It's back here, and I don't mean the VA:
"US soldier accused of killing teens in Iraq" by Gene Johnson | Associated Press April 24, 2014
JOINT BASE LEWIS-McCHORD, Wash. — The two unarmed Iraqi brothers posed no threat as they herded cattle in a palm grove where a US Army reconnaissance team was hidden one day seven years ago. But then-Staff Sergeant Michael Barbera leveled his rifle and killed them anyway — from nearly 200 yards away, a former fellow soldier said Wednesday as a preliminary hearing opened in the case.
‘‘Oh my God — why?’’ former Specialist John Lotempio testified when a prosecutor asked him to describe his reaction to the killings. ‘‘They didn’t see us.’’
Barbera, 31 and now a sergeant first-class, faces a mandatory sentence of life in prison if convicted of premeditated murder in a case that raised concerns about a possible coverup. Two years after the killings, Army criminal investigators looked into the case, but commanders decided to give Barbera a letter of reprimand instead of a court martial.
It was only after a Pittsburgh newspaper, The Tribune-Review, published an investigation about the matter in 2012 that the Army took another look. The story described how some of Barbera’s fellow soldiers remained troubled that he was never prosecuted, and it prompted calls from Congress for the Army to review the matter.
But, but, but.... we are the good guys! This is the greatest military in the history of mankind, and the most humane. I know so because my war-waging government told me so!
As the preliminary hearing began Wednesday at Joint Base Lewis-McChord, Barbera’s attorney, David Coombs, called the allegations baseless and highlighted the lingering questions about why it has taken so long to bring the case to court. An investigating officer, Lieutenant Colonel Charles N. Floyd, is considering whether Barbera should face a court martial.
None here. We know damn well why.
Coombs alleged that the newspaper’s ‘‘hit piece,’’ which won an investigative reporting award, and congressional pressure had improperly influenced the Army’s decision to file charges against Barbera last fall.
Barbera’s fellow soldiers didn’t begin to come forward to report concerns about the shooting until 2009, and a criminal investigation was conducted then.
The matter was ‘‘somehow put to bed by administrative action,’’ Captain Ben Hillner, an Army prosecutor, said in his opening statement. He did not elaborate on that decision by commanders.
Lotempio, who witnessed the shootings, said he didn’t report them at the time because ‘‘I don’t think I knew the proper way to go about it. I didn’t want to think about it.’’ He has suffered from nightmares about the killings ever since, he said.
Imagine how the Iraqi families feel, huh?
He said ‘‘absolutely not’’ when asked if the boys posed a threat: ‘‘They looked to be about 10 or 11.’’
After Barbera killed the first boy with a single shot to the head, the second waved to them with one hand and yelled, ‘‘Hello, mister! Hello!’’ Lotempio said. Barbera fired a second shot that killed him.
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Last I saw of it in my Globe.
"Marine charged with Iraq war crime to be tried for 3d time; Mass. man led squad accused of 2006 murder" Associated Press January 28, 2014
SAN DIEGO — The Marine Corps said Monday it will retry a sergeant from Massachusetts whose murder conviction in a major Iraq war crime case has been overturned twice by military courts in recent years.
Lieutenant Colonel Joseph Kloppel, a Marine spokesman, said the Corps had determined that the seriousness of the crime warranted a retrial of the case of Sergeant Lawrence Hutchins III of Plymouth.
Related: War Criminal Will Return
I would be happy if our leaders would stay overseas. You can have them.
Hutchins led an eight-man squad accused of kidnapping a retired Iraqi police officer and killing him in the village of Hamdania in 2006. He will be arraigned Wednesday.
Hutchins expressed disbelief Monday. ‘‘There is nothing that I want more than for this whole situation to be over . . . to be able to move on and begin a life with my family away from all of this,’’ he wrote in an e-mailed statement. ‘‘But even though it has been nearly eight years, it looks like that will not be possible.’’
The military’s highest court overturned his murder conviction and ordered Hutchins released from the brig last summer after ruling there were errors in his case.
Either on purpose, because the government hires incompetents, or both!
The sergeant had served more than half of his 11-year sentence. The Court of Appeals for the Armed Forces supported his claims that his rights were violated when he was held in solitary confinement without access to a lawyer for seven days during his 2006 interrogation in Iraq.
Try Gitmo.
Prosecutors said Hutchins waived his right to counsel and willfully told his side of the story without coercion.
The case was overturned the first time by a lower court about four years ago, only to be reinstated in 2011.
Hutchins has said he thought the man was an insurgent leader. Prosecutors accused the squad of planting a shovel and AK-47 to make it appear he was an insurgent.
The six other Marines and a Navy corpsman in his squad served less than 18 months locked up.
Former Marine Corps attorney Thad Coakley said the courts have thrown out the convictions for procedural errors rather than the merits of the murder charge, so it’s important the prosecution exhaust every avenue.
‘‘If we’re perceived to have ignored this because it happened in war, or white-washed it because of procedural errors or to have not taken it seriously, then we are discrediting ourselves,’’ he said.
That happened long ago, sir.
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Seems to be a pattern with government prosecutors:
"Trial of four in Iraqi deaths begins" Associated Press June 12, 2014
WASHINGTON — Four former Blackwater Worldwide security guards went on trial Wednesday in the killings of 14 Iraqis and the wounding of at least 18 others.
Over the next few days, a jury of 12 Washington residents will be chosen from a pool of 111 people to decide the guards’ fate. The trial is expected to last months.
The judge overseeing the trial, Royce Lamberth, has been a US district judge for over 25 years and he has a military background. He served as a captain in the Army’s Judge Advocate General’s Corps from 1968 to 1974, including three years at the Pentagon.
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Related: Cursed Blackwater
Actually, they are still ble$$ed under a different name.
