I have not seen anybody on any thread say "our military does not do stuff like this." I have seen many that want to extend to the accused the presumption of innocence.
Charges have been brought against this soldier but that doesn't mean he is guilty. I'll admit it doesn't look good.
Lt. Pantano was charged with premeditated murder and a courts marshal was convened and all charges were dropped so I would question who is making knee jerk reactions.
Well, you made most of my points for me! I was just listening to Lt. Ilario Pantano on Rush, during lunch, today. If anything, I'd guess that our military justice system would tend to be overly-presumptious of guilt in a case* like this, but, then again, guilt surely is possible.
The problem is of course how this will be taken in Iraq. We need to, and I am confident our investigators will, find out what really happened. IF, and I stress the IF... IF this guy or someone else is guilty, then a public execution in Iraq would be the best bet (but probably not "legal", though I know little about UCMJ.) Oh, wait, that's right, the accused is already in our civilian legal system 'cause he's already out of the service.
*I was once foreman on a jury in a much lesser case with a former M.P. -- a great guy, actually. But the other 11 of us on the jury had the darndest time convincing him that even though all of us were pretty suspicious of the accused, the state simply did not prove it's case. Not even close. But Mr. M.P. was sure the guy was guilty. I didn't think we were ever going to get out of that jury room. But, I wasn't mad at the M.P., I just made sure to never vote for that dang lousy local prosecutor!