₦airaland Forum

Now, I expect some "shifting of the goal post" at this point, but that's not a problem, I've got much more. Sit back, relax and enjoy. It's the weekend!

[size=14pt]An Iraqi Massacre, a Light Sentence and a Question of Military Justice.[/size]

By CHARLIE SAVAGE and ELISABETH BUMILLER

January 27, 2012

WASHINGTON — The collapse this week of the prosecution of a Marine for a civilian massacre in Haditha, Iraq — a striking outcome, even in a military justice system with a mixed record of charging soldiers for war crimes — has not only outraged Iraqis but also stunned some American military law specialists.

“It’s a travesty,” said Eric S. Montalvo, a former prosecutor and defense counsel in the Marine Corps who is now in private practice specializing in military law. “I don’t believe that justice was served.”

The 2005 massacre, which came after a roadside bombing of a Marine convoy, killed 24 Iraqis, including women, children and a man in a wheelchair.

People who followed the case say it collapsed largely because of prosecutors’ errors — including giving immunity to squad mates whose credibility as witnesses came into question, and tactical decisions that led to a lengthy delay before the trial got under way.

By the time of the trial last week, charges against six Marines had been dropped, and a seventh Marine had been acquitted in a court martial. After several days of spotty testimony about the last remaining defendant, Staff Sgt. Frank Wuterich, 31, who admitted telling his men to “shoot first and ask questions later” after the bombing, the military agreed to a plea deal allowing him to avoid prison time.

“It was a series of missteps, errors built upon mistakes, until the case was just untriable,” said Lt. Col. Gary D. Solis, a retired Marine Corps judge who now teaches military law at Georgetown University.

The Marine Corps rejected any claim of incompetence in the prosecution of the Haditha case.

“The case was handled in strict accordance with the Uniform Code of Military Justice,” said Lt. Col. Joseph Kloppel, a spokesman.

Some of the challenges that the prosecution faced dovetailed with the difficulties often encountered in efforts to prosecute troops for unlawful killings in combat zones. Collecting physical evidence and finding witnesses can be difficult because the killings often occur in unstable and dangerous areas, and the cases often come to light only after time has passed.

The Haditha case also fits another pattern: Many cases involving civilian deaths arise during the chaos of combat or shortly afterward, when fighters’ emotions are running high; they can later argue that they feared they were still under attack and shot in self-defense.

In those so-called fog-of-war cases, the military and its justice system have repeatedly shown an unwillingness to second-guess the decisions made by fighters who said they believed they were in danger, specialists say.

“There is a surprising pattern of acquittals,” said Eugene R. Fidell, who teaches military justice at Yale Law School. “I think there is an unwillingness in some cases of military personnel to convict their fellow soldiers in the battle space.”

The limited data available suggests that even when the military has tried to prosecute troops for murder or manslaughter in a combat zone, the acquittal rate has been significantly higher than it is in the civilian context.

Over the last 10 years, the Army has court-martialed 43 people on murder or manslaughter charges in cases that occurred in Iraq or Afghanistan and that included both civilian victims and detainees. Twenty-eight were convicted and 15 acquitted.

That acquittal rate is more than twice as high as it is in civilian criminal cases, said Stephen A. Saltzburg, a law professor at George Washington University. But, he said, the gap is not surprising, given the chaos of combat.

“Those considerations mean there’s more likely to be a reasonable doubt, when you’re trying to figure out what happened,” he said.

The Marine Corps did not offer a detailed breakdown of its court-martial numbers, and even the numbers provided by the Army offer only a limited window into unlawful killings in the war zones. For example, they do not cover cases involving a lesser charge like negligent homicide, or those punished with administrative reprimands.

Some cases that have received prominent attention have never led to charges.

For example, in 2008 the military did not bring charges against two Marines who commanded a unit accused of firing indiscriminately at cars and bystanders along a 10-mile stretch in Afghanistan, killing 19 people and wounding 50. The shootings began after a suicide bomber attacked the unit, and the Marines said they were being shot at and had fired to defend themselves as their convoy fled.

By contrast, the justice system has been more likely to hand down convictions and lengthy sentences for killings detached from the chaos of combat.

One soldier was sentenced to life in prison — and another who testified against him received 24 years — in the “kill team” case in Afghanistan in 2010. In that case, the defendants were part of a drug-addicted platoon and were accused of deliberately going out with the goal of killing civilians at random — and collecting body parts as trophies.

Similarly, in 2006 an Army unit from a checkpoint in Mahmudiya, Iraq, gang-raped a 14-year-old girl who lived nearby and killed her and her family, with a plan to blame the deaths on insurgents — another premeditated crime that was not connected to combat. One soldier who had left the service by the time the case came to light was prosecuted in civilian court and sentenced to life, while three other soldiers received sentences of 90 to 110 years in a court-martial.

