Posted on 08/25/2013 1:38:22 PM PDT by lee martell
Staff Sgt. Robert Bales, who pleaded guilty to killing 16 Afghans in a shooting spree last year, was sentenced Friday to life in prison without parole, legally ending an episode of one of the worst atrocities of the Afghanistan war. The Jury of six soldiers deliberated for less than two hours before reaching their conclusion.
Many are saying the Bales did not receive very good defense representation. There is surprise that the Post Traumatic Stress Defense was not employed by defense attorney, John Henry Browne. Mr. Browne's reply to that was; "We didn't want to open that door, Because then, you get into a battle of the experts, and I don't think juries like that." It is likely that Robert Bales and family are too shaken by this entire matter to think critically or question the wisdom of his attorney. One would be inclined to expect your defense attorney to do all that was legally possible to allow for some possible consideration of parole in the future.
I supported the first Iraq war and the actions in Afghanistan. What reduced my enthusiasm was knowing that the U.S. Military made a policy of sending soldiers back to those same hot spots again and again and again. This happened in some cases, even when that enlisted's contractual active duty was over, and they should have been re-assigned elsewhere. Why would they stridently break their word by recycling our warriors this way? A primary reason for this recycling is likely because not enough qualified young people are volunteering for the military. When you remove all the morbidly obese couch potatoes, the gang bangers, the super-sensitives who cannot take the rigors of drills and rules, there aren't many left. Those left end up doing the jobs of two or three personnel in more populated times, and they may not make a career out of the military as often as in the past. Marriages can easily break down when spouses are unexpectedly separated for years.
We will probably need to reintroduce the draft, is my feeling. An added advantage to the draft (for both men and women) is that there will be a few less million unemployed people with too much time on their hands. For some, serving two years in the service will help them and their enabling families to finally grow up.
Weird post, but it reveals a lot of ignorance, and that you aren’t reading the thread.
Other than that, your post was confusing, and kind of rambling, even contradictory.
Without a draft, the military is growing more and more abstract to Americans, it is something distant and remote.
As time goes by the military itself becomes another government job, seeking higher pay and benefits, better day care facilities, more comfortable living conditions and less danger and less warfare.
The draft not only produces massive reserves of trained military ready for call up, but it creates military veterans who know and care about the military when they vote.
Agreed. And it turns boys into men way more often than not. The draft served America well up until 1973 when it ended. I remember sitting in the college dining hall when the local radio station announced, one by one, the lottery birthday order for the draft in 1972. My birthday was somewhere in the 200s and I shrugged it off - - I was way out of range for ever being drafted. It was later that I joined the Marines.
It is good that you enlisted, I was very pro-service at the time also, yet anti-draft.
I spent 2 years fighting the draft, got my permanent deferment, and then immediately enlisted in the Army.
I had seen the draft as something that the government couldn’t do, as slavery, but in the Army I came to see a bigger picture, and saw the need for a draft at times, for instance during the Cold War, and I also had concerns about what an all volunteer military would eventually become as the military became it’s own career, government branch of federal service.
This tiny military worries me, as does knowing that the military is slowly becoming yet another federal job rather than a lean, mean, male warrior force.
I was in the Army when the draft ended, and I predicted what we are seeing, and it will get worse after another generation or two.
I agree, FSEater...it is heartbreaking.
Tell em!
You’re pro military, that’s obvious. Give me your beliefs as to the good that was accomplished in VietNam (where I served two tours), Iraq and Afghanistan by the fighting, blood spills and the deaths.
I don’t mean the good that our military industrial complex received in the trillions of dollars that passed through their cash registers, I mean the good that came to the average American citizen as a result of all the men and women who were to become life long cripples, or died too many years before they should have.
>>Yet the draft worked for 32 years, and kept costs down and females out, and we didn’t need 42 year old enlistees.<<
Worked for what? What did America gain?
You need to come up with something more specific than that.
What has our being engaged in combat around the world accomplished for America since 1965? Just what is it we were fighting for? Agenda 21? A Muslim in the WH? What?
I think it would be easier if you just told us whatever it is that you want to tell us.
And I think what you’re saying is, “Yes, a lot of men have died and many more have been wounded for absolutely no sensible reason that I can explain.
My view is that we are damn fools to fight and die for anyone who will not swear to support our culture and our Constitution.
Take a look at this site and you’ll learn why we have been fighting and dying.
http://twoday.net/static/omega/files/quotes_from_people_who_consider_us_subjects.htm
This is one of my favorites:
139.”The distribution of birth control devices and the imposition of mandatory abortion practices in the third world countries is now ecologically insufficient and unfairly out of world social balance. The white, upper and middle class females of modern society are too healthy and fertile to be exempted from some imposed regulation of international law or mandate. An American born child is environmentally too expensive to maintain to his or her adulthood in a world economy. American women must be subjected to some manner of regulation beyond licensing or immediate and mandatory abortion practices. Unconventional and extreme measures must be implemented and enforced by global U.N. mandate as it is deemed necessary. The bodies of these world eco-criminals should be commercially yielded for reintroduction in the world’s natural systemic food and nutrient chains, in order to restore a more natural biological balance and order to our Sacred Earth.” — Jacques Cousteau, in his address to the Earth Summit in Rio de Janeiro, 1992.
LOL, I have no idea what you are ranting about, none, that is why I have had nothing to say to you, yet you created a fake response from me?
You aren’t playing with a full deck.
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