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Jag,
For the most part, I agree that the UCMJ is designed so that justice is the end result.

This Haditha trial, however, has pointed out to me a few, significant weaknesses in the system that supports the UCMJ.

The most egregious, in my mind, in this extended spectacle put on by our military is that there has been every indication, throughout this trial, that political meddling has affected both the course and duration of justice. The trial would not have happened had it not been for a Time article planted by insurgent propagandists and picked up gleefully by the administration’s political opponents.

These men were called murderers by the congressman who holds the purse strings of the Marine Corps.

A series of pentagon leaks began that always gave the impression that the group was guilty.

The Marines had a force-wide stand-down with Haditha’s guilt as the centerpiece for instruction. Later, military school that train Marines used scenarios for training that assumed the guilt of the Haditha defendants.

Also, egregious, and some will argue with me that this is more significant than the political meddling, is the never-ending budget used to find these men guilty. It is an enormous advantage for the government to be able to direct the largest prosecution team and the largest investigative team ever assembled to spend the largest budget ever allowed. Make no mistake, the personnel and money was not used to find “justice.” It was used to find guilt.

To counter that all of these defendants had to spend enormous sums of money. I have pinged bigheadfred, uncle of US Army sniper, Evan Vela, who was convicted of shooting a captured enemy who was making noise that would have compromised the sniper team’s position. All others in that squad were exhonerated. For Vela’s family, it has meant bankruptcy.

Meanwhile, the prosecution hums along without missing a financial beat. They have nothing at stake other than someone else’s money.

My point: the expenditure playing field must be leveled. The government should make funds available to defendants in similar amounts that it spends on prosecution. Additionally, investigation agencies must be kept totally separate from prosecutors, so that investigative resources don’t become de facto arms of the prosection. Entwined investigators and prosecutors must be viewed as equivalent to unlawful command influence.

After all, if you give me a couple million bucks, I’m sure I can find something to prosecute anyone on.

These are just some weaknesses in the system that I’ve come to resent since the inception of Haditha.

Finally, LtCol Chessani is being represented by the Thomas More Law Center. Being forced to go outside the system to find real legal support sounds to me like finding justice despite the system supporting the UCMJ not because of it.