Originally Posted by
selil
A great example of the continued divergence between social responsibility (group dynamics and social cohesion) and legal construction (extraneous rule set and arbitrary decisions).
In polarity of cases (likely neither reality):
Case 1: NCO engages in off the books punishment to build unit cohesion, resulting in an effective disciplined fighting force, that sustains soldiers and saves lives. Some soldiers kicked to the curb as unfit.
Case 2: Soldier engages in legal posturing to escape punishment eroding unit cohesion and as a direct result impacts the effectiveness of training and unit camaraderie engendering distrust and likeliness of discipline break down in combat. Some soldiers remain regardless of suitability.
I'm not a fan of lawyer in the loop.
Lawfare is as much a social, moral, ambiguous, construction and inherently flawed as the insatiable monster of Wall Street. Lawfare is not part of the social or moral fabric of conflict and does not reflect the necessities of that conflict. As a conflict construction it really seems to have gotten legs during World War 1 & 2, but only recently has infected the command level since the Vietnam War.
I have a tendency to reject the tenets of "War Crimes" as only the victor has the ability to inflict the will of criminal prosecution. As such prosecution under duress will always be suspect (aka Saddam Hussein or if you will Nuremberg). Most military investigations of combat incidents involve disenfranchised suspects who are rarely given the resources of defense as much as told the results of investigations and requisite punishments. Not unlike the public defense or indigent criminal suspects in the civilian world.
Given the arbitrage of restricted punishment meted out by the worst NCO in the honest pursuit of unit discipline and cohesion versus the form filled fantasies of human resource application lawyers I will back the NCO every time.
It's always about making war not paper work.
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