Its not usually the job of the prosecution to prove they haven't done something.
If the defence is alleging malpractice its usually their job to prove it.
If the defence is alleging malpractice its usually their job to prove it.
Fuck Israel
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why the fuck you have to drag religion into everything. man, you need to visit a psychologist or something cos it's kinda pathetic.lowing wrote:
Oh well, so much for innocent until proven guilty, as I am SURE you would expect no less of a burden for Islamic terrorists.ruisleipa wrote:
yeah but only because the prosecution fucked up. Those blackwater guys are just thugs and mercenaries. I'd happily see em all go away for the rest of their lives.Macbeth wrote:
Allegedly they were never found guilty in any court.
One thing I do notice about this is, the irony that plays out when Islamic law is now all of a sudden mortified and outraged over the death of some civilians, while attrocities are carried out every day in the name of Islam without so much as a wimper by the Islamic faithful. Where was Islamic outrage over the US citizens hanging from a bridge, or the beheading videos, or the stonings, or the honor killings? Yeah, NOW they are outraged, what a joke.
Is that how it works now? You must be proven innocent? Too bad, it used to be you had to be proven guilty, oh well.Ottomania wrote:
At least responsibles havent been proven innocent in front of the judge.lowing wrote:
Where is the outrage and demands of justice here?
http://www.cnn.com/2010/WORLD/asiapcf/0 … index.html
I understand, and I can not find anything about this to disagree with. You are right.Hurricane2k9 wrote:
Lowing, it's what makes us better than them. It's like the Navy SEALs on trial for punching a guy after they had taken him into custody. Yeah the scumbag had it coming, but it was out of proper operating procedure to do that. What makes us different from those animals is that we create a set of values and rules, and we live by them. If we just let the SEALs get away with breaking procedure, well what's next? Sure right now it was just punching a terrorist, but where would it stop?
Last edited by lowing (2010-01-02 06:21:17)
Maybe maybe not, we will never know. One thing is for sure, it ain't being won by restricting our efforts.Poseidon wrote:
Oh but didn't you know, if we let the US Military go free we'd have won the war in Afghanistan by now.Hurricane2k9 wrote:
Lowing, it's what makes us better than them. It's like the Navy SEALs on trial for punching a guy after they had taken him into custody. Yeah the scumbag had it coming, but it was out of proper operating procedure to do that. What makes us different from those animals is that we create a set of values and rules, and we live by them. If we just let the SEALs get away with breaking procedure, well what's next? Sure right now it was just punching a terrorist, but where would it stop?
Honestly, you might be the one to consider talking to a psychologist. Anyone who gets so worked up over an individual in internet chat rooms, and forums really should push the computer away and get out more, if not be out right medicated.ruisleipa wrote:
why the fuck you have to drag religion into everything. man, you need to visit a psychologist or something cos it's kinda pathetic.lowing wrote:
Oh well, so much for innocent until proven guilty, as I am SURE you would expect no less of a burden for Islamic terrorists.ruisleipa wrote:
yeah but only because the prosecution fucked up. Those blackwater guys are just thugs and mercenaries. I'd happily see em all go away for the rest of their lives.
One thing I do notice about this is, the irony that plays out when Islamic law is now all of a sudden mortified and outraged over the death of some civilians, while attrocities are carried out every day in the name of Islam without so much as a wimper by the Islamic faithful. Where was Islamic outrage over the US citizens hanging from a bridge, or the beheading videos, or the stonings, or the honor killings? Yeah, NOW they are outraged, what a joke.
Lighten up Francis.
Anyway, if you insist on throwing fits, why not direct it toward what I have posted and address the observation? That would be at least somewhat entertaining. ( not that reading your tantrums isn't fun )
loool throwing fits? Hardly. Try answering my question. who the fuck is Francis?
I already answered your question in another post which asked the same thing. Read back a few, I think FatherTed asked it.ruisleipa wrote:
loool throwing fits? Hardly. Try answering my question. who the fuck is Francis?
