USA PMC in AFG Faces Murder Charges...

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I talked to a legal scholar this afternoon who specializes in law of armed conflict.

His take on why Ayala's case seems to be moving forward so quickly compared to the Blackwater case (apparently a grand jury has heard that case recently, but the results aren't yet known): Ayala's case has a "political overlay" that's all about sending a message to Karzai and the Iraqi government, at a particularly sensitive diplomatic moment (negotiating SOFA agreement with Iraq; Karzai upset about airstrikes and civilian deaths; a new administration coming in with the promise of more troops in Afghanistan).

If this is the precedent, it's a bad one. If this was an Afghan on Afghan thing, I sincerely doubt ANY legal action would be taken. An Afghan would probably just thank Allah that the offended party didn't kill the attacker's extended family as well, imo. I think this will just come off as us pandering to them. They know that what Ayala did was right, and they also know we're punishing him to show them we're "serious". All it will do is reinforce the idea that The US is unpredictable and duplicitous. Expect the enemy to flip this against us in their I/O campaign.

The message is that we will take care of business and not allow contractors to get away with crimes committed in their countries. It's also a way to keep jurisdiction over such matters (we don't want our people tried in foreign courts). Pretty simple.

As a sidenote, Ayala is being prosecuted by DOJ under the 2000 MEJA act because it's the safer route than using the UCMJ (a court martial). No U.S. civilian has ever been prosecuted under the UCMJ because Constitutional issues (protections under 5th and 6th amendments). That is, it could successfully argued that court martialing this guy would be unconstitutional because he's a civilian, not a soldier. MEJA was designed to plug that gap and give the DOJ a way to charge civilians working for the military in a war zone.

That ends our legal lesson for the day.

I don't disagree with Ayala's prosecution for murder. That is the government's responsibility, under the law. It's just that for some of us, some of the time, honor > law. That even means that if I were the DOJ prosecutor, I would do my best to see that the maximum penalty be applied to Ayala. It would also mean I would completely and utterly approve, without reservation, Ayala's actions. I would also bear witness against him in court, as that too, is honorable.

After all, this "Rule of Law" is an artificial (almost exclusively Western) construct, which is more often than not applied unfairly and to the favor of the least honorable among us. It's fake, phoney, whatever you want to call it.