murdering twenty-four Iraqi civilians. One was acquitted, charges were dropped or dismissed for six, and one was convicted just of dereliction of duty. In short, we have a case of mass-murder where none of the perpetrators faced anything approaching just consequences. That being the case, why should the world ever trust the American military justice system? Sure, Obama has to respect the sentence; but the rest of the world does not.

The Haditha case is a classic example of what happens in a real justice system. There was genuinely not sufficient or compelling evidence to get these guys sent away for a long time. In cases in which the evidence was powerful (Derrick Miller, the rape/murder of that Iraqi family) the military prosecuted it heavily and the penalties were steep.

The rest of the world should respect our military justice system because it’s a real justice system and the evidence demonstrates that. Your argument is what exactly, in a real, respectable criminal justice system abominable defendants never get off with light punishments? If that’s your standard then I can point to all kinds of multiple murderers who didn’t receive harsh sentences in European courts.

[gamerunknown]

Why didn’t the US intervene in Saddam Hussein’s trial if one cannot expect a fair trial from a devastated third world country?

[Martin_Hyde]

@Marley23

The Afghan justice system, of course, is well known worldwide for its fairness, recititude and progressivism. The OP is right that this is a difficult situation- it’s a terrible crime against Afghan civilians, and there’s reason to think the trial could be a joke no matter who handles it.

Right, and most likely it will be a joke in that the defendant gets no real shot at justice. If this defendant is mentally ill he shouldn’t be sent to prison. But what actually happens to most Americans who go on spree killings is they get the death penalty or go to prison for the rest of their life. Some of them deserved, but some of them genuinely mentally ill and incompetent persons who are victims of a criminal justice system that is more concerned with satiating the public’s desire for punishment than it is in handling the mentally ill.

Look, I’m a very crime and punishment sort of guy. I think if you commit a seriously violent crime there should be a mandatory life sentence (the flipside is aside from habitual offenders I’m in favor for non-incarceration punishments for most non-violent crimes and complete legalization of recreational drugs, so in my ideal world we’d be harsher on violent criminals but would have fewer prisoners), but I also think that in the very rare case where a defendant is not mentally competent the moral thing to do is to put them in the mental health system.

Unfortunately most of these people commit “crimes against public conscience” that are so heinous the outcry is too great for them to ever receive just handling. I think the mentally ill in our legal system are essentially severely mishandled.

FWIW, I’m just talking about a hypothetical. This guy could just be a murdering bastard who deserves what’s coming to him.

[gamerunknown]

Uh, ex-military guy on another forum responded to this article (not posted by me) by saying that it was regrettable, but that Afghanistan should be carpet bombed. Apparently not making the connection that in both scenarios, civilians die.

When people pointed that out to him, he responded with this:

Its odd how the tactic of carpet bombing was accepted when fighting against a civilzed country like Germany, but is condemed when fighting against an uncivilized group like Radical Islam.

[Martin_Hyde]

@gamerunknown

Uh, ex-military guy on another forum responded to this article (not posted by me) by saying that it was regrettable, but that Afghanistan should be carpet bombed. Apparently not making the connection that in both scenarios, civilians die.

When people pointed that out to him, he responded with this:

What’s the have to do with anything here?

[Really_Not_All_That_Bright]

@jtgain

Should we turn our female soldiers over to the Saudi government for driving Army jeeps? Why not? Shouldn’t we respect local custom?

You understand the difference between jurisdiction and the underlying crime, so you should know a damn sight better than to make such an absurd comparison.

[MrDibble]

@Odesio

What provisions in particular should be made?

@Martin_Hyde

How would that work? (I’m assuming you mean Afghan, and not Iraqi.)

Whoops, yes, I did.

The law would be the UCMJ, and any lawyer appearing at a courts-martial needs to be competent to practice law in American court, meaning they have passed the bar for the relevant court system. An Afghan prosecutor is competent at Afghan law, not American law, how would they effectively function in an American courtroom?

I’m pretty sure there has to be a few lawyers who are licenced to practice in both, or failing that, an American civilian prosecutor who is acceptable to the Afghan people.

What purpose would their presence serve?

They’d be there to serve the interests of justice for the victims over that of the US Military.

How would their presence not raise serious constitutional issues?

Like trying murderers of civilians in a military court doesn’t? Or should, anyway, anywhere outside countries run by juntas.

Military courts should be for strictly military offenses (AWOL, desertion, insubordination, whatever), when it crosses over into civilian crimes, the civil courts should take over. IMO. And this case, or Japanese rapes, or whatever, have nothing to do with a soldier performing his duties, so soldiers shouldn’t get to hide behind the protection of Uncle Sam. There’s nothing, AFAICT, that says the military can’t choose to turn these types over to civil courts. I think they should.

