Nine children among 16 dead after US serviceman attacks villagers

[Backwards Observer]

To borrow from Kipling's poem Gunga Din: "You're a better man than I am"

Ah, ha h..(choke), hahar, (cough) hargh, harrr (spit)...the hell with it.

[stanleywinthrop]

The UCMJ was written as an adhoc justice system which-nominally-should be fairly swift--or at least swifter than most civilian systems.

What seems evident is that for whatever reason the UCMJ has turned glacial when it comes to high profile cases. Wuterich took 7-SEVEN! years to go to trial. Hasan is supposed to go to trial on June 12, 2012--almost three years. Better, but certainly not swift

By contrast, in the federal system the government is required to bring a case to trial within 70 days of indictment. The defense must consent if the government wishes to delay beyond that (in most circumstances).

There is no doubt that Sgt. X's court martial will take years to get to as well. My bet is 5 yrs minimum.

[ganulv]

What seems evident is that for whatever reason the UCMJ has turned glacial when it comes to high profile cases. Wuterich took 7-SEVEN! years to go to trial.

but I am assuming it is no coincidence that Wuterich’s court martial took place the month after the withdrawal of U.S. troops from Iraq.

[stanleywinthrop]

but I am assuming it is no coincidence that Wuterich’s court martial took place the month after the withdrawal of U.S. troops from Iraq.

Exactly. My belief is that the convening authority is responsible for most of the delay and the delay is for political, not legal reasons.

Is that justice?

I'll bet Sgt. X's trial is years away as well.

[ganulv]

Exactly. My belief is that the convening authority is responsible for most of the delay and the delay is for political, not legal reasons.

Is that justice?

isn’t the only option. In the real world sometimes the only choice one has is between bad and less bad and at times justice is not the less bad. I don’t know enough about the Haditha situation to know whether that is what Wuterich’s ultimate conviction amounted to but I could see how that might have been the case and I am not unsympathetic if so. Others will differ, but I personally would argue that allowing some degree of discretion is a good thing. Of course, that does open up the possibility that said discretion might be abused. There’s always a dialectic.

[jmm99]

Do a search here at SWC on Haditha to return posts - just now, 175 posts. See Defend Our Marines for huge documentation. Polarbear1605 and I have written enough on Haditha, so one short comment.

BLUF (only my own): the principal recent reason for delay (and when the Wuterich C-M was set for trial) were pi$$ing matches (hissy fits) among trial counsel and defense counsel, joined and added to by the military judge, joined and added to by the appellate judges - the latter won, as they always do. The hearings and trials involving other Marines were wrapped up in 2007-2008.

BTW: I'm not arguing anybody's position here, except my own conclusion (above), based on having looked at all of Wuterich's appellate decisions (and related materials) as they were going down. I didn't see any huge geopolitics or CA manipulation as to the final trial date. Clearly, the case was a political football (including military politics), especially at the beginning. At present, anybody can state whatever they want - informed or not. I don't give a f**k; what's over, is over.

Regards

Mike

Latin ? My, my.

[jmm99]

Bonjour,

What I've read is that the video was taken from a blimp. If so, command & control over the blimp and its video feeds was probably not at the OutPost where the shooter was stationed. Or, were there multiple video feeds (and/or sound feeds) from other sensors - some under the OP's C&C ? "Prophet" might be all over the place, but he doesn't necessarily add 2+2=4. I don't know at this time.

For the sake of discussion, I've taken (from the Wiki) what could be the existing facts re: the geography and timeline (not known to me):

According to official reports, a heavily-armed American soldier left his base at 3:00 a.m. local time wearing night vision goggles. He was wearing a traditional Afgan clothing over his ISAF fatigues. The soldier proceeded to attack three civilian homes in the villages of Alkozai and Najeeban ... Eleven members of the same family were killed in Najeeban, then their bodies were partially burned. Four members of another family were killed in Alkozai. ...
...
Following the events at Alkozai and Najeeban a U.S. soldier handed himself over into ISAF custody. Afghan forces spotted him leaving his outpost before the massacre and U.S. commanders on base assembled their troops for a head count when it was discovered that the soldier was missing. A patrol was dispatched to find the missing soldier; it did not find him until the soldier turned himself in at the base after the massacre. He was reportedly taken into custody without incident. There were no other military operations being conducted in the area at the time.

The surveillance video from the base [JMM: "from the base" may not be accurate] reportedly shows "the soldier walking up to his base covered in a traditional Afghan shawl. The soldier removes the shawl and lays his weapon on the ground, then raises his arms in surrender." The video was not disclosed to the public.

Footnotes omitted (see the Wiki).

So, before anyone gets pi$$ed off at higher-ups for not stopping the events that occured in the time between the shooter leaving and coming back, we have to know who knew what and when - and what the shooter was doing when and where. I don't have that data.

What is spooky here is the similarity with 1970 Son Thang (about 1500-2000 metres from the Marine Coy OP), where 16 people were killed at two separate locations (two houses in one; one house in another). The Marine patrol took less than an hour out and back. By a fluke, another Marine patrol (including an S-2 Lt. and a corpsman) were told by villagers of the killings shortly after. That patrol was able to make a good forensic investigation of the three scenes.

Once the facts are in, Lagrange would be a better judge of small unit reaction time than McCarthy. You've been in what, say, a half-dozen or more $hit-holes over the last decade.

If you end up judging, look at it not only from the standpoint of the villagers, but also from the standpoint of the person in charge at the OP.

colonialement,

Mike