A Fair Trial?
 

A firm of Denver lawyers has been retained to represent one or some of the soldiers allegedly involved in the prison scandal in Iraq. One of the lawyers is asking the President and others to cease talking about how terrible these things are because it will directly affect their opportunity for a fair trial.

What do you think?

I suspect that the fact that they are being tried by the military will make it at least possible -- but this kind of pressure from the very top will certainly make it difficult for the defense.

I don't think that they'll get much of a shot a fair trial under the auspices of the military either. If the amount of indignation and disgust that most of the US personnel that I have talked with at work (bartender on base here in Toronto) then it shows that if anything the military may be even more hostile to the actions of these "soldiers". Military personnel have been following this case more closely than anything I have seen recently (well since the Somalia torture case here in Canada), and many if not all have judged the accused guilty, and many have expressed that the possible sentences aren't severe enough....

RA,

I agree. That's what I was trying to say subtely without just saying it.

Frankly, with all the pre-trial publicity, I think these folks are toast.

Which, unfortuantely, flies in the face of our "innocent until proven guilty" process.

Understanding as well that military and civilian justice aren't identical.

Re: A Fair Trial?
 

You work for a TV station. Your employer is plastering the the pictures on the news every night, not Bush. He is probably the one guy who wants this situation to go away more than anybody. Last week he was accused of covering up the abuse. Now you are complaining that he is is talking about the abuse.

I really don't care if they get a fair trial. They are guilty.

They are kind of damned no matter how you cut it. If they did it just for fun, they are going to get fried.

If they were following orders to interrogate prisoners they will be fried to protect the real people in charge as well as to make a political example of them.

Does the word scapegoat mean anything to anyone?

Re: Re: A Fair Trial?
 

Actually, I don't work for a TV station anymore (although I did work for them for 30 years), but I also don't disagree with you in this case.

The point is that having the President of the United States basically convicting you on TV, in the newspapers and magazines carries a lot of weight that wouldn't otherwise be brought to bear.

However you should care than any American gets a fair trial. That's a large part of what our country is built on.

Where the buck stops...
 

Here's an interesting article from the Christian Science Monitor which looks at how high the blame could go, and the complexity of the chain of command in modern warfare.

http://csmonitor.com/cgi-bin/aol/200...1s02-usmi.html

The comments about commanders creating personal relationships with subordinate officers and enlisted people made me wonder how efficient that can be when an individual unit may be scattered over a number of cities, counties or even states?

Re: A Fair Trial?
 

I believe in the right to a fair trial and innocent until proven guilty. This is a damned if you do and damned if you don't situation though. If Bush and everyone stop talking about it, Americans and people all over the world are going to think that they don't really care. And if they keep talking about it, it's unlikely these people will get a fair trial. I think in this situation it is more important to show outrage and address the issue than it is to keep quiet until the accused are brought to trial.

Even if Bush stops talking about the situation, I think there are very few people who haven't formed an opinion about it one way or another. The defense is just going to have to make the best of a pretty sh*tty situation.

Somewhat related is that Congressional leaders, from both sides of the isle, have called for no more prisoner pictures to be released so that the judicial process not be further influenced by them. Nancy Pelosi and John Warner publicly expressed such views.

I wouldn't say that it's a bad thing...I think we've seen quite enough already. They really should just release them to the people involved in the case.