Gangraped and murdered

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It is not what they are when they join the military that matters, rotten eggs can be found everywhere as you point out. It is the fact that war is such a horrible place that to be able to survive you have to turn into a monster. It isnt the rotten eggs alnoe that rape and mutilate, it is nice decent men and women who have been destroyed by the horrors of war.

If you join a war be prepared that both sides will committ atrocities and it will go well beyond a few rotten eggs. To be able to function as a soldier you cant view the enemy as human beings, they are the enemy and that goes for their women, children, dogs and chickens. They are demons that kill your friends and are trying to kill you, you cannot allow yourself to see Ahmed the Mechanic instead you see Ahmed the Bloodthirsy Savage just as he dont see Joe the Burgerflipper but Joe the Babykiller.

 

I think its relevant. When Abu Ghraib abuses became public knowledge most people in the US didn't care, and I remember posting a link in a similar topic a while back that documented an abuser and actually received a heroes welcome to his hometown in PA, organised by a local minister.

Therefore the girl was an Iraqi, and Iraqis were responsible for 11/9, so I am sure some people will think she deserved what she got.

I don't think the sentences were fair. They got less because she was an Iraqi. Why do I think that?

This and this might explain.

 

So you believe that a judge and a court would give someone a lighter sentence (and this is open to debate) because of what some "Joe sixpack" believes?

I guess it just goes to show that the criminal justice system works in different ways in different countries.

In the US a federal judgeship is a lifetime appointment to avoid these types of follies.

 

Cúchulainn,

I still don't think you're getting what the arguement is here, and the links you provide do nothing to stengthen your case. I checked the two links you posted. The first one was for a child molester who got 152 years. Technically, yes, that is more than the 90 years in the Iraq case, but both are essentially life sentences. You can argue that the penalty is worse for the people in the Iraq case because they are in their 20s, whereas the child molester in question is already in his 50s. Assuming they both live to be about 90, the people in the Iraq case essentially will serve a 70 year sentence, whereas the child molester will essentially serve a 40 year sentence. Once you start talking about 90 years, it doesn't really matter if your sentence is 90 years or 90 million years - you're going to die before you ever get out.

In the second link, you're bringing up a miscarriage of justice. The guy got convicted of 20 counts of child pornography, and the judge gave him 10 years for each count for a total of 200 years. Bear in mind this happened in Utah, which is probably the most conservative state in the U.S., which also happens to have the strictest child pornography laws in the country (at least the article states as much). The appeals stated that the sentence was disproportionate to the crime, and that it violated the cruel and unusual punishment clause of the Constitution - the judge did not agree. So bringing up that as an example doesn't help your case, as it is an example that most people believe to be a situation where justice was not properly served.

To stengthen your case, give example of rapes and/or murders where people get heftier sentences, although barring capital punishment, you won't find any - you can't give more time than life in prison. I cannot understand why you are so in favor of imposing a symbolic sentence here. They gave him a sentence that will put him in prison for the rest of his life. It doesn't matter if it's 90, 900, 9,000 or even 90 million years - it's life.

 

@T2Bruno: Apparently, that's the case in reality. However, I think it is more than a little worrying that people are sent to Iraq without having either knowledge of whatever code the US military operates on or the discipline to stick by that code. I'm not saying that such mentality as theirs is frequently met, but it should serve as a reminder that there are problems that need addressing in the training in the US military.

The worst thing is that imo these people might have been better men before being thrust unprepared (apparently) in this entire thing. Now there's one more dead Iraqi family and several people having wasted their lives.

 

That's where we disagree, Shaman. It's not that these guys (i.e., the soldiers committing the crimes) did not have the knowledge of the codes of conduct, nor did they lack the discipline to follow those codes. These guys lacked a moral compass to guide their actions. Period. I don't care what a person has been through -- they KNEW rape and murder were wrong and against the law (as is evident by their covert actions and subsequent cover-up).

These guys just didn't care about the lives they were destroying. Somewhere along the path of life these guys lost their moral compass. Usually this happens very early in life (as we know from studying serial killers and rapists) -- long before they entered the military.

A group of young men with guns that lack a moral compass is quite a dangerous thing. In America we see it every day in the inner cities. Unfortunately, these amoral young men and women find their way into the military. I don't see anything the military can realistically do to weed these people out.

 

Not true. Every American has the right to appeal before being executed. Since most people cannot normally afford an appeal, it is rare that a life sentence gets appealed. In death penalty cases, the appeals almost always happen on the government's dime since most people can't afford to pay for it on their own. The only way a death sentence can be carried out without an appeal is when the convicted waives his right to the appeal (very rare). The bottom line is that, in the US, a life sentence is actually a great deal less expensive for the government than life in prison......even when the convicted pays for his own counsel. It also shouldn't be forgotten that many prisons are able to subsidize their existence by selling the labor of the prisoners. A lot of telemarketers are actually prisoners (even cheaper than outsourcing to India).

 

@T2Bruno:

That they lacked a moral compass - or at least had a fundamentally flawed one, is certain; the problem is imo that they might have had one before they went in Iraq. Certainly, a lot of people who lack morality are like that from an earlier age - but not all, and the stress that a lot of people are under in Iraq can be a powerful disbalancing force too. Of course, people who break under it are fewer numerically, but it's because there aren't that many people in such situations (and perhaps because war veterans are "cut some slack" due to their respected status). Hence, I am worried that many people who have had a more or less functional morality before they went there have lost it or will lose it.

After all, war - or even a conflict like the one they are engaged at - is very different from normal peaceful life, and hence may challenge the moral standards they had. There are enough cases in any war where it has changed people for the worse. Maybe these people in particular were "bad apples" to begin with; maybe not. I don't know them, but it's imo something to think about.

As for discipline and knowledge, I'd say they do matter - a lot. Even if they didn't know right from wrong and could conceive of a rape, they were forbidden such acts (afaik) by the military law they were currently under. That should have been a successful deterrent. It's like why most people don't engage in vendettas when a member of their family is injured or killed or why they don't rob anyone they consider undeservedly rich: not necessarily because they consider it wrong, but because it's illegal. Therefore, lack of discipline was in this case at least as important as lack of morals. If one or the other had deterred them, we wouldn't get that outcome.

[ March 01, 2007, 21:34: Message edited by: The Shaman ]