LCpl. Boudreaux Non-Update

No news in the case of the Marine who allegedly humiliated some Iraqi kids, but the following story is part of why I'm already tired of the former.

Marines get suspended sentences for assault Two Marines stationed at Iwakuni Marine Corps Air Station received suspended prison sentences Friday after pleading guilty to assaulting two Japanese women. Cpl. Joseph P. Benoit received a 14-month prison term suspended for three years, and Lance Cpl. Nathan J. Schuermann’s sentence of one year in prison was suspended for three years, according to a Yamaguchi District Court official. Benoit and Schuermann, of Marine Wing Support Squadron 171, pleaded guilty Feb. 6 to bodily assault for attacking two 22-year-old Hiroshima women visiting in Iwakuni city on April 12, 2003. According to the prosecutor’s indictment, Benoit, 22, punched one of the women in the head, knocking her to the ground; he then climbed on top of her and grabbed her neck. Schuermann, 22, knocked the other woman to the ground, grabbed her hair and twice smashed her head into the ground. Decisions about their future as U.S. Marines have yet to be made, Capt. Stewart Upton, a base spokesman, said late Friday afternoon.

Well, don't keep the poor things waiting! My initial interest in the Boudreaux case had less to do with his alleged "crime"--I'm a free-speech extremist, so it's not a crime in my book--than with the knee-jerk jingoism of the blogosphere. [i]How dare they say that about our boys! It must be a frame-up![/i] And it may be a fake, although if it is, I suspect one of Boudreaux's buddies is responsible. (Who else had access to the photo?) But the head-in-sand treatment from the warbloggers astounds me. In addition to all the routine death and destruction U.S. forces have been raining down on civilians, the warbloggers all know of Zeyad's charges that U.S. soldiers murdered his cousin for no reason at all. Stories of American depredations in Vietnam are commonplace. Rapes and assaults on Okinawa are nothing new. So why all the phony shock about a guy allegedly posing for a tasteless picture?