Three-month house arrest for Staff Sgt. Robert Bales

You'd know right away that times have dramatically changed at the
sound of those cans of worms popping open and the clamor of the
outraged posse zeroing on Staff Sgt. Robert Bales--the "Infidel" and
the financial crook who, drunk and high, went postal in Boondocksistan
on Sunday, March 11.

The once valorous combatant, drunk and high, just snapped... and
blacked out. According to credible testimonies from his comrades, Sgt.
Bales had sneaked out of Camp Belambay and gone on a killing spree in
the nearby village... Body count: 16.

Remember this though: the man has no memory of the deadly event.

Now, fast rewind to... forty-four years ago almost to the day that
deadly Sunday...

On Saturday, March 16, 1968, 2nd Lieutenant William Calley led his
platoon to two hamlets of the village of Son My, in Nam, and ordered
his men to round up civilians, shoot them dead, or burn them alive in
their huts. They were all cong gooks, anyway...

Lieutenant Calley gleefully killed scores of them himself.
Methodically and without blacking out prior or afterward--simply
carrying out orders from his direct superior officer in the chain of
command, as he claimed at his court-martial. Body count: 504 (official
Viatnamese body count).

Now, as we all know, Lieutenant Calley was convicted and sentenced to
life without the possibility of parole.

Then the outrage of the whole country bubbled up and crystallized
around that unjust and unfair sentence meted out against a war hero
who had put himself in harm's way to defend the American way of life,
a rampart against communism!

In such sacred patriotic missions, there are necessarily blunders to
be made. Especially as there was no way of telling "enemy combatants"
from civilians...

Georgia Gov Jimmy Carter was at the forefront of this national
outrage, ordering flags to fly at half mast and asking drivers to keep
their headlights on as a sign of support (maybe Prez Carter will have
the guts to defend Sgt. Bales when he is sentenced to life at his
court-martial). Then other governors followed the high patriotic
standard set by Gov Carter: they also flew their flags at half
mast!...

To make a long story short: Prez Richard Nixon ended up commuting that
iniquitous sentence to... three years and a half of house arrest
and... partially pardoned Lieutenant Calley!

The current POTUS ought to follow that precedent in the case of Sgt. Bales.

Why not?

It's not like Sgt. Bales came up with the silly COIN surge project in
Afghanistan, a country that has proved this particular historical
constant for the past 2,500 years, as someone pointed out a few years
ago: no foreign expeditionary forces have ever won or will ever win a
war there! Period!

These guys are the wrong people to mess with!

Notwithstanding the dogmatic assertion of Prez Obama to the effect that
that historical law amounts to a "false reading of history," as he
claimed in a speech at West Point on December 1, 2009 (see my post of
December 2, 2009 for a counter-argument).

Just as his victims, Sgt. Bales is likewise a victim of politicians'
doggedness, short-sightedness, and stupidity.

After all, the real
blood-thirsty war-mongers who should give denizens the heebie-jeebies
are politicians!

By the way, American politicians treat their fighting men and women
with utter contempt--no matter what empty mantras they usually blurt
out at patriotic pageants...

Just take a look at the monthly paycheck of Sgt. Bales, who was under
heavy financial pressure, we are told, and compare it to the paycheck
of a mercenary working in Afghanistan for an outfit like the company
"formerly known as Blackwater"--and you'd realize that those politicos
don't care about all those ghost soldiers of the empire!

Besides, those mercenaries operate with total impunity in war theaters.

Then, what kind of double or triple standard is this?

If Lieutenant Calley got three years and a half of house arrest
for the cold-blooded slaying of 400 innocent civilians, and if
Blackwater mercenaries got a slap on the wrist for killing dozens of
non-combatants in Iraq, then why should Sgt. Bales get sentenced to
life or, God forbid!, to death for killing a mere handful of civilians?
In a just world, he should at the most get a three-month house arrest!