Originally Posted by MontyB

Right but I am saying using "war" as the excuse for exonerating crime does not wash, I think we can all understand how how these things happen and why these things happen but it still does not allow us to ignore the fact that a crime took place.

Tell me if I in the course of doing my job I and my entire department decided we were too stressed out and killed 24 people and then concocted a story to cover it up would you be happy if our punishment was everyone acquitted and me as the senior guy there being demoted to mail boy with the loss of 3 months pay?

No you like everyone else here would be leaping up and down about revolving door justice and the perils of liberalism.

Ah! The perilous life as a accountant!
You could be traumatized if your pencil break!

You know S***!

Originally Posted by 42RM

Ah! The perilous life as a accountant!
You could be traumatized if your pencil break!

You know S***!

I know s**t?

I am not the one admitting a crime and then arguing that nothing should be done about it because they wear a uniform.

If we want to talk about insane arguments how do you reconcile this view?

I think what he is trying to point out is that the example you provided and the situation these Marines were in are not that same thing. It's not a matter of being "stressed out". It's a matter of exhaustion, misery, danger, frequent adrenaline dumps and fight or flight responses, anger, fear, and lack of supervision. All this added up over time and these guys are a prime example of what happens when things like this go unsupervised or an intervention is not made to give these men time to decompress.

Soldiers deal with stress all the time. One thing you DO learn in combat is that everyone has their limit. Once that limit is reached they can become a danger to themselves and others. A leader reaching this point can contaminate the rest of his men if left in that environment. I believe this is what happened. A leader in the military exerts much more influence over the lives and actions of his subordinates than does that of his peer in the civilian sector. So simply using your office example is seemingly undermining and minimizing the risks we take on a regular basis while we are deployed.

Don't contort this into a justification for the incident. I want to clarify that it is not. I understand it though. I know what it is to feel hate and anger toward people that I know are complicit in trying to kill me or my soldiers and then not be able to do a thing about it. It's very tempting to take matters into your own hands and administer "justice". The fact is, in 99% of cases this urge is resisted and we move out and continue our mission. These guys messed up and should be spending a long time in jail at the least. It IS a shame that this case was bungled to the point where these guys got what amounted to a slap on the wrist. Just please don't pretend to understand where we are coming from when we say that we can see how this happens.

Originally Posted by brinktk

I think what he is trying to point out is that the example you provided and the situation these Marines were in are not that same thing. It's not a matter of being "stressed out". It's a matter of exhaustion, misery, danger, frequent adrenaline dumps and fight or flight responses, anger, fear, and lack of supervision. All this added up over time and these guys are a prime example of what happens when things like this go unsupervised or an intervention is not made to give these men time to decompress.

Soldiers deal with stress all the time. One thing you DO learn in combat is that everyone has their limit. Once that limit is reached they can become a danger to themselves and others. A leader reaching this point can contaminate the rest of his men if left in that environment. I believe this is what happened. A leader in the military exerts much more influence over the lives and actions of his subordinates than does that of his peer in the civilian sector. So simply using your office example is seemingly undermining and minimizing the risks we take on a regular basis while we are deployed.

Don't contort this into a justification for the incident. I want to clarify that it is not. I understand it though. I know what it is to feel hate and anger toward people that I know are complicit in trying to kill me or my soldiers and then not be able to do a thing about it. It's very tempting to take matters into your own hands and administer "justice". The fact is, in 99% of cases this urge is resisted and we move out and continue our mission. These guys messed up and should be spending a long time in jail at the least. It IS a shame that this case was bungled to the point where these guys got what amounted to a slap on the wrist. Just please don't pretend to understand where we are coming from when we say that we can see how this happens.

Fair enough, I don't entirely agree but I agree enough with your conclusion not to push it further.

To me it comes down to one fact.

If it were excusable, the International community wouldn't have made laws against it.

Originally Posted by perseus

I only hope you have the decency to apologise to the victims of the reprisals when it comes.

Apologize for what, precisely?

Originally Posted by MontyB

Right but I am saying using "war" as the excuse for exonerating crime does not wash, I think we can all understand how how these things happen and why these things happen but it still does not allow us to ignore the fact that a crime took place.

Tell me if I in the course of doing my job I and my entire department decided we were too stressed out and killed 24 people and then concocted a story to cover it up would you be happy if our punishment was everyone acquitted and me as the senior guy there being demoted to mail boy with the loss of 3 months pay?

No you like everyone else here would be leaping up and down about revolving door justice and the perils of liberalism.

I didn't want to open my mouth on this subject because I'm just a young'ing here, however I don't believe that any of us here can judge them for their actions, seeing as none of us were there, we weren't in their boots, nor do we know the situation at the time.

I don't advocate "war crimes" whatsoever, but I am a firm believer that we should take care of our own instead of kicking them out on their ass while they have PTSD and live homeless on our streets like the 100,000+ veterans we already have homeless on the street. After all they did sign up to fight for us, something the majority of American society would not do.

You know the one thing that separates us from despotic dictatorships is that we can and if we are to believe we are indeed free we should question the actions of those who carry out these tasks in our name.

One thing I really hate is this "I an not condoning crime but" it is right up there with "I am not racist but" and "I am not anti-XXXXXX but", you can travel down the path of believing that throwing on a uniform somehow makes you above the law and you can trot out every excuse from medical to mental but the the question you have to ask yourself is whether 24 dead men, woman, children, elderly and crippled have received justice.

However like Perseus I will interested to see what sentence is given to Nidal Hasan.

War is a break down of all civilised behaviour.
True there are "Rules", Geneva Convention, etc, but we all know that these rules are applied as and when it suits.
Incidents like this have always happened as long as there has been conflict.
Oradour Sur Glane in WWII, and Mi Lai durring the Vietnam War are just recent examples.
In both, the defenders of the crime cite circumstances that the soldiers found themselves under, that could only be understood if "you were there".
Civillians expect their soldiers to behave impecably all the time regardless of their personal situations. When you put on a uniform, you are expect to be super human, with no feelings or emotions.
If an army is not a proffesional force, that is one made up mainly of conscripted individuals, it may be argued that they do not have the high standards of a purely volunteer force.
Where there is a blurring of who the enemy, who the non-combattants are, such as in a conflict fighting insurgents, innocents will get caught in the middle.
The sad fact is, as "civilised" people we attempt to fight our wars according to rules. The enemy know this, and exploit this.
The soldiers see this and become frustrated and angry, especially when they suffer casualties as a result and are not able to retaliate.
This then creates the situation where these incidents happen.
I am not excusing what happens, just trying to explain why it may happen.

nidal hassan wasnt in a warzone