Back In The Thick Of It...
Yes, I know I have been away for a few days. A bronchial infection will do that to you, especially when the initial set of antibiotics did not do the job. But I am back, albeit in a limited capacity. I thank Sabrina for being here to take some slack off of Thomas. And with that out of the way, it is time to get down to business.
It seems that Spain has decided that they would like to prosecute a couple of our soldiers over an incident that occurred in Baghdad. No, I will grant them that they are upset over the loss of their journalist, but if the information I have seen remains true, they should not have been in a building where insurgents were firing at our troops. The entire news post from FOX is below, along with the link.
http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,172713,00.html
A judge has issued an international arrest warrant for three U.S. soldiers whose tank fired on a Baghdad hotel during the Iraq war, killing a Spanish journalist and a Ukrainian cameraman, a court official said Wednesday.
Judge Santiago Pedraz issued the warrant for Sgt. Shawn Gibson, Capt. Philip Wolford and Lt. Col. Philip de Camp, all from the U.S. 3rd Infantry, which is based in Fort Stewart, Ga.
Jose Couso, who worked for the Spanish television network Telecinco, died April 8, 2003, after a U.S. army tank crew fired a shell on Hotel Palestine in Baghdad where many journalists were staying to cover the war.
Reuters cameraman Taras Protsyuk, a Ukrainian, also was killed.
Pedraz had sent two requests to the United States — in April 2004 and June 2005 — to have statements taken from the suspects or to obtain permission for a Spanish delegation to quiz them. Both went unanswered.
He said he issued the arrest order because of a lack of judicial cooperation from the United States regarding the case.
The warrant "is the only effective measure to ensure the presence of the suspects in the case being handled by Spanish justice, given the lack of judicial cooperation by U.S. authorities," the judge said in the warrant.
The Pentagon had no immediate information and said it was looking into it.
U.S. officials have insisted that the soldiers believed they were being shot at when they opened fire.
Following the Palestine incident, then-Secretary of State Colin Powell said a review of the incident found that the use of force was justified.
In late 2003, the National Court, acting on a request from Couso's family, agreed to consider filing criminal charges against three members of the tank crew.
Fort Stewart spokeswoman Jennifer Scales said the three no longer are assigned to Fort Stewart or the 3rd Infantry Division.
De Camp, who is now an adjunct mathematics professor at the College of William & Mary in Williamsburg, Va., said three investigations into the incident — two military investigations and one by the Committee to Protect Journalists — had exonerated all three men.
"We had no clue there were journalists over at that hotel," he said. "We would not have shot at them."
The retired officer also said his men were constantly taking risks by letting people get close to their convoy so that they could verify whether they were enemy combatants.
When asked if he would turn himself in, de Camp said, "I don't know, I've got to get some legal advice."
Pilar Hermoso, an attorney for Couso's family, welcomed the decision, although she recognized that it would be difficult to get the soldiers extradited to Spain, the state news agency Efe reported.
Small protests over the killing have been staged outside the U.S. Embassy in Madrid nearly every month since Couso's death.
Under Spanish law, a crime committed against a Spaniard abroad can be prosecuted here if it is not investigated in the country where it is committed.
I could care less what the Spanish think. Their journalist was in a building where the enemy was firing at our troops. This raises shades of the Eason Jordan fiasco from earlier this year where the CNN news chief accused our troops of intentionally targeting journalists and other members of the media.
Our troops abide by the rules of engagement. They do not fire unless fired upon. When they are greeted with force they meet it, head-on. We take great care when it comes to combat. We do what we can, when we can, to minimize the loss of innocent life. For the judge to issue murder warrants is foolish, at best. Our troops are under a great deal of stress, but not stress to the point where they would engage in a cold-blooded murder. And to prosecute these soldiers for murder in a warzone would be like handing out speeding tickets at the Indianapolis 500. It is utterly retarded.
Col. de Camp even stated that had they known that there were civilians in the building, they would not have utilized the force they had. This shows that we do care about who we are shooting at. We want the enemy dead, not the civilians. As al-Zarqawi is finding out in Iraq, deliberately attacking civilians does not advance one’s cause.
These soldiers will face no charges, regardless of what Spain decides to do. We do not hand our troops over to foreign nations. If it is discovered that they acted improperly in a combat zone, then their punishment will be meted out in a military tribunal. Until then, these men are innocent, and Spain’s government needs to shut the hell up.
The Bunny ;)
Yes, I know I have been away for a few days. A bronchial infection will do that to you, especially when the initial set of antibiotics did not do the job. But I am back, albeit in a limited capacity. I thank Sabrina for being here to take some slack off of Thomas. And with that out of the way, it is time to get down to business.
