U.S. soldiers say they executed Iraqis

And this act is justification to trumpet the cut and run horn, gimme a break, thats getting really old.

Possibly had nothing to do with? Now theres a defense. How do you try somebody for a crime when they possibly had a reason to call it an act of war? We've heard these tales before and when the facts come out nobody says oops we're sorry they just go right on judging as if they held the smoking gun themselves. In our justice system you are presumed innocent BEFORE you are PROVEN guilty.

Eric, you say OUR military guys are entitled to all criminal law protections and rights because that is our justice system, but the Iraquis they killed had NO rights because "...somebody...possibly had a reason to call it an act of war?"

Do you really believe that when our military is in a conflict situation, every soldier simply decides for her or himself whether bound and blindfolded prisoners live or die, even when they have been given lawful orders to release them? That does not comport with American military OR criminal justice.

And it would certainly insure that, as Brad O'Neill put it so eloquently, "...its a war sh^t happens." THAT sh^t actually ISN'T supposed to happen, EVEN in war. The report didn't describe something happening in the heat of battle. The soldiers weren't trying to mop up after a gun battle, and get a little too safety conscious with enemy combatants who were not secured and could conceivably pose a threat at that time.

I'm with hadenough-345907 on this, I think. Our soldiers should never have been put in this situation. And by your standards they would be at risk for someoned deciding there will be no justice, and just taking our guys out and shooting them--can you at least see how wrong THAT would be?

There is no legal (military or criminal) justification for what happened, if the report is accurate, but this IS what happens when you put soldiers in an untenable situation. That doesn't make it legal or acceptable. Even if they aren't brought up on military charges after submitting a sworn statement, they will have to deal with this, and who knows what else they did or was done to them while they were in Iraq?

And we are responsible for ALL of it--will we pay for the care they need coming back from this?

Dharma just to be clear if I was in charge these soldiers would be punished. But I would take into account the full situation which we don't know here. My punishment could range from loss of rank to prison depending on the circumstances.

If the circumstance was they were ambushed by this group and managed to round them up after losing two men and then after the capture a commanding officer back at base with no concept of the situation told them to release the prisoners because there was an important mission that needed to be accomplished and the soldiers took justice into their own hands I would be a lot more lenient.

If the circumstance was the soldiers had lost their buddies a week before and they went out into the city and grabbed 4 random Iraqis that looked at them the wrong way and then disregarded an order from their officer to release them and instead executed these men I would say Prison is the only appropriate response.

We don't know what happened but I tend to err on the side of the soldiers at a time of war.

well i think we should send them back out with more guns and bullets and let them get the job done.

the last war we won was WW2. ahhh yes true war..civilians killed left and right.. bombs dropped at will on a city. that is true war.

this fairy asss crap we play now solves nothing but lines the pockets of the military machine.

people may not like this post but guess what that was real war. wars that are won are played without rules. thats why its war. the objective is to beat your enemy down to a pulp and leave him lying in the streets.

too many of our soldiers have died needlessly by playing with rules agaisnt an enemy that does not play by the rules.

Korea, Vietnam. The Gulf wars and now Iraq. If our leaders want to sacrafice the kids of this nation and not even send their own into combat, then no rules you kill everything that moves and leave nothing standing.

Thank you for the clarification, Brad.

I am not saying you don't sound more reasonable, but I think the fact is that IF the report was factually accurate, the soldiers disobeyed a lawful order and murdered 4 locals. IF the military decides to bring charges, there won't be leniency because they are working under horrendous conditions, or because they lost some of their battle buddies, or even because the men they murdered MIGHT have been involved in that (although there wasn't enough evidence to hold them--also according to the story.)

If there is to be any leniency, it will probably be in determining whether they will face charges at all. Personally, I find your approach--taking the context into consideration, not just the immediate actions of the soldiers--to be more reasonable.