Learn to use the edit button dipshit.lowing wrote:
I already answered your question in another post which asked the same thing. Read back a few, I think FatherTed asked it.ruisleipa wrote:
loool throwing fits? Hardly. Try answering my question. who the fuck is Francis?
the personal attack ain't cool, but he has a point. four posts in a row, dude.rammunition wrote:
Learn to use the edit button dipshit.lowing wrote:
I already answered your question in another post which asked the same thing. Read back a few, I think FatherTed asked it.ruisleipa wrote:
loool throwing fits? Hardly. Try answering my question. who the fuck is Francis?
The paradox is only a conflict between reality and your feeling what reality ought to be.
~ Richard Feynman
~ Richard Feynman
Who the fuck cares about posting in a row? Until we have multi-quote, it's fucking annoying to keep jumping back and forth to copy and paste quotes.
Because it is all he has. Notice the lack of an argument? I agree, cutting and pasting constantly is a pain in the ass.ghettoperson wrote:
Who the fuck cares about posting in a row? Until we have multi-quote, it's fucking annoying to keep jumping back and forth to copy and paste quotes.
I read, I respond, then I read the next one.
Shocker! Dilbert sees a conspiracy!Dilbert_X wrote:
Often thats how it works when the govt does not want a prosecution to succeed, put together a crap case and let the judge throw it out.Mikkel wrote:
One would have hoped that the government could have fielded a prosecution at least approaching competent.
Justice is seen to be done, although there was never any intention it really would be.
Who'da thunk it?
Prosecutorial malfeasance. Happens all the time. Cases get thrown out because of it all the time. Doesn't mean the defendants are innocent or even not guilty. I just means the prosecutors fucked up. Also, IIRC, unless it was dismissed "with prejudice", the charges can always be levied against them again later.
“Everybody is a genius. But if you judge a fish by its ability to climb a tree, it will live its whole life believing that it is stupid.”
― Albert Einstein
Doing the popular thing is not always right. Doing the right thing is not always popular
― Albert Einstein
Doing the popular thing is not always right. Doing the right thing is not always popular
Oh look - two of the scumbags are still going on trial. Excellent!
http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2010/ja … s-security
Two former guards with the security company Blackwater have been charged in the US with the murder of Afghan civilians in a case likely to reinforce accusations that the firm ran a rogue militia that showed a reckless disregard for human life.
The charges follow the collapse of a case against five other Blackwater guards over killings in Iraq, and an agreement by the company today to pay compensation for a number of deaths of Iraqi civilians in several incidents.
Today's legal settlement amounts to an implicit admission by the highly secretive company that some of its guards were responsible for a series of unjustifiable killings.
Blackwater appears to have reached the deal to avoid a court hearing that threatened to force the company to lay bare what critics contend was a policy of shooting first, as well as the involvement of its employees in an array of criminal activities.
But the company's actions are likely to come under legal examination after all following the indictment of Justin Cannon, 27, and Chris Drotleff, 29, for murder and other offences after they opened fire on a car following a traffic accident in Kabul. Two people were killed and one wounded.
Cannon, from Texas, recently told the Associated Press that he is innocent.
"My conscience is clear about it, but that doesn't really matter," he said. "If someone's got an agenda, then there's nothing I can do about it."
Blackwater, which renamed itself Xe after a deluge of bad publicity over its actions in Iraq, did not release details of the settlement it reached today with Iraqi families in which the company was accused of a pattern of illegal activity and reckless killings. The legal actions accused Blackwater's founder, Erik Prince, a former member of US navy special forces, of running a private army that "roamed the streets of Baghdad killing innocent civilians".
Among the cases was the killing of three members of an Iraqi family, including a nine-year-old boy, when Blackwater guards opened fire on their car as they drove to Baghdad airport in July 2007.
Other lawsuits filed by the Centre for Constitutional Rights in New York related to the killing of an Iraqi guard and the shooting dead of three people guarding the state-run Iraqi Media Network by a Blackwater sniper. The Iraqi police called the shootings an "act of terrorism".
The highest-profile case was on behalf of the families of three of up to 17 Iraqis killed by Blackwater guards in Baghdad's Nisoor square in 2007.
Five Blackwater guards were prosecuted in the US over the killings but last week a judge threw out the charges on procedural grounds, including that the accused men had been forced to incriminate themselves. The guards could not be prosecuted in Iraq because of an immunity agreement imposed by Washington on the interim administration in Baghdad after the 2003 invasion.