[Odesio]

@MrDibble

Whoops, yes, I did.I’m pretty sure there has to be a few lawyers who are licenced to practice in both, or failing that, an American civilian prosecutor who is acceptable to the Afghan people.

Licensed to practice law in both the United States and Afghanistan? Who cares if the prosecutor is a civilian if the judge and the jury is made up of members of the military?

They’d be there to serve the interests of justice for the victims over that of the US Military.

In what way specifically would they serve the interest of justice in a way a military prosecutor would not?

Military courts should be for strictly military offenses (AWOL, desertion, insubordination, whatever), when it crosses over into civilian crimes, the civil courts should take over.

What about a crime that takes place during an actual war? Let’s say a soldier is accused of raping and murdering a woman in Germany in early 1945. Who tries him? The Federal government? The state the soldier is from? Germany is out of the question since we’re at war with them.

[Martin_Hyde]

Prince Abdul Ali Seraj (member of Afghanistan’s old royal family) was on NPR during the drive home today and he had some interesting comments about this. He mentioned that this incident is not likely to cause the same reaction as the Koran burning for two reasons. Firstly, Islam is predominant in all of Afghanistan, and thus the outrage was religious in nature and many Afghans all over the country were outraged. This incident happened in Kandahar, and the nature of Afghans is that they are not prone to being outraged over something that did not happen in their region or to their tribe in the same way as they are prone to reacting to something that was an offense against their religion. Secondly, at least according to the Prince, the current opinion on the street is the shooter was an insane person, and his culture does not believe insane people should be held responsible for their actions.

He said he thinks that providing financial compensation to the people affected by this would do an immense amount of good. He also said that if they could conduct a trial on the American base, but with Afghan judges allowed to observe the process, that would generate a lot of goodwill with many people.

I actually think that is a good idea, and don’t know why the military doesn’t (in the interests of good PR) make the effort to overcome the logistical hurdles and set up a courtroom in a base in Afghanistan. Let civilians (who will go through heavy security) attend the hearings and let Afghan judges observe the legal process. I’d have no issue with that, the only hardship is going to be on military court people who, to be honest, have pretty cushy jobs compared to a lot of people in the military and I’m not too concerned about them having to live in Afghanistan for awhile.

[PrettyVacant]

@Really_Not_All_That_Bright

Frank Wuterich was demoted and fined, and some of the officers were told they would be in trouble if the covered things up again. That’s about it. Hard to make any of the charges stick because no Iraqi witness came to the US to testify. That’s one of the dirty little secrets of prosecutions under the UCMJ for crimes against foreign nationals: they are horribly impractical.

This might have been a helpful post had Frank Wuterich not admitted the charges against him. The charges are, in fact, the key - Wuterich received the maximum sentence available to the judge (of three monthsconfinement).

Iraqis didn’t give evidence because there was no trial.

[Really_Not_All_That_Bright]

What are you trying to say? There was no trial because the prosecutors couldn’t find anyone willing to testify.

[Really_Not_All_That_Bright]

@Martin_Hyde

I actually think that is a good idea, and don’t know why the military doesn’t (in the interests of good PR) make the effort to overcome the logistical hurdles and set up a courtroom in a base in Afghanistan. Let civilians (who will go through heavy security) attend the hearings and let Afghan judges observe the legal process. I’d have no issue with that, the only hardship is going to be on military court people who, to be honest, have pretty cushy jobs compared to a lot of people in the military and I’m not too concerned about them having to live in Afghanistan for awhile.

No hardship at all. JAG officers are deployed just like everyone else in time of war. There is at least one at every US military installation. The bigger problem is that the defendant might get his conviction overturned on appeal because holding the trial in Afghanistan could plausibly be viewed of a denial of his right to (civilian) counsel.

[YogSothoth]

@Mosier

What should be done in cases of US soldiers killing Afghani civilians? Should the US turn soldiers like this over to the Afghan government for a trial and sentencing, or should the US military handle his punishment? I can see both sides of the argument. On the one hand, he committed a crime against Afghan citizens on Afghan soil under the jurisdiction of Afghan law. I can’t see how refusing to turn him over to Afghanistan could possibly be defensible. On the other hand, we don’t want a kangaroo circus court dragging an American soldier (even if he’s guilty) on an execution parade, serving as a focal point for the anti-American movement.

What’s the best way to be sure that this soldier is sentenced appropriately and justice is served? What about in other cases of abuse by US soldiers?

