I’ve stumbled into the thankless task of being the devil’s advocate for prosecutors in the case of the “Pendleton 8.” The case involving eight Marines accused of killing Hashim Awad, who is said to be a crippled Iraqi civilian.
The webcast will be available at Wide Awake Radio at 11pm EST tonight. It will be with Kit and Heidi of “euphoricreality.” These ladies are notable for keeping attention on the Ilario Pantano case prior to the the Marines dropping charges after his Article 32 hearing. The question is whether these cases too deserve the kind of massive support Pantano received after being accused by an unstable Sergeant of unlawfully killing two suspected insurgents.
My basic point will be to defend the Marines judicial process and to question the trend on the right-wing to form mass opposition so reflexively when our soldiers and Marines are accused by their own of war crimes.
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Let’s not blame the marines, who are caught in the impossible situation of trying to fight a house-to-house battle against the insurgents. Why do we continue to put these beautiful young men to the hell of urban warfare for a country that doesn’t want us there, for a country that whether Shite or Sunni, will end up an Islamic Republic?
As long as our troops are caught in the crossfire of sectarian violence, they will be at risk for the kind of mistakes that allegedly occured. I don’t blame our soldiers, I blame the enemies of American ideals who continue to support this lunkhead of a president, and apologize for his solid record of failure on almost everything he promised.
There is no excuse for deliberately killing unarmed civilians without orders by violating the rules of engagement, which is what these Marines are accused of. Nothing in the stress of Iraq jusifies that kind of gratuitous violent that undermines our strategic aims.
Iraq might be a big mistake, and we may be losing, but we need not give the Islamic enemy any more ammunitiion with which to stir up hatred and anger at the US.
Don’t blame the killers, blame society.
Brilliant.
Roach, you disappoint me. We are not losing the war in Iraq. The only way you would think that is if you get all your info exclusively from the media. Have you talked to a soldier lately? Ask them.
If you do not know one to ask, listen to the audio of our interview with Pat Dollard and Sgt. Brandon Welsh (USMC) when we post it or listen tonight to “Seeing Red” at 10 p.m. to our interview with Michael Yon. The picture the MSM is presenting is not an accurate portrayal of what’s happening on the ground. BTW, I guarantee that statement.
We are no more losing the war in Iraq, than we lost the war in Vietnam. Recall that we never once lost a military battle in Vietnam. Tet was a monumental victory that virtually demolished the VC. Yet that is not what the press reported. And it was all down hill from there. Read this link to discover the awful legacy of Tet that we struggle with today: http://euphoria.jarkolicious.com/journal/2006/01/03/1516/.
PS: If you’re interested in some statements from the Innocent 8 defense council, listen to our interview with Col Jane Siegal (retired USMC), if you haven’t already.
Redhead: “Roach, you disappoint me. We are not losing the war in Iraq.”
If anyone can come up with any objective measure of HOW the US is winning the war in Iraq, then I’d like to hear it
By what objective measure do you have to make such an idiotic statement? The mission in Iraq is a clearly a failure. 3 years in Iraq (twice as long as WWII) we have accomplished the following:
1) The constitution enshrines an Islamic Republic not secular humanism ala the USA; 2) the US selected puppet, Chalabi got only 1% in the “free” election, while Islamic partys got 90%; 3) the US has succeed in uniting the divided Arab world in one unified goal—to screw the USA; 4) sectarian violence is INCREASING, not decreasing; …most tellingly 5)NO Iraqi troops of any significance are online to restore order to their own country!
5) Last but worst, is that because of people like you who hate America’s long standing foreign policy of anti-imperialism and minding our own business—we now have record gas prices!!
War for oil? Where’s the oil??? The US has failed to restore the oil supply—there was more Iraqi oil reaching the world market during the US embargo, then now when the US military occupies the country!
Spending $3 Billion a month—financed on the credit card we have with Communist China BTW—and no oil!! And we have to pay $3 for a gallon of gas?
If Iraq is a victory for the USA, I’d like to hear what you think is a DEFEAT!!!
Redhead: “We are no more losing the war in Iraq, than we lost the war in Vietnam.”
Well, I might agree with you in once sense: It was not our soldiers or Nixon’s strategy that lost the war, it was the Democrat Party coup overturning the Nixon presidency, followed by a cut-off of funding to the Vietnamese government during the resulting chaos.
Yet, the fact of the matter is that even though the Vietnam War dished the US econmy, cost the USA world prestige, and 40,000 brave men DEAD, America did surrender!
I might also remind you that Vietnam was a “liberal” war, it was a no-win war, and not in any way embraced by any conservative that I can think of.
I’m not sure why you are bringing up Vietnam, because Iraq and Vietnam are completely unrelated.
