[turtle]

Originally Posted by alcimedes Isn't it the same thing as with foreign diplomats? The entire reason this is the case is so that you can't trump up false charges to lock up your enemy. Unfortunately it means that assholes like this don't get the full punishment they deserve. Price of the world we live in.

When they are under military orders they are considered diplomats and fall under the same kind of rule and protection. There are some cases where the military can't help them though. While in a port visit to Turkey our ship had to provide a liaison to help return some shipmates to their ship. Seems the got drunk in town and caused a whole bunch of crap. They got arrested and the Turkish government wasn't planning to let them go until they had been tried. They were never released while we were in port and I have no idea what happened to them. I do know that the local authorities had no plans of giving them up because of what they did in their drunken state of mind. That's one case where sometimes we just can't do anything about it. I'm sure something happened to prevent it from becoming an "international incident" though.

This said, I wouldn't be upset if this group was sent to Iraq for trial. They really should have to pay for their actions.