Even though I do believe that we actually have to behave differently from the "bad guys" if we are going to claim the moral high ground, and that means following our own rules.

cyan60, I think you are taking false comfort in the idea that if we simply suspend the rules and slaughter enough people, including civilians, we get to "win." Just one consideration: What do you suppose we would do with "the kids of this nation" when they came back from taking action like that? In a sense, they probably would never come back.

And you should pick up a book if you don't know that World War II was a HUGE money-maker for some businesses and people...and that was not an accident.

Thanks, jamal, for your keen insight. How long you in for?

Oz -- read your own post and tell me what you think after looking at it again -

- "but its good because now we know what Americans are REALLY like." -

Does that statement mean that YOU are like that ? Or that your neighbor is that way ? Or even that one tenth of one percent of the people of America are that way ? I would hope that's not what you're saying -- I'm American and I don't shoot people -- and have no plans to start any time soon -- unless provoked of course LOL --

Let's not make statements that are so far over the top that everything else you've said can't be taken seriously.

So...what, Stephen?

No rules?

No standards?

No expectation that any soldier follows orders, either?

Even though it happens, and has always happened, that is not how our military functions.

Even if THESE soldiers are not brought up on charges, the military does, in general, deal with soldiers who don't follow orders, and with soldiers who kill prisoners they have been ordered to release.

The military actually HAS rules and standards EVEN in time of war. Even during an occupation. And even if they are not followed every time.

Dharma Girl - it's really easy to judge black and white sitting in your cozy study in front of your computer. While you can say those soldiers weren't in combat at that particular moment that doesn't say what they may have gone through before, maybe even earlier in that same day.

That doesn't mean I condone their actions but at the same time neither you nor I can attest to what they have already gone through during their time served. War is a little more stressful than blogging

A little more stressful than blogging. That's very profound.

It's a shame the military organization that reserves the legal right to judge it's members is not aware of that, since they do have pretty strict rules about disobeying orders, and killing people, whether those rules are always enforced or not.

But I think, just maybe, they do have some idea of the situation, somewhere in that organization...

Whoever gave the order to release the prisoners because there wasn't enough evidence to hold them, for instance, might have actually been there. I don't have any way to assess whether it was a good decision, based on facts, an inadequate one, based on no time to investigate (as Eric seems to believe) or something entirely different. But I don't have to. The future, and future well-being, of our soldiers does not depend on my assessment, or on my attesting to what they have already gone through.

If military charges are brought (NOT criminal charges, Eric) they will at the very least have military lawyers to defend them, but they will not have the presumption of innocence that they would be entitled to in civilian criminal courts.

As I wrote before, even if they do not end up facing charges eventually, they will have to deal with what they have done, and what has been done to them. They will probably not get much help from the military if what they have had to deal with has broken them in some way. And I believe they should not have been sent there in the first place, to deal with any of this. It may not be a moral defense for soldiers who disobeyed orders and killed bound prisoners, but I do believe we ALL bear the responsibility because we put them somewhere they should never have been, where this kind of thing is not unexpected.

JR, I don't think very many things are actually black and white, and it is NOT easy to judge sitting in front of my computer. As I tried to make clear in my comments, I am only addressing the situation as it was reported, and I don't know that it was reported accurately.

But I do know that the military organization these soldiers belong to will judge their actions against whether they complied with military law, and not what they went through, even earlier that same day. While I might agree or disagree with the military assessment, the Army (or whoever) gets to call it, and I don't.

And you say that you don't condone their actions (I assume you are also going by the actions as reported) but all of you who seem to suggest that war is just like that scare the hell out of me. That kind of attitude, which is NOT the military position, is the reason the kind of thing that was reported DOES happen. Because unless they are simply sociopaths, soldiers KNOW that disobeying a lawful order, obeying an unlawful order, and killing people who are bound and blindfolded is NOT lawful according to military law, which they signed themselves over to when they enlisted.

