where's she think she lives? this is america

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/13493302/

But extending that to supporting that massacre is just wrong.

As egregious as they both are to civilized precepts they are in fact only to be expected when considering the UNcivilized nature of war.

In both cases young impressionable men were professionally turned into killing machines, and now as was then; put to tribunal for being such.

In the insane havoc of war where is the definitive line that separates morality from insubordination/dereliction of duty?

you see though, there are some who leap at the chance to remind everyone of the presumption of innocence with regARD to terrorists or "enemies" or even baby rapers and murdereres. from my POV, this is where the lefties are so God awfully sanctamonios[sic]. Like modern day Pharasee[?], they seek to put themselves above everyone else as "higher forms" of justice lovers by reminding us of our protections under the law EXACTLY when the most henious are being discussed.
Yet, because of their own predjudieces they forget all about it when it comes to a guy wearing the unifoorm of the US military.

this is the hypocracy of the left

-- Modified on 6/24/2006 1:27:09 PM

at shooting babies in the face. But that's just me.

convicting these troops without a trial? I am a little unclear about that--or was that just another straw man that you artfully chopped down right now.

and the accused has had an oppurtunity to face their accusers.

But that's just the American Justice system.

Read it.

Learn it.

Be it.

Till then, quiet.

we both want to be fair AND consistent.

the current situation with respect to our GIs is the ying of the yang of how the admin is administering "justice" around the world. Too often, determinations of proper conduct come down to fine legal points I'm just not able to follow.

all i do kjnow is it is OUTRAGEOS for a congressaman like murtha to get out there and claim assert our guys are guilty of cold blooded murder in Haditha when a full airing of the facts has not taken place.

i would never call him a traitor but i would call his statements stupid and i think politically motivated.

get the fullest extent of the benifit of the doubt i can muster

these are not some simplton OJ/ peterson dickheads who could'nt bear the thought of their ex fucking some dude or scotty who did'nt wanna buck up to being a father to his kid..

tookie....what a loser he was. and what a contrast. these boys, even if guilty, were under more pressure than i've ever known. i'll let their peers be the judge, thank you very much.

Something went terribly wrong in Haditha.  The facts about who died and how bear that out.  I heard an ex-marine call into "Talk of the Nation" and say in shock: "That's not the Marines!"  I agree.  That man was beside himself, and knew something criminal happened.  

It certainly sounds from what's come out in the press like a serious crime has been committed, unless the guilty were insurgents who made it look like Marines did it, or unless the facts that came out are utterly wrong, I don't know how some Marines are going to beat the rap. If they followed orders, then some of them followed illegal orders.  

Now, any fact that I know of has got to be decided.  However, for charges of hypocrisy, this is a hard case to make.  The business of being in peril and killing will warp peoples' minds ultimately.  It's the peril of starting a useless war and putting men in a losing situation.  

However, I'm one who even believes Osama should be put on trial.  A fair one if we can.

It's going to be a military trial, isn't it?  

You don't hire a military lawyer.  One is assigned to your case.  Am I right?  A military lawyer can't take private funds.  He isn't paid by the hour.  

Unless she's getting donations for the appeal already. Or unless she gets donations for support of his family.  

Donations do seem peculiar in this situation.

-- Modified on 6/24/2006 10:15:44 PM

Has Murtha actually pronounced them guilty?  It seems that someone in an American Military uniform committed the Haditha massacre.

any names or links in your response. Better get that next straw man up or people will start seeing the BS.

The problem is the break in discipline.  A bit like a charge of killing without a license, or killing without orders.  

As civilians we see this differently than the military, but most troublng is the indication that discipline is breaking down and the killing machines are breaking loose from their axles.

who has no qualms about imprisoning people for years without being charged, I think I'll pass on accepting your ideal of secret trials. I'm not ready to trash the constitution just yet.

"I don't think that you want to support that because it sends the wrong message to the troops, saying, 'You can do whatever you want and it's wartime, and you can get away with it,'" said Nan Beck.

....Yeah, we already know they're guilty, don't we??? NAN BECK!!!....

Our troops overreacted because of the pressure on them, and they killed innocent civilians in cold blood."

Jack murtha: He stated that as fact.

No strawman, sorry.

if these guys don't deserve the presumption of innocence, no one does.

Is it the car (soldier) that is responsible for killing a child in the crosswalk; or is it the operator (command) of the car.

They will, after all, receive a military trial -- won't they ? And since you seem to place faith in the judgement of their "peers", then what prompted your post, and apparent support, of the mother ("crazy wacko") who suggests that the military has already convicted them ???

