quote:The US government has promised to make public all the details of inquiries into the alleged massacre of Iraqi civilians by US marines last November.
Washington made the pledge following claims that the killings of 24 people in the town of Haditha were covered up.
Posted by Launchywiggin (Member # 9116) on :
Even if it's not true, the media's gonna blow this up. This is big.
Posted by Nell Gwyn (Member # 8291) on :
Yikes. I hope it's not true, but I think Lyrhawn's right. The first thing I thought of when I read the article was My Lai. Posted by Noemon (Member # 1115) on :
Me too Nell.
Posted by Bob_Scopatz (Member # 1227) on :
The parallels are fairly obvious. If this group of marines acted as accused, the only obvious difference is that they killed 1/10 as many people.
Posted by Bob_Scopatz (Member # 1227) on :
quote:WASHINGTON, May 30 — A military investigator uncovered evidence in February and March that contradicted repeated claims by marines that Iraqi civilians killed in Haditha last November were victims of a roadside bomb, according to a senior military official in Iraq.
Among the pieces of evidence that conflicted with the marines' story were death certificates that showed all the Iraqi victims had gunshot wounds, mostly to the head and chest, the official said.
Posted by Kasie H (Member # 2120) on :
quote:Even if it's not true, the media's gonna blow this up.
I'll have you know that this story was first reported by the AP back in the middle of April after TIME magazine wrote something about it at about that same time.
The media, in my opinion, has taken a very measured approach to this story, not actually publishing too much until Rep. Murtha said the Marines killed "in cold blood." That's when it got picked up.
Folks, please -- did you *watch* TV during Memorial Day? I have never seen coverage so complimentary of our armed forces. And those of you who know me know that I'm not one to be bashing the military. I think we've handled this well.
I also think the Marines have handled it well. Gen. Hagee, the Commandant of the Marine Corps (highest ranking officer in the Corps) traveled to Iraq last week to speak with troops in that area and remind them that combat can change them and that they are to act honorably and to take responsibility for those actions.
It's a very, very sad story. But it's not about the media or the military or the ever-present clash between them. It's about the fact that it is really, really hard to watch a good friend die a violent death, and it can prompt people to do other horrible things. Those horrible things, of course, need to be accounted for.
Posted by KarlEd (Member # 571) on :
Well said, Kasie.
Posted by Scott R (Member # 567) on :
^ ^
What Kasie said. Which speaks to the need to cycle the troops better. Which speaks to the need to recruit and train better.
Posted by Noemon (Member # 1115) on :
Yeah Bob, I didn't think that making the connection was any particular stroke of genius.
I'll join the chorus of people agreeing with Kasie about this, and will second what Scott just said as well. Ever since I heard this story on NPR yesterday I've been mulling over the dangers of leaving people in the field too long, the caustic effect that that has to have on a person's pysche, the value of citizen soldiers over mercenary forces (not that this touches directly on that--these guys were definitely citizen soldiers. It just got me thinking), and other related stuff.
Posted by pooka (Member # 5003) on :
Everyone wants fresher troops but no one wants to enlist. Well, except my little brother and my nephew. Posted by Jim-Me (Member # 6426) on :
quote:Originally posted by Scott R: What Kasie said. Which speaks to the need to cycle the troops better. Which speaks to the need to recruit and train better.
which is why media and political figures need to be measured and deliberate in their criticism of things and it *is*, in fact, important to not run around running down the efforts of good men by overblowing the bad apples...
Please note, I am not criticizing the media reporting of this event... this appears to have been a real atrocity and is the kind of thing we do need to call attention to.
Posted by sndrake (Member # 4941) on :
If this really is true (and it really looks like this is the real thing), let's hope we handle it a lot better than we handled the aftermath of My Lai. I remember the time well and believe me, we don't have much to be proud of in how we handled it.
Reports of the massacre were ignored repeatedly and at all levels of government. One of the participants in the whitewash of the episode was an army major named Colin Powell. The massacre finally became public due to the investigative reporting of Seymour Hersh.
