you allso can be tried for Adaultary :-)
you allso can be tried for Adaultary :-)
But you cannot if you are a civilian. As I said, UCMJ is not Civil Law.
i know, thats why i said it. it was in additon to what you were saying.
if thats true, then Lincoln=Bin Loden; Hitler=Churchhill; Ted Bundy=Patton.
they are two diffrent situations and you can’t compair them in such a simple term.
I was responding to M36’s notion that abortion is murder. Is war not murder then? Just because you put on a uniform for your country doesn’t mean that people weren’t purposely killed.
Nations constatutions are ment to be directed to the nation and only the nation that it implies, other wise I as a US citizen would be subject to Russian or Chiness law.
Except that he wasn’t subject to Iraqi law, so I’d guess he got off particularly easy. Lucky him.
i’m not personally justifing what this Sgt did, i don’t know the facts my self, non of us do. the media has a tendancy the scew the facts against the millitary. even if not true, i highly doupt all the facts of this trial were made public.
He confessed.
the problem is that we do have casses where innocount service men and women are convicted before trial even by the people and government that they are there to protect. when you have US seniters saying that men who have not been to trial yet are guilty, then you have a problem.
There are non-military citizens that suffer the same. The only difference is that the military handles their own, so there can’t possibly be the sentence before trial that you suggest happens.
And one of the freedoms you are supposedly protecting is freedom of speech. That Senator lives in the US, ya know.
Furthermore, if you are speaking of Haditha, the problem was not Murtha. It took the media to finally get the upper echelons of the military to investigate. In this case, the media brought justice where the military denied it.
@Cmdr:
But what you are failing to realize is that we protect the US Constitution, not foreigners. For all our oath means, there is NOTHING in there that says we cannot carpet bomb kittens and puppies for the fun of it.
Furthermore, military personnel acting in a military situation are NOT subject to the domestic laws of this nation, but solely to the UCMJ which has different standards. (For one, you do NOT have the right to not criminalize yourself, you MUST testify. You also do not have the right to an attorney nor are you guaranteed a speedy trial, etc.)
Now you are arguing semantics. The criminal code of military justice is based on civilian criminal code. UCMJ doesn’t cover mass animal massacres but murdering a detained unarmed person(whether a civilian or combatant), attempting to cover up murder, and lying about it to investigators certainly is covered by UCMJ.
Sgt Vela and everyone else involved knew they was doing wrong. You just don’t try to cover up something when you haven’t committed a crime. Especially when you are granted the gray area latitude that military code affords you.
If the guy and his son had stumbled into their hiding place and Sgt Vela had shot him instantly I would feel different about this, but when you can measure time in that situation in minutes, then everybody there were clearly thinking about that situation and not just reacting.
BTW:
The very codes that this person is being prosecuted under are the standards that the United States forced the entire world to adopt during and after WWII.
It was our prosecution of things like the Malmedy Massacre that set us above previous standards of warfare. WE SET THE STANDARD. And since then we have held our own people to it, over and over.
Not sure what they teach now, but when I was in Mei Li was a lesson that was pounded in, both as a USAF Officer and a US Army soldier.
Well, we are an idealistic nation, sometimes too idealistic if we think that war can be civilized.
So the Army puts Sgt. Vela in prison for 10 years and says that it is justice. The SCOTUS has already ruled that human life is worth nothing, so why must a price be payed for ending one?
The Army is only hurting themselves. Sgt. Vela was an effective soldier, yet now he is behind bars, his rifle is silent, and the enemy has one less barrel pointed at them.
@M36:
The Army is only hurting themselves. Sgt. Vela was an effective soldier, yet now he is behind bars, his rifle is silent, and the enemy has one less barrel pointed at them.
Generally speaking, killing civilians is not effective, and Vela apparently had trouble knowing where to point his rifle anyway…
if thats true, then Lincoln=Bin Loden; Hitler=Churchhill; Ted Bundy=Patton.
they are two diffrent situations and you can’t compair them in such a simple term.I was responding to M36’s notion that abortion is murder. Is war not murder then? Just because you put on a uniform for your country doesn’t mean that people weren’t purposely killed.
don’t see how this changes what i say. if war = murder then we have a world full of murderers that in many casses murdered to deffend life. this can be a discustion all on it’s own, i am just stating that to call war murder is a vary simple statment like saying Muslams are terorist. it can be true, but it is not always true and as such makes the statment false.Nations constatutions are ment to be directed to the nation and only the nation that it implies, other wise I as a US citizen would be subject to Russian or Chiness law.
Except that he wasn’t subject to Iraqi law, so I’d guess he got off particularly easy. Lucky him.
hu? i know he wasn’t, he is subject to the UCMJ as he is a solder fighting in uniform.i’m not personally justifing what this Sgt did, i don’t know the facts my self, non of us do. the media has a tendancy the scew the facts against the millitary. even if not true, i highly doupt all the facts of this trial were made public.