Are you questioning military operations ?  That is so lefty of you, Bill.

Also important to note that many of our soldiers have undergone significant brain injuries from unexploded IED's that are difficult to diagnose.

The great advances in Kevlar protection for the troops have meant that the medics are seeing less in the way of bullet injuries, and more in the way of brain traumas from improvised IED's, the weapon of choice by the Iraqi insurgents.

California Connected aired a powerful and disturbing piece last Friday on what happened to four soldiers injured by IED's in Iraq, and now being treated at the Palo Alto VA (War Stories from Ward 7D; see link for on-line video). These four soldiers were severely wounded with multiple head traumas (ie., "polytrauma") and showed their treatment and rehabilitation.

One important point made in the program is that, beyond the 2.500 deaths and ~15,000 obviously wounded, that there may be as many as 8,000 soldiers with undiagnosed brain trauma. When an IED explodes, there may be many exposed to the explosion, but some not so obviously as they 'look' OK. These 'walking wounded' may try to shake it off and continue with their duties, but there may be subtle and long-lasting  effects which may play a role in such tragedies as Haditha. It is well known that brain traumas may lead to the inability to discriminate between right and wrong.

-- Modified on 6/25/2006 7:40:00 AM

-- Modified on 6/25/2006 7:40:29 AM

Remember the Michael Jackson trial and the jokes that surrounded that?  Remember JeanBonet?  Remember dozens of other trials?  Remember Vince Foster?  And of course, Bill Clinton and the BJ case?  That's not a liberal or conservative quality.  Liberal demand if anything is for an official presumption of innocence.  

I'm not saying it's in any way right, but this has long been a bad habit.  It's almost a part of the culture.    

The courts themselves make certain pretrial assumptions about innocence or guilt in deciding to set bail or not, doesn't it?

I'll note that war atrocities are an odd and  damaging situation to notice this and demand consistency-- from liberals of all people.  It's a place where demanding silence from liberals would assent to one crime above others.  It seems to me something that conservatives should be concerned about too.

when the whole judicial system is skewered towards the well healed and connected, eg martha stewart goes to a "special" prison while others may be dumped for the same offence into a prison teeming with "hardened" criminals.Equal justice?

When they specifically say that it will be a costly trial, I wondered exactly the same thing.  You don't pay the lawyers in the USMC JAG office.

BK has told us before that they've alrady been convicted, so I don't know why hae's going on about it now.

I can't imagine what any court-martial thinks they might know about it that BK doesn't already know.   The right has already told us that we have got to stop thinking with our heads, and feel with our guts instead.  

What I can't figure is why BK isn't jumping at the chance to go kill a few hundred Iraqis himself.

Courts-martial tend to be more B&W than civil juries, because it's like having a jury of all engineers, people who tend to see everything as very clearcut.  

And they usually don't run people up for a court-martial unless the investigative work has been done pretty thoroughly.  

That said, I doubt you'll see premeditated murder convictions.  Just too much trash going on for anything to be clear of reasonable doubts.

where they have to be armed social workers in a country where they don't speak the language.

It's a NO-WIN proposition.   They're reacting to the fact that they are pretty damn sure most of these people were shooting at them minutes ago, but under the legitimate rules of engagement, what can they do, take them prisoner, knowing there's no evidence or resources to try them or hold them, and these people will be shooting at them again in an hour?  

And so you get these "destroy everything & everybody reactions" killing women & children (children often killed soldiers in RVN, and in Israel too), and regardless of what the US military does, the word has already got out among the locals, that the Americans are murderers - I can guarantee you that there have been hundreds of incidents that nobody should be indicted for, but the locals are convinced are cold blooded murder - because that's what happens in war, and that's just one reason it shouldn't be done when there are reasonable doubts.

This is one of the reasons Vietnam vets recognize this is a no-win situation, because soldiers - even if they spoke the language - are not social workers, and you cannot secure moral authority or civil stability by pointing a weapon at a man when you don't even speak the language.  

Just as in Vietnam, politicians put soldiers in an impossible situation, and then wonder why things are FUBAR - of course, the right is already winding up to say any criticism is what will lose this - that's like saying that if your decision is just dumb enough, you must be right -

it's impossible to make a choice that they don't think will get them killed.

You walk into a situation where you are 90% sure that you're looking at the people who were shooting at you minutes ago, and there is no functioning legal system, an arrest will get them released in days, and if you leave, they will be shooting at you in an hour.

That's the logic.  Now pile on the emotions of people who are physically tired in a way you can't imagine, and have seen a couple of their people seriously hurt.  They don't have time or chances to fool around.  

