Target Centermass

And the hits just keep on coming for the California National Guard.

Six members of a California Army National Guard unit will face courts-martial for allegedly mistreating detainees in Iraq, military officials said Tuesday.

The trials were ordered after investigators reviewed allegations of prisoner abuse by 12 soldiers with the 1st Battalion of the 184th Infantry Regiment.

Two cases involve a so-called general court-martial, reserved for the most serious infractions, while four involve a midlevel court called a special court-martial, according to Lt. Col. Robert Whetstone, a Task Force Baghdad spokesman.

Two additional cases have been completed in what is known as a summary court-martial, which hears lesser offenses, but the outcomes were not immediately available, Whetstone said. Four remaining cases were still under investigation, he said.

The soldiers, who were not identified, belong to the battalion’s Fullerton-based Alpha Company. Some face charges of mistreatment of a person under their control, assault and making a false statement, while one soldier was charged with obstruction of justice, military officials have said.

“We are confident that the military justice system will address these charges fairly and appropriately, and that a just outcome will be reached,” the guard said in a statement.

The announcement of these prosecutions comes just on the heels of a brief moment of good news for the Cali Guardsmen.

I first mentioned this alleged abuse story in this post and its effect on MilBlogger Major K., who rightly pointed out the problem of a few bad apples, in this follow-on post.

May justice be met, and I have confidence that it will be.

Well, this sucks.

Major League Lacrosse, the premier professional outdoor lacrosse league, has secured its three remaining expansion cities to join Los Angeles for the start of the 2006 season, according to MLL Founder Jake Steinfeld. Major League Lacrosse will expand to include teams in Chicago, Denver and San Francisco in addition to Los Angeles, which joined the league on March 9, 2005.

L.A., Chicago, Denver and San Fran are the picks to bring the five-year-old MLL westward and grow from six teams to ten. The scuttlebutt was that Dallas was a leading contender. It certainly would have made sense, as the sport is booming in the area and across the state. Plus, the new stadium built in suburban Frisco for Major League Soccer’s FC Dallas seemed a perfect facility for the sport.

The league plans to add two more western teams for the 2008 season, and the leading cities are Dallas and San Diego. Or so the obviously unreliable rumor mill says. Should the professional level of the sport finally arrive in the Lone Star state, count me in on season tickets. ‘Til then, I’ll just spend the next two seasons stewing bitterly.