We DO have rules, we DO have laws, we DO have standards, the military organization these soldiers belong to are the enforcing body, and sometimes they do, sometimes they don't. This is not my armchair opinion. Even if I disagreed with it, even though some of you seem to disagree with it, the military position IS NOT that everyone with a gun gets to make the call in conflict areas.

I am not a big fan of the military mindset, but I am grateful that they also have the Rule of Law, even though the law is not the same as in our civil and criminal courts. I wouldn't want just anyone with a gun calling the life-or-death shots in my neighborhood, and I don't want to be responsible for that in some other neighborhood, including Iraqi ones.

(the military position IS NOT that everyone with a gun gets to make the call in conflict areas. )

The only person making the call is the person pulling the trigger. They made the wrong call and will pay the cost.
War is ugly.............

Dharma I just want to say I appreciate your thoughtful posts and although we disagree I can tell you are a genuinly good person (not that I have a right to decide these things) Any way I just want to say even though I responded to your post with disagreement I don't lump you in the same category as the hate America first crowd that pollutes this site with hate. You are the kind of political opponent that helps make this country great keep it up and don't fall for the hatred so prevalant on both sides.

Dharma Girl:
I do not think that the majority of American service members would do such an act like the one presented in this story. I have been in a position that I had a pretty good idea that the person in front of me wanted me dead, that she probably assisted in setting up an IED device that killed a fellow service member, that she had known ties to insurgent groups, that she was seen near the area before the explosion, that she was found a short distance away within a direct line of sight from the explosion site, etc.

She smiled as I was informed that I would not be authorized to take her in for interrogation or questioning. She walked away. I wanted to pull my pistol out and take her behind the shed and put a bullet into her skull because I knew she did it but I was ordered to let her go so I did. Later she would be caught again with a group of insurgents. But I had to follow the "Law of Land Warfare" manual which sadly is in need of an update since the original copy was written in 1954.

I am not going to attempt to justify these Soldier's actions, but a year plus in Iraq stuck in a situation like that could cause anyone to snap and make a harsh judgement.
We use to have a unwritten rule between us, if we were about to get surrounded or captured by insurgents, you save the last bullet or hand grenade for yourself because you will not receive the same treatment that the majority of captured insurgents get. No captured service member has been returned alive and in one piece. The insurgents really take joy in hacking dead Americans up into multiple pieces and beheading them. If you have had to see the end results then you would understand where I am coming from. Talk to the Marines who retook Fallujah, and ask if they had any notion of capture or being captured?

Thank you, Brad. I try to behave myself. Sort of.

I don't expect that I will change anyone's mind, or that you must agree with me if you are a good person. There are any number of things decent, reasonable people may disagree on, even extremely sensitive and important things. I appreciate your willingness to share your view, including when you disagree.

Since I am not infallible, and I don't assume that people who disagree just don't get it, understanding your position is important to me.

I don't hate America, or my fellow Americans, even when I think they are wrong. Although, I have been told I do, because I say some official action was just dead wrong. I never know how to respond to that.

Maybe some people don't know what hate is.

Maybe some people do hate whatever they don't agree with, and assume that I do as well.

Maybe some people would rather classify me as a hater than simply think for one moment about what I have said.

But if I assume any one of those things about someone who says that about me, without knowing for sure, I'm going to sound condescending at best.

So thanks for giving me the chance to say it--I do not hate America :)

MAC: I believe you. The military service members that I know well enough to have an opinion on, would not consider that acceptable under normal circumstances.

And for the circumstances that can occur under the conditions over there, I don't feel very inspired to "judge."

I have defended myself under life-threatening circumstance. I have done fairly serious damage to someone who was harming one who was helpless at the time--more damage than I am comfortable about. And I have wanted vengeance when I have been harmed, but I did not have the opportunity to take it, so I can't say what I might or might not have done if I had. I do understand that circumstances change your point of view. Our brains are organized to take new information into consideration. We are not static beings.

