Disgracefully lenient sentence for Haditha murderer

captiva303 said:
nidal hassan wasnt in a warzone
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No but he was in a military environment and filled with hate, possibly due to the illegal invasion of Iraq combined with the abuses of Guantanamo, Abu Ghraib, and incidents such as this.

If his fellow soldiers reflected the no remorse attitude by many on here, day after day, such as: "so what?", "sh!t happens", "how can you know?", sort of attitude this would surely have intensified his anger.
 
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I would be interested to hear from those who believe that civilians can't judge military incidents, agree with our civilian legal system for civilian judgements? Wouldn't you have to be brought up in the same environment as the criminal to understand a criminals motives? Peer pressure, poverty, abusive upbringing etc?

BTW what % of the military nowadays actually get involved in combat fighting and are even potentially in a position to feel this level of hate? In Vietnam I heard it was as low as 15%. James E. Westheider wrote that "At the height of American involvement in 1968, for example, there were 543,000 American military personnel in Vietnam, but only 80,000 were considered combat troops."
 
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lolwhassup said:
I didn't want to open my mouth on this subject because I'm just a young'ing here, however I don't believe that any of us here can judge them for their actions, seeing as none of us were there, we weren't in their boots, nor do we know the situation at the time.
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If we go by that logic then no one can be prosecuted. Murders that you see today shouldn't be "judged" because the Jury and Judge never been in that situation. That is if we go by this logic.

There would be no real justice system. Are you saying you have to be in a murderer's shoe to judge a murderer?
 
RayManKiller3 said:
If we go by that logic then no one can be prosecuted. Murders that you see today shouldn't be "judged" because the Jury and Judge never been in that situation. That is if we go by this logic.

There would be no real justice system. Are you saying you have to be in a murderer's shoe to judge a murderer?
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No but what I am saying is that this is an extenuating circumstance seeing as the lines are being blurred on the modern battlefield.

Many others in this thread have already made the point of how even if they don't directly participate in the firefights, the civilians still ultimately contribute to the insurgency indirectly, causing our men to not be able to distinguish between the enemy and a truly neutral civilian.
 
lolwhassup said:
No but what I am saying is that this is an extenuating circumstance seeing as the lines are being blurred on the modern battlefield.
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That is obviously not true, as if it were, the international community would never have made specific Laws forbidding such behaviour on the battlefield.
 
lolwhassup said:
No but what I am saying is that this is an extenuating circumstance seeing as the lines are being blurred on the modern battlefield.

Many others in this thread have already made the point of how even if they don't directly participate in the firefights, the civilians still ultimately contribute to the insurgency indirectly, causing our men to not be able to distinguish between the enemy and a truly neutral civilian.
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There is no circumstantial excuse for killing 24 civillians (with rifles).... If he did it out of rage then he should still be prosecuted for killing them and 90 months is NOT fair judgement. In U.S if you did that you would face life sentence/death penalty depending on state, even if the lawyers convinced them you were "insane".

All they did was slap his wrist and said "be on your way. Good job out there soldier". Do you know how that makes the U.S looks to foriegners? How can accuse others of atrocity and not handling problems, if we don't do it to our own?

Are you saying that if Iraqis did that to us you would be fine with this?

Forget all of that, just answer this; What do you think his (and all those involved) punishment should be? This way I will know if you are specifically defending this incident or are just generalizing that circumstances must be taken into account.

Sure the guy "lost control", but that does not lift him from holding responsibility for his actions.
 
perseus said:
No but he was in a military environment and filled with hate, possibly due to the illegal invasion of Iraq combined with the abuses of Guantanamo, Abu Ghraib, and incidents such as this.

If his fellow soldiers reflected the no remorse attitude by many on here, day after day, such as: "so what?", "sh!t happens", "how can you know?", sort of attitude this would surely have intensified his anger.
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Don't twist my words. When I said "sh!t happens" I was referring to the fact we are living in an imperfect world and acknowledging that bad things do occur.How about you take a look at the other side? these atrocities pale into insignificance when compared to what happens in other parts of the world on a day to day basis.

You do realise who you are standing up for right? As I have said what has happened is wrong but that is the way of the world. That is the way it works and has done since the establishment of society that is the historical norm. The life you and I have lived is not normal as compared to people through history and people who live now. And the only reason we live as we do is because of "sh!t happening"...

Does this mean we shouldn't try and do things right? no. You just have to come to expect that sometimes things go wrong. Horribly wrong and it has always been this way and will continue to do so.

And how can you speak in such definitive terms? You wouldnt know half as much as the prosecutions does. They didn't go up against some kangaroo court. They went before a real court and they were convicted of what could be proven against them . It is scary to think that you would have it otherwise.

Politicians make spin on events they wouldn't risk their careers on intervening same thing goes for people in high authority.
 
MontyB said:
You know the one thing that separates us from despotic dictatorships is that we can and if we are to believe we are indeed free we should question the actions of those who carry out these tasks in our name.

One thing I really hate is this "I an not condoning crime but" it is right up there with "I am not racist but" and "I am not anti-XXXXXX but", you can travel down the path of believing that throwing on a uniform somehow makes you above the law and you can trot out every excuse from medical to mental but the the question you have to ask yourself is whether 24 dead men, woman, children, elderly and crippled have received justice.

