I’d like to remind everyone that the purpose of the Uniform Code of Military Justice is primarily “To maintain good order and discipline in the armed forces.” Justice is secondary to this.
In practice, this can result in wild disparity in both military law and punishment compared to civilian norms. For instance, the gravest crime is *not* homicide, compared to other offenses seen as destructive to morale or discipline, unless the victim has a special status.
In this case, the victim was a POW, likely a terrorist, who had been released by military intelligence despite significant evidence (first mistake); and then given to the capturing unit to return to his home (an extremely grievous error, which should have resulted in the relief of the responsible officer.)
This indicates that the MI unit tasked with this was either incompetent, or wanting to “punish” Behenna’s unit for some unknown reason, in a cruel and insulting manner.
But the fuse was lit. It was indeed the fault of Behenna that he so poorly thought out how to execute the terrorist, and that mutilating the corpse after showed a severe collapse of morale.
Truthfully, I am not surprised that the SCOTUS rejected this, mostly because military law is not really in their domain. It would be more appropriate that his sentence was commuted, and that he be discharged without further delay.
To: yefragetuwrabrumuy
I agree completely on your comments - up to the lighting of the fuse. But I strongly disagree with your presumption that it was Lt. Behenna’s intention from the start to murder Ali Mansur. The Lieutenant vigorously denies that, and his explanation of events would have been corroborated by the prosecution’s own expert witness, whose testimony the jury never heard.
Our military has excelled in past years because junior officers were encouraged to take initiative, make decisions, and be leaders. IMHO this is the kind of warped and disproportionate “justice” that is totally crippling our once proud military. If my understanding is correct, the ultimate irony is that two weeks after the event, the Army ordered that Ali Mansur be taken in dead or alive. Go figure!