Colonel Solis also said that in the early years of the Afghanistan and Iraq wars, the military appeared to be particularly unwilling to hand out convictions to troops who killed civilians. But notwithstanding the Haditha case, he said, that generally changed over time, with more convictions and lengthier sentences in later years, including several involving the shooting of Iraqi prisoners.

Sarah Holewinksi, executive director of the Campaign for Innocent Victims in Conflict, said it was impossible to know how many civilian deaths had occurred. She described bodies piling up in morgues with gunshot and shrapnel wounds or burns, but little way to find out who they were, who had killed them or whether they had been targets or caught in cross-fire.

“The fact that there was very little accountability for what happened in Haditha, that’s really frustrating,” she said. “We actually knew who these people were in Haditha. We knew their names. Usually we don’t even know who the civilian casualties were.”

Correction: February 1, 2012

An article on Saturday about criminal cases arising from the wartime killing of civilians over the past decade, including one in which eight Marines were charged in connection with the killing of 24 civilians in Haditha, Iraq, in 2005 misstated the venue in which one of the Marines was acquitted. First Lt. Andrew A. Grayson was tried in a court martial, not in a civilian court.

http://mobile.nytimes.com/2012/01/28/us/an-iraqi-massacre-a-light-sentence-and-a-question-of-military-justice.html?hl=en&q=haditha%20killings&ie=UTF-8&oe=UTF-8&channel=browser&pagewanted=all&

I hope the anti-spam bot doesn't ban me.

[size=14pt]Haditha killings.[/size]

The Haditha killings (also called the Haditha incident or the Haditha massacre) refers to the incident in which 24 unarmed Iraqi men, women and children were killed by a group of United States Marines on November 19, 2005 in Haditha, a city in the western Iraqi province of Al Anbar. All those killed were civilians. The dead included several children and elderly people, who were shot multiple times at close range while unarmed. It has been alleged that the killings were retribution for the attack on a convoy of Marines with an improvised explosive device that killed Lance Corporal Miguel Terrazas. Many news reports have compared the incident to the My Lai massacre.

Double post.

And even more examples (Abu Ghraib torture and cover up).


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NVolRm1iqBY

More examples of gallantry and discipline (Abu Ghraib torture).


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4HK4BDNsTts

[quote author=Maj. Headache]criminal behaviour cannot be excused but the main difference is that there are hardly misconducts during combats as the ROE is strictly the guiding rule were civilians are a big no-no.

can u say that for the nigerian army?[/quote]Chill! I'm on my way there. There's enough time for criminal misconduct during battle and even the cover up of criminal misconduct during battle. It's the weekend! Lighten up and have fun!

[size=14pt]Michael Brown: Another example of discipline and gallantry.[/size]

In 2002 a US marine, Michael Brown, was charged with attempting to rape a philipino bartender in Okinawa. The bartender later withdrew her accusation, but Japanese authorities discovered that she had been paid to withdraw the allegations.

Michael Brown was later found guilty of indecent assault and destruction of private property. He received a light sentence (of course). The case sparked further resentment of the american presence on Okinawa.

In 2005 Michael Brown was arrested in the United State and found guilty of kidnapping.

[size=14pt]Examples of gallantry, professionalism and discipline.[/size]

On September 4, 1995, three U.S. servicemen, U.S. Navy Seaman Marcus Gill and U.S. Marines Rodrico Harp and Kendrick Ledet, all from Camp Hansen on Okinawa, rented a van and kidnapped a 12-year-old Japanese girl. They beat her, duct-taped her eyes and mouth shut, and bound her hands. Gill and Harp then raped her, while Ledet claimed he only pretended to do so out of fear of Gill.

The incident sparked outrage and demonstrations in Okinawa. Although the incident occured off base, the US military took the men into custody and initially refused to release them to Japanese authorities.

The Commander of United States Pacific Command, U.S. Navy Admiral Richard C. Macke said, "I think it was absolutely stupid. I have said several times: for the price they paid to rent the car, they could have had a prostitute."

Ledet died in the US in 2006, after raping and killing a university student and then committing suicide.

Hm. Should I come back and have more fun? Or should I have pity on him?

Gregzee: This is his tactics! Keshi should beware

Exactly! From the beginning the Malawian coach has relied on mind games. He knows that he can't win the match, so he's trying to rile people and use that to motivate his players and destabilise the Nigerian team. Keshi should have simply ignored him.

