Hnag on, you rattle on endlessly about some red herring nonsense that’s not relevant, and I’m the bad guy?
I gave the recent precedent a page and a half ago. It doesn’t matter what I think, as a matter of procedural fact there will be no trial, there will be no justice - that is how the US Military works.
So far as I can tell, no one in Afghanistan has broached the question, and I think for very good reason, that being, they don’t want the trial to take place in Afghanistan, and are perfectly content to seize upon any excuse not to. Such a trial would be a security nightmare, just for starters. Then the subsequent nightmares, one if he were found guilty, one if he were not.
Plus, of course, the Afghan government has already signed the papers leaving crimes committed by American personnel to the Americans military. They would have to find a way to abrogate that agreement in order to inherit a blazing shitstorm. Why in Og’s name would they want to?
And lastly, we don’t know anything much. We know he was a non-comm, we know he had served multiple deployments, and we know he was injured. There is a story about that he simply stopped shooting and walked back to the base and turned himself in, but that has not been confirmed.
We don’t know squat.
I imagine the various government types in Afghanistan probably don’t want a trial in country. Afghanistan isn’t quite so monolithic as we might imagine, though.
Like I mentioned, that Afghan Prince was saying he suspects the reaction to this will be much more muted than the reaction the burning of the Koran, because outside of the province where this happened (and this was in the words of an Afghan) most Afghans will not care about people in another province but they will care about their holy book being desecrated.
Another thing I heard was that this only seems worse than day to day stuff to us Westerners. In Afghanistan, the position is any civilian deaths are crimes/murder by the United States. When I heard this specifically mentioned was an accident awhile back in which over a dozen civilians were killed by a bomb, the point I heard was that to Afghans that was just as much a murder as this–their default view is any killed civilians is murder, and to a degree they are not surprised by us murdering them.
WHAT TRIAL?
Do you seriously not understand that in relation to these shot-in-the-head children there will not be a trial, in any country, at any point?
Why is Derrick Miller serving a life sentence for killing an unarmed civilian in Afghanistan? Why is Steven Green for killing civilians in Iraq?
Were they not given justice? If you want to posit that there will be no trial and no justice “because that is how the U.S. military works” you need to actually prove that point, and you haven’t. All you’ve done is cite the Haditha killings where you feel the legal system was not conducted fairly and resulted in a miscarriage of justice. I’ve put forth the argument that in a real legal system, sometimes bad guys do not get convicted. Sure, if bad guys never get convicted that’s not a very good legal system, but I’ve mentioned two separate cases in which U.S. service members were given life sentences for war crimes trials.
So if you have no stronger evidence, actual evidence showing the “lack of justice” in the U.S. military court system as a whole, and are tying your whole argument to a few cases where you disagree with the outcome then you’ve not demonstrated anything.
What percentage of cases end in acquittals in the U.S. military court? What percentage of war crimes convictions end up with sentences of less than 10 years?
I don’t know the answers, but I imagine someone who believes they can demonstrate the entire court system of the U.S. military has no justice will be able to retrieve such statistics and facts to back up their argument.
So come back when you have systemic facts, I’m no longer interested in cherry picking cases by myself or you, that proves nothing about the court system as a whole.
Huh, this a bit of a change of pace. Usually, I’m having people accusing me of being an apologist for radical Islam(or words to that effect).
Anyway I wasn’t “stereotyping”, I was referring to an actual high-profile case. That of Abdul Rahman(or at least that was his name then) who was thrown in jail and sentenced to be executed by hanging for converting to Christianity. Numerous public figures, including the highest judges in the land called for his death, and his life was only spared after enormous international pressure forced President Kharzai to personally intervene, have him declared insane, and expelled from the country, which hardly strikes me as a victory for tolerance.
Furthermore, the law requiring anyone who “abandons Islam” is still in effect and is overwhelmingly popular in Afghanistan. Considering that my father had to leave Iran for a similar reason, this is certainly something I find quite disgusting.
Now, perhaps I should have been clearer, when I referred to “medieval barbarians” I wasn’t referring to Afghans in general, but to the judges and clerics who support executing apostates and anyone who thinks it’s “xenophobic” to call such people “medieval barbarians” either doesn’t understand the former, the latter, both, or is speaking rashly.
If its the speaking rashly part, that’s something we’re all guilty of.
What I “seriously” don’t understand is your bald assertion that you know something the rest of us don’t. Seriously. I don’t understand that. Have you some bona fides as to your expertise? Say, twenty years experience in military law as it applies here? Ten? Five? Something you read somewhere? Anything?
What do you mean?
The only way there wouldn’t be a trial is if there is a plea agreement prior to trial which would almost certainly be a life sentence.