911 was the consequense of US foreign policy which sustains the Zionist (read racist) state of Israel that persecutes it’s native people. It is the consequense of a classically imperial foreign policy to support totalitarian puppet states who cater to US owned commercial interests like United Arab Emirate, Kuwait, and Saudi Arabia,
I have. They say we’re losing.
I’m pretty sure we are too And it saddens me, though I think we need to adjust to this reality. If vetarans and analysists say that we’re “winning” when sectarian violence is a daily occurrence in Iraq’s capital, then they have a peculiar definition of “winning.” I say this because I thought one of the major goals of the campaign was to make Iraq an orderly society that commanded the attention and admiration of the entire Arab world, an antidote to the region’s long traditions of dictatorship and internal conflict. It’s done no such thing.
Sure there are quiescent sectors, many Iraqi loyal to their government and grateful for our presence, and some improvement in Iraqi security forces. But what kind of “victory” is it where the insurgency is getting stronger in terms of its ability to inflict violence, the government forces are engaged in “death squad” killings of Sunnis, the elected government has no agenda that can command the nation’s unity, the country’s elites are all fleeing to neighboring areas, etc. etc. etc.
To think “winning battles” means that we’ll win the war shows an implicit faith in attrition as a startegy with which to win a counterinsurgency. The old Westmoreland concept that we kill them faster than they can be replaced. I strongly disagree with that assumption. History shows that you need more than “battles won” to win a counterinsurgency war. Because even if we kill lots of insurgents, if they go and kill all the schoolteachers, postmen, election workers, judges, mayors, police, etc. loyal the government the minute our forces return to their bases, then the people there rightfully feel insecure and do not perceive the government to doing its most basic function of providing security. Check out the discussion on Annika and Lawrence Auster’s website for more. And while I agree with you about the media ignoring certain good things our forces are doing and trying to do in Iraq, the basic problem of Iraq’s insecurity is undeniable by honest people.
Replacing a dictatorship that was undeniably brutal with an undeniably brutal civil war is not obviously such a great accomplishment. The post-war strategy, planning, and execution has been a miserable failure by any metric. Our troops have struggled admirably in a situation where they were not given the right equipment, sufficient numbers, sufficient linguists, or a sound strategy. I’m not blaming them. I am blaming the administratrion and its entire concept of operations, failure to supply enough troops, and genearlly poor leadership. I’ve written about this more rigorously elsewhere.
Are you listening to Michael Yon right now? (1030 p.m.) Great interview! He’s telling what he saw and experienced in Iraq.
Defending the Marine/military judicial process? Really…. How does one defend a corrupted process that has lost its way in a politically correct forest?
What do you think of the Cox Commission report on undue command influence?
I stand for my son to make sure the process has the light of day and public scrutiny applied, despite those like you who would wish to paper over the process in the name of of your ideology.
Joe Populist:
Somehow excusing Bin Laden’s horrific act on 9-11 by imposing your view of US foreign policy mistakes is…despicable.
I do not believe excluding Jewish Semitic peoples as “native” is also wrong, perhaps from a historical perspective even more wrong than any Palestinian grievances.
Mr. Roach:
You continue your inaccuracy in reporting. My son and his brothers in arms are not accused of killing “unarmed civilians” plural nor are they accused of violating ROE. Please be consistent and accurate -show a minimum of respect, if nothing else.
A devil’s advocate has come to mean a person who takes a position for the sake of argument or who presents a counterargument for a position they do believe in, to another debater.
Mr. Roach- you can be a skeptic all you want, and publicize it-question the defense, etc; but playing Devil’s Advocate with my son’s enumerated rights under UCMJ, which you have done on EuphoricReality isn’t the definition of Devil’s Advocate, merely an unfeeling SOB who is the enemy of my son.
Someone needs to defend the Marines’ judicial process here, even though your defense attorney and her peers want to make a circus of this thing in the media. Everyone purports to say this is all out of line and unusual, but, in fact, no one seems to point to any atual rules the Marines have violated, whether discovery-wise or as related to pretrial confinement. In fact, an independent magistrate has already approved of the accsed conditions of confinement, and this person did so with the benefit of all the facts. Rule 1101 of the JAG Manual suspends the ordinary evidence and discovery rules for the purpose of the Article 32 hearing, as I showed on Euphoic Reality. So what, other than a lot of hot air and their wishes, are the defense lawyers really standing on here.
Two, your attorneys are misleading you as to what they’re entitled to in the way of discovery prior to the Article 32 hearing. No rules are being broken; you don’t get to send investigators to Iraq, nor do you get to see their whole file as a matter of right. The point of the Article 32 hearing is not a complete hashing out of every hole in the prosecution’s case; it’s to determine if there is probable cause that a crime was committed and the defendants did it. You get, at most, “Brady” material and a right to present your own evidence and cross examination at the hearing. The independent Article 32 investigating officer gets to make the final call on whether to permit the proseuction to go forward. The fact of his independence is totally missing from the defense criticisms. The fact that the final judge has not made discovery rulings for the final trial is also missing from your defense lawyers criticisms.
