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We Don’t Leave Our Men or Women in Uniform Behind

We Don’t Leave Our Men or Women in Uniform Behind

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cpwill said:
Which was actually brought up in the interviews with the Taliban where they claimed he was doing this - that they thought his instruction was sort of basic and poor, because they knew all that stuff already.



.....that is a broader brush than you may want to paint with. There are plenty of stupid / unskilled / untaught VEO members and affiliates out there.
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Let me clarify then. There's no shortage of clever folks in those groups who have long known their way around improvised explosives.
 
cpwill said:
.....it is an excuse to point out that the Secretary of Defense is part of an embattled administration?

:shrug: of course Hagel is going to defend his boss. It would be extremely problematic if he didn't. Hell, he might very well deserve to be fired if he didn't. I'll put the actual testimony of the veterans who were there against a political guy defending another political guy any day of the week as far as "acknowledgement" goes.
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The trouble with this is we can say this all the time with anyone, thus never having to ever think or make a case. It's lazy.
 
cpwill said:
Because he is one. He shouldn't be punished as one until he's been tried, sure. But it is the act, not the conviction that makes him one.
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OK, so you are prejudging him. I regret indulging you thinking that you were going to correct my understanding that being a deserter is a charge that you must convicted of. I thought you were going to produce some type of evidence that rather than a charge that must be proven in court that with some documentation that desertion was an administrative determination. I humbled myself to be education but rather was slapped by someone that simply wanted to argue their impressions. You did not know you just, like so many on this board, found the facts inconvenient for your argument. So, my bad for indulging you when yous should not have been indulged. Let me restate:

upsideguy said:
Of course Americans believe that no one can be a traitor or deserter without a fair trial and a fair trial can not be had without the opportunity of the accused to face his accuser and have the opportunity to testify on his/her behalf

What do you believe in your country?
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Back to square 136.
 
cpwill said:
Not really. In the military the standard is preponderance of evidence, not without-a-doubt.



No. It simply requires that that probability be established to the satisfaction of the reviewing officers.
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Thanks. I figured they'd have to at least talk to the guy.

Preponderance of evidence is standard for conviction and it is a lower standard than beyond-reasonable-doubt, but they aren't related to presumption of innocence. Presumption of innocence means that when he walks into the courtroom we assume he's innocent and that prosecution needs to prove his guilt. The bar that the prosecution has to meet to prove his guilt is preponderance of evidence.
 
Gaius46 said:
Thanks. I figured they'd have to at least talk to the guy.

Preponderance of evidence is standard for conviction and it is a lower standard than beyond-reasonable-doubt, but they aren't related to presumption of innocence. Presumption of innocence means that when he walks into the courtroom we assume he's innocent and that prosecution needs to prove his guilt. The bar that the prosecution has to meet to prove his guilt is preponderance of evidence.
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For a court of law? Absolutely. That doesn't mean that the rest of us have to suspend our ability to apply logic.
 
Boo Radley said:
The trouble with this is we can say this all the time with anyone, thus never having to ever think or make a case. It's lazy.
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No. We can only say this with people who carefully pile up their serialized gear, pretty openly admit that they intend to desert, and then actually desert.
 
upsideguy said:
OK, so you are prejudging him. I regret indulging you thinking that you were going to correct my understanding that being a deserter is a charge that you must convicted of.
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To be punished for, yes. To be guilty of, no. OJ also probably killed his wife. That he was able to afford the kind of defense lawyer that would keep him from going to jail does not change the facts, only whether or not he was punished.

]I thought you were going to produce some type of evidence that rather than a charge
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The evidence is pretty publicly accessible. This guy wasn't captured from a blown up vehicle or while laying wounded in a firefight. He carefully and intentionally piled up his serialized gear, grabbed the stuff he would need for the hike he intended to take, and then walked off the FOB. Outside of "aliens were mind-controlling him", there simply isn't an alternate way to answer the facts. His actions were planned and deliberate, and they ended with him intentionally and deliberately deserting his post.
 
cpwill said:
No. We can only say this with people who carefully pile up their serialized gear, pretty openly admit that they intend to desert, and then actually desert.
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People say all kinds of things they don't do. But I'm merely pointing your willingness to go with your "feelings" before getting all the facts in.
 
