Georgetown law professor Jonathan Turley revisits the history of soldier mutinies in order to help us understand issues surrounding the 18 Army Reserve soldiers who refused to go on a mission in Iraq claiming the conditions were too dangerous.

After returning from a mission marred by inadequate or broken equipment, the soldiers were ordered to take a shipment of jet fuel to Taji, a perilous route even for armored and functioning equipment. According to family members and media accounts, many soldiers objected that their trucks lacked essential armor, vehicles were broken down, there was no plan for adequate combat support and, finally, the fuel shipment was contaminated (and thus unusable). They reportedly raised these concerns with their command but were ordered to carry out the mission anyway. It was then that the 18 soldiers refused to go on the convoy.

Turley says mutinies more reflect problems with commanders than with individual soldiers. He reminds us of how Roman commanders dealt with mutinous soldiers:

In Roman times, reluctant or mutinous soldiers were punished through "decimation," a word often used incorrectly to refer to total destruction. Generals would "decimate" units by executing every 10th soldier as collective punishment.

Even now, mutineering soldiers are judged harshly. Is it time to revisit the policy?