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The War Profiteers - War Crimes,
Kidnappings & Torture |
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March 24th,
2009 - The Media, Military and Murder |
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The Media, Military and
Murder By Marcia Drezon-Tepler Middle East Times March 24, 2009 (This is the first of a two-part
series.) - On a barren mountain ridge in Afghanistan in June 2005, four U.S.
Navy SEALs were on a mission to capture or kill a high-level Taliban leader
in the village below. The SEALs were discussing the American media. Three
shepherds had discovered their hiding place, and the SEALs had to decide what
to do with them. On elevated flat ground,
outside of Iskandariyah, Iraq, in May 2007, American snipers had to decide
quickly what to do with two Iraqi civilians who had discovered their hideout,
Genei Nasir al-Janabi and his 17-year-old son Mustafa. In Afghanistan, concerned
that the media would report the killing of unarmed Afghan farmers and that
they would be charged with murder, the SEALS let the shepherds - two men and
a 14-year-old boy - go. The shepherds alerted the Taliban who returned with
about 100 warriors. The four SEALs fought valiantly down the sheer mountain.
Meanwhile, the Taliban shot down a rescue helicopter carrying 16 top special
operations fighters, killing all aboard. Marcus Luttrell, one of the initial
four-man team, was the lone survivor, as he recounts in his book of the same
name. In Iraq, the snipers let
Mustafa go, while their commander, Staff Sgt. Michael A. Hensley, ordered the
elder al-Janabi to lie on the ground. Hensley, worried that Janabi's yelling
would attract the attention of the possibly armed, military-age men he said
he saw nearby, ordered Sgt. Evan Vela to shoot Janabi, which he did. U.S. President George W.
Bush pinned a Navy Cross on Luttrell in July 2006. Vela is serving a 10-year
prison sentence for murder without premeditation. A prosecutor at Vela's
court-martial, Maj. Charles Khufahl, said, "… it was murder, plain and
simple. United States soldiers do not kill unarmed, detained
individuals." But is it so simple? The Uniform Code of Military
Justice, the basis of military law in the United States passed by Congress in
1950, taken together with the Manual for Courts Martial and the Military
Judges Benchbook, prohibits killing an unarmed detainee, whether civilian or
insurgent, unless he represents an imminent threat. But the code is
"like the Ten Commandments," according to the creator of the Navy's
counterterrorism SEAL Team Six, retired Cmdr. Richard Marcinko, "short
and sweet and subject to interpretation." And rules of engagement,
which govern the use of deadly force, vary from theater to theater and also
according to mission, set by the commander for the overall operation. Often
classified, and usually written and distributed on cards to fighters, they
may be modified during a mission, depending upon changing circumstances on
the ground. Besides legal considerations, operational requirements for
mission accomplishment and strategic political concerns figure into the
development of any particular rules of engagement, said a former Marine judge
advocate, Thad Coakley. For example, winning "hearts and minds" may
necessitate rules that require more caution when confronting civilians. Rules of Engagement must
comply with the UCMJ. Similarly, the law of war, which is international law
related to the conduct of armed hostilities, and prohibits killing
unresisting detainees, trumps rules of engagement. Soldiers undergo training in
the rules, acting out various scenarios. And when planning missions, special ops
forces discuss options for handling unarmed civilians, Marcinko said. But it
is impossible to cover every contingency. In special operations, tactical
decisions are left to the on-scene commander, who worries about compromising
his team's presence and becoming vulnerable as much as completing the
mission. A soldier in battle often has to make a split-second decision,
determining what represents a threat, whether he is confronting an insurgent
or civilian, and what the opponent's intentions may be. A basic rule of engagement
permits a soldier who perceives a threat to use deadly force. Indeed, one of
Luttrell's team said, "We have a right to do everything we can to save
our own lives." And Hensley continually maintained that Janabi's killing
was "self-defense." But a self-defense argument
at trial involves demonstrating that, in the words of the judges' benchbook,
the accused "had grounds to fear immediate death or serious bodily
harm" and that "the accused must have actually believed that the amount
of force … used was required to protect" himself. "There is nothing that
suggests shooting an unarmed civilian unless he represents a threat," a
defense attorney for accused soldiers, Gary Myers, said. But does a civilian
who, if released, might bring back armed fighters represent a threat?
