I wonder how many young innocent american soldiers straight out of highschool are going to die terrible deaths by ignorant iraqis because of what Greene did. Rape in foreign lands is one of the most dangerous things that can happen, and the military has to prevent it at any cost.

I thought you might like to bring this mystery to TMV for the moderate opinion.

http://althouse.blogspot.com/2009/05/air-force-…

Secondly, Should Green's life be spared when he took four others? I don't have it in my heart to play God with this one.

But I do know that Green was unfit to wear an Army uniform, but he not only was fast-tracked through basic training and sent off to Iraq, his readily obvious homicidal tendencies were merely acknowledged and dealt with by medication, “Atta boys” and pats on the back as he was repeatedly sent back into the hell hole that was the region where Abeer lived.

It wasn’t likely that Green would trigger something awful while he was in Iraq, it was inevitable, and the war was a perfect crucible: Not enough troops, vague and changing rules of engagement, negligible efforts to win over an occupied people, and an Army mental-health system that betrays its own soldiers just as their president betrayed his country.

If you have examples of people who accept the use of the death penalty but don't think it should be applied in this case, then I could understand your use of the term 'excusing', but if the opponents of administering the death penalty to this guy are making the case against the death penalty because they oppose capital punishment in general, then they're not excusing him, right?

I'm confounded by your confoundedness.

Now I’m really confused.

It seems that you’re inferring there are some conservative sites that have tried to make excuses for this atrocity. If there are, I’ve not seen them and would roundly condemn anyone trying to minimize crimes against civilians.

Please supply any links of offending sites so that I can voice my opposition directly.

If some people were arguing that this man should be raped and tortured for his act, while other people argued against that, would the opponents of that type of punishment be 'excusing' his crime?

I don't intend to go through everything ever written by specific authors to discover whether they've been 100% consistent across the board on their position on the death penalty.

I'm arguing strongly for the verdict that I want to see come out of the jury in Kentucky. I want them, specifically, to reject the contextualizing and excusing that they'll be hearing.

The argument has been going on for years. Here's a piece from 2007, for instance. (link.)

You’re complaining that his defense attorney is arguing against the death penalty?

I would have thought you would be upset if his lawyer didn’t try to defend him any way possible.

As far as certain website that are against the death penalty, these liberal groups have been active for decades and will never change, no matter how heinous the crime. Just ask Michael Dukakis.

One of Green’s defense attorneys, Darren Wolff, said the strategy all along was to focus on the penalty phase and avoid a death sentence.

And there are bloggers as well who are arguing against the death penalty on this. That can't be a surprise to you.

What????

“Is someone trying to excuse his actions?”

Have you ever listened to Michael Savage?

Is someone trying to excuse his actions?