OR: THERE AIN’T NO JUSTICE  IN MILITARY JUSTICE
Early in December, 2003, news reports and network television broadcasts quoted Lt. Colonel Nathan Sassaman of the United States Army as delivering these pungent remarks after the American Army had shot up some Iraqi villages. Col. Sassaman said, “With a heavy dose of fear and violence and a lot of money for projects, I think we can convince these people that we are here to help them”.
When television reporters asked Sassaman to repeat those remarks so they could eliminate any erroneous inferences, he repeated exactly the same sentence which I assume he had written down. Can you imagine a field grade American Army officer saying a “heavy dose of fear and violence can convince these (Iraqi) people that we are here to help”?
If that is the price to be paid for “help,” it would be just as well for the Iraqis to forego all such “help.” Yet Sassaman’s comments drew no fire whatsoever from his military superiors. It must be assumed that the chain of command extending back to Washington finds no fault with Sassaman’s remarks. What crimes are being committed in the name of the American people in a war that serves only the political destiny of this administration.
If I were a believer, my thoughts would be on prayer with hopes for a miracle. But I am not a believer, so the killings will go on apace.
Now we turn to three other examples of military justice at work. If these examples of the justices turned out by the American military are justice in any sense of the word, then my perception of justice is clearly askew.
In the first Gulf War, several Air Force and Navy fliers were shot down and were captured. They endured torture of the most gruesome kind, which went on for several months.
That was around 1991. When they were eventually released, they brought suit against Iraq asking that some of Iraq’s oil wealth be set aside for their compensation. They were awarded something like about a billion dollars.
Two or three weeks ago, the Bush administration overrode the courts and announced that the fliers would get nothing for the damage inflicted upon them when they were prisoners of war.
The rationale for this is convoluted, but here it is. When the pre-emptive war launched by George Bush was still underway, it was belatedly announced that all of Iraq’s assets were transferred to the U. S. Treasury. We got it all. None of it went to our erstwhile allies like Great Britain. It all wound up in Washington, so the Bushies say that suing Iraq is pointless because they have no money. Just because they pump billions of gallons of oil each year is no reason for them to have any money in the Iraqi treasury.
And to top off this illogical set of arguments, the Bush people contend that all the money is absolutely neededed to help in rebuilding Iraq. The imprisoned fliers are simply out of luck.
When Mike Wallace of “60 Minutes” spoke to these former captives, he reminded them that their award by the U. S. Court system could be turned around instantly by George Bush. Bush isn’t going to make it happen. They have even stated that the award in total or in part could be diverted to someone other than themselves, such as a charity. There is absolutely no response from the United States government. It looks like the captured fliers have been stiffed by the Bush Administration.
Now we turn to Captain McAlpin, a member of the Army Reserves from New Jersey. McAlpin has completed 19 years with the Reserves and will be eligible to retire in 2004.
Earlier, McAlpin and many of his troops served a full year in Iraq. They were rotated out with the firm understanding established by the Army, that they would not be sent back to Iraq for at least a year. Foolishly, McAlpin relied on that understanding.
In the Fall of 2003, the Army announced that McAlpin and his troops would be sent back to Iraq after only 11 months at home. The Army leaned all over the affected troops to sign waivers saying that they agreed to return to Iraq voluntarily after only 11 months, in place of a year, at home. Remember, these Reserves have regular civilian jobs too.
McAlpin and several of his troops declined to sign such a waiver. And this is where the bad news starts for Captain McAlpin. After it became clear that McAlpin did not intend to sign the waiver, the Army, as it always does, resorted to force. Remember, all you readers were warned in previous essays that soldiers don’t get paid for thinking. It takes no brain power to apply force, which is what the Army did to Captain McAlpin.
First, McAlpin was charged with insubordination, which the military considers a very serious accusation. If a soldier refused to obey an order to fire his gun at the enemy after being told to do so, that will bring a charge of insubordination. But McAlpin never refused a lawful order. He simply declined to sign an unlawful waiver. Nonetheless, he was charged with insubordination and must face a court-martial, it is reported.
Not content with the charge of insubordination and the court-martial, the Army downgraded McAlpin to a lower rank. It was not reported how far down the ranks the Army degraded McAlpin. Such a downgrading is unheard of except as the outcome of a court-martial trial. But the Army did it before any trial could take place.
On top of all his other woes, McAlpin most likely will have to consider whether he will be kicked out of the Reserves or whether he should abandon 19 years of superior service. Of course, the downgrading will result in a lower pension. If he is forced to leave the Reserves, or if he resigns, it may be that he will have no pension at all.
