The Hamdania case was "ideal" for the NCIS. They were investigating a single event and could isolate the men, and beat on the weakest until he broke.
The Haditha case is more complicated and there's no 20-year-old corpsman to beat into submission. The NCIS couldn't handle the investigation, and their best efforts to build a case will be blown apart in court.
Military justice matters and so does reforming its police force.
I agree about the Haditha case being different, especially from the standpoint of no pleas (at least as far as we know). There was very little evidence that made much sense in the Hamdania case, but with that one plea, the domino theory of prosecution came into play.
When I was listening to the blog talk radio spot on Hamdania last night, there was a reference to a 200 or so Marine jury pool that Lt. Gen. Mattis had to draw from. The speaker indicated none of these had combat experience. At least that’s what I thought I heard. I cannot understand how a jury of their peers in either Hamdania or Haditha could consist of a panel without it. It’s not like they don’t have quite a few around Camp Pendleton with combat experience. Wondered if you know if this is true, or if anyone has addressed this before now.