Absolutely. Lesson learned for “contractors”.
What jurisdiction does an American Judge have over actions in Iraq with a State Department contract?
Yup. They would have gotten a lesser sentence if they had just shot the diplomats and joined the terrorists.
ERIC PRINCE:
Founder of Blackwater, HUGE patriot, super hard-working guy, a real mover of Heaven and earth.
You know what he says about working for Da Gummint..? He wouldn’t do it again in a MILLION YEARS, he hates their guts, even if they made him rich.
It’s so bad he prefers working for the commie Chinese in Africa —it’s that bad. That like one of US HERE saying that, pretty incredible.
Leon Panetta later outed Prince as a CIA asset, something that painted a target on his back.
Know WHY Panetta did that? He doesn’t, and no one does.
Cruelty? Who knows...?
GREAT BOOK!
They shot a 9 year old kid in the head, just for the heck of it. They totally damaged the relations US had with Iraq. I’m glad they got the sentence they did.
But murder in the U. S., rapes, sex acts with minors...
Eh, not as important as this.
I haven’t followed the trial and the whole story as close as I should have, but these are some stiff penalties.
Charles Manson even comes up for parole.
All white. 3 strikes right there.
It's sure easy to pass judgement when your life wasn't on the line in a hostile sewer when the bullets flew.
Time for a pardon.
What took the government long to prosecute?
The killings happened almost eight years ago.
First charged by the Bush Justice Department and then prosecuted by Obama and Holder.
These men were being shot at in a war zone. Most (if not all) were former US soldiers with honorable service.
The initial chrges were thrown out, but a fedral appeal court revived it and brough them to trial.
the Judge, when face d woith over 100 honorable MAericans showing up to speak in their defense, indicated he was moved by their support.
He then said it was clear to him that “these fine young men just panicked.”
So how do you translate someone who is under fire in a war zone and panics to pre-meditated murder?
No, this was more of Holder’s DOJ going out of its way to throw the book at former US soldiers, hired by the State Department to protect diplomats, who were involved in “Bush’s War,” in Iraq and make an example of them.
This is Holder executing Obama’s directive and clear feeling that anything traditional American is the culprit in the world and needs to be “punished.”
In reality, there was no example, IMHO, to be made, if US interests, and the reality of the situation were takne into account..
Royce Lamberth is the “government whimsy” judge, who does not so much enforce the law, but carry out whatever extra-judicial punishments the Washington Beltway wants. Some of his great decisions and non-decisions include:
Cobell v. Kempthorne in which a group of American Indians sued the U.S. Department of the Interior for allegedly mismanaging a trust intended for their benefit. After an extended cluster, Lamberth was removed for finding on behalf of the Indians, instead of what he was supposed to do.
In May 2003, in a case brought by the families of the 241 servicemen who were killed in the 1983 Beirut barracks bombing, Lamberth declared that Beirut, in the midst of the Lebanese Civil War, did not constitute a war zone; and that the U.S. Marines stationed there were not, in fact, soldiers.
Ruled against the airing of the movie Hillary: The Movie, requiring it to follow the strict rules of campaign ads.
Lamberth officiated the dog-and-pony show of Kenneth Starr to waste millions of dollars and years to find that the Clintons never, ever did anything wrong, other than Bill wearing a stained blue dress or something.
Unbelievable, Just one more reason for Obama to start waving the white flag of surrender. God help us when this jerk starts the next war with Iran.
To my information (the information that is available here in Europe and that is not always correct) they simply shot 17 unarmed civillians. What is not standing in the Article of Stars and Stripes: There was a principal witness, Jeremy P. Ridgeway from Blackwater that testified against his companions and pleaded guilty in manslaugter.
Therefore the judge had good evidence for his verdict.
After WW2 we Europeans (espechially Germans) got the same lesson. Some of our soldiers (and not only mercaneries like in this case) did things beyond our imagination. In a review I have to say that many of them got away because our people reacted like some you react today. There were exactly the same excuses: False orders, war situation etc. pp. In the 1950ties with growing German political influence they got away with a few years of prision. After all I have to say it would have been better to have them all hanged up. I had the privilege to know some of their victims and to know some of them personally. Believe me that our planet is a better place without such war criminals.
From a European point of view it is understandable that the judge abstained from capital punishment, since we usually dismiss punishment that has its only justification in satisfaction (the idea of justice in this point between Europe and the US is quite different in the meantime).
Personally I fully understand the sentence.
Regards from Europe
Andreas
Beyond any merits of this case, the growing use of mercenaries in lieu of American soldiers in combat roles is a very bad idea. It certainly doesn’t make economic sense to use highly paid civilian contractors as substitutes for much lower paid soldiers. So why do we do it? Soldiers are subject to the Uniform Code of Military Justice and are more strictly accountable for their actions to their chains of command. I suspect that the real motive for using so many mercenaries is the fact that mercenaries are NOT subject to the UCMJ and they are much LESS accountable for their actions to the military chains of command.