According to NBC news:
“Overhead surveillance first spotted the soldier on his stomach in a field, either attempting to hide or crawl toward the base. He eventually stood up and walked a short distance to the base where he was confronted and asked about the shootings at the village. The officials say the staff sergeant replied “I did it.” At that point he was disarmed and taken into custody. He then asked for a lawyer and has refused to talk ever since.”
In addition:
"Col. Gary Kolb, a spokesman for the U.S.-led military coalition in Kabul, told The Associated Press a 48-hour probable cause assessment has been completed and that the service member continues to be confined.
Additionally, the officials told NBC News that the the military is considering capital murder charges against the soldier, meaning he could face the death penalty if convicted. They said the military also intends to conduct his court martial hearing in Afghanistan. Not only would it send the right signal to the Afghan people, officials said, but trying him in the United States or another country in the region would also present a logistics nightmare given the number of witnesses that would be expected to testify."
Sounds premeditated to me so it will be an uphill battle proving insanity. What’s he going to say, the voices in his head wanted a lawyer?
I don’t understand.
There’s no defense for our soldier killing civilians. I hope they take into consideration how many tours he’s served and his head wound in 2010. There’s obviously severe mental illness here. No rational person would do what he did.
I am getting a little fed up with the double standard. How many of our guys were killed less than two weeks ago over a mistake in disposing of a religious document? A lot of those shooters were either Afghan Police or Military that we’ve been working with. Guys that are supposed to be on our side.
I can understand the frustration our guys have over there. People you work with and have to trust are just waiting to kill us. It takes a toll after awhile. Our guys are the best trained professional soldiers in the world. But, everybody has a breaking point.
There’s no defense for shooting kids. I just hope they don’t execute one of our men for breaking under the stress.
Why? We invaded them. Yes, unlike Iraq there was justification; that doesn’t mean they have any reason to like us for it or feel friendship or loyalty for us.
Nope. We didn’t invade Afghanistan. You’ll recall a very, very small number of Seals and CIA operatives worked with the anti-Taliban forces. We provided supplies, air support, and tactical support. The Afghan tribal leaders defeated the Taliban. IIRC there were less than 500 of our guys in that operation. Those anti-Taliban forces had been fighting ever since the Taliban took over in the mid-90’s. All we did was give them the support to finally win.
We didn’t increase troop levels until the Tribal alliances fell apart.
In hind site we should have gotten the hell out of there after the Taliban was defeated. That’s water under the bridge now.
Does this guy have any input regarding who defends him? Can soldiers who commit crimes (who also somehow have access to a large amount of money) “buy themselves a slick lawyer” or are they objectively assigned representation by a superior ? Does a politician get to pick?
How does it work, summarizing in a non-military jargon, layman’s way?
(Im guessing most soldiers who server many tours like this guy arent wealthy anyway, but is it possible? Can or does it even work like the US civilian justice system in that regard?)
How is that indicative of a “double standard”?
What do you want them to do with him? Tell him firmly not to do it again?
Calling it anything other than an invasion is silly. By that logic, we didn’t invade Iraq because we were just helping the Shiites and the Kurds defeat Saddam.
[QUOTE=IntelliQ]
Does this guy have any input regarding who defends him? Can soldiers who commit crimes (who also somehow have access to a large amount of money) “buy themselves a slick lawyer” or are they objectively assigned representation by a superior ? Does a politician get to pick?
[/QUOTE]
He gets assigned a JAG defense attorney if he wants one; he’s entitled to obtain his own civilian counsel if he wants that instead.
Past history suggests that is the most likely course of action. Not just for the US.
Quite so. None of what I’m saying in this thread should be taken to suggest that this is solely a US problem, or even that there is all that much that can be done to correct it. As I posted earlier in the thread:
[QUOTE=Really Not All That Bright]
What do you want them to do with him? Tell him firmly not to do it again?
[/QUOTE]
Life in prison? I’ve become less comfortable with the death penalty, mostly do to participation on this board in debates about the death penalty. Are you an advocate of the death penalty? I would have thought you weren’t, so that’s a surprise if so.
I’d say that, given the crime and the fact that it will be a military court and the charges capital offenses that the odds of a death penalty being handed out are pretty good, and the only one who will be surprised by that verdict would be PrettyVacant, who seems to think that all military trials are simply whitewash, despite being shown that this isn’t the case. Unless the defense can prove insanity (which is harder to prove in a military court) or some other extenuating circumstance I’d guess this guy is going to take the long drop.
-XT
That’s not a double standard, that’s a completely different issue. One can be mad at both things but choose to argue one only in a topic dedicated to one. And if you’re curious, yes, I’m pissed that those guys killed our soldiers too. There is no double standard. Unless you can find someone on the board who says specifically that those guys should be let go and this guy who shot the Afghans should be punished, there IS no double standard
Certainly not. I admit, I kind of misread that post and thought the poster was saying he hoped they didn’t send the guy to jail. Mea culpa, aceplace.