As a Green, I have no respect for the Federal government, it's bloated, out of touch, out of ideas, and the tool of multinational corporations. The Bush Administration's war on Iraq is lunacy masquerading as foreign policy, and the people of the United States are complicit in the madness. Why the people of California allow it to continue is beyond me.

Last week Marine PFC John Jodka III was sentenced to 18 months in the brig, and discharged from the service for his role in the killing of a Iraqi civilian mistaken as an Iraqi insurgent April 26, 2006, in Hamdania Iraq. Jodka, an Encinitas resident, and 2004 graduate of San Diego Academy pleaded guilty to aggravated assault and conspiracy to obstruct justice.

What message does the United States send to its Marines and soldiers, possible recruits, and the world, when it trains and equips members of the US military forces to fight wars, and kill others, then prosecute them when they do just that. Like Lindy Englund, the poster girl for the torture trade at Abu Ghraib, the Hamdania 8 are federal scapegoats for government policy based on lies, spin, and corporate avarice.

Weapons of mass destruction? Who is kidding who? No Iraqis were involved in the destruction of the World Trade Center, yet here we are discussing the killing innocent Iraqis in defense of American dependence on foreign oil resources? The Bush Administration should be tried for aggravated assault against the Iraqi people.

When the USA invaded Iraq, they dropped bombs indiscriminately on Iraqi cities, Baghdad in particular. Weapons and ordinances used contained depleted uranium, insuring the country would be dusted with radioactive particulate matter. As of this writing, an estimated 655,000 Iraqi men, women and children, have died as a result of George W. Bush's Neoconservative war of terror. Yet somehow prosecuting 8 enlisted men for the death of one of those 655,000 is deemed justice.

The seven Marines and one Navy corpsman that pulled the 52-year-old from his home, bound his hands and feet, and shot him on the spot, mistook him for an insurgent. That could be forgiven The attempted cover-up of Hashim Ibrahim Awad's killing is no different than those of the Bush Administration in their attempt to bury the evidence of imperial recklessness, and crimes against humanity.

Marine PFC John Jodka III is not responsible for the death Hashim Ibrahim Awad, Donald Rumsfeld's ignorance and arrogance killed Hashim Ibrahim Awad. The compliance of the military and the media killed Hashim Ibrahim Awad. Every person in congress who voted in support of the Bush Administration's Iraqi policy killed Hashim Ibrahim Awad. Petroleum interests, from oil conglomerates to American motorists, killed Hashim Ibrahim Awad.

To denounce the prosecution of Hamdania 8 is not to say what they did, or how the handled the responsibility of their actions afterwards, was right, or even defensible. It does however acknowledge the reality of where they are, and how they got there, and the crimes committed against Hasim Ibrahim Awad.

On the list of crimes perpetrated against the Iraqi people under the cover of freedom, and free market nation building, it's clear to this journalist, Marine PFC John Jodka III is just another victim of the Bush Doctrine.

Free the Hamdania 8!