Haditha--what is at stake

Mark Walker, NCT:

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At the heart is the prosecution's charge that Wuterich "willfully failed to ensure Marines under his charge obeyed the rules of engagement by ordering his Marines to shoot first and ask questions later."

Military law professors offer divergent views of how the jury, which will include enlisted men and officers, might see the case and what the Wuterich trial represents.

One is Gary Solis, a former Marine judge and attorney who has written extensively on the laws of armed conflict.

Solis said last week that he sees the incident at the heart of the trial as having changed from its original characterization as an alleged massacre by vengeful Marines to one that highlights the "fog of war" and the ambiguity troops confront on an urban battlefield.

"It's really more of a tragic event than a murderous rampage and that can only accrue to the benefit of the accused," Solis said during a telephone interview.

"The government is going to have to convince members of a military jury to convict a Marine noncommissioned officer of acts carried out in combat," Solis said, "and that just hasn't been done before."

Scott Silliman added: "The question is did Staff Sergeant Wuterich act on pure emotion or did he try and sort out the factual environment of what he was facing that day and follow the rules of engagement by trying to discriminate between lawful combatants and civilians?"

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There is much more and the comments are also pretty interesting. Silliman's comments suggest he has not been paying attention. The only "lawful combatants" in the Haditha battle space that day were the Marines. The enemy forces were clearly not only unlawful combatants, they were war criminals who had violated at least two of the Geneva Conventions. They were not wearing identifying uniforms as required and they used human shields who wound up getting killed as the Marines tried to find the enemy.

The evidence will show that Haditha was an active battle space on the day in question and the acts of these Marines were just one part of events that took place.