Marines now face charges for Haditha

[Lord_Iggy]

sounds cruel but the US would do the same thing if canadian troops killed 24 americans without provocation.

Destroy us in a retaliatory attack?

Dang, what is up with the obsession with hanging these days ?

Saddam, probably.

 

[Underseer]

The judicial system finally starting to take hold. So much for the diehard defenders of these marines now eh?

In most previous cases, the trials/investigations resulted in everyone walking away with a slap on the wrists, or the charges were dropped altogether (obvious exception: when the civilian leadership needs to blame the troops for something). I'm not gonna hold my breath.

 

[Mr. Dictator]

It's a good question. I guess I presumed that you can't mix and match laws at will - the trial either needs to be on the basis of US laws, or of Iraqi laws, and it will need to be under the proper jurisdiction and procedures of whichever set of laws you go with (including judges who udnertsand that set of laws well enough).

I'm sure we've got good legal people here (FredLC, where are you ?) who can probably tell us whether there might be more in your idea than I (with my amateur hour approach to the law) think there is.

i meant more of a mixed presence on the jury or something like that.

 

[nonconformist]

All the crimes like Gitmo and others should be dealt with by a military court, I'm all for putting the people on trial that perpetrated it. I know the "I was only following orders" thing has been said hundreds of times, but in many cases, it's true. They should hire a group of investigators from a foreign nation to research whether the "only following orders" is true or not, and prosecute the real instigators (the people that ordered) and stick lesser charges to those that actually carried out the offense (IF they were in fact following orders, if not stick them with the same punishment as the instigators).

The old "I was following orders" thing hasn't flown too well since, like, Nuremberg.

 

[Lambert Simnel]

i meant more of a mixed presence on the jury or something like that.

Yeah, maybe. I'm damned if I can see how to make it work, but that means diddly squat. Maybe there is a way to get a mixed jury without it appearing to be tokenist, or ending up with unreasonable pressure on the Iraqi members, or of the jury being encouraged to split on lines of nationalism. I can't see it working, but I think the idea is pretty good, and worth investigating further, nonetheless.