I mentioned before that if this was left in the hands of the US Military, this would be a cock-up from one side to the next, and no real "justice" would be done.
CNN is reporting on the first court-martial case to reach a verdict, where Spc. Jeremy Sivits plead guilty to conspiracy to maltreat subordinates, or detainees, dereliction of duty forwillfully failing to protect detainees from abuse, cruelty and maltreatment; and maltreatment of detainees.
So, he's charged with (and plead guilty to) a veritable raft of Really Bad Things.
But then I see this quote from the article:
The special court-martial against Sivits, the military equivalent of a misdemeanor civilian court...
What!? Beating the crap out of prisoners and humiliating them is a fucking misdemeanor?!?! If violating International Law doesn't actually get you a felony-level charge, what the hell exactly do you have to do to get one of those in the military?
Oh, yeah, I forgot, you can get one of those for being gay in the military. :-)
Seriously, though, does anyone who sees this (and, oh yeah, please don't forget that Sivits is plea-bargaining himself into a better position) think that the military is really the best place for this trial to be taking place?
The Hague, I tell you. With people who aren't interested in plea-bargains just to make the case go away.
BS, he pled guilty and promised to turn evidence against his comrades. It's a plea deal, pure and simple and it's done in countries throughout the world.
Should his charges be more severe? Possibly, but I'm sure that he promised to give them more testimony that will screw a great many of the MPs at the site.
Why are you so enamored with the whole UN/World Court thing? Seriously, are you for this whole "one world" government?
I'm not in favor of "one world government", but I am in favor of justice being done, and some guy who tortured Iraqi prisoners plea-bargaining down to the equivalent of misdemeanor trespass charges doesn't really seem to cut it in my eyes.
So instead of gathering cooperative witnesses, they should just try everyone on felony charges and possibly screw their cases since everyone at that point would shut up?
I have no problem with using pleas *at sentencing*... throw yourself on the mercy of the court for your cooperation, but if you commit $CRIME_X you should be tried and convicted of $CRIME_X, and not some other $LESSER_CRIME_Y.
as reported elsewhere (Jurist's Paper Chase):
"AP is reporting from Baghdad that Spc. Jeremy C. Sivits has been sentenced by a court-martial to the maximum penalty of one year in prison. He has also been reduced in rank and given a bad conduct discharge."
So yeah, as predicted, he completely got a slap on the wrist. "BAD grunt, you beat people and break the Geneva Convention, you go home now and don't get to beat up prisoners no more!"
The Uniform Code of Military Justice has a completely different set of rules. They attempt to make up for the fact that once someone joins the US Military, they surrender individual rights and become property of the US Military.
Yes, but if you put people in that position, they will turn evil.
Check out:
http://www.prisonexperiment.org
Basically, we can't place all the blame on the people that beat the shit out of the prisoners. There are a lot of faults with the system and putting people that were not prepared to be prison guards as prison guards. The blame should go higher up than just this guy.
David,
Yes, you're correct. The Stanford Prison Experiment is an excellent example of that.
But, "I was just following orders" isn't necessarily an excuse, as history has shown us.
Courts Martial are similar to normal court proceedings, with several exceptions. One being that there are two types of courts martial, both effect sentencing. General court martial doesn't have any restrictions on the sentencing. Special court martial does, and the limit is: 1 year max prison time, removal of rank, and dishonorable discharge. The other "problem" is that there's no distinction between the trial phase and sentencing phase, sentencing is set at the end of the court proceedings by the judges, so if there is any sort of plea bargaining done, it's whether the guy is tried under general or special court martial.
Because they wanted the guy to spill his guts and point fingers, they agreed to try him under special court martial. I don't believe they're giving the same offer to anyone else.
I'd also note that they gave him the max, and the defense statements offered by the others is not looking very good.
jr, you are right about the other's getting a bit tougher time ahead of them...
http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&cid=540&e=1&u=/ap/20040519/ap_on_re_mi_ea/iraq_prisoner_abuse
Sivits, 24, was the first of seven members of the 372nd Military Police Company, based in Cresaptown, Md., to stand trial in the scandal. While Sivits faced what the Army calls a special court-martial, similar to a misdemeanor trial, the six others will probably face general courts-martial, which can yield more severe punishments.
My guess is that he turned quickly, wanted to get out with his cornhole the same size as it went in with and now is going to squeal very easily to the other's discontent.
You know, it seems to me that the old saying was wrong. If you went by what you read in all of the blogs you'd conclude that you can't please any of the people any of the time.
As an aside, you'd really enjoy the survival training some of our own military goes through. Makes most of what happened in Iraq seem like a day at the frat house.