The brunt of all blame fell on one officer - Lt. William Calley. He ended up doing a short stint in prison. Made a nice living doing talks for pro-war groups for awhile and then settled down to manage a jewelry shop.
Some real heroes - 3 men on a helicopter crew - risked their lives to save some of the My Lai villagers (they threatened to fire on the troops going berserk). These heroes were branded as "traitors."
Let's hope this really *isn't* another My Lai.
BTW, a good place for links and info on My Lai is wikipedia:
The BBC link was the first I'd heard about this, but I have to admit that I haven't been paying as much attention to the news as I should be.
I wasn't thinking that the media would necessarily latch onto the story in an anti-military way the way it did (didn't it?) with My Lai, just that if it's true, it would end up as big a story as My Lai and Abu Grahib. One for the history books, as it were. And I agree, what Kasie and Scott said makes total sense.
Noemon, can you elaborate a bit on the citizen vs. mercenary forces? I agree that citizen forces are probably better, but I didn't think mercenaries were still used today, except for perhaps the Swiss guard at the Vatican - or were you thinking more historically?
Posted by Bob_Scopatz (Member # 1227) on :
I think events like this also offer us a good time to check our motives and our purposes. I agree that this is not the time to run down the troops. Good soldiers are already going to be dismayed enough by this type of conduct (and that of the Abu Ghraib prison guards, and other such events). We don't need to go around painting them all as monsters because of the actions of a few bad ones.
But we need to examine a few things too. What is it about the situation, training, leadership, and yes, our personnel, that together made this event happen? The military is very big on "lessons learned." Fact is, we've been there before, and had this kind of lesson in the past. Many people have told me that one of the big reasons for having an all-volunteer armed forces is that we would be far less likely to have people in there who can't stand it and start going a little (or a lot) squirrely. If I have the argument correctly, we should be seeing the benefits of this policy both in terms of better discipline in the ranks during war-time, and fewer problems (especially mental health problems) for returning soldiers.
Logically, it makes sense.
However, I have been saying for a long long time that it is the nature of armed conflict that events and experiences will serve as sufficient stimulus to uncontrolled violent behavior.
Teaching people to kill others, indeed requiring it of them, and then placing them in situations where "us" and "them" are not just concepts, but deadly realities is a not so easy a thing to control or stopper up once things are settled.
A British officer (I think he was an officer) was given an honorable discharge recently after he refused to fight alongside our troops. His statement was along the lines of "the Americans treat the Iraqis like sub-humans." And he didn't want to be part of the looming disaster.
Critics around the globe are looking at the attitudinal problems that seem to permeate OUR US armed forces and giving us very low marks as a fighting force. They apparently don't like to do it that way.
Or they're just carping from the sidelines, of course.
But I read this kind of thing and have to fight very hard not to just be cynical about it. The cynical side of me says that the willing entry into armed conflict and ANY military training are practically guaranteed to miss a few people who shouldn't be allowed to hold weapons under any circumstances. And, sadly, they are also like to create or unleash a few problem personalities where there was only a latent possibility before the fact.
It's one of the reasons I have said so many times that war is bad for us as a people and a nation.
It's one of the reasons why I get so upset when war is NOT treated as the last resort but is seemingly entered into with a gung-ho attitude of eagerness and visions of glory.
Vietnam was going on a lot longer time before My Lai. What worries me most is that it has occurred so soon and with troops who are among the elite, and were volunteers.
All the things that people have been telling me are the things that make our current armed services so much different from that which we had in the Vietnam era.
I know that many will consider these all to be vague concerns, and even think me hostile to our troops because I dare broach the subject of mental health issues and/or pervasive problems rather than viewing this as an isolated incident.
But I happen to know that within the military there are those who thought the lessons learned from Vietnam meant that exactly the kind of forces we are fielding today would mean that we wouldn't have these problems, or if we did, that they'd be rare, and that coverups of the type that happened post-My Lai would be much less likely.
I personally feel like we have a further lesson or two to learn.
Would we like to say that we're on the right track because 30 people were killed instead of 347 at My Lai? Or that the situation wasn't covered up for as long?
