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Start turning over rocks (or picking them up to throw) and you find all sorts of creepy crawly things. That thought occurred to me when I first heard CNN (and others) dredging up the old Swift Boat issue last week. They wanted to make sure everyone in America knew Bud Day was associated with Kerry's fellow Swift Boat sailors. A true story - but they weren't telling the reason for Col Day's opposition to John Kerry - it stemmed from the latter's career-launching repeat of allegations of wartime atrocities committed by Soldiers and Marines in Vietnam before congress in 1971.
Some folks might have misunderstood my position on the issue - if so they jumped to a conclusion. I only presented the facts on that post and kept my opinions to myself. I've never claimed American troops are incapable of committing crimes. In fact, the opposite is true. I tend to address those issues head on here as I have zero tolerance for such. This link isn't the only example, you'll find another below. (I'm also, on the other hand, a pretty good bullshit detector - if I say so myself.)
I got into a great discussion with Vietnam War historian Keith Nolan on the Bud Day post. What began as comments became a post of its own. Mr Nolan and I are in agreement on many of the fundamental issues, though we each offer differing opinions on Col Bud Day's post-service career.
As it happens, another commenter on that resulting post opened another door quite wide on details of atrocities committed years ago. But in looking at his source (an LA Times article from 2006) I realized that therein could be found the names of at least two men who could answer a lot of questions about their part in the 30+ year cover-up of those crimes.
So a hat tip to Commenter "skylark" for helping blow the lid off this case:
Greyhawk said:To which I reply:"Meanwhile, [how many] of those various investigations of "not isolated incidents but crimes committed on a day-to-day basis with the full awareness of officers at all levels of command" (John Kerry) resulted in convictions? More on that below."
Well, with all due respect, that's a bit of a false issue.
Military investigators evidently did not press charges against individuals who had already been discharged even when they found clear evidence of wrongdoing, because they were considered to be out of military jurisdiction. That is one reason for the failure to charge individuals during the Tiger Force investigations:
And same with the investigations based on Jamie Henry's claims.
Though, according to the LA Times article, it seems that they ignored the Army general counsel's advice that it was possible to prosecute ex-soldiers.
In fact, the Toledo Blade recently ran an article saying retired soldiers could possibly still be prosecuted:
But for whatever reason these cases weren't prosecuted at the time, it wasn't for lack of evidence.
"Well, with all due respect, that's a bit of a false issue."So do 200 (or even 2,000) soldiers up against those numbers indicate "not isolated incidents but crimes committed on a day-to-day basis with the full awareness of officers at all levels of command" as John Kerry claimed?It's the key issue to this claim: "not isolated incidents but crimes committed on a day-to-day basis with the full awareness of officers at all levels of command"
I asked how many because a) that's one indication of whether that claim is true and b) I don't know the answer. And the poorly written LA Times piece doesn't help.
Here's what the LA Times said: "The documents detail 320 alleged incidents that were substantiated by Army investigators"
So, who exactly launched these investigations?
Of which, "Investigators determined that evidence against 203 soldiers accused of harming Vietnamese civilians or prisoners was strong enough to warrant formal charges. These "founded" cases were referred to the soldiers' superiors for action."
Note the verbiage switch - 320 incidents investigated, but 203 soldiers with enough evidence to charge. (Note also this is not proof of guilt.)
Regardless, "Ultimately, 57 of them were court-martialed [no word on whether these were the ones accused of the more heinous crimes] and just 23 convicted, the records show." So an 11% conviction rate of those 'with enough evidence to charge' and a 40% conviction rate of those who went to trial.
You note that some "were considered to be out of military jurisdiction." The choice of words is interesting, as this is more accurate: "were out of military jurisdiction". There is a case today wherein a group of soldiers raped and murdered a young Iraqi girl and her family - some have confessed. However, the chief accused had left the service (discharged for behavior patterns, if memory serves) before the story was uncovered.
