Originally posted by GScholz
Well, you have executed you own soldiers for lesser crimes like rape and desertion in previous conflicts. Why so ... lenient now?
And if they had been civilians in the US doing these crimes to Americans most of you guys here would rally for a virtual O' Club lynching (and Lazs would use it as an argument against gun control).
1. Those conflicts were service members were executed were almost 40 years ago. IIRC the last military prisoner executed was in 1964.
2. While I agree with you that the crimes caused extreme grief for the US military in Iraq, the crimes themselves are not as extreme to warrent execution.
By justifying their execution you are stating that while the crimes they committed arent that extreme but, the results are.
by that margin one could say while the abuse they recieved is not that extreme (as compared to other prisoner/torture related cases in other conflicts) the intellegence gathered/ease of interrogations is....thus justifying the abuse.
The UCMJ is written in black and white for a reason.