The decision has led to accusations that Blackwater was in effect operating outside the law, which contributed to a climate of impunity and reckless use of weapons. The company has since been barred from the country by the Iraqi government.
Critics allege that US officials contributed to the climate of impunity by protecting Blackwater guards responsible for evidently illegal killings. Those include the shooting dead three years ago of an Iraqi security guard to the country's vice-president while he was on duty at the prime minister's compound.
The Iraqi government alleges that the guard was shot by a drunken Blackwater employee who was then spirited out of the country by the US state department, which attempted to keep his identity secret.
The action settled today also included allegations that the company's aircraft were used to abduct Iraqis and that Blackwater workers were involved in weapons smuggling, illegal drug use and bringing young girls to the company's compound in Baghdad for paid sex.
Blackwater said it was "pleased" with the settlement, which it said "provides some compensation to Iraqi families".
Despite Blackwater's contentious record, the US military and intelligence agencies continue to maintain a close relationship with the company. Two of the CIA workers killed in a suicide bombing in Afghanistan this week were private contractors with Blackwater.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2010/ja … s-security
Two former guards with the security company Blackwater have been charged in the US with the murder of Afghan civilians in a case likely to reinforce accusations that the firm ran a rogue militia that showed a reckless disregard for human life.
The charges follow the collapse of a case against five other Blackwater guards over killings in Iraq, and an agreement by the company today to pay compensation for a number of deaths of Iraqi civilians in several incidents.
Today's legal settlement amounts to an implicit admission by the highly secretive company that some of its guards were responsible for a series of unjustifiable killings.
Blackwater appears to have reached the deal to avoid a court hearing that threatened to force the company to lay bare what critics contend was a policy of shooting first, as well as the involvement of its employees in an array of criminal activities.
But the company's actions are likely to come under legal examination after all following the indictment of Justin Cannon, 27, and Chris Drotleff, 29, for murder and other offences after they opened fire on a car following a traffic accident in Kabul. Two people were killed and one wounded.
Cannon, from Texas, recently told the Associated Press that he is innocent.
"My conscience is clear about it, but that doesn't really matter," he said. "If someone's got an agenda, then there's nothing I can do about it."
Blackwater, which renamed itself Xe after a deluge of bad publicity over its actions in Iraq, did not release details of the settlement it reached today with Iraqi families in which the company was accused of a pattern of illegal activity and reckless killings. The legal actions accused Blackwater's founder, Erik Prince, a former member of US navy special forces, of running a private army that "roamed the streets of Baghdad killing innocent civilians".
Among the cases was the killing of three members of an Iraqi family, including a nine-year-old boy, when Blackwater guards opened fire on their car as they drove to Baghdad airport in July 2007.
Other lawsuits filed by the Centre for Constitutional Rights in New York related to the killing of an Iraqi guard and the shooting dead of three people guarding the state-run Iraqi Media Network by a Blackwater sniper. The Iraqi police called the shootings an "act of terrorism".
The highest-profile case was on behalf of the families of three of up to 17 Iraqis killed by Blackwater guards in Baghdad's Nisoor square in 2007.
Five Blackwater guards were prosecuted in the US over the killings but last week a judge threw out the charges on procedural grounds, including that the accused men had been forced to incriminate themselves. The guards could not be prosecuted in Iraq because of an immunity agreement imposed by Washington on the interim administration in Baghdad after the 2003 invasion.
The decision has led to accusations that Blackwater was in effect operating outside the law, which contributed to a climate of impunity and reckless use of weapons. The company has since been barred from the country by the Iraqi government.
Critics allege that US officials contributed to the climate of impunity by protecting Blackwater guards responsible for evidently illegal killings. Those include the shooting dead three years ago of an Iraqi security guard to the country's vice-president while he was on duty at the prime minister's compound.
The Iraqi government alleges that the guard was shot by a drunken Blackwater employee who was then spirited out of the country by the US state department, which attempted to keep his identity secret.
The action settled today also included allegations that the company's aircraft were used to abduct Iraqis and that Blackwater workers were involved in weapons smuggling, illegal drug use and bringing young girls to the company's compound in Baghdad for paid sex.
