Give him back to the Army

A soldier, absent without leave from his unit at Fort Campbell, has been arrested in Texas for possession of a destructive device.  He has made statements that he planned to make two bombs and detonate them in restaurants in Killeen that are frequented by soldiers from Fort Hood.  During a hearing, he is reported to have shouted out the name of the Army major who is being tried for a mass shooting of soldiers at Fort Hood last year.  The most recent bozo is being held without bond in a civilian jail.

Personally, I say that the civilian justice system is not the appropriate place for this miscreant.  He joined the Army, but later decided that as a Muslim he could not serve in combat.*  After being granted conscientious objector status and beginning the process of release from the military, he was caught with child pornography, and then went AWOL, allegedly to cause mass casualties among his fellow soldiers. I would rather that this wayward soldier be handed over to military law enforcement, be read his rights, introduced to his lawyer, and courtmartialed.  The military justice system, while still fair to the accused, has few of the bells and whistles that have been grafted onto the civilian system in the past few decades.  The accused gets a fair investigation, a fair and speedy trial, and punishment is still commensurate with the crime.

If this guy did indeed possess child pornography, go AWOL, and conspire to murder other soldiers, the place for him is Leavenworth for the rest of his natural life, not a civilian prison, no matter how harsh it may be.  I hold military personnel to a higher standard of conduct than I do the general public, and I fully support harsh treatment for soldiers who break the law.  The military needs to take care of its own, even if they are criminals in need of the boom being dropped upon them.  The civilian world needs to know that if soldiers break the law, the military will investigate, try, and punish them swiftly and severely, not leave it to civilian judges to clean up after a soldier.

*By the way, I call B.S. on this one.  Muslims have been fighting other Muslims for centuries, and I served with several practicing Muslim soldiers in various places without them acting as if their beliefs would interfere with them serving in the Mid-East, even if it meant fighting against other Muslims.  My gut tells me this twit didn't want to deploy with his unit and used his faith as an excuse to get out of it.