I think that'd be a rather complacent attitude and convenient only in the sense that it would allow us to go on conducting wars in the same ways without changing much, if anything.
I submit that a better stance would be to do a top-down review of how we attitudinally adjust our soldiers to the acts that will be required of them in war, and how we instruct them as to the limits of their freedom of action. Also, we probably need to take a good hard look at our leadership training.
There's probably some poor Junior Lieutenant tasked with that as I write this. I guess I'm more concerned with what the top leadership takes away from this situation than I am whether the military examines it. I'm convinced they will, but what eventually happens as a result is something I'm keenly interested in.
When this kind of stuff happens in Police Departments, they usually end up with civilian review boards.
I'm not sure what the military does to get a fresh/outside perspective. Hiring consultants is probably the typical answer, and probably not the right one, if they just go to the usual inside-the-beltway firms.
Posted by Jim-Me (Member # 6426) on :
I'd just like to say a little more clearly something I hinted at in my first post. Mentioning these allegations or the actions at My Lai (pronounced "me lie", in case you young-uns were wondering) in the same sense as Abu Ghraib is kind of upsetting.
While I don't condone what happened at Abu Ghraib, it's a whole different order of abuse on several levels. Roughly the difference between illegal fraternity hazing and mass murder (in terms of civilian crime).
Posted by Nell Gwyn (Member # 8291) on :
Sorry, Jim-Me; I agree that there is a very big difference.
I wasn't really intending to compare the actions themselves. Just the likely magnitude of media coverage and public awareness of them - almost everyone knows what the words "My Lai" and "Abu Grhaib" refer to, beyond mere location names. "Haditha" is likely to become another name like that. That's all I meant.
Posted by Jim-Me (Member # 6426) on :
Bob,
to address your concerns, I had to study My Lai as a cadet. It was required military education for everyone. It's not like officers are ignorant of the issues here, while maybe something more needs to be done at the enlisted level. I don't know enough about this case to know what, if any, officer involvement there was at which levels... but any officer involved had a clear idea of the ethics of the situation or he didn't deserve his comission because he slept therough some very important classes.
So, I guess two things in "rebuttal" to your post, if you wish to call it that:
1) At some point, the establishment has done all it can and individuals need to be held accountable (I do not, BTW, agree that Calley was solely responsible for My Lai-- though he had a responsibility to not carry out an unlawful order, his commander had a responsibility not to give one).
2) 347 down to 30 and years to months *are* huge improvements and indicate that tolerance of this type of thing is greatly diminished. It's obviously a horrible thing that these marines stand accused of, don't mistake me here.
But I don't think your concerns are vague at all. They are very valid. I just don't think a wholesale evaluation of our military training methods is really called for, here, even assuming the worst. You try to weed out spies and people who frag their own troops as well, but somehow they get through.
As for who reviews things, one of the important things about a professional organization is that it is self-regulating. Your call for an independant review makes it sound like you are saying this type of thing is a natural result of the military culture and society... and I think that is not only an unwarranted assumption, but incorrect as well.
Posted by Kasie H (Member # 2120) on :
(WARNING: Some profanity below.)
quote:But we need to examine a few things too. What is it about the situation, training, leadership, and yes, our personnel, that together made this event happen? ... Many people have told me that one of the big reasons for having an all-volunteer armed forces is that we would be far less likely to have people in there who can't stand it and start going a little (or a lot) squirrely. If I have the argument correctly, we should be seeing the benefits of this policy both in terms of better discipline in the ranks during war-time, and fewer problems (especially mental health problems) for returning soldiers.
Bob, I actually don't think your criticisms are unfair. These are the things the military and the rest of us have to start taking a look at. I think we've made good strides since My Lai, but that doesn't mean everything's all better.
I think part of the problem in this case is two- or three-fold:
1) The enemy here is hidden. It's not that a concept of 'us' and 'them' exists, it's that it doesn't exist. When it's us and them, at least you can take out your revenge on someone in a uniform; when you can't find 'them' because 'they' are hidden in with the civilians, then you have real problems.