This is one more instance of justice in the military system.
And that brings us to Chaplain Yee of the U. S. Army. He ministers, in his most recent assignment, to the Muslim prisoners at Guantánamo.
Somewhere during his service in Guantánamo, some Army sleuths began to suspect him of carrying messages from the prisoners. There was never any evidence of any kind, just suspicion. It may be assumed that Captain Yee spoke in Arabic to the prisoners, which his superiors did not understand and perhaps they concluded it was treasonous.
This investigation of Chaplain Yee, incidentally, occurred shortly after he took some of the prisoners complaints to the prison authorities.
When he left Guantánamo for the United States, he carried some papers with him. The indications are that the papers had to do with his duties as a Muslim counselor on Guantánamo.
Ah, but that was not good enough for the United States Army. They contended that Chaplain Yee carried treasonous documents with him. Accordingly, he was jailed in a military facility – and denied access to a lawyer. He was permitted no visitors except Army investigators. This solitary confinement went on for three months.
During that stretch of time, military officials in the Army must have concluded that they had no case at all against an American citizen who was serving the Army as a Muslim chaplain.
But there is no way that the Army will ever admit they were in error. So they avoided the treasonous documents charge that could have brought a death sentence to Captain Yee. Instead, Yee was charged with adultery and carrying “unauthorized papers.” And this is where the farce of Army regulations appears.
Yee contends that the papers he carried and voluntarily showed to Army personnel when he re-entered the United States, were papers having to do with his work. Curiously, it is my belief that the papers were in English, not in Arabic, so there was no mystery about them. But the papers had never been classified by the Army. This threw a major monkey wrench into Captain Yee’s trial. It must be a military rule now that every document be classified. So the trial was halted while Yee’s work papers were submitted to the Army classification system. Until the papers are classified, the defense team, the prosecution and the judge are forbidden to look at these work documents. The best guess by military authorities is that it will take the classification board between three to six months to produce a classification.
Before the flap about the classification of Yee’s papers arose, the Army produced a young Navy officer who admitted an adulterous relationship with the Muslim Chaplain. Yee has had no chance to admit or to deny that relationship because his turn to testify has not occurred.
This much is clear, however. The young female Navy officer who admitted to an alleged adulterous relationship, has signed her death warrant as far as her military career is concerned. And Captain Yee, once the classification flap is settled, may as well seek other employment outside the military services. It may be suspected that this testimony about an adulterous relationship, whether true or not, is not conducive to his future with his wife or in the Muslim clergy or in the United States Army.
In the meantime, while the Army is pursuing the classification fiasco, Captain Yee is home with his family. A few months ago, the Army was thinking about the death penalty. Now this great danger to the American system, is home with no duties. Perhaps, he can consider himself furloughed.
So two lives are besmirched because the Army had to charge Yee with something after the Army had concluded that there were no grounds at all to punish Yee for treason. No difference whatsoever that adultery is punished so infrequently that few people can remember such a court-martial charge ever being sought. The writer of this essay never heard of such a case in his years of service with the Army.
But in the end, my friends, it is simply too much to expect that the American military justice system will ever say that charges against a PERCEIVED perpetrator will ever be dropped – or that a “not guilty” outcome will satisfy the system. It has been clear to the writer of this essay since service during World War II, that once a military person is charged with an offense, it MUST RESULT IN A CONVICTION OR SOME PENALTY. Even if the charge is reduced from treason to adultery, there must be a conviction of some sort.
Two thoughts occur here. Captain Yee is a West Point graduate. My service never took me any where near West Point. Secondly, the writer of this essay is not connected in any way with the Muslim faith.
And so this old soldier asks where is the justice in Colonel Sassaman’s thought about helping the Iraqi people? And where is there justice of any kind in denying court ordered payment to the fliers downed in combat and tortured? And what about the treatment of Captain McAlpin? And finally, it is doubted that Captain Yee or the young female Navy officer will ever turn to the military system for justice or understanding.
An old Army maxim holds that there is no justice in military justice, just as there is no music in military music. It is a cruel turn of events that makes military people realize how true this old observation about a general truth might be.
E. E. CARR
December 25, 2003
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I’ve always wondered about the court-marshaling system. Reading this essay, it reminds me of what happens when a university decides to handle something like a rape case on its own, without involving real police. Basically that it seems extremely whimsical, and ultimately only ends up serving the benefit of the institution holding court. Why not try troops in real courts, and just have special laws on the books that only apply to soldiers? Why is adultery even an illegal offence in the army?