Nine children among 16 dead after US serviceman attacks villagers

[carl]

Please clarify: are you saying that S.Sgt. X should be taken out and hanged right now - if so, why bother with hanging; a .45 hardball in the nape of the neck would be far more efficient and effective ?

Or, would you bother with the intermediate niceties of a GCM - an inconvenience accorded the deserter Slovik and the 95 murderers/rapists ?

Let me make it perfectly f**king clear: I carry no brief against the death penalty. I carry no brief for complicated appellate review. I don't even carry a brief for GCMs. They just happen to be what we do.

Mike Hoare's summary system would be fine with me, especially the part where the decider of the sentence personally has to execute the sentence. I doubt whether Hoare's system would be acceptable to many of you, especially if you were the accused and I were the decider.

Regards

Mike

Mike: The outlook you object to is an important one. It reflects the lack of confidence of many in the US that justice will be done and even if it is, it will take years and tides of money. If that is what some of us think, imagine what the Afghans think. I understand that the rule of law is important and that we must follow the rules we set, but in 1944 the American military could execute murderers and now we can't. That frustrates people.