Boo Radley said:
People say all kinds of things they don't do. But I'm merely pointing your willingness to go with your "feelings" before getting all the facts in.
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Ah. Well then you can rest easy because the facts are what I am presenting. As opposed to you, who thus far have presented generally nothing.
 
cpwill said:
Ah. Well then you can rest easy because the facts are what I am presenting. As opposed to you, who thus far have presented generally nothing.
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No, you're not. You're presenting hearsay and rumor, no factual evidence or under oath testimony.
 
Boo Radley said:
No, you're not. You're presenting hearsay and rumor, no factual evidence or under oath testimony.
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:lol: that's interesting. So you think that if something is said in a courtroom, that that is what makes it factual evidence?

You are really having to twist, here, boo. :)


But okay. If he didn't willingly walk off post, who do you think secretly kidnapped him inside the FOB? Was it invisible Taliban warriors, used thus far only for this one high-profile mission?
 
cpwill said:
:lol: that's interesting. So you think that if something is said in a courtroom, that that is what makes it factual evidence?

You are really having to twist, here, boo. :)
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It carries more weight. As does actual evidence. A lack of evidence, doesn't make someone guilty. What some believe doesn't make someone guilty.
 
Boo Radley said:
It carries more weight. As does actual evidence. A lack of evidence, doesn't make someone guilty. What some believe doesn't make someone guilty.
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All the evidence that is available says that he is guilty, and it's fairly irrefutable.

But I'll wait for you to come up with anything that says he isn't.
 
cpwill said:
All the evidence that is available says that he is guilty, and it's fairly irrefutable.

But I'll wait for you to come up with anything that says he isn't.
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No, hearsay is very refutable. Lack of evidence is very refutable. And I'm not emotional enough to suggest I know what hasn't been shown yet.
 
Boo Radley said:
No, hearsay is very refutable. Lack of evidence is very refutable. And I'm not emotional enough to suggest I know what hasn't been shown yet.
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The man walked off the FOB. They didn't make that up, it really happened. He piled up all his gear and left it. They didn't make that up, it really happened. He took what he thought he would need to hike off into the mountains. They didn't make that up, it really happened.

Do you really think that this stuff hasn't been legally investigated?
 
cpwill said:
The man walked off the FOB. They didn't make that up, it really happened. He piled up all his gear and left it. They didn't make that up, it really happened. He took what he thought he would need to hike off into the mountains. They didn't make that up, it really happened.

Do you really think that this stuff hasn't been legally investigated?
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Who saw him walk? Who saw what happened? It's a conclusion. Not a fact. It may be likely, but 100% certain. Don't you know the difference?
 
Jack Hays said:
Really? Is that what you're going with?:peace
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It's true. People see things after the fact and reach a conclusion that may or may not be true. More than once what was obvious falls a part with new information and closer examination. And we learn what we thought we knew wasn't accurate.
 
Boo Radley said:
Who saw him walk? Who saw what happened? It's a conclusion. Not a fact. It may be likely, but 100% certain. Don't you know the difference?
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...You realize that "not 100% certain" is also a description that applies to the claim that the Earth will continue rotating, causing the sun to appear in the sky tomorrow?


If your best defense of this assclown is that his crimes fail to meet a standard of proof that are unmeetable by anything, well, that says more about his guilt than it does any supposed innocence.
 
cpwill said:
...You realize that "not 100% certain" is also a description that applies to the claim that the Earth will continue rotating, causing the sun to appear in the sky tomorrow?
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And this isn't that certain by light years. You don't know what you don't know. None of us do.
 
Jack Hays said:
Really? Is that what you're going with?:peace
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I asked him what he could possible imagine the alternative was, and he couldn't come up with anything. Classic Boo.
 
Boo Radley said:
And this isn't that certain by light years. You don't know what you don't know. None of us do.
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Actually I know quite a lot of my known unknowns. For example, I don't know if "bergdahl" is still really "in there", or if his mind chose to check out years ago. My bet would be the latter, but we don't really have that much evidence for that yet.

We do have a massive preponderance of evidence that he deserted his post.
 
Obviously war zones are a hard place to be in, some can handle it and some can't. Leaving an American behind to be tortured is just shameful. The military is full of dirtbags as well and we bring all of them home. Just because someone doesn't agree with what the military is doing or got scared or started second guessing themselves isn't cause to be called a traitor.
 
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