The military plea bargains work is that you agree to the punishment when you agree to plead guilty. The judge can go under it but not over. Slight difference from civilian trials in the US- where you plead to the charge and the judge can go up to the max on that charge.
WTF!? Someone screwed up the rules here for that.
My he looks pretty happy at that result.
Why wouldn't he be? This is nothing more than a slap on the wrist.
Disgusting result, the theory is that the prosecution fucked up.
I don't get how you can justify shooting blindly into several houses when none of your squad was even shot at. The only casualties were from the IED. Everybody they actually shot at was innocent.
To play Devil's Advocate: When that bomb went off, they were in a "combat situation," and didn't know
if they were going to be fired upon. Generally, you check you'd check your target(s) to make sure they were enemy combatants, but I think in the rush/confusion of the IED going off they just went into "shoot first, ask questions later" mode.
Unfortunate, but I can understand the defense's reasoning behind it. I don't think you'd simply go "oh, a bomb went off and killed a squad-mate. Maybe we should see if anyone in these houses is a friendly..." first in that situation. And you going "oh, I totally would!" is a hind-sight-20/20 thing.