He confessed.
as i said i don’t know it all, i do know though that it is unlikelly that WE know it all any way.the problem is that we do have casses where innocount service men and women are convicted before trial even by the people and government that they are there to protect. when you have US seniters saying that men who have not been to trial yet are guilty, then you have a problem.
There are non-military citizens that suffer the same. The only difference is that the military handles their own, so there can’t possibly be the sentence before trial that you suggest happens.
And one of the freedoms you are supposedly protecting is freedom of speech. That Senator lives in the US, ya know.
Furthermore, if you are speaking of Haditha, the problem was not Murtha. It took the media to finally get the upper echelons of the military to investigate. In this case, the media brought justice where the military denied it.
Your justifing a person that is supost to represent the people to accuse people with out trial (guarded by both constatution and UCMJ) of murder. it was not a statment by Murtha that was an “if guilty”, but it was “they are guilty”. even if this is guarded under the constatution (as it is) he made the statments as a senater (represenative of the government), so he was acting at the vary least iresponcable, but i feel he was trampeling on other peoples rights to a fair trial. he hid behind the constatution to trample on other peoples constatutional rights. his act should have been made a big deal and cost him his job through a trial of his own. even if it’s a millitary trial, you can’t say that those trieing are not perswaided by our own governemnt (you know the guys who sighn there pay cheaks).
Some of you are saying your military laws cancel your constitution? :-o Or I am missing something?
A person cannot kill intentionally a unarmed innocent person without punishment. It don’t mind if the murdered is a soldier, it must be punished. Justice is one of the basics of democracy.
yes some things in the millitary cansol out laws that are established. such as trial by jury or even double jeperdy (you can be tried by civilian court and then tried by the UCMJ or even in reverse and be convicted in both casses for the exact same crime).
this dose not mean that murder is ignored at all. the UCMJ holds millitary personel to a higher standard not a lower standard.
the problem as i see it is not that murder or unlawfull actions take place over seas. my problem is that the governement and media is going to far and convicting these troops before they are tried.
this is not a war like WWII in that it’s enamy solders in uniform, we are instead facing people who will strap a bomb on there own son and send them forward to detinate when the US forces (or even there allies) do what we have been raised to do, be kind to children.
if you saw your friend get blown up this way, would you wait for the next kid to walk up to you? some would, but not all and you can’t convict some one of murder if they truelly beleve there is a risk to them self. we are convicting our service men for doing there job, when they do it and it is found out that it was a cavilian i can understand the desire to make them look like a combatant. why? if you got reports that other guys are serving prison terms for doing exactly what you did, wouldn’t you want to save your skin? or would it be better to just let every one of the people walk up to you and your squad and just hope they don’t detinate? there is a fine line hear and the government has crossed over to convict those who they should be protecting and helping.
yes some things in the millitary cansol out laws that are established. such as trial by jury or even double jeperdy (you can be tried by civilian court and then tried by the UCMJ or even in reverse and be convicted in both casses for the exact same crime).
this dose not mean that murder is ignored at all. the UCMJ holds millitary personel to a higher standard not a lower standard.
the problem as i see it is not that murder or unlawfull actions take place over seas. my problem is that the governement and media is going to far and convicting these troops before they are tried.
this is not a war like WWII in that it’s enamy solders in uniform, we are instead facing people who will strap a bomb on there own son and send them forward to detinate when the US forces (or even there allies) do what we have been raised to do, be kind to children.
if you saw your friend get blown up this way, would you wait for the next kid to walk up to you? some would, but not all and you can’t convict some one of murder if they truelly beleve there is a risk to them self. we are convicting our service men for doing there job, when they do it and it is found out that it was a cavilian i can understand the desire to make them look like a combatant. why? if you got reports that other guys are serving prison terms for doing exactly what you did, wouldn’t you want to save your skin? or would it be better to just let every one of the people walk up to you and your squad and just hope they don’t detinate? there is a fine line hear and the government has crossed over to convict those who they should be protecting and helping.
So the soldiers should can kill innocent unarmed people without punishement? Only because they are too frightened? What if a guy kills another only because he hates the muslims? If is a soldier, he can go free?
as i said (or entended for it to come accross as) is that it has a grey area that no one in the media or government is willing to see.
this war you don’t know who the combatants are in all casses, you can be killed by a little boy or girl who comes up to you and you think they want candy (the troops over there give it out a lot) now as your friend goes to give the candy the child blows up killing your friend and some other troops in your unit. what would you realy do when the next kid or group of kids comes up? would you step forward and offer them candy? i doupt it, so you tell the kid('s) to stop, they don’t understand you, or if you do know a few words in there language you tell them to stop. now this kid dosn’t stop as you instruct them. so you shot the kid. no one wants to go home in a pine box after all, or worse yet be the one responcable for the death of there friends. now what happens is lets say the kid had no bomb, so now the solder/Marine is tried for shooting an unarmed civilian child. he is now convicted, what message did that just send to eveary other solder on the ground?
