Soldiers’ Justice; Readers React (Updated)

If you haven’t had a chance yet, go check out the com­ments to Peter Singer’s story on the pri­vate mil­i­tary con­trac­tors who will now have to face sol­diers’ jus­tice. A few samples:

My CO had a very inter­est­ing way of mak­ing sure the civil­ian con­trac­tors in his area to behave. Before he came the civil­ian con­trac­tors were act­ing like thugs. My CO in the civil­ian world is a cop. So he got his friends to pull up per­sonal data on the civil­ian con­trac­tors.
He had a meet­ing with them and basi­cally told them if they keep on act­ing the way they did he will make sure their per­sonal infor­ma­tion makes it’s way to the insur­gents and he will per­son­ally hand them over to mem­bers of the Iraqi police that he is fairly cer­tain are mem­bers of the insur­gency.
Funny thing was after that meet­ing the civil­ian con­trac­tors stopped being thugs to the Iraqis.
Posted by: Billy at January 4, 2007 03:21 PM

Good. Exposure to the UCMJ means addi­tional risk, which means more money. I need a raise.
Being sub­ject to the UCMJ will make us immune from Iraqi law under the Status of Forces Agreement (SOFA), just like sol­diers.
Also, the US gov­ern­ment will not turn us over to the International Criminal court (ICC) to be tried for war crimes; real, imag­ined, or con­cocted.
I lived under UCMJ for 22 years. A few more will not make any difference.
Posted by: Thorn… at January 4, 2007 01:39 PM

The British Investigation into the “Elvis” video event released its report before Christmas con­clud­ing that all the footage in the video came from legit­i­mate oper­a­tions. Strange you men­tion the case to sup­port your argu­ment but don’t men­tion the (pre­vi­ous) res­o­lu­tion. Raised major red flags with me about the eni­tire arti­cle.
Posted by: Michael Stora at January 4, 2007 02:48 PM

I am on my 3rd tour, I have seen a con­trac­tor shoot a civil­ian in the head because he protested when the con­trac­tor grabbed his daugh­ters breasts. There was noth­ing that any­one could do about it when re radioed it in we were told to lethim go. This isjust one of dozens of sto­ries and one that I saw myself.
Posted by: WKean at January 4, 2007 01:49 PM

Kevin Drum, ROFASIX, Hilzoy, MountainRunner, the Columbia Journalism Review, and my man Blackfive all have inter­est­ing takes, too. Give ‘em a read.
UPDATE 01/​05/​06 6:15 PM: P.W. Singer “refute[s] a few of the most insane/​stupid posts” respond­ing to his story.
UPDATE 01/​05/​06 11:30 AM: Pat Dollard sends as an inter­est­ing take on the rule changes from one mil­i­tary offi­cer. Check it out after the jump.

1. There are a few Articles [in the UCMJ] that apply [to reporters]
Article 82 — SOLICITATION (this would apply to the guy who pimped the sol­dier to chal­lenge Rumsfeld about the vehi­cle armor); Article 88 Contempt; Articles 89 — Disrespect, Article 107 — MAKING A FALSE OFFICIAL STATEMENT (I would like to pay some peo­ple back); Article 117 pro­vok­ing speeches or ges­tures, Article 132 — FRAUDS AGAINST THE UNITED STATES
2. For con­trac­tors (we are actu­ally refer­ring ONLY to secu­rity con­trac­tors like BlackWater, Triple Canopy) This amend­ment to the already exist­ing law will help area/​unit com­man­ders con­trol their actions and their move­ment. Since they are mer­ce­nar­ies, and many prior mil­i­tary, every sin­gle arti­cle applies to them
3. You can see how this tool will effect BOTH “con­trac­tors” and media per­son­nel. The way I see it is this:
A– [Applied to reporters, it is] a tool for the gov­ern­ment to allow/​use the mil­i­tary to con­trol media con­tent and out­put. This could be a VERY con­tro­ver­sial issue.
B– [Applied to con­trac­tors,] it allows for unit and area com­man­ders to CONTROL the con­duct and account­abil­ity of civilians/​contractors/​reporters that are oper­at­ing in their Area of Operation. As a mil­i­tary com­man­der, who per­son­ally, and inti­mately dealt with both agen­cies out­lined above, I feel that this is the great­est merit of the “amend­ment” to the law.
4. What is miss­ing is an appen­dix, that deals with the spe­cific appli­ca­tion of all the arti­cles of the UCMJ as it applies to con­trac­tors, reporters, etc. It already exists, but there are a few grey areas that imme­di­ately pop out. Realize there are many, but here are few to get your mouth wet: Is there a spe­cific author­ity that can adju­di­cate the law? Right now, as a Captain, I can punish/​adjudicate the law to all those who the law applies to. My author­ity, as well as at the bat­tal­ion level — uses Non– Judicial Punishment to adju­di­cate the law. We take away rank, money, assign “extra duties”, and restrict or “ground” them. So, it would make sense to me that all of these cases will be referred to a higher author­ity in order to adju­di­cate the law by Court Martial. All the money, rank, etc applies, but there is impris­on­ment fac­tors and felony/​criminal charges that carry the same impli­ca­tions as in the “real world”.
There is no “double-​​jeopardy”. We can­not charge, and pun­ish you against the UCMJ, and then pun­ish you for the same offense in the civil­ian court sys­tem. So, I can­not use MEJA and the UCMJ together, it has to be one or the other.
These laws need to be explained to every­one that it applies to. And in my opin­ion, there needs to be some sort of signature/​contract that binds them to these laws.
5. While I like the whole con­cept, it leaves too much to inter­pre­ta­tion and needs to be strictly defined, so that when it comes time to hold the “tar­get audi­ence” account­able for their actions — there can be no way they can get out of it. We can do MUCH bet­ter, and I am sur­prised that no one has taken the ini­tia­tive on this.
Since the DOJ, MEJA, and all the other bull­shit can­not take care of this issue on their own, they will con­tinue the trend of pil­ing this respon­si­bil­ity upon the shoul­ders of the US ser­vice mem­bers. Since we are already car­ry­ing the State Department on our backs, in addi­tion to bat­tling a rag­ing insur­gency, and rebuild­ing a nation — I guess we can make room for the DOJ. I guess it really makes sense. Do you really think they will send Department of Justice per­son­nel to Iraq to help enforce MEJA and all applic­a­ble laws? As it applies to most of our pub­lic offi­cials, they are not will­ing to shoul­der the same bur­den and make the same sac­ri­fices as the American, and now Iraqi, ser­vice mem­bers. But, like I said, this would be a much appre­ci­ated tool for mil­i­tary com­man­ders to con­trol their battle-​​space. So, all bitch­ing aside, I like it. And it makes me want to go back even more.

January 4th, 2007 | Mercs, War Update | Comments Off Both comments and pings are currently closed.