what next?

[Hawk]

:ek:
found at http://www.socialistworker.org/2003-...perTrial.shtml


What you won't hear in the...
Media circus for sniper trial

By Mike Stark | October 24, 2003 | Page 2

AFTER MONTHS of press conferences, book deals, talk show tours, and shameless maneuvering by prosecutors and police, the trial of sniper suspect John Allen Muhammad has begun. But don't expect the truth about last year?s sniper killings in the Washington, D.C., area to come out.
From the moment of the initial arrest of Muhammad and juvenile suspect Lee Malvo, this case has been about nothing but politics and scapegoating. From the start, Attorney General John Ashcroft was used the case for his own agenda. He personally intervened to make sure that Muhammad and Malvo were removed from custody in Maryland and handed over to Virginia prosecutors--to make the death penalty more likely.
Virginia is second only to Texas in its number of executions--and it is one of 17 states in the nation that allows for the execution of 16-year-olds. Ashcroft can?t be disappointed. Muhammad?s prosecutor is Prince William County Commonwealth's Attorney Paul Ebert, who has put 12 men on death row, more than any other prosecutor in Virginia.
Malvo will be prosecuted by Fairfax County Commonwealth's Attorney Robert Horan Jr., who is best-known for getting a death sentence against a mentally ill man who was accused of killing two CIA employees outside the agency?s headquarters. In Muhammad's case, Ebert is trying out a new anti-terrorism law--in the hope of overcoming a "limitation" in Virginia's death penalty statute that requires a defendant to be the "triggerman" in order to be eligible for death.
The new law, passed soon after the September 11 attacks, allows the death penalty for those who murder in order to "intimidate the public." No eyewitnesses or confessions link Muhammad or Malvo to the shootings, and the evidence against them is circumstantial. Muhammad's backup lawyer, Peter Greenspun, said in court, "We don't know how they're going to prove [Muhammad's guilt], because there is no evidence."
What?s worse, prosecutors plan to say two contradictory things in the different trials of Muhammad and Malvo. To show that Muhammad was "the captain of the killing team," Paul Ebert will argue that he controlled all of Malvo's actions. But in Malvo?s case, Robert Horan will say that the teen acted of his own free will.
Since the shootings, prosecutors and police from Maryland and Virginia have been jumping in front of the cameras and writing "eyewitness" accounts. But nowhere is anyone asking why the shooting spree happened.
If he is guilty, Muhammad is part of a growing list of veterans of the 1991 Gulf War who have been accused of horrendous crimes. Experts believe that Muhammad?s alleged role in the sniper shootings would fit the pattern of a veteran suffering from Gulf War Syndrome. And in fact, Muhammad was a member of the U.S. Army?s 84th Engineer Company and helped to demolish an Iraqi ammunition dump containing rockets filled with the nerve agent sarin.
The Pentagon later admitted that the process of blowing up the rocketsmay have vaporized dangerous amounts of sarin. "When he got back," Muhammad?s ex-wife told the Washington Post, "he was a very angry man. I didn?t know this man. The one I knew stayed in Saudi."
Dr. William Baumzweiger, a Los Angeles neurologist and psychiatrist who specializes in treating those suffering from the mysterious collection of illnesses known as Gulf War Syndrome, recognizes this profile. "Once it came out that he had a military background, I said this must be a Gulf War veteran," he told MSNBC. "There is no doubt that a small but significant number of Gulf War veterans became homicidal because of Gulf War Syndrome."
These prosecutions--and the media hype surrounding Muhammad?s trial--make a mockery of justice.



why is it every time something negative happens its always because he was a vet. But you never hear any good publicity
when a Vet does something good?

[DMZ-LT]

Hawk. don't sweat the small stuff. These guys are dirt bags. You know what you did and who you served with. We VN vets have gone from baby killers to heros in 30 years. Don't mean nothing. Welcome Home

[tdeane]

A typical pattern of the press and "so-called" experts. Let's not actually look at how he screwed his own life up and how confused he really is...but, hey wait...he's a vet?/ Now we can blame the entire episode on that!!!

I remember in the 80's, DMZ, that everytime somebody flipped out at a post office or any other rampage they blamed it on his service during VN. Nobody really ever looked at the real circumstances around why the shooters wigged out.

In five to ten more years they'll start with the, "He was a vet of Iraqi Freedom".

my response to DMZ (in agreement)..."Not A Thing"...

[BLUEHAWK]

Hawk -
Very thought provoking thread...

Two ideas have been coming to mind along your lines:

> Why would it be necessary for the other sovereign states of this Union involved to insist upon their "right" to pursue capital cases against either of the accused, when a "successful" prosecution in the first trial would be more than sufficient to address society's demand for justice?

> Vietnam or no Vietnam... Iraq or now Iraq, veteran or no veteran... the fact is that when nations choose to or must devote so much energy, time and money to purposefully training young men to be ferocious killers for the sake of abstract and ever-changing political policy, shall it be any wonder that some find it impossible to distinguish between peace and war?

Timothy McVeigh, as an example, was held out, by some people, to be a rather outstanding warrior.

Calling back the dogs of war by voice command alone is not perfectly faultless.

[Hawk]

The question of if he is guilty or not will be decided in court, what disturbs me is the association with his veterans status. The fact the media almost never publishes anything veterans do that is positive, but always emphasizes the negatives, makes one question their (the media's) integrity.
Other than Internet forums and sometimes the local news sources where can one obtain an unbiased reporting of facts?
In answer to my question there is none.

> Why would it be necessary for the other sovereign states of this Union involved to insist upon their "right" to pursue capital cases against either of the accused, when a "successful" prosecution in the first trial would be more than sufficient to address society's demand for justice?

Possibly for those elected officials in the respective states to justify their jobs, and for the lawyers that will be involved to get their piece of the pie. It is all a waste of money if the first state convicts the accused, and hands down a life / or death sentence.
Why ship him from state to state and go through the sham of a trial, if not to support all those court related employees, and prision officials that will have to transport him. Job security, and more tax dollars wasted. (not to include the associated media circus) Once he is convicted once, and a death sentence is carried out does it really matter if he is sentenced to additional death sentences?
And what purpose does it serve to report on his veterans status?

[BLUEHAWK]

Yup,

No purpose at all... except maybe for "them" to have always found SOME kind of a way to keep having us do the "dirty work" and then bale when we do it, or bale when we KEEP doing it unaware that the battles are done, or they taking exception to a "sick" vet's definition of what is worthy of death when they themselves have not got a clue.

They believe it is their right to train us, equip us, and then merely to point us at the enemy du jour, expecting he will go down in defeat at any cost to us, and as merely a debit in their private budgetary accounts.

There is little "news" in the good because it is so commonplace. Titillations at the Coliseum are best appreciated by gentlemen in their starched attire and their ladies beneath sun umbrellas from afar... the stench, the dark liquids, the terrible noise of it all, the clean up.