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Ms. Escherichia
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 Posted: Wed Nov 22, 2006 7:11 am Post subject: * Another Murderous Marine Scumbag sent to Prison ** |
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CAMP PENDLETON, California (AP) -- A Marine was sentenced to 21 months in prison Tuesday
after pleading guilty to aggravated assault and conspiracy to obstruct justice in the
death of an Iraqi civilian who was shot and killed by members of his squad.
The sentence came after Lance Cpl. Jerry E. Shumate Jr., of Matlock, Washington, entered
the pleas at his court-martial and testified about the April 26 incident in the town of
Hamdaniya, west of Baghdad.
Military judge Lt. Col. Jeffrey Meeks issued a sentence of eight years, but the actual
penalty was limited by a plea agreement. The 21-month sentence includes six months already
served.
Shumate, 21, was part of a squad of seven Marines and a Navy corpsman initially charged
with kidnapping 52-year-old Hashim Ibrahim Awad, dragging him to a roadside hole, shooting
him and then trying to cover up the incident.
The killing occurred after the squad was unable to find a known insurgent.
In return for his guilty pleas and testimony, the government dismissed other charges
against Shumate, including murder, kidnapping, assault, housebreaking, larceny and
conspiracy.
Shumate had faced a maximum of 15 years in prison.
Testifying in a loud but sometimes halting voice, Shumate recalled the squad led by Sgt.
Lawrence Hutchins III was on a nighttime patrol seeking insurgents planting bombs.
All eight men agreed to a plan hatched by senior members of the squad to kidnap and kill a
known insurgent, Shumate said.
He said four of the men went to kidnap the insurgent, known as Saleh Gowad. When they
returned with a prisoner, Shumate said, he assumed the man was Gowad and only learned
later that it was Awad.
Shumate said he was "told to fire by Hutchins" and did not know if any of his own bullets
hit the victim.
"I still had the intent to kill the man," Shumate told the military judge, conceding it
was illegal to kill the prisoner even if he had been an insurgent.
Squad members also planted a shovel and AK-47 by the body to make it look like he was
digging a hole for a bomb, Shumate said.
Shumate said he felt sorry for the family and friends of Awad.
Shumate was the third Marine to make a deal in the case. The corpsman on patrol with the
squad has also pleaded guilty to lesser charges. Their sentences ranged from one year to
21 months in prison.
Four senior squad members, including Hutchins, have not made deals in the case and still
face murder and kidnapping charges.
--
"I don't see any way of winning" [in Vietnam]
-- President Lyndon Johnson privately to
Defense Secretary McNamara 1965
"America wins the wars that she undertakes.
Make no mistake about it!"
-- President Lyndon Johnson public speech
1965 re: Vietnam War |
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Colin Campbell
Guest
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| Posted: Sun Nov 26, 2006 7:11 am Post subject: Re: * Another Murderous Marine Scumbag sent to Prison ** |
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On Wed, 22 Nov 2006 11:59:21 -0500, "C Charland" <ccharland (AT) cogeco (DOT) ca>
wrote:
| Quote: | So, what's your point?
"Semper Fi"
|
That she hates all Americans and believes any propaganda that is
against America.
--
There can be no triumph without loss.
No victory without suffering.
No freedom without sacrifice. |
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=> Vox Populiİ
Guest
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| Posted: Sun Nov 26, 2006 7:11 am Post subject: Re: ** Another Murderous Marine Scumbag sent to Prison ** |
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Colin Campbell wrote:
| Quote: | On Wed, 22 Nov 2006 11:59:21 -0500, "C Charland" <ccharland (AT) cogeco (DOT) ca
wrote:
So, what's your point?
"Semper Fi"
That she hates all Americans and believes any propaganda that is
against America.
|
Sez the ignorant dipshit who's fighting and dying for the Criminal Bu$h Mobs
LIES.
War critics astonished as US hawk admits invasion was illegal
Oliver Burkeman and Julian Borger in Washington
Thursday November 20, 2003
The Guardian
International lawyers and anti-war campaigners reacted with astonishment
yesterday after the influential Pentagon hawk Richard Perle conceded that the
invasion of Iraq had been illegal.
In a startling break with the official White House and Downing Street lines, Mr
Perle told an audience in London: "I think in this case international law stood
in the way of doing the right thing."
President George Bush has consistently argued that the war was legal either
because of existing UN security council resolutions on Iraq - also the British
government's publicly stated view - or as an act of self-defence permitted by
international law.
But Mr Perle, a key member of the defence policy board, which advises the US
defence secretary, Donald Rumsfeld, said that "international law ... would have
required us to leave Saddam Hussein alone", and this would have been morally
unacceptable.
French intransigence, he added, meant there had been "no practical mechanism
consistent with the rules of the UN for dealing with Saddam Hussein".
Mr Perle, who was speaking at an event organised by the Institute of
Contemporary Arts in London, had argued loudly for the toppling of the Iraqi
dictator since the end of the 1991 Gulf war.
"They're just not interested in international law, are they?" said Linda Hugl, a
spokeswoman for the Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament, which launched a high
court challenge to the war's legality last year. "It's only when the law suits
them that they want to use it."
Mr Perle's remarks bear little resemblance to official justifications for war,
according to Rabinder Singh QC, who represented CND and also participated in
Tuesday's event.
Certainly the British government, he said, "has never advanced the suggestion
that it is entitled to act, or right to act, contrary to international law in
relation to Iraq".
The Pentagon adviser's views, he added, underlined "a divergence of view between
the British govern ment and some senior voices in American public life [who]
have expressed the view that, well, if it's the case that international law
doesn't permit unilateral pre-emptive action without the authority of the UN,
then the defect is in international law".
The UN secretary general, Kofi Annan, has questioned that justification, arguing
that the security council would have to rule on whether the US and its allies
were under imminent threat.
"I think Perle's statement has the virtue of honesty," said Michael Dorf, a law
professor at Columbia University who opposed the war, arguing that it was
illegal.
"And, interestingly, I suspect a majority of the American public would have
supported the invasion almost exactly to the same degree that they in fact did,
had the administration said that all along." |
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