He (last I heard) awaits trial in civilian court. [update] The rest of the crew in military court [update]. Such is the law. And there's now another, more contentious case ongoing with similar jurisdictional issues.
Did the Army pass the Vietnam-era information on to civilian prosecutors? If that info is in the LA Times story I missed it. If not, a sad failure on the part of the reporters. Given the point of the story (making the army look bad - lets not pretend they give a damn about justice for the victims) I'd think if the Army had failed to do so they'd have noted it.
This is noted: "The Army did not attempt to pursue them, despite a written opinion in 1969 by Robert E. Jordan III, then the Army's general counsel, that ex-soldiers could be prosecuted through courts-martial, military commissions or tribunals."
But that opinion only indicates the Army could make an attempt. They'd have to fight through a battalion of civilian defense attorneys first, and convince civilian courts to surrender jurisdiction; they'd have to agree that Jordan's opinion mattered. That might have been do-able, and if so the Army could then try them on the actual charges. But recall that the Army had an 11% conviction rate in the cases in which they had clear jurisdiction and you can see why military prosecutors (who had other fish to fry anyway) weren't eager to take on these admittedly politically unpopular cases. (I'm not excusing or forgiving this.)Finally, "the Toledo Blade recently ran an article saying retired soldiers could possibly still be prosecuted". Retired soldiers are a different category from separated (veterans) altogether. They are still drawing a pension and are still subject to the UCMJ. While almost never re-activated for this purpose, it happens.
And if it's going to happen here I think a good start would be an investigation of this guy: "...Robert G. Gard, who oversaw the task force as a brigadier general at the Pentagon in the early 1970s.
"We could have court-martialed them but didn't," Gard says of soldiers accused of war crimes."
Court Martialing the General responsible for the investigation - the man who kept his mouth shut for all these years - would seem like a fine start.
I'm not excusing or defending anyone here. I know what soldiers are capable of. (See this for example.)
I also know there were 2,709,918 American soldiers who served in Vietnam, and there are 58k+ names on the memorial wall.
If so, we at least now know one guy at high level who knew - and kept his mouth shut. In some cases that's admirable in dealing with classified material. But the Times says:
The records were declassified in 1994, after 20 years as required by law, and moved to the National Archives in College Park, Md., where they went largely unnoticed....for another 12 years, until appearing - along with the officer in charge of the investigation, in the LA Times.
The LA Times story is from 2006 (just before Gard and a player to be named shortly would join Harry Reid in an effort to pull American forces from Iraq). Had I been the reporter (and note the length of the story - space was not an issue) I'd have had some more questions.
But as opposed to CNN only wanting Americans to know one thing about Bud Day, there's one thing the LA Times would probably rather you didn't know about Gard today - at least in association with this story - because it's the reason no one will ever ask "the tough questions" about his part in the 3-decade long cover-up of these war crimes. He's the chairman of "Veterans for Obama." (And apparently he likes to use his military rank when writing political appeals.)
That's too bad, because "Retired Brig. Gen. John H. Johns, a Vietnam veteran who served on the task force, says he once supported keeping the records secret but now believes they deserve wide attention..." and I agree - but for different reasons. He says "...they deserve wide attention in light of alleged attacks on civilians and abuse of prisoners in Iraq". But we've already seen that things aren't done today like they were back in the day when Johns was a fast rising young man on the move. (hmmm... I wonder who his "sponsor" was...) I say they deserve wide attention so that no one can sit on that sort of information for all those years and still "somehow" make flag rank. (Then retire and teach ethics courses.)
But whether for my reason or Johns', there can't be many who wouldn't want to see those unasked questions asked and answered.
Of course, Gard was already a General when he led that long-suppressed investigation - but I'll bet he'd blame "the bigwigs" in a heartbeat once he was on the witness stand.
Like I said, start turning over rocks (or picking them up to throw) and you find all sorts of creepy crawly things...
