Institutionalized Murder

On Feb 28th, US troops raided an Iraqi village near Taal Al Jal and were ordered to detain all the local men. One man, Muhamad Husain Kadir - who "didn't look suspicious, nor did he appear to have a weapon" - stumbled to the ground as he was being led away in handcuffs. A US soldier - who had already asked if he could kill Kadir - then shot Kadir in the back of the head, for no good reason, from about six feet away. The soldier in question had previously talked about "wanting to kill an Iraqi".

These are not pinko leftist commie liberal opinions, these are facts established by a US Army court-martial.

What is the punishment for this horrific crime? If you killed someone like that in most parts of the USA, you would go straight to death row. In Iraq, it's not even called murder.

The 21-year-old soldier was convicted of "involuntary manslaughter" and sentenced to just three years in jail. Oh, and he will be "dishonorably discharged from the Army", assuming his appeals process fails to result in an even more lenient sentence.

And speaking of US Army justice, isn't it strange that - despite more than 25 witnesses testifying in Private England's hearing alone - no US soldiers are repeating former claims that they were acting on instructions from "higher ups". Perhaps they have time to consider the vagaries of US military justice in relation to their own careers.