Unfortunately Keshi fell for it. I understand Keshi's comments. He believes that the Malawian coach was being racist and so he replied in like manner. But he was wrong. Fifa might sanction him, but that would only happen after the match.

awodman: Train leaving with containers from apapa port today

Finally, the problem has been solved. The pictures are showing.

www.nairaland.com/attachments/1266705_apapa_jpgaf822aabbd45c2bd95803923b4894116

taharqa: @emboldened, Really? Never knew there was a rail link bw Kano (hence Lagos) to Itakpe. Never knew. If true, it wud reali bn great for Wepco and d Steel Industry in Naija

You can see it in my map above. The original reason for building that line was to connect Itakpe with Ajaokuta and then connect Ajaokuta with Lagos (there's also a proposed link to the Delta Steel Company, Aladja, but that hasn't been completed).

Post the pics on another website, copy the url of the pictures and post them here using the [img][/img] tool.

I was going to post this article on the other thread.

Have you figured out how to post the pictures?

I'm watching the NTA news in case they show video footage. Channels should post pictures of the event on youtube later.

ikenga67: Why did they ban you? I thought you only provide valuable historical materials? I need to contact you for material sometime

I was mistakenly banned by the anti-spam bot.

That's as much fun as I'm allowed to have in one day.

I'm out.

Lmao

Saying he is an ex-marine, therefore calling someone else a soldier is an insult to him and he can't even answer the question, "are you a soldier"?

Gosh! Where is this guy?

Come on, it's a very simple question.

Gosh! It's just not fair that I should be having so much FUN!

I ask again, are you a soldier? If you are not a soldier, how would it be an insult to you to call someone else a soldier?

[quote author=Maj. Headache]Words of encouragement and nothing more[/quote] I was actually referring to the comments section. . .

Anyway, more importantly, you didn't answer my questions:

How can calling them soldiers be an insult to an ex-marine? Are you a soldier?

By the way, this is the video I wrote about. Check the comments section. Very funny wars going on there.


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ao2ZYkaEwKk

[quote author=Maj. Headache]I dont give a phuck were the picture was taking. I am just stating that they are not worth to be called soldiers as they have nothing to compare with true warriors. You can call them savages and I wont argue but soldiers? Please don't insult this ex-marine.[/quote]How would calling them soldiers insult an ex-marine? Are you a soldier?

[quote author=Maj. Headache]Indiscipline exist in every army formation that is why they have the MPs. But the Nigerian army personel and officers are both undisciplined and are a sorry excuse for a soldier.

In Mali of recent they were relegated to the rear in the capital, Bamako doing odd jobs like mounting security check points and loading supply trucks.[/quote]Hahahahahahahaha

Basically this statement shows that it's basically about you not liking the Nigerian armed forces and that's ok. You are entitled to your opinion.

By the way, the picture wasn't taken on the streets. Since they are wearing blue helmets, I suspect that they've just returned from a UN mission and are celebrating.

If you scroll up you'll see a picture and video of. . .very disciplined New York cops grinding on girls during the Dominican Day parade and, o! Wow! They were dancing on the streets and in public.

Aww! Come on! You have indiscipline in every armed forces. Remember Abu Graib? The girls that have been raped in Okinawa? General Patton? It's every where. You have the bullies everywhere, just like you have the well trained and disciplined officers everywhere.

This reminds me of the youtube video I watched. Nigerian Navy SBS commandos were teaching American marines some tricks (how to fire at land based targets from a boat in a creek, etc). The marines and the SBS guys had good things to say about each other and what they learnt from each other.

However, there were several wars brewing in the comments section.

"Nigerian military is rubbish! They can't even defeat some hooligans in the creeks! I served in Port-Harcourt, so I know what I'm talking about".

While another guy was replying that the militants basically adopted guerrilla tactics. Stating that they certainly could not defeat the Nigerian Armed Forces in a conventional war.

The on the other side:

"You Americans are past it. You can't defeat a couple of rag heads in Afghanistan and Iraq. The Europeans are better!"

And the American was explaining that the militants adopted guerrilla tactics and that they certainly couldn't defeat the US in a conventional war.

anonimi: Can't see any picture.....I suppose you posted a picture in the above post?
It might actually be better to open a new thread with professional PR-quality pictures

- of the freight trains loading,
- taking off and
- getting to their destination.

It seems there's a problem with nairaland's software today. Many people have attached pictures to their posts, but the pictures are not showing. I had the same problems with the maps I posted earlier. I had to post them on my blog, copy the url and post the url here before they became visible.

Awodman, you could try posting the pictures on another site (eg facebook), copy the picture's url and post it here using the [img][/img] tool.