You and six of your closest friends kidnap a 52 year old grandfather, kill him and then stage a cover-up. You get caught eventually. What would be your sentence? Life without parole? Twenty years to life?
Not if you're one of these guys.
A US Marine has pleaded guilty to charges of conspiracy to commit murder and kidnapping in connection with the killing of an Iraqi civilian last year.
Lance corporal Robert Pennington, 22, became the fifth US serviceman to admit involvement in the death of Hashim Ibrahim Awad in Hamdania outside Baghdad on April 26, 2006.
Prosecutors say seven Marines and a Navy medic kidnapped Awad from his home and killed him before staging a cover-up to make it look as if the 52-year-old grandfather was an insurgent.
Four other servicemen have already pleaded guilty to charges relating to the case and have been given custodial sentences ranging from 12 to 21 months.
Being ex-military myself, I found military punishments harsher than civilian. Until now. Maybe I'm becoming a conspiracy theorist. This just seems to ooze cover-up to me.
skip to main |
skip to sidebar
They who can give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary safety deserve neither liberty nor safety. Franklin's Contributions to the Conference on February 17 (III) Fri, Feb 17, 1775
Blog Archive
-
▼
2007
(177)
-
▼
February
(28)
- In My Absence
- Red or Blue
- Displaced Iraqi's?
- When They've Got You Over a Barrel
- Dare We Hope?
- Nuremberg.. again
- Help?
- Same Old Song and Dance
- Justice?
- The True Anti-American
- Warn Out Excuses
- Liar, Liar, Pants on Fire
- Hard Hitters
- Anne Quindlen Says...
- Congress poll at a glance
- Explain This!
- Obama's Plan
- Who Me??
- How Low on the IQ Scale can he go?
- U.S. sent giant pallets of cash into Iraq
- Cheneys Dick Energy Policy
- Congress - Draw the Line
- 2.9 Trillion??
- A Matter of Priorities
- Cheney Profits from Misery
- No-Fly Zone
- Fear and Loathing in the U.S.
- Wasted
-
▼
February
(28)
Fellow Informed Bloggers
- 15 Seats
- American Insurgency
- Apple Tree
- Code Pink
- Derosa World
- Diesel
- Dum Pendebat Filius
- Fallen Monk
- Fightin' Mad Chicano Liberal
- Funky Town Fighter
- Hill Country Gal
- House of the Rising Sons
- Knock Knock
- Left-Hand Play
- Liberal Avenger
- Little Purple Fooshballs
- Long Haired Weirdo
- Lucky Strike Parade of Hits
- Maria Maria
- Mccs1977
- Morning Martini
- Musings of a Working Mom
- Sumo Merriment
- Swifts Speech
- The Democratic Daily
- The Katrinacrat
- The Noose Wire
- The Peace Train
- The Tude
- The Vigil
- This Is It
- This Old Brit
- Unbrainwashed
- Undeniable Liberalism
- Watergate Summer
- Yellow Doggerel Democrat
Recent Comments
Labels
- Talking Points (78)
- Bushco (71)
- Iraq (38)
- Shame on Them (36)
- Iran (14)
- Congress (12)
- Corruption (11)
- Open Thread (11)
- Domestic Spying (9)
- Death of the Constitution (8)
- Government spending (8)
- Neocons (8)
- Bigotry (6)
- Impeachment (6)
- BS Journalism (4)
- Elections (4)
- Humor (3)
- Torture (3)
- Big Oil (2)
- Edwards (2)
- Environment (2)
- Global Warming (2)
- Gonzo (2)
- McClueless (2)
- Obama (2)
- Trials (2)
- Tuesday Topic (2)
- Dean (1)
- Good News (1)
- Peace Blog (1)
- Rudy (1)
- The Art World (1)
- Troll Alert (1)
6 comments:
Yeah I seem to remember you could get a couple of years for being AWOL. I think they used to bury you under the brig for anything like murder. These sentences seem pretty light but they may have admitted to lesser crimes and the government might not have had rock solid cases against them for the heavy charges. Who knows.
i wonder what kind of adjustment time the new soldiers ae going to need after fighting Bush's War. It may not be too easy for them to come back to American suburbs and cities.
I had a friend in the Navy that bought a car off of an exiting officer. She had the car for about 6 hours, long enough to register it, title it and insure it and return to base. Upon that return, she was subject to a random search. They combed the fibers of the carpet with a tiny comb and found one seed. ONE.
This girl was my friend and roommate, we were inseperable. Our drug of choice was beer, and only beer. This poor girl got more time for a first and only offence that she was in no way guilty of, than these seven.
It just seems to me that it might be probable that this was a direct order and they were given light sentences for their silence. At least that makes more sense than 12 to 21 months for kidnapping and murder. Hell, you'd get that alone for disgracing the uniform.
OMG! I've become a conspiracy theorist! See what their lies have done to my brain? ;o)
Using the logic, and I don't have too much of that, I have to go with the lady of the house, Ziem. Smells to high heavens to me.
We all know, that the first causualty of war is the truth. Longer the damn thing lasts, less there is normal human behaviour and consquently more cover ups, misinformation, propaganda and lies. By no means am I suggesting that this is an American phenomenom because it isn't, but what I am saying is that justice among the millions of other good things has to take the back seat during the wars. The brutalizing effects will work their way, to some extent, everywhere.
I spent Christmas in a military stockade once. My crime - undone button on my jacket.
12 to 21 months for kidnapping and murder? Wow, that's absolutely shameful.
I read in my morning newspaper this morning a guy here in my home state got 30 years for trying to hire a hitman from his jail cell to kill his wife. He testified that he feared for his life from the 'hitman' but obviously it didn't do him any good.
I know our soldiers are under tremendous stress over there and I can see something happening, like mistakenly shooting someone they may have thought was a terrorist or something, but that type of crime is unforgivable.
Don't remember when, don't remember where, but I just recently read somebody rightfully declearing, that what we see is just a tip of a tip of a iceberg. I insist that the myth of a noble warrior is just that - a myth. We train people to become professional killers and hold them to the standards of choir boys. You can have one but you must drop the other. I know, if any body reads this, you, Yanks, are going to be upset. As I see it, you can look into the boo-boos of your elected officials just as long you don't touch your military. Looks and sounds like a Taboo to me.
Post a Comment