Blackwater said it was "pleased" with the settlement, which it said "provides some compensation to Iraqi families".
Despite Blackwater's contentious record, the US military and intelligence agencies continue to maintain a close relationship with the company. Two of the CIA workers killed in a suicide bombing in Afghanistan this week were private contractors with Blackwater.
Sounds bad but I would really like to hear their side of these stories. Remember they are operating in an environment where 1 day a little girl has walked up to a soldeir to hand him a teddy bear only to blow up when she got close, killing all around her. The next day another little girl attempts to walk up to a soldier and is shot dead because of fears she is a bomb, only to find out she was not. Then the masses go crazy because an innocent little girl was shot. War is hard and messy and the majority of the times things are not as the seem.ruisleipa wrote:
Oh look - two of the scumbags are still going on trial. Excellent!
http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2010/ja … s-security
Two former guards with the security company Blackwater have been charged in the US with the murder of Afghan civilians in a case likely to reinforce accusations that the firm ran a rogue militia that showed a reckless disregard for human life.
The charges follow the collapse of a case against five other Blackwater guards over killings in Iraq, and an agreement by the company today to pay compensation for a number of deaths of Iraqi civilians in several incidents.
Today's legal settlement amounts to an implicit admission by the highly secretive company that some of its guards were responsible for a series of unjustifiable killings.
Blackwater appears to have reached the deal to avoid a court hearing that threatened to force the company to lay bare what critics contend was a policy of shooting first, as well as the involvement of its employees in an array of criminal activities.
But the company's actions are likely to come under legal examination after all following the indictment of Justin Cannon, 27, and Chris Drotleff, 29, for murder and other offences after they opened fire on a car following a traffic accident in Kabul. Two people were killed and one wounded.
Cannon, from Texas, recently told the Associated Press that he is innocent.
"My conscience is clear about it, but that doesn't really matter," he said. "If someone's got an agenda, then there's nothing I can do about it."
Blackwater, which renamed itself Xe after a deluge of bad publicity over its actions in Iraq, did not release details of the settlement it reached today with Iraqi families in which the company was accused of a pattern of illegal activity and reckless killings. The legal actions accused Blackwater's founder, Erik Prince, a former member of US navy special forces, of running a private army that "roamed the streets of Baghdad killing innocent civilians".
Among the cases was the killing of three members of an Iraqi family, including a nine-year-old boy, when Blackwater guards opened fire on their car as they drove to Baghdad airport in July 2007.
Other lawsuits filed by the Centre for Constitutional Rights in New York related to the killing of an Iraqi guard and the shooting dead of three people guarding the state-run Iraqi Media Network by a Blackwater sniper. The Iraqi police called the shootings an "act of terrorism".
The highest-profile case was on behalf of the families of three of up to 17 Iraqis killed by Blackwater guards in Baghdad's Nisoor square in 2007.
Five Blackwater guards were prosecuted in the US over the killings but last week a judge threw out the charges on procedural grounds, including that the accused men had been forced to incriminate themselves. The guards could not be prosecuted in Iraq because of an immunity agreement imposed by Washington on the interim administration in Baghdad after the 2003 invasion.
The decision has led to accusations that Blackwater was in effect operating outside the law, which contributed to a climate of impunity and reckless use of weapons. The company has since been barred from the country by the Iraqi government.
Critics allege that US officials contributed to the climate of impunity by protecting Blackwater guards responsible for evidently illegal killings. Those include the shooting dead three years ago of an Iraqi security guard to the country's vice-president while he was on duty at the prime minister's compound.
The Iraqi government alleges that the guard was shot by a drunken Blackwater employee who was then spirited out of the country by the US state department, which attempted to keep his identity secret.
The action settled today also included allegations that the company's aircraft were used to abduct Iraqis and that Blackwater workers were involved in weapons smuggling, illegal drug use and bringing young girls to the company's compound in Baghdad for paid sex.
Blackwater said it was "pleased" with the settlement, which it said "provides some compensation to Iraqi families".
Despite Blackwater's contentious record, the US military and intelligence agencies continue to maintain a close relationship with the company. Two of the CIA workers killed in a suicide bombing in Afghanistan this week were private contractors with Blackwater.