in 2004 a friend and naighbor of mine was in Iraq, he was in a fire fight in Bagdad and one of the guys with him was covering a door way that enamy combatants were in. rounds were exchanged. out of the building ran a enamy solder firing. he made it to cover, but right behind him was a little boy who ran out. needless to say the little boy did not make it to cover. the Marine was not convicted or sent back state side, but that is the closest direct example i have (i got it secound hand as opposed to 3rd or 4th) to how the enamy in Iraq is fighting. they will use there own children to attack us or sacrafice there children to win the war. that Marine who shot the boy was removed from combat because he felt rightfully so guilty for what he did. so in this case they were able to remove 1 Marine from combat and make at the vary least a squad (13 Marines) secound guess there actions in each battle so they don’t repeat his actions.
We know there is a gray area in military situations. You are trying to place that gray area into Sgt Vela’s situation even though there isn’t a gray area in Sgt Vela’s case. His case is clear cut. He knew he committed multiple crimes. He confessed to them.
What you are doing is taking a particular situation you’ve heard of and trying to apply that specific soldier’s innocence to decriminalize every possible criminal act committed by every soldier in this conflict. The “this one guy was innocent so they are all innocent” argument doesn’t work.
And I think you are referring to Vietnam. I have never heard of the insurgents using children as suicide bombs, but I’ll give you the benefit of the doubt in that, however unlikely, it is possible. Even if they have done that though, I know for a fact that the vast majority of casualties come from roadside bombs, carbombs, and small arms fire. I believe that the situation you describe would be considered rare at best.
M36’s first post is set in a way to leave it open to all situations like this, these are the situations i am refering to. if he admited guilt, then so be it. he is guilty then. i am refering to the constent attacks on the millitary of guilt before trial.
suicide bombers have been in Iraq and Afganistan children and women. the children are not as common as in Vnam but they still are there. that aside, we do face suicide bombers that are men as well. it dosn’t change that if you see a man walk up and blow up that you should not be carfull of others. you see this state side as well where cops tell some one to put there hands up and when the suspect puts there hand in there pocket the cop shots them and then when they find out they were reaching for ID the cop is on trial and all over the news you hear about cops going out of control just shooting “good boys”. the media scews things all the time.
i also am not going for the “this one guy was innocent so they are all innocent” argument, i am saying that the media, a % of our population and a % of our governemnt officals seam to use the argument “this one guy is guilty so they are all guilty”. i am saying that investigations need to occure before guilt is thrown down as it is that media bius that is causing a lot of troubles.
First off, I tend to give our military the benefit of the doubt in most cases. I am a Vet myself of multiple branches and I know the deal.
HOWEVER…
Being a vet I also had military law hammered into my head. I suspect SGT Vela did as well. He acted in a manner not in agreement with his training, and that is the FIRST step toward catastrophe as all of our active military and vets on here will tell you.
The fact that his violation of his training resulted in the death of non-Americans (instead of his fellow unit members which is NORMALLY what happens when military folks ignore their training) is the only reason we are discussing this. Had his actions in violation of training resulted in the death of other Americans, the same folks saying he is being thrown to the wolves would be screaming (rightfully so) for his blood.
Lesson 1 of the US Military:
FOLLOW YOUR TRAINING!
I don’t really give a rats about Sgt Vela or what he did or did not do. What matters to me is the ridiculous standard the world has set for the American Military. If we so much as breath too hard in the direction of an innocent civilian, we get demonized in the world stage.
That’s what I care about.
I care about good fried chicken, breaded not battered, extra crispy with mashed potatoes that have real butter and cheder cheese mixed in. That’s what I care about. :wink:
@Cmdr:
What matters to me is the ridiculous standard the world has set for the American Military.
You must have missed where I posted this above.
The “world” did not set this standard… WE DID. We did it first at Nuremberg and have kept it going ever since.
That is the standard of the United States of America… the standard that we made the entire world accept as legitimate in 1945 and 1946, and the standard we have held everyone else to ever since.
IF WE DID ANYTHING LESS THAN HOLD OUR OWN SOLDIERS TO OUR OWN STANDARD IT WOULD BE OPEN SEASON ON EVERY US CITIZEN AND SOLDIER ANYWHERE IN THE WORLD.
M36’s first post is set in a way to leave it open to all situations like this, these are the situations i am refering to. if he admited guilt, then so be it. he is guilty then.
saying your guilty doesn’t mean anything. it doesn’t mean that you did anything wrong. you may of had a good reason to break the law like fear for you life and the safety of others. also a lot of people who were sent to the gulags confessed but never committed any crime. i’m not saying americans are tortured into confession but many plea to a crime just so they get less time even if they didn’t do it but can’t prove there innocence.