That is what happens when you send foreign troops in to pacify a local civil war, regardless of how it started.

It's easy to talk about a breakdown of discipline.   I think it's more accurate to say that the situation they have been put in is impossible.

One of the basic characteristics of the military is that they will not tell you "no".  They will charge hell with empty canteens, and act like it's alright.

Well, the leaders are supposed to know it's not alright.  That's what Bush and Cheney don't know because they always had other priorities - you know, the frat parties.

and it's pretty common.

I called it a breakdown of discipline, which is a common way of describing it.  You on the other hand describe accurately the reasons it is breaking down.  

because IMHO good representation depends on (1) having the time, and (2) plain old experience, which is more general than specific.  Subject matter expertise can be picked up very quickly; smarts comes more slowly.

And there are tons of lawyers who started out in the military.

Once upon a time in a land far away I had to deal with this.  I have to say, I was pretty impressed with the usual civilian defense counsel.

yeah, as is so often the case, it depends upon "who's ox is getting gored". I try to stick to the principle instead of being swayed by the personaility but i'd have to admit sometiimes it's easier said then done....but, like my buddy NeedleDick say, it's better to to have loved, and lost, than to have never been in the backseat at the drive-in

any machine or team is a system, and different systems are more or less well adapted to handle different situations.

Marine rifle companies are frighteningly well adapted to coercion.   The problem is that coercion is a solution only as long as you are willing to pay for them to stand there with fixed bayonets; and over the long term, it's a bad solution because it's prohibitively expensive.

War has to come to an end, and that means either (a) you kill of maim your enemies including ALL those who may get mad enough to shoot at you, or (b) you come to some sort of agreement with them - agreement is often helped by the understanding of who is the fuckor, and who is the fuckee; but of course there can be differences of opinion there, and it's damnably expensive to mount out a couple regiments to prove your point, and even more expensive to keep them in fighting trim.   That's the reason a Japan or Germany can be made to understand by destroying their air force or shipping.  But the Zulus don't give a damn, because they are on a different wavelength - you come to them, you fight on their ground, and you have to be ready to do what it takes - and that could mean, kill them all and salt the earth - are you ready to do that?

As most of us learned before we were out of 6th grade, it is incredibly easy to take things apart, or just break them.  It is much more difficult to put them back together.   The job of Marines is to break things - it's very dramatic, but it's only the first 10% of the solution.   Having them hang around and lose 1 man a week does not get us any closer to a solution.  

Politicians are responsible for solutions, but what they're doing here is hoping that we'll muddle through, sort of like a 6th grader who hopes that his sloppy homework will get him a C, and instinctively understanding that it's a balance of whether his teacher really wants to see him next year, or can shuck his irresponsible lazy ass off on the next grade without getting fired.   That would be OK, except that American lives are being wasted, and it's not a glorious sacrifice to the people involved.   It's no more glorious than Dubya puking after a frat party.  Real glorious, conservative chickenhawks.

It's not that there's nobody in the Bush administration (ie the Pentagon) that understands this.   It's that there are hundreds of issues to balance, and the Bushes simply do not put that much weight to the long term feasibility of the plan.  

They just don't worry whether they are putting soldiers into a situation that is no-win, because of lots of reasons - 1st, they don't have a gut understanding of the problems, because they had other priorities, and just never dealt with it.  2nd, they have a fine understanding that it's not so much about managing the nation responsibly, as keeping their party in power; and if they can kepp the debate shallow enough, they have a pretty good chance.   So they just don't pay attention to those people who say, look, if you want us to police Arabs, we'll need twice as many men to keep the locals suppressed, without using gas or nukes on them.

Killing people is easy.   Policing them is not so easy.  Soldiers are not cops, and much less social workers.   Putting them in a situation where the locals are inevitably hostile is telling them to stand in a killing zone.   Let them shoot, there will be Hadithas.  Refuse to let them shoot, there will be Hadithas.   Soldiers are not social workers, period; and sending them to teach democracy is a lose-lose proposition.

(Look at Korea - took us 50 years, and then we were successful ONLY because we could bottle the bad guys on one side of a border.   Even then, it was the Koreans themselves who did it by building Hyundai, etc.   What will happen when we can't bottle up the bad guys?   You get a Vietnam.)

What Republicans refuse to understand is that the math eventually catches up to them - you cannot bullshit Mother Nature for very long.   And of course the RNC knows this well enough, and they-re in it for one reason only, and that is the propagation of their own power, at the expense of everybody else, including all the 17 year olds who think they want to be all they can be.

what do you think, your conducting class for a mass of "lurkers"?

lol

pffft

that much more effort than yours, BK