Surprisingly, such a situation has not been addressed in any training manual,
said another defense attorney, Kevin McDermott. The consensus among defense
attorneys interviewed for this article is that had Luttrell and his comrades
killed the shepherds, most likely, they would have been prosecuted for
murder. The expected reaction of the
media figured large in the SEALs' decision. "The strictly correct
military decision would … be to kill them … because we could not know their
intentions," Luttrell writes. But he was afraid of "the liberal
media" and "the prospect of many, many years in … jail alongside
murderers and rapists." Perhaps the most well known
instance of media influencing prosecution is that of Haditha, Iraq. Returning
to base after supplying an observation post, a four-vehicle convoy carrying a
squad of 12 Marines was struck by an improvised explosive device (IED) on
Nov. 19, 2005. The IED destroyed the fourth Humvee of the convoy, cutting one
Marine in half. According to an account by
the squad's leader, Staff Sgt. Frank Wuterich, he stopped his Humvee and
noticed a white sedan nearby. Sgt. Sanick P. Dela Cruz was shouting to the
car's occupants, who started to run away, and he, Wuterich, fired at the men.
Then he heard small-arms fire coming from a nearby house, and upon orders of
a superior who had arrived on the scene, he and fellow Marines proceeded to
clear that house and three others. By the end of the operation,
19 civilians in the houses plus the car's five occupants had been killed. One
of several engagements in the area that day, the incident did not attract
special attention of commanders. According to media reports,
an inaccurate Marine press statement implied the civilians had been killed as
part of the explosion and insurgent activity. Then, an Iraqi human rights
organization showed a video of the incident's aftermath to Time magazine
correspondent Tim McGirk, who questioned discrepancies between the two
accounts. His inquiries prompted an investigation by the Naval Criminal
Investigative Service and another by the Army. Time magazine published a
piece by McGirk in March 2006 and a cover story that June. In between, Rep.
John Murtha in a press conference said the Marines had overreacted to the
death of their comrade and had killed innocent civilians in cold blood.
Haditha headlined the news for weeks. The Navy and Army then issued their
reports, ultimately leading to charges being brought against four squad
members - Wuterich was charged with voluntary manslaughter - and four
commanders. "Tim McGirk did what he
was supposed to do. If the government prosecuted as a result of being
pressured by it and should not have, then shame on the government," said
a defense attorney for Wuterich, Haytham Faraj. "The government has
chased some of the finest men out of the army" because they do not
support them in these types of situations, Vela's father, Curtis Carnahan,
said. These situations are when
our fighters must determine whether an opponent is a powerless detainee,
meaning a prisoner, or is a combatant posing a threat, referred to as
"positive identification." Such was the case, according to press,
legal, and Army sources, in Muqdadiyah, Iraq, in June 2007, when Sgt.
Leonardo Trevino led an Army small kill team on a mission to a neighborhood,
where al-Qaida insurgents were making explosive devices and launching attacks
on American forces. From a rooftop, the team
engaged four terrorists, leaving one dead in the street. Three escaped. The
soldiers searched the house from which the insurgents had come and found
weapons, explosive devices, and IED-making equipment. Following a blood trail
to another house, they found an injured terrorist on the floor. Trevino shot
and killed him. Trevino was charged with premeditated murder. The Army, according to
Trevino's attorney, Richard Stevens, contended that Trevino should not have
perceived a threat because the insurgent was an injured detainee for whom a
medevac should have been called. Trevino's defense argued he perceived
a threat. There could have been IEDs in the house, and though injured, the
insurgent could have set off a pressure plate. The insurgent was still
fighting, never surrendered, and therefore was not a detainee. Stevens also argued that the
environment itself - in this case, an area of IEDs and where explosives were
used in houses - contributes to the perception of threat. "We put up at
trial … an aerial photo of the town with asterisks where there were IEDs or
engagements," and that particular house could not be isolated from
"an environment of imminent danger," Stevens said. Trevino was
acquitted last spring. External link: http://www.metimes.com/Opinion/2009/03/24/the_media_military_and_murder/4164/ |