But if it were your kid you'd want murder charges right?War is hard and messy and the majority of the times things are not as the seem.
Fuck Israel
Yup, which is why they need their day in court to sort it all out, and hopefully get to some truth. Hard to continually make the right decisions over there when faced with situations like I described.Dilbert_X wrote:
But if it were your kid you'd want murder charges right?War is hard and messy and the majority of the times things are not as the seem.
Weird. The first group of men didn't have their day in court and the case never made it to a jury verdict of guilty or innocent. The case was simply dismissed and you were over the moon with the result.lowing wrote:
Yup, which is why they need their day in court to sort it all out, and hopefully get to some truth. Hard to continually make the right decisions over there when faced with situations like I described.Dilbert_X wrote:
But if it were your kid you'd want murder charges right?War is hard and messy and the majority of the times things are not as the seem.
Now you're saying this group need their day in court to get some truth?
Double standards.
I wasn't "over the moon" about any of it. My position was clearly that they were innocent until proven guilty and not the other way around. This went toward the argument that was made that they should have gone to court to prove their innocence. It does not work that way.AussieReaper wrote:
Weird. The first group of men didn't have their day in court and the case never made it to a jury verdict of guilty or innocent. The case was simply dismissed and you were over the moon with the result.lowing wrote:
Yup, which is why they need their day in court to sort it all out, and hopefully get to some truth. Hard to continually make the right decisions over there when faced with situations like I described.Dilbert_X wrote:
But if it were your kid you'd want murder charges right?
Now you're saying this group need their day in court to get some truth?
Double standards. http://img80.imageshack.us/img80/3024/sarcasm.gif
This is ironic, considering that you would fully expect the exact same result for the GITMO detainees who are going on trial in the US: no evidence obtained under questionable circumstances can be used in court.AussieReaper wrote:
Weird. The first group of men didn't have their day in court and the case never made it to a jury verdict of guilty or innocent. The case was simply dismissed and you were over the moon with the result.
Now you're saying this group need their day in court to get some truth?
Double standards. http://img80.imageshack.us/img80/3024/sarcasm.gif
That is essentially what happened in the Blackwater case, and you decried it as a miscarriage of justice.
If it were GITMO detainees, you say it is justice served.
Double standards.
“Everybody is a genius. But if you judge a fish by its ability to climb a tree, it will live its whole life believing that it is stupid.”
― Albert Einstein
Doing the popular thing is not always right. Doing the right thing is not always popular
― Albert Einstein
Doing the popular thing is not always right. Doing the right thing is not always popular
Yeah right.FEOS wrote:
This is ironic, considering that you would fully expect the exact same result for the GITMO detainees who are going on trial in the US: no evidence obtained under questionable circumstances can be used in court.AussieReaper wrote:
Weird. The first group of men didn't have their day in court and the case never made it to a jury verdict of guilty or innocent. The case was simply dismissed and you were over the moon with the result.
Now you're saying this group need their day in court to get some truth?
Double standards. http://img80.imageshack.us/img80/3024/sarcasm.gif
That is essentially what happened in the Blackwater case, and you decried it as a miscarriage of justice.
If it were GITMO detainees, you say it is justice served.
Double standards.
I didn't see any suspected terrorists cases acquitted until they had already served a number of years either without charge or trial. And when brought to trial they were not afforded anything close to the legal status these Blackwater members were. And the evidence produced was through torture and violation of human rights.
As I said in my first post in this topic, the Blackwater case is a miscarriage of justice because they got off on a very poor prosecution case. A laughable prosecution case to be honest.
Whereas Gitmo detainees had poor legal status, poor defence attorneys, poor evidence against them and kangaroo courtrooms.
Who was seen as guilty until proven innocent in these cases? Because the Blackwater members certainly didn't have to spend years in jail before the case was dismissed.
They are extremely lucky not to be tried in the countries where the crime were committed. This is a case of damn if you do and damn if you don't.
I'm talking about the trial phase, Aussie, and I made that perfectly clear.AussieReaper wrote:
Yeah right.FEOS wrote:
This is ironic, considering that you would fully expect the exact same result for the GITMO detainees who are going on trial in the US: no evidence obtained under questionable circumstances can be used in court.AussieReaper wrote:
Weird. The first group of men didn't have their day in court and the case never made it to a jury verdict of guilty or innocent. The case was simply dismissed and you were over the moon with the result.