It seems that Spain has decided that they would like to prosecute a couple of our soldiers over an incident that occurred in Baghdad. No, I will grant them that they are upset over the loss of their journalist, but if the information I have seen remains true, they should not have been in a building where insurgents were firing at our troops. The entire news post from FOX is below, along with the link.
http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,172713,00.html
A judge has issued an international arrest warrant for three U.S. soldiers whose tank fired on a Baghdad hotel during the Iraq war, killing a Spanish journalist and a Ukrainian cameraman, a court official said Wednesday.
Judge Santiago Pedraz issued the warrant for Sgt. Shawn Gibson, Capt. Philip Wolford and Lt. Col. Philip de Camp, all from the U.S. 3rd Infantry, which is based in Fort Stewart, Ga.
Jose Couso, who worked for the Spanish television network Telecinco, died April 8, 2003, after a U.S. army tank crew fired a shell on Hotel Palestine in Baghdad where many journalists were staying to cover the war.
Reuters cameraman Taras Protsyuk, a Ukrainian, also was killed.
Pedraz had sent two requests to the United States — in April 2004 and June 2005 — to have statements taken from the suspects or to obtain permission for a Spanish delegation to quiz them. Both went unanswered.
He said he issued the arrest order because of a lack of judicial cooperation from the United States regarding the case.
The warrant "is the only effective measure to ensure the presence of the suspects in the case being handled by Spanish justice, given the lack of judicial cooperation by U.S. authorities," the judge said in the warrant.
The Pentagon had no immediate information and said it was looking into it.
U.S. officials have insisted that the soldiers believed they were being shot at when they opened fire.
Following the Palestine incident, then-Secretary of State Colin Powell said a review of the incident found that the use of force was justified.
In late 2003, the National Court, acting on a request from Couso's family, agreed to consider filing criminal charges against three members of the tank crew.
Fort Stewart spokeswoman Jennifer Scales said the three no longer are assigned to Fort Stewart or the 3rd Infantry Division.
De Camp, who is now an adjunct mathematics professor at the College of William & Mary in Williamsburg, Va., said three investigations into the incident — two military investigations and one by the Committee to Protect Journalists — had exonerated all three men.
"We had no clue there were journalists over at that hotel," he said. "We would not have shot at them."
The retired officer also said his men were constantly taking risks by letting people get close to their convoy so that they could verify whether they were enemy combatants.
When asked if he would turn himself in, de Camp said, "I don't know, I've got to get some legal advice."
Pilar Hermoso, an attorney for Couso's family, welcomed the decision, although she recognized that it would be difficult to get the soldiers extradited to Spain, the state news agency Efe reported.
Small protests over the killing have been staged outside the U.S. Embassy in Madrid nearly every month since Couso's death.
Under Spanish law, a crime committed against a Spaniard abroad can be prosecuted here if it is not investigated in the country where it is committed.
I could care less what the Spanish think. Their journalist was in a building where the enemy was firing at our troops. This raises shades of the Eason Jordan fiasco from earlier this year where the CNN news chief accused our troops of intentionally targeting journalists and other members of the media.
Our troops abide by the rules of engagement. They do not fire unless fired upon. When they are greeted with force they meet it, head-on. We take great care when it comes to combat. We do what we can, when we can, to minimize the loss of innocent life. For the judge to issue murder warrants is foolish, at best. Our troops are under a great deal of stress, but not stress to the point where they would engage in a cold-blooded murder. And to prosecute these soldiers for murder in a warzone would be like handing out speeding tickets at the Indianapolis 500. It is utterly retarded.
Col. de Camp even stated that had they known that there were civilians in the building, they would not have utilized the force they had. This shows that we do care about who we are shooting at. We want the enemy dead, not the civilians. As al-Zarqawi is finding out in Iraq, deliberately attacking civilians does not advance one’s cause.
These soldiers will face no charges, regardless of what Spain decides to do. We do not hand our troops over to foreign nations. If it is discovered that they acted improperly in a combat zone, then their punishment will be meted out in a military tribunal. Until then, these men are innocent, and Spain’s government needs to shut the hell up.
The Bunny ;)
posted by Syd And Vaughn | 6:33 PM
2 Comments:
Welcome back. Missed you. I read about this and I agree with you. I also note that Spain is now the big brother of communism and they have pulled the troops. It's foolish to thin that this little terrorist appeasement maneuver will protect them. Rawriter
Marcie,
Welcome back, and I'm glad to see you're doing fine. Thomas has kept me abreast of your situation. I'm happy your back in with the rest of us nuts. LOL.
Mistress Pundit
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