Three, there are signed confessions in this case. It defies reason that a bunch of US Marines would be so intimdated by some Navy NCIS agents they’d sign an incorrect confession. Confessions are strong evidence of guilt to most people. I simply don’t buy the common view today that innocent people can be made to sign confessions, particularly of serious crimes. And the stuff about the terrible interrogating conditions is just a standard defense line; without it, they must address a damning fact. It’s possible there were irregularities, but “no bathroom breaks” is not going to get someone to confess to murder after surviving boot and a war zone, is it? Finally, even if this stuff is kicked out because the confessors were not properly Mirandized, normal people on the outside world who are not so close to the case to lack objectivity(and are not paid defense counsel) will rightly conclude something illegal happened even if it does not lead to a conviction if there are, in fact, suppressed confessions of guilt the jury never gets to see.
It’s understandable you support your son and think he’s innocent. Every parent of every accused criminal who has ever lived thinks exactly as you do. I’m sure it is just awful to face this, but, this case has public consequences. To the extent it’s being employed to suggest the Marines have run amuck or succumbed to political correctness, I feel obliged to speak out, particualrly when the alleged irregularities are permitted by the rules.
He and every accused criminal deserves a fair trial, a vigorous defense, etc. But for people with objectivity, those confessions are pretty damning. The mere fact of prosecution is too. There is a great deal of collateral damage happening in Iraq that is not prosecuted. Likewise, there are many accusations by Iraqi civilians that are dismissed by the Chain of Command the NCIS. This one wasn’t. We are asked by you and your son’s defense counsel to think this is merely political correctness run amuck. Certain critics have invited the general public to put pressure on the commanders to pressure the prosecutors to drop the charges or change their tactics. That, unlike the public statements about taking this matter seriously but respecting the process, *would* be unlawful command influence.
I wouldn’t be speaking out at all if the supporters of the Marines in the right-wing media actually made some efforts to deal with the facts and say something substantive. Hannity, Savage, and others have not. Someone who is not from the loony left should. I call it a “devil’s advocate” because it’s something no one really wants to defend and also something for which I’ll be criticized by people I respect.
Should’ve been clearer above: That comment was directed at . . . another commenter, not Chris.
Jodka: “Somehow excusing Bin Laden’s horrific act on 9-11 by imposing your view of US foreign policy mistakes is…despicable.”
Oh get a grip! Either you are too stupid be allowed to go outside by yourself, or you’re being deliberately disingenious.
911 as a consequense of a a series of foreign policy blunders that had unintended consequenses…it’s called “blowback”.
We created the Shah of Iran, and got the Allotayah. We created Saddam to oppose the Allotoyah, and got…well…Saddam. We supported treacherous dictatorships like Saudi Arabia and we got Bin Ladin. We supported Israel and got Hamas. We supported Israel’s invasion of Lebanon and got Hezbollah.
The list is endless…how far back do you want to go?
Jodka: “I do not believe excluding Jewish Semitic peoples as “native” is also wrong, perhaps from a historical perspective even more wrong than any Palestinian grievances.”
The European Jews that founded Israel are hardly a semitic people. They are an unique combination of cultures that is indigenuous to Central and Eastern Europe. Even their language was combination of Yiddish and German. BTW, there were more Muslims in Palestine then there were Jews when Britain carved Israel out of it.
Joe, how did you obtain a copy of my “History of Palestine – Hezbollah Edition”? You should teach at Hezbollah University. Our alternative history professor was just martyred and you seem like someone who would be well suited for a tenure-track position in his stead. Please email me if interested.
Joe, your anti-semitic views show that you must an apologist for terrorism. You are on the list for liquidation.
Larry, you Zionist. My brothers will fight with Joe until he realizes his dream of having 30 virgins in heaven. Right, Joe?
Sheik, you are the messanger of hate. It is God’s promise to the Jewish People that the temple be restored, and that Israel rule the Mideast.
As the noble and honorable Condolezza Rice put it, it is a choice between OUR view of the Mideast, and the view of the Terrorists. She rightly said, that OUR vision will prevail!
After all, don’t the Jews control the US media, Hollywood, and America’s national bank, the FEDeral Reserve. If God had not meant for us to use American tanks, helicopters and aircraft to reign destruction on Lebanon for harboring the terrorists, then what can it mean?
As everyone in American knows, that you Islam0facists teach HATE to children, and that anyone who gives his life for Allah will reside in paradise. On the other hand, we Jews teach only that the Israel is the fulfillment of God’s promise to the Jewish People, and that it must be defended by any means no matter what!
If you choose to oppose God’s will, as Hezbollah has done, then the consequenses are justified. It is your fault if your women and children and old people suffer because you choose to oppose God’s will.