innocentmarine.com

jdhdiggs

Got this from a co-worker today and the following are his words, unedited, and not mine. Take it as you will:

Many of you may have heard in the news earlier today that seven Marines and one Navy Corpsman were changed with murder in the death of an Iraqi civilian. One of the seven, Private First Class John Jodka, is the son of a friend of mine. John Jodka Sr. is a Purchasing Manager at the NASSCO shipyard in San Diego. Since PFC Jodka's was first held in the incident John Sr. has been absolutely relentless in the defense of his son, appearing on every major media outlet that will provide him time. You may have seen John last night on CNN, MSNBC and the CBS Evening News. While I have never met PFC Jodka and certainly can not speak to the specifics of the case against him I know his father to be an outstanding man. John has hired civilian lawyers to help in the defense of his son and obviously the costs involved in that are huge. The Jodka family is asking for help. I invite you to take a look the website John has set up for his son www.innocentmarine.com and please contribute what you can to PFC Jodka's defense fund.

No matter how you may feel about the war in Iraq, I think we all can agree that our country asks much of our young men and women in uniform, puts them in sometimes impossible situations and that they, as all Americans, deserve the presumption of innocence and the best defense possible.

F1nut

Thanks for posting that, James. I wish the best for those 8 soldiers and feel it's BS what is happening to them.

Strong Bad

Total BS also! I feel like we're saying..."Let's sacrifice these 8 so we stay in good graces with the rest of the world, even if they are not guilty."

brettw22

If what happened happened, do y'all not think there should be consequences?

F1nut

It's war, it's ugly, stuff happens and there's nothing PC about it. We're not fighting an army and they don't wear uniforms. Christ, they've got women and children blowing themselves up just to kill us. They were looking for somebody, maybe they got the wrong guy, but hey that's one of the causalities of war. Move on.

aaharvel

i'll do my part. Everyone deserves a fair trial.

Sami

F1nut wrote:

It's war, it's ugly, stuff happens and there's nothing PC about it. We're not fighting an army and they don't wear uniforms. Christ, they've got women and children blowing themselves up just to kill us. They were looking for somebody, maybe they got the wrong guy, but hey that's one of the causalities of war. Move on.

You can't put everything under casulties of war. I just rewatched "Patriot" in HD a few days ago. I know it is fiction but as an example, were the burned civilians in the church casulties of war? I am sure they were for the person who did it but most people would think it was wrong and evil. This trial will determine what's the case with these soldiers. It's too early to say if they are guilty but it is also too early to say if this whole thing is "BS" as some of you put it.

Skynut

I think they are trying to make an example of these fine young men.
War sucks and it will be even harder to fight if the troops are afraid to act for fear of being made an example of.

Maybe they made a mistake and maybe they were set up to look bad. We may never know with the media only interested in the big buzz stories.

Sami

Skynut wrote:

I think they are trying to make an example of these fine young men.

You could be wrong on both counts, or you could be right. We can only speculate and there's no point to that. We'll just have to wait for details from the trial.

Skynut

Sami wrote:

You could be wrong on both counts.

I hope I am not.

jdhdiggs

You're missing the point: whether or not these guys are guilty isn't the issue. They deserve to have fair representation, especially after already being convicted in the media and public's mind. That is all...

brettw22

I understand we're at war, but I also have to take a bit of an issue with someone that would use war to justify the types of killings that these seem (at this point) to be.

I hope trial proves otherwise, but I don't think they're automatically worthy of praise when they're making kills that would put any one of us in jail if it happened here. "Fine young men" don't play games with innocent people's lives and kill at will because of the environment they're in.

Sami

Skynut wrote:

I hope I am not.

Lets just hope you are wrong on the first case (setting an example) and right on the second (that these marines actually are fine men). That way we all can be happy as they will find them not guilty.

Skynut

Sami wrote:

Lets just hope you are wrong on the first case (setting an example) and right on the second (that these marines actually are fine men). That way we all can be happy as they will find them not guilty.

That is what I meant. thanks

Demiurge

They're innocent until proven guilty.

Skynut

Demiurge wrote:

They're innocent until proven guilty.

I wish everyone would remember this.

brettw22

I've not said they were guilty.........but if they're not, then they deserve what they get.

F1nut

You can't put everything under casulties of war.

Again, we are not fighting an conventional type of war with clear enemies. Who's to say that the guy they killed was or wasn't involved in the war. And what rules are there really in war? It's kill or be killed, nothing else matters! Does anybody really think that the bad guys give a rat's **** who they kill?

War means winning at all costs, which is something that we forgot in Vietnam and we're following the same damn road here.

Wake up people, there is NOTHING PC about war!

brettw22

I dont' think there's a big cry for everyone to be PC about war.........but to at least differentiate ourselves by not adopting the barbaric mindset and actions of those we're fighting. By all means, go in there and kick their asses, but I don't think war means become the same piece of **** human that those people are.

Sami

F1nut wrote:

War means winning at all costs

So you see no wrong in Hitler's and Stalin's actions?

F1nut

That's the same mind set that cost us 56,000 lives in Vietnam. The only way to win a war is to be more barbaric than your enemy. Everybody knows you don't show up for a gun fight with a knife, you bring a bigger gun. In this case we should be setting them on fire, dragging their sorry asses through the streets, spraying pigs blood on them and cutting off their heads. That's **** they can understand.

F1nut

So you see no wrong in Hitler's and Stalin's actions?

They did what they thought they had to do. Hell, the Roman's enslaved most of Europe and killed countless people, but who's bitching about them?

Polkersince85

Anybody remember the Vietnam trials, Lt. Cali and those guys. Hung out to dry for doing what any of the chopper pilots would tell you happened every day of the week. If it moved, it was enemy, men, women, children, cats, dogs or chickens. It got smoked if it moved. War is hell.

Skynut

Lets not forget these people lie all the time.
They lie when we hit an ammo storage facility and they call it a school or hospital. Their word is useles to me, they will lie anytime it will make us look bad.

This could be one of those times and these men may be caught in the politics of the war.

Demiurge

Pretty interesting how the facts are starting to trickle out now, and it's looking more and more like this is all ****. Time Magazine has a huge problem on it's hands now, and it's unclear whether they completely fabricated this story (no doubt they altered facts about their source) or they were just lied too.

Yeah, the MSM doesn't have a bias about this war. :rolleyes: These people never actually do their jobs or look into anything except what isn't there or what they want to be true.