He committed his crime in that country against their people, violating their laws (and ours). Just because he’s a citizen of this country should not entitle him to escape punishment to a presumably more sympathetic court. I am not worried about, nor do I care, of anyone dragging anyone else on an execution parade. All people should be held by the jurisdiction of the area they violated, tried by those people, and punished in their way. The US hates it when other countries harbor our criminals because, in the example of Europe, we have the death penalty and they don’t. We need to be consistent on this issue. Let them focus anti-American hatred, it is a small price to pay for justice

[XT]

[QUOTE=YogSosoth]
Just because he’s a citizen of this country should not entitle him to escape punishment to a presumably more sympathetic court.
[/QUOTE]

Isn’t he entitled to a fair trial by his peers? Why do you assume a military court would be more sympathetic? Why the assumption that a USMCJ would NOT be a fair trial?

This thread is full of some of the heaviest irony I’ve seen in a while. Liberals are basically calling for blood here, in some instances, and muttering and grumbling because in the past there wasn’t sufficient proof to try (and execute!) some folks and they had the temerity to LET THEM GO SINCE THEY COULDN’T CONVICT THEM! Oh! The HUMANITY!

And why? Well, because they are US soldiers of course! Which seems to be a presumption of guilt in any crime, and that the military court system has the fix in to protect their own! Unlike the world renowned Afghani court system, of course, where we all know that they spell ‘justice’ with a capital J (well, no…not really sure what the Pashto word for justice is, to be honest, but it probably doesn’t start with a ‘J’).

I am not worried about, nor do I care, of anyone dragging anyone else on an execution parade.

Would you be worried if the man in question was black or hispanic, or Jewish or Asian, and being ‘tried’ in the South in the 40’s or 50’s in a kangaroo court before being hauled off to the nearest tree, even if the man in question was presumably guilty? Or do the circumstances not matter, just the results? Are you pro-death penalty in all things, or just in cases like these? Because if the soldier is tried and sentenced in Afghanistan, he’s going to die, regardless of anything else. There is no other option.

If he’s tried by a military court he might die as well…but, if he does his guilt will pretty much be beyond question if they are invoking the death penalty against him. He’ll have a fair trial, an appeal, and every chance to present evidence in his defense BEFORE they take him out and shoot him. Or, perhaps he’ll be found to be insane (seems likely that he went around the bend), and instead of being killed he’ll get a life sentence instead, if found guilty. But not if he’s tried by the Afghani’s by Shari law, since afaik there aren’t any mitigating circumstances for acts such as these, regardless of mental state…at least not in that particular region.

All people should be held by the jurisdiction of the area they violated, tried by those people, and punished in their way.

I see. So, if a foreign national commits a capital crime in the US, despite if there is an extradition treaty, then the US should be free to try, sentence and execute said national regardless of circumstance? Even if the guy in question is in the hands of the authorities from this other country? They should have to turn him over to the US so we can try and execute him? And, assuming this is how things really happen (I have no idea), you are cool with this?? And you figure that the foreign country AND their citizens should be cool with it too? I mean, it happened on our soil, so our rules, right?

Again, do you feel this way about every conceivable circumstance, or is this just your attitude in THIS particular circumstance?

The US hates it when other countries harbor our criminals because, in the example of Europe, we have the death penalty and they don’t.

And other countries probably aren’t too keen on us executing their citizens or using our laws and courts to execute them, even if they are stone cold guilty. In fact, I KNOW that Europeans in particular really, really dislike even though thought of this happening, and much prefer us to send their citizens back to them to try and sentence.

We need to be consistent on this issue.

I thought we were after ‘justice’. Well, actually, based on some of the posts in this thread, I don’t really think folks are after that justice stuff. Surprisingly, the oddest folks seem to be after vengeance here. That exploding sound was my irony meter blowing up repeatedly reading through some of the posts here…especially considering who was writing some of them.

Let them focus anti-American hatred, it is a small price to pay for justice

I have no idea what this even means. Are you saying we should throw this guy to the wolves, even if guilty, and that this will somehow appease the Afghanis into hating us less? Or something?

-XT

[Really_Not_All_That_Bright]

@xtisme

Isn’t he entitled to a fair trial by his peers? Why do you assume a military court would be more sympathetic? Why the assumption that a USMCJ would NOT be a fair trial?

Why is he entitled to a fair trial “by his peers” for an alleged crime convicted outside the borders of the state his peers would be drawn from? The same logic arguably applies to an American tourist who murders a hooker in Paris.

[XT]

Why isn’t he entitled to a trial ‘by his peers’…or, presumably a fair trial? Presumably the American tourist in Paris who purportedly murdered a Parisian hooker WOULD get a fair trial, even in France…or, say, a French national who was accused of raping a maid in New York would get justice. Are we supposed to be pretending that a US soldier in Afghanistan accused of murdering women and children would get anything resembling a fair trial, with or without peers as well?

How would you feel if the US military and government handed him over and he was strung up after a show trial? Would you feel justice had been done? Are you for the death penalty in all situations, or just this one? And would you feel the same if the guy is insane?

-XT