COUNTERCOLUMN: All Your Bias Are Belong to Us

I'm a fan of the death penalty and this is definitely a time were it COULD be very appropriate.

But then again it's the NY Times we're talking about here.

Guess we'll have to wait and see.
 

It's the bloody NY Times, for G** sakes. Since when have they ever got a story straight?
 

Our troops are well trained but war is hell and people are people.

I'm suprised we don't have more instances like this.
 

I really hope this isn't the whole story. How do you convince five marines to just go bonkers.

I'm sick to my stomach.
 

I notice that the article made no mention of the long history of the United States' military forces investigating its own alleged war crimes, and when such crimes are found to have occurred, punishing the perpetrators. Also missing is any mention of the contrast between our forces and those of the "insurgency".
 

Know what I couldn't find in that article? The date of the incident. The writer wrote entirely around the subject, leaving me to conclude that it either happened in early November or November 1st, entirely from circumstantial evidence elsewhere in the article.

Christ, I hope it's a crock of shit. For one thing, it looks like a "tip of the iceberg" story. If the details are true, how do five individual marines go on a five-hour killing spree in the middle of a hot zone? Either it's bullshit or the rest of their squad, and probably the rest of their company & maybe their battalion, were implicated by inaction. Since the battalion commander is in hot water according to the article, I'm not optimistic.
 

If true, it's sad. But hardly surprising. Did you expect perfection? In a perfect world, we would not need soldiers.

I suggest that we all reserve judgement until we see the facts reported by a reputable news organization.
 

No matter what the story turns out to be there is one thing for sure. The NYT story will not even be close to the truth. If they had the truth they would hype it or outright lie. Never believe anything that is printed in the NYT, everyone should have at least learned that by now.
 

"The fit that was thrown over that childish, irresponsible, but relatively harmless incident"

Mark, Manadel al-Jamadi was murdered at Abu Ghraib by a CIA agent.... this was not a "harmless incident"

Does the USA hold people accountable for crimes of murder in the mist of war? Here's a clip from an article by the New YORKER...

"The C.I.A. has reportedly been implicated in at least four deaths of detainees in Afghanistan and Iraq, including that of Jamadi, and has referred eight potentially criminal cases involving abuse and misconduct to the Justice Department. In March, Goss, the C.I.A.’s director, testified before Congress that “we don’t do torture,” and the agency’s press office issued a release stating, “All approved interrogation techniques, both past and present, are lawful and do not constitute torture. . . . C.I.A. policies on interrogation have always followed legal guidance from the Department of Justice. If an individual violates the policy, then he or she will be held accountable.”

Yet the government has brought charges against only one person affiliated with the agency: David Passaro, a low-level contract employee, not a full-fledged C.I.A. officer. In 2003, Passaro, while interrogating an Afghan prisoner, allegedly beat him with a flashlight so severely that he eventually died from his injuries. In two other incidents of prisoner abuse, the Times reported last month, charges probably will not be brought against C.I.A. personnel: the 2003 case of an Iraqi prisoner who was forced head first into a sleeping bag, then beaten; and the 2002 abuse of an Afghan prisoner who froze to death after being stripped and chained to the floor of a concrete cell. (The C.I.A. supervisor involved in the latter case was subsequently promoted.)"


link:

http://www.newyorker.com/printables/fact/051114fa_fact



It seems to me that the same lack of standards is (generally) held for US military. A couple of months ago, a US military person beat an Iraqi General to death and got a demotion, but no jail time. That Iraqi General had turned himself in to the US forces because his two sons were detained. Imagine if someone in a foreign military beat a surrendured American General to death......


I am inclined to think this investigation has "legs" since the US Marines are now lecturing the Marines in Iraq on "lawful" killings.


I don't think the death penalty is an appropriate response to criminal behavior at any time. It solves nothing, and detains no one from committing these crimes. Somehow, people have the idea that if we just kill the "bad guys" off, then everything will be just fine. How many centuries do we go on doing this before someone notices that it does not work? How long before someone realizes that killing the "terrorists" in Iraq is just making more of them?
 

Valens,
Is it wrong to wax philosophically on the appropriate punishment for the alleged crimes if they were indeed committed and Marines are found guilty of murder? For me, it is this desire to seek and obtain accountability when appropriate that is a hallmark of American society. Certainly, there are some who have already come to conclusions prior to all the facts being known; however, the majority of the commenters here have not convicted, but rather only contemplated on the potential, and I think that they are fully within their bounds to make such comments.
 

Valens,
What point is that? That the insurgents may have staged such an event? Irrelevant to discussing hypothetical outcomes that are couched as such.