Now you're saying this group need their day in court to get some truth?
Double standards. http://img80.imageshack.us/img80/3024/sarcasm.gif
That is essentially what happened in the Blackwater case, and you decried it as a miscarriage of justice.
If it were GITMO detainees, you say it is justice served.
Double standards.
I didn't see any suspected terrorists cases acquitted until they had already served a number of years either without charge or trial. And when brought to trial they were not afforded anything close to the legal status these Blackwater members were. And the evidence produced was through torture and violation of human rights.
As I said in my first post in this topic, the Blackwater case is a miscarriage of justice because they got off on a very poor prosecution case. A laughable prosecution case to be honest.
Whereas Gitmo detainees had poor legal status, poor defence attorneys, poor evidence against them and kangaroo courtrooms.
Who was seen as guilty until proven innocent in these cases? Because the Blackwater members certainly didn't have to spend years in jail before the case was dismissed.
KSM et al haven't gone to civilian trial yet. You've lauded that move and said that the evidence gathered via "torture" shouldn't be admissible--which is the same legal argument that got the Blackwater case thrown out: the prosecution's case was built on evidence that was inadmissible, therefore there was no case. If you're going to carry the torch for one as justice, you must accept the other as justice, as well.
As to the "poor legal status" of Gitmo detainees: look to international law not keeping up with events, as has been posted before. International laws do not cover the situation the international community is currently facing, so the law is gray WRT POW or civil status.
The Blackwater members (as US citizens) had civil charges brought against them in US courts. Their legal status was much more clear and thus the procedure are much more clear with them, just as the procedures with the US citizens (Padilla and Johnny Taliban) were.
“Everybody is a genius. But if you judge a fish by its ability to climb a tree, it will live its whole life believing that it is stupid.”
― Albert Einstein
Doing the popular thing is not always right. Doing the right thing is not always popular
― Albert Einstein
Doing the popular thing is not always right. Doing the right thing is not always popular
and there is that little thing that terror suspects in GITMO are not US citizens and are not afforded protection under the US Constitution that US citizens are guaranteed. By the way, since we are talking about GITMO, are we going to discuss how many of them have returned to fight against us?AussieReaper wrote:
Yeah right.FEOS wrote:
This is ironic, considering that you would fully expect the exact same result for the GITMO detainees who are going on trial in the US: no evidence obtained under questionable circumstances can be used in court.AussieReaper wrote:
Weird. The first group of men didn't have their day in court and the case never made it to a jury verdict of guilty or innocent. The case was simply dismissed and you were over the moon with the result.
Now you're saying this group need their day in court to get some truth?
Double standards. http://img80.imageshack.us/img80/3024/sarcasm.gif
That is essentially what happened in the Blackwater case, and you decried it as a miscarriage of justice.
If it were GITMO detainees, you say it is justice served.
Double standards.
I didn't see any suspected terrorists cases acquitted until they had already served a number of years either without charge or trial. And when brought to trial they were not afforded anything close to the legal status these Blackwater members were. And the evidence produced was through torture and violation of human rights.
As I said in my first post in this topic, the Blackwater case is a miscarriage of justice because they got off on a very poor prosecution case. A laughable prosecution case to be honest.
Whereas Gitmo detainees had poor legal status, poor defence attorneys, poor evidence against them and kangaroo courtrooms.
Who was seen as guilty until proven innocent in these cases? Because the Blackwater members certainly didn't have to spend years in jail before the case was dismissed.
so only US citizens deserve a fair trial and justice? come on man, seriously...lowing wrote:
and there is that little thing that terror suspects in GITMO are not US citizens and are not afforded protection under the US Constitution that US citizens are guaranteed. By the way, since we are talking about GITMO, are we going to discuss how many of them have returned to fight against us?
do you know how many have 'returned to fight against' the US? No? probably not.
Since most of them by all accounts were being held there with no or made-up evidence against them it seems likely that IF any of them chose to fight against the US after being there it was the fact they were incarcerated without trial or due process for years of their lives that, well, maybe made them kinda angry and hate the US...maybe? whaddya reckon?
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