Thank you for sharing your own experience and point of view. I am glad you did not give in to your immediate desire to "take her behind the shed and put a bullet into her skull because I knew she did it." Partly because you had already said you "had a pretty good idea", which leads me to believe that you DIDN'T know.

But mostly because you would have been wrong to do so, perhaps prosecuted, and you would have probably spent the rest of your life trying to stay convinced that what you did was right--this is one kind of damage we are taking in Iraq that people don't talk about much. To our integrity. (Integrity does not just mean honesty--it refers to 'wholeness'. Having to spend the rest of our days defending some action--even if only to ourselves--that we know was not 100% right damages our wholeness. And if we accomplish it, it makes us someone else, someone without that part that we had to give up in order to believe something that isn't quite true.)

I don't have to see mutilated bodies to understand that you and I may have very different views of what is right, because of our very different experiences. If you read my posts, I hope you can see that I

am not assuming that everything in the article is accurate;

am not judging everyone in the military by the actions (if they were taken) of these men;

or even assuming that they had no reason for their actions.

What I did say is that there ARE rules, and that these soldiers may find themselves up on charges of violating them, at some point.

Without getting into anything political, controversial, or divisive, MAC, please allow me to say that I hope you are safely home now, or that you will soon be safely home if you are posting from over there. And I hope that you are and will be treated with the respect that you deserve.

Dharma Girl: When I said "I knew" that she had links to insurgents I really meant that. I mean it was not a "guess". The only thing I was missing is catching her lobbing a mortar shell or firing a rocket at my tent to take her into custody. But I knew better than taking a person out back and then double tapping them.

The enemy does not take prisoners nor do they treat those captured within any rules or guidelines that one might accept or adhere to. You would be extremely lucky if they just killed you out-right and not torture you to near death. Yes, my experiences are my own and I do not knock you or be-little you for your own personal ideas or beliefs.

I have seen those who we are fighting and they do not have any rule book or guidance as to how to treat combatants and non-combatants. So if my tone seems that I would side with killing insurgents by any means then I apologize. War is difficult to explain and we can always agree to disagree. No harm in that.

I would be happy to explain it to you rc.

Iraq is a soveriegn country and they have asked us to leave. This is vastly different then when we were instilling the government and the Left wingers were demanding we pull out and give up.

The republican position has been that if we give a timetable for withdrawl the enemy will lay low and wait until we have left and then reassert itself against a weak Iraqi national force.

The Iraqii position has been that they want control of their own destiny and feel they can deal with terrorists on their own terms far more effectively than we can. (they don't have protestors to worry about)

We are trying to prevent atrocities and maintain order while developing the Iraqi government into an independent and just government.

We care enough about Iraqis to put our own sons and daughters in harms way to insure their saftey. Its not about oil its about freedom. You can believe whatever left wing propaganda you want but there isn't a single soldier over their fighting for the Republican party they are fighting for villagers they don't even know and for America as a whole.

The national treasure is -53 trillion there isn't much left to fight for there.

If that were true, there are quite a few other nations that could use our help. Maybe you could explain to me how they pick and choose who to help???

jupitermoon:
There are plenty of countries that could use US assistance, but the majority of time, the rest of the world will not act unless the US is providing some form of military commitment.

Somalia is a prime example where the idea was in the right place but the out-come turned to the wrong direction.

Rwanda could have used US help, but the rest of the known world could have done something. Bosnia didn't stop until the US sent military aircraft. Two years with UN peace-keepers didn't save thousands of people from being mowed down by automatic weapons fire by Serbian paramilitary groups.

If the insurgents had captured 4 American Soldiers I am certain that they would not be found alive and in one piece.

One Marine was killed during the fighting in An Nasiriyah during 2003 when the troops first rolled into Iraq. His body was placed behind a car and dragged through out the streets until what the few pieces were left was placed in specific pieces for the local community to abuse.

I am sure that if the Marines were allowed they would have leveled the entire city.