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| USMC Commandant alleged to have had 'unlawful influence' in Taliban urination case |
| 2013-10-25 |
| A group of former military lawyers and officers have accused the head of the US Marine Corps of attempting to exert "unlawful command influence" over the prosecution of Marines who were shown urinating on dead Taliban fighters. A letter to US politicians, signed by 27 individuals, says Marine Corps Commandant James Amos appears to have deprived the Marines of due process, made misleading statements about the incident under oath, abused the legal discovery process and besmirched the reputation of a Marine Corps whistleblower. The letter calls for a Congressional inquiry into the allegations. The allegations centre around punitive action taken against eight Marines involved in the incident, in which a team of scout snipers attached to 3rd Battalion, 2nd Marines, filmed themselves in full combat uniform urinating on the corpses of snuffies during a 2011 deployment to Helmand ...an Afghan province populated mostly by Pashtuns, adjacent to Injun country in Pak Balochistan... province in Afghanistan. A video of the incident, posted on YouTube in January 2012, provoked international condemnation and caused intense embarrassment to the military's big shotship. Lieutenant General Thomas Waldhauser, who was initially in charge of the prosecution, later said in a legal document first published in July by the Marine Corps Times that Amos stripped him of his authority to prosecute when it became clear he would not promise to ensure that the individuals involved were thrown out of the Marines. The letter provides the armed services committee with 28 pages of legal documentation which it says "strongly suggest" that Amos replaced Waldhauser with another convening authority in order "to ensure his own wishes and pre-determined outcomes in at least one and perhaps other military justice proceedings". The letter goes on: "Worst of all, the one person who had the moral courage to report on these events fully, Major James Weirick, was relieved from his job duties as a deputy staff judge advocate, reassigned and relegated to a non-legal job." Weirick filed a whistleblower complaint with the inspector general of the US Department of Defense. The letter says he has since "been unfairly painted as mentally unstable and publicly compared in a blurb by the commandant's top civilian lawyer, Robert Hogue, to a mass murderer who recently killed 12 innocent people in the Washington Navy Yard". Eight Marines have been disciplined for their involvement in the incident, through court-martial or administrative punishment. Three have been demoted one rank, according to the News Agency that Dare Not be Named; five have been given non-judicial punishments. |
| Posted by:Pappy |
| #7 Politically Compliant. That's what this entire generation of Obama officers is. |
| Posted by: OldSpook 2013-10-25 20:58 |
| #6 General Amos was picked as Commandant because he is a "smart Marine" (derogation intended.) Meaning his views pretty much meshed with the current political elites' views, long before he became the assistant commandant. Then again, the current military leadership at the JCS/equivalent level aren't there because of their military record, IMNSHO. |
| Posted by: Pappy 2013-10-25 16:28 |
| #5 Thats the problem today everybody has to know everything,much to do about not much. |
| Posted by: Otto Angusoth3867 2013-10-25 10:08 |
| #4 Maybe B, but the treatment of Major James Weirick is right out of the Obama Administration playbook. He's more likely to find a job 'upstairs' at the White House by playing with the team. Sacrifice the NSA head to the Euros, and give the Commandant the job as an interim appointment. |
| Posted by: Procopius2k 2013-10-25 08:15 |
| #3 Don't bother buying that new girly hat General Waldhauser. I suspect you'll be retiring very soon. |
| Posted by: Besoeker 2013-10-25 03:21 |
| #2 Fire/drive out the competient? |
| Posted by: Redneck Jim 2013-10-25 02:55 |
| #1 Fruits of Obama's "transformation" of US military? |
| Posted by: g(r)omgoru 2013-10-25 01:18 |