A former Marine sergeant facing the first federal civilian prosecution of a military member accused of a war crime says there is much more at stake than his claim of innocence on charges that he killed unarmed detainees in Fallujah, Iraq.
In the view of Jose Luis Nazario, US troops may begin to question whether they will be prosecuted by civilians for doing what their military superiors taught them to do in battle.
Nazario is the first military service member who has completed his duty to be brought to trial under a law that allows the government to prosecute defense contractors, military dependents and those no longer in the military who commit crimes outside the US.
“They train us, and they expect us to rely back on that training. Then when we use that training, they prosecute us for it?” Nazario said during an interview on Saturday.
“I didn’t do anything wrong. I don’t think I should be the first tried like this,” said Nazario, whose trial begins today in Riverside, east of Los Angeles.
If Nazario, 28, is convicted of voluntary manslaughter, some predict damaging consequences on the battlefield.
“This boils down to one thing in my mind: Are we going to allow civilian juries to Monday-morning-quarterback military decisions?” said Nazario’s attorney, Kevin McDermott.
Others say the law closes a loophole that allowed former military service members to slip beyond the reach of prosecution. Once they complete their terms, troops cannot be prosecuted in military court.
Scott Silliman, a law professor and executive director of the Center on Law, Ethics and National Security at Duke University, says it has little to do with questioning military decisions and everything to do with whether a service member committed a crime.
“From a legal point of view, there is no difference in law between war and peace,” he said.
Nazario, of Riverside, is charged with one count of voluntary manslaughter on suspicion of killing or causing others to kill four unarmed detainees in November 2004 in Fallujah and other charges.
If convicted, he could face more than 10 years in prison.
When Shanghai-based designer Guo Qingshan posted a vacation photo on Valentine’s Day and captioned it “Puppy Mountain,” it became a sensation in China and even created a tourist destination. Guo had gone on a hike while visiting his hometown of Yichang in central China’s Hubei Province late last month. When reviewing the photographs, he saw something he had not noticed before: A mountain shaped like a dog’s head rested on the ground next to the Yangtze River, its snout perched at the water’s edge. “It was so magical and cute. I was so excited and happy when I discovered it,” Guo said.
TURNAROUND: The Liberal Party had trailed the Conservatives by a wide margin, but that was before Trump threatened to make Canada the US’ 51st state Canada’s ruling Liberals, who a few weeks ago looked certain to lose an election this year, are mounting a major comeback amid the threat of US tariffs and are tied with their rival Conservatives, according to three new polls. An Ipsos survey released late on Tuesday showed that the left-leaning Liberals have 38 percent public support and the official opposition center-right Conservatives have 36 percent. The Liberals have overturned a 26-point deficit in six weeks, and run advertisements comparing the Conservative leader to Trump. The Conservative strategy had long been to attack unpopular Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, but last month he
PROBE: Last week, Romanian prosecutors launched a criminal investigation against presidential candidate Calin Georgescu accusing him of supporting fascist groups Tens of thousands of protesters gathered in Romania’s capital on Saturday in the latest anti-government demonstration by far-right groups after a top court canceled a presidential election in the EU country last year. Protesters converged in front of the government building in Bucharest, waving Romania’s tricolor flags and chanting slogans such as “down with the government” and “thieves.” Many expressed support for Calin Georgescu, who emerged as the frontrunner in December’s canceled election, and demanded they be resumed from the second round. George Simion, the leader of the far-right Alliance for the Unity of Romanians (AUR), which organized the protest,
ECONOMIC DISTORTION? The US commerce secretary’s remarks echoed Elon Musk’s arguments that spending by the government does not create value for the economy US Secretary of Commerce Howard Lutnick on Sunday said that government spending could be separated from GDP reports, in response to questions about whether the spending cuts pushed by Elon Musk’s Department of Government Efficiency could possibly cause an economic downturn. “You know that governments historically have messed with GDP,” Lutnick said on Fox News Channel’s Sunday Morning Futures. “They count government spending as part of GDP. So I’m going to separate those two and make it transparent.” Doing so could potentially complicate or distort a fundamental measure of the US economy’s health. Government spending is traditionally included in the GDP because
RSS