Replies

Your #97:
1. You're proud to claim regurgitating the words of an unidentified West Point prof. Ya'know that might be a "verecundiam" fallacy if only you could ID the joker and hit the full bogus level. On the other hand, you see my #85 and the lack of respect I have for thoughts generated by you. Your little popgun is not the Crack of Doom and whether the little popgun belongs to him or not, your argument amounts to unsupported leftist assertions which undermine our troops.
2.You call yourself agnostic with respect to the Marine's guilt. My, you are quite shameless aren't you? You say he, ". . . might conceivably offer a credible defense." Almost inconceivable but we see your deeply creative mind operating here. You say you believe he will be court-martialed and if he's convicted this with garner respect (Frenchman, without doubt) and if he gets off our military personal get the OK for brigandage. It is also conceivable that you've done in some '98 Freeper and waylaid his password and are giving us the full #6.
3. When you make pretentious assertions about the letter and spirit of the UCMJ is that you or could that be the unidentified eleventh postwar knuckle-headed professor who got a job at West Point?
4. It appears awfully childish to bring in Scott Pederson or even Abu Graib when you don't address my comments in #85. I doubt that you have a clue about the military justice system. Peterson would get nailed as fast a Lindie England's boyfriend. There's no fairy dance, politics, Zola, or Dickensian pettyfoggery in combat law. Our youth gets blasted in the twinkling of an eye and, as you forgot to address in #85, the system isn't there to get our combatants killed. Your head would probably explode if I told you how much hard time William Calley did for MyLai. "But I'm tryin' real hard to be the shepherd here."
5. Frankly, I don't like your use of the pronoun "we". "If we convict him." You're not one of "us" and more than that, it would be Marine officers that would convict him and you're a long, long way from that I have to say.

6. Misc. stuff. ". . . our soldiers should abide by the UCMJ:do you take a different position?" Fallacy of the False Dilemma - you're in the Bill Press Fan Club and you're begging the question of whether you know sh@t from shinola about the UCMJ.
7. "It would have to be based on demonstrating a tangible threat." Lame for many reasons but you've mastered Madame DeFarge's concept of burden of proof.
8. If it was "no big deal . . ."
Straw man. Try quoting me or some concept I presented.
9. "Pederson wasn't guilty until convicted."
Thanks for your service on the OJ jury, Buster.
10. "Did Abu Graib 'harm every soldier . . ."
Conflates a pair of your silliest arguments and uses the Either-Or Fallacy. It is downright moronic to ask me if convicting ". . .digital camera perverts abusing unarmed prisoners" is consequentially equivalent to lynching a Marine for a split second combat decision. Your moral sense is repulsive here. If I assert it's bad to convict the Marine, it's morally bankrupt to answer with the sophistry that, "Was it bad to convict Tojo and Goring?" The Marine isn't Tojo and isn't Abu Ghraib. Only a DU-type would think that malarkey works.

So, get yourself some DU time. They'll enjoy your thoughtful discourse. They love shallow and respect nearly all injustices visited on America. Please don't keep them waiting on my account.

It's interesting that your response entirely ducks the truth of the claim that UCMJ does not permit the marine to use the "might have done X, Y, Z" defense and instead launches a broad-side ad hominem attack against me and a West Point prof. My experience in debates such as this is that ad hominem attacks are the last resort of those unable to debate on the merits of the issue.

Let's be clear: I don't claim to know s**t about UCMJ. Indeed I explicitly acknowledge this point. I merely was reporting what I had learned from the West Point professor because it was news to me and I foolishly thought it might be of interest to others attempting to EVEN-HANDEDLY assess this particular situation.

But let's also be clear that the issue is NOT whether it would be bad for the marines if this individual were convicted. Surely you're not saying that we should bend the UCMJ rules depending on what's convenient for PR purposes. Under that reasoning, the OJ verdict was a good one since it prevented rioting in the streets.

I won't waste bandwidth responding to your ad hominem attacks as these are irrelevant to a serious discussion of
the ISSUE, which is whether even-handedly applying UCMJ to the facts in this case should result in a conviction or acquittal. You apparently believe that UCMJ offers this marine more discretion about what constitutes a legitimate
threat than a West Point professor believes it offers. Based on the abysmal quality of your response, I now believe even more firmly that the professor--who appeared far more dispassionate and capable of clear-headed thinking on this issue than you appear to be--is more likely than you are to be correct about his assessment.