Taking Care of Your Own

In an obvious effort to placate those who want crimes against civilians in war zones investigated by outside authorities, the U.S. military has come up with one of those "happy medium" plans. Given the absurdly partial practice of having the branch of service in which the accused serves investigate the crime, the proposal would entrust this matter to a senior commander in the zone but unrelated to the particular branch form where the soldier comes from.

Although this appears to be a better procedure, it will still be unacceptable to any fair-minded person. It is still soldiers judging soldiers, and we know how it's going to turn out. Soldiers will go unpunished, for all kinds of reasons, mainly because the military will take care of its own, and no nice American boy is going to go to jail for killing Afghan or Iraqi civilians.

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