However like Perseus I will interested to see what sentence is given to Nidal Hasan.
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" Throwing on a uniform" ? I rest my case.
 
RayManKiller3 said:
There is no circumstantial excuse for killing 24 civillians (with rifles).... If he did it out of rage then he should still be prosecuted for killing them and 90 months is NOT fair judgement. In U.S if you did that you would face life sentence/death penalty depending on state, even if the lawyers convinced them you were "insane".

All they did was slap his wrist and said "be on your way. Good job out there soldier". Do you know how that makes the U.S looks to foriegners? How can accuse others of atrocity and not handling problems, if we don't do it to our own?

Are you saying that if Iraqis did that to us you would be fine with this?

Forget all of that, just answer this; What do you think his (and all those involved) punishment should be? This way I will know if you are specifically defending this incident or are just generalizing that circumstances must be taken into account.

Sure the guy "lost control", but that does not lift him from holding responsibility for his actions.
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Right but, as others in this thread and I already have said, they may be "civilians" but they also may have been contributing to the insurgency through other means than direct fighting.

Also as I've already said, yes it is a crime, but I would rather have a lenient sentence than see another one of our men added to the 100,000+ already homeless on our streets. I'm not specifically defending this incident, I am merely an advocate of taking care of our own.

The way I see it, Not taking care of our own after all they've been through for our sakes would be the bigger crime. They did after all volunteer to fight for us, something most of American society would not do.
 
lolwhassup said:
Right but, as others in this thread and I already have said, they may be "civilians" but they also may have been contributing to the insurgency through other means than direct fighting.

Also as I've already said, yes it is a crime, but I would rather have a lenient sentence than see another one of our men added to the 100,000+ already homeless on our streets. I'm not specifically defending this incident, I am merely an advocate of taking care of our own.

The way I see it, Not taking care of our own after all they've been through for our sakes would be the bigger crime. They did after all volunteer to fight for us, something most of American society would not do.
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My hasn't the world come a long way from the days of "I was just following orders".

I take it your justification for this is that:

Saba Younis Salim, age 10, female
Noor Younis Salim, age 13, female
Asia Younis Salim, age 3, female
Zeinab Younis Salim, age 5, male
Mohammed Younis Salim, age unknown, child, male
Abdullah Waleed Abdulhameed, age 4, male.

Were supporting the insurgency?
 
MontyB said:
My hasn't the world come a long way from the days of "I was just following orders".

I take it your justification for this is that:

Saba Younis Salim, age 10, female
Noor Younis Salim, age 13, female
Asia Younis Salim, age 3, female
Zeinab Younis Salim, age 5, male
Mohammed Younis Salim, age unknown, child, male
Abdullah Waleed Abdulhameed, age 4, male.

Were supporting the insurgency?
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I was speaking generically in a war like this, not specifically on this incident.

The last thing I am going to say in this thread is that, It is easy for you to condemn from the stump when you haven't been in their boots. We should take care of our own before we worry about others.
 
lolwhassup said:
I was speaking generically in a war like this, not specifically on this incident.

The last thing I am going to say in this thread is that, It is easy for you to condemn from the stump when you haven't been in their boots. We should take care of our own before we worry about others.
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Here go take a look at their handy work...
http://haditha.org/photologue/gallery/victims/index.html

Then come back and tell me these are people you want walking your streets or even flying your countries flag.
 
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One does wonder how those that did this, especially to the children are able to personally cope with their memories?
 
Watched a documentary on the whole incident last night and it is not nearly as clean cut as one would think.

And worst atrocities of WWII? Really? The only people who were hung were those of the axis forces. Not one person in Allied bomber command was hung during WWII and they WERE deliberately targeting civilians on many of their missions...AND...THEY KNEW IT! It seems we can pick and choose who is a bad guy for killing civilians when the media isn't there to broadcast it...yet these guys took a KIA, DID recieve fire, and "cleared the house" according to the intent that the SSG's PL directed. They acted within the ROE when they opened up on the car. Still, they should have stopped once they realized they had killed women and kids in the first house...at the same time there was still a threat that they had to deal with...To continue the assault or to stop and lose momentum....hard decision to make for anyone.

Easy to judge after the fact from behind a keyboard. I wish this was black and white...it's simply not. Yet, it seems that some on here prefer to speak in absolutes so...here goes...anyone who has no context for the situation these guys were in has no idea what they are talking about...end of story.
 
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The fog of war now involves a blurry distinction between enemy fighters and civilians, and daily operations - house-to-house searches, roadblocks and vulnerable convoys, among others - in which soldiers anxiously encounter civilians. Nowadays, soldiers do several tours of duty in these difficult circumstances.
 
che said:
One does wonder how those that did this, especially to the children are able to personally cope with their memories?
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Ever watched the BBC documentary series on Auschwitz?
They interviewed members of Einsatz Gruppen and people who had worked in the camp.
The scary thing is, despite knowing what they did was wrong in every sense of the word, they still appeared "comfortable" with what they did, explaining that they were dealing with enemies of the state and "following orders".
Maybe this is how they cope with their memories, because if they accept they murdered innocents, they would no longer be able to cope.
 
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