Monday, June 07, 2004

The military's justice system is neither particularly free nor particularly democratic.

Judging Abu Ghraib: Why Military Justice Can Seem Unjust:
"Compared with the accepted legal practices of the civilian world, the military's justice system is neither particularly free nor particularly democratic. And it rarely operates in the bright glare of public scrutiny. Justice is not secondary, the system's defenders say, but it is subject to other considerations, not least of which is accomplishing the military's mission, often in the middle of war.

As a result, justice in the military ultimately depends almost entirely on the judgment of commanders. An offense that sends one soldier to Leavenworth after a public court-martial can end for another soldier in a quiet discharge or retirement, with the exact nature of his or her punishment protected by privacy laws.

For example, in the first court-martial stemming from the abuses at Abu Ghraib last fall, Specialist Jeremy C. Sivits pleaded guilty last month to four charges of humiliating Iraqi prisoners and agreed to testify against others. He was demoted and sentenced to a year in prison.

A few months before, in September, a soldier at a smaller prison northwest of Baghdad wrongfully shot and killed a prisoner who was throwing rocks. Facing a court-martial for using excessive force, the soldier asked, and was allowed by his commander, to leave the Army with a demotion. "

"I don't want to in any way diminish what happened at Abu Ghraib, which was torture, but we're talking about murder here," said Marc Garlasco, senior military analyst at Human Rights Watch, which has been monitoring allegations of abuse by American soldiers in Iraq and Afghanistan.

http://www.nytimes.com/2004/06/06/weekinreview/06myer.html

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con·cept: The military's justice system is neither particularly free nor particularly democratic.