Get a rope
Posted By Russ Emerson on September 20, 2003 at 2:13 pm
From LGF, via Donald Sensing, and as commented on by the Emperor Misha,
Islamic chaplain is charged as spy
By Rowan Scarborough
THE WASHINGTON TIMES
An Army Islamic chaplain, who counseled al Qaeda prisoners at the Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, naval base, has been charged with espionage, aiding the enemy and spying, The Washington Times has learned.
The article further goes on to state:
The Army has charged Capt. Yee with five offenses: sedition, aiding the enemy, spying, espionage and failure to obey a general order. The Army may also charge him later with the more serious charge of treason, which under the Uniform Code of Military Justice could be punished by a maximum sentence of life.
(Emphasis mine.)
“More serious charge of treason”? Well, yes, systematically betraying one’s country is perhaps more treated more seriously than a single act of espionage… though I don’t really see the difference. I’m no legal theorist. But I think “treason” is a civil crime, whereas the rest, that Lee has already been charged with, are military crimes.
But the Times reporter fails to note that under Article 106 of the Uniform Code of Military Justice,
Any person who in time of war is found lurking as a spy or acting as a spy … shall be tried by a general court-martial or by a military commission and on conviction shall be punished by death.
I don’t see anything there about “or such other punishment as a court-martial may direct” like is seen in other Articles of the UCMJ.
Good. Hang him.
I am put in mind of the treason scene in Henry V:
Hear your sentence.
You have conspir’d against our royal person,
Join’d with an enemy proclaim’d, and from his coffers
Receiv’d the golden earnest of our death;
Wherein you would have sold your king to slaughter,
His princes and his peers to servitude,
His subjects to oppression and contempt,
And his whole kingdom into desolation.
Touching our person seek we no revenge;
But we our kingdom’s safety must so tender,
Whose ruin you have sought, that to her laws
We do deliver you. Get you therefore hence,
Poor miserable wretches, to your death;
The taste whereof God of his mercy give
You patience to endure, and true repentance
Of all your dear offences.
For a 16th Century guy, Shakespeare was rather clueful.
(Update: edited slightly for clarity.)
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