Drone's Video May Aid Marine Inquiry

Military investigators piecing together what happened in the Iraqi town of Haditha on Nov. 19 -- when Marines allegedly killed two dozen civilians -- have access to video shot by an unmanned drone aircraft that was circling overhead for at least part of that day, military defense lawyers familiar with the case said in interviews.

It is unclear whether the video obtained from that day's flight captured the violence, said the lawyers, who have consulted with Marines who were there. One lawyer said investigators have reviewed surveillance footage taken hours after the shootings, which showed the Marines returning to the town to remove the bodies of the Iraqis.

Yesterday, Marine Gen. Peter Pace, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, said charges will be issued against troops if the evidence merits it. For now, however, "it would be premature for me to judge" the outcome of the two U.S. military investigations, Pace said on CBS's "The Early Show." "We'll get to the bottom of the investigation and take the appropriate action."

Um, it WAS his point. May not have been yours, but I didn't ask you the question.

Doesn't matter:

United States Code, U.S. Criminal Code
Title 18 Section 4:

§ 4. Misprision of felony

Whoever, having knowledge of the actual commission of a felony cognizable by a court of the United States, conceals and does not as soon as possible make known the same to some judge or other person in civil or military authority under the United States, shall be fined under this title or imprisoned not more than three years, or both.

UCMJ Section 878. Article 78.
ACCESSORY AFTER THE FACT

Any person subject to this chapter who, knowing that an offense punishable by this chapter has been committed, receives, comforts, or assists the offender in order to hinder or prevent his apprehension, trial, or punishment shall be punished as a court-martial may direct.

879. UCMJ Section 878, Article 79.
CONVICTION OF LESSER OFFENSE

An accused may be found guilty of an offense necessarily included in the offense charged or of an attempt to commit either the offense charged or an offense necessarily included therein.

UCMJ Section 881, Article 81.
CONSPIRACY

Any person subject to this chapter who conspires with any other person to commit an offense under this chapter shall, if one or more of the conspirators does an act to effect the object of the conspiracy, be punished as a court-martial may direct.

Your ability to cut-and-paste statutes is impressive. But if you think that Murtha is guilty of a crime under one of those statutes, you've got quite a bit more reading and studying to do.

Not quite. I think a pretty reasonable case could be made for a UCMJ Manslaughter charge for the Marines involved, I'm less inclined to think that the requirements for sustaining a murder conviction under military law can be met. By ranting and raving against the poor snuffies involved, Murtha may well be unintendedly doing them a favor if it spurs the prosectution to seek convictions beyond what can be proven.

But the real question is going to be whether or not charges of conspiracy to obstruct the investigation will be met against those Marines, particularly that Lance Corporal who *may* have instructed his fellow Marines on how to tell the same story of what happened. And in that event, the prosecution could extend far beyond a handful of grunts.

Having firsthand experience at seeing the military prosecution at work in the case of Marine ex-POW Bobby Garwood, convicted for proving the lie of the official USMC/USG line that *all US POWs were returned or dead*, and for My Lai participant Paul Meadlo, whose coerced testimony against William Calley was given only after the military judge threatened Meadlow with immediate federal arrest by US marshals in the courtroom if he asserted his right to refuse to testify against Lt. William Calley. That testimony was then later used against him, of course.

So expect a larger dose of the same for the Marines involved in the Haditha killings. And oh, btw: the NIS is also investigating anotheer shooting death of an Iraqi citizen by Marines in April, in Hamandiyah....

Perhaps I misunderstood. I thought you were saying Murtha could be charged with something under those provisions.

There's a potential. Since Congressman Murtha is currently the ranking member and former chairman of the Subcommittee on Defense, his public statements prior to military court action may be used as evidence of Unlawful Command Influence, resulting in the dropping of charges against the Marines; the comments of a commander-in-chief can similarly be used with similar result, as in the charges of Murder filed against 5th Special Forces Group Commander Robert Rheault and seven other 5th group personnel by Creighton Abrams. Once the defense team announced plans to call Nixon, SecDef Melvin Laird and Abrams as witnesses for the defense, the case was ordered to be made to go away, if Abrams wanted toi remain as MACV Commander and go on to run West Point. The possibility of a legal defense based on the necessity of removal of an enemy spy who had knowledge of the coming ~~invasion~~ incursion into supposedly neutral cambodia could very easily have resulted in impeachment of Nixon for that action, technically a War Crime under the Law of Land Warfare.

Oh, btw: charges of US military *brutality* in Iraq go back to at least 2003 and the court-martial of SEAL Lieutenant Andrew Ledford at Naval Station San Diego. Bob Rheault's take on those charges is interesting, to say the least, since Abrams had the Vietnam SEAL teams dragging Nha Trang Bay for the body of the NVA double/triple agent Thai Khac Chuyen who Rheault had been ordered by the CIA to terminate with extreme prejudice.

As usual, with this one I think the cover-up will be worse than the crime. But for the cover story, they might be able to pull off a "we screwed up, gee we're sorry, fog of war" kind of defense. The cover story really hamstrings that approach.

The question is going to be to how much of an extent the reports of the Marines involved, and the officers who forwarded those reports up the chain of command, were intentional obstruction and perjury, and to what extent they were reasonably if deplorable parsing of the events. Hey, they're just following the example set for them by former c-in-c Clinton and variously charged members of the current administration, right? But once it's thought by individual grunt Marines that their senior leadership- military and political- isn't standing up for them, neither will loyalty or respect flow upwards up the chain of command either.

And now the Iraq mess involves three seperate cases, in three different locales over a period of three seperate months. I'd expect that at least one Marine theater commander is very, very carefully reviewing the Yamashita decision. But I strongly suspect that this is just the first blow of a one-two punch, with the *rest of the story* to come from Afghanistan....

News Item: "Charges tossed for Marine accused in Iraqis' deaths," by Tom Foreman Jr. (AP)
"The Marine Corps yesterday dropped murder charges against an officer accused of riddling two Iraqis with bullets and hanging a warning sign on their corpses as a grisly example to other possible insurgents.... The decision to drop the charges was made by Maj. Gen. Richard Huck, commander of the 2nd Marine Division, based at Camp Lejeune, N.C."

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