2) Many of these guys -- many of them kids -- were on their second or third tour of duty in Iraq. That wears people down. The Marines have it better than the Army because their deployments are shorter, 6-8 months instead of 12-18 months. This is because the Navy did studies and found that efficiency on a ship dropped through the floor if it was left at sea more than six months. In Iraq the calculus is a little bit different; shorter tours means going back and coming home more often. That means readjusting back and forth, and back and forth. I'm not exactly sure what this means, but it seems like that could get to be a pretty serious grind, causing lots of problems. The first time it's an adventure, the second time it's way too hot, and by the third, well, you just can't stand to lose another friend.
3) The war isn't as popular as it has been. Unpopular wars that soldiers/sailors/airmen/Marines know are unpopular could easily breed an attitude among soldiers that is less than upstanding. If you're fighting World War II, there's serious honor and reward in acting better than the other guy. Chivalry and acting graciously become another patriotic thing to do. In this case, it's one gigantic mess; no one knows who they're fighting, why they're fighting, or when they're going to get to go home. There's less and less separating them from the bad guys.
And finally, it is the Marine Corps. One of my boyfriend's fellow unit members once told in an interview that Marines are really f*cked up guys (paraphrase of qutoe) who have the hell trained out of them. One chink in the armor and that all goes out the window. That's why a strong chain of command is so important. His friend told me, "The Marines want people who can kick @ss and take names. And sometimes that bites you in the @ss."
Posted by Destineer (Member # 821) on :
Here's a thought.
My own opinion is that, given human nature, any war that goes on long enough is going to result in atrocities. You put a big enough group of people in a stressful enough situation and eventually someone is going to go off the deep end -- no matter how well-trained they are.
This means we should be very hesitant to get into military conflicts where success can only be achieved if our troops always conduct themselves ethically. That's just not a realistic possibility, if the war goes on long enough.
Posted by Bob_Scopatz (Member # 1227) on :
Jim-me
Police are professionals too. There's room for civilian oversight of the military or our model of government is completely screwed up.
I'll also point out that the reason this cover-up didn't last as long as My Lai's appears to be due to the press, not some internal code of honor within the military.
The official reaction to it appears to be swifter, though, so I would give credit for that as a change since Vietnam.
Other than that, I tend to agree with your post.
I also agree with much of what Kasie H and Destineer have just posted.
My personal conclusion is that there is something inherent in war in general that brings out this kind of thing. And I also think that some wartime situations are more prone to bring it out than others.
It seems trite to just conclude that war is bad. But I think that war is bad for the victors as well as for the losers, and I think we need to think about that every time we decide to start one, or join in on one.
Posted by Jim-Me (Member # 6426) on :
No question that war is bad for everyone.
Also, there is absolutely room for civilian, and press, oversight of the military.
I don't think we're actually opposed, here. I was more addresing the idea that this is somehow a part of miliary culture, or a part of war. The countless soldiers who manage to go through the worst kinds of hell without murdering civilians by the boatload, is, I think, evidence of that. That war brings this type of situation into the realm of possibility is undeniable, however, so in that sense, yes, war does bring these kind of things out.
Posted by Destineer (Member # 821) on :
quote:I don't think we're actually opposed, here. I was more addresing the idea that this is somehow a part of miliary culture, or a part of war. The countless soldiers who manage to go through the worst kinds of hell without murdering civilians by the boatload, is, I think, evidence of that.
Granted. I guess what I was trying to say is that if a war goes on long enough, it becomes pretty inevitable that someone is going to break the rules. It's just too delicate a situation.
Posted by Bob_Scopatz (Member # 1227) on :
fwiw, I think the current response to the situation is the right one.
quote:The Bargewell investigation is likely to be explosive on Capitol Hill, because it focuses on questions that have haunted the Bush administration and the U.S. military since the scandal over abuse at Abu Ghraib prison emerged two years ago: How do U.S. military leaders in Iraq react to allegations of wrongdoing by their troops? And is the military prepared to carry out the long and arduous process of putting down an insurgency as part of the first U.S. occupation of an Arab nation?
quote:Even before the final report is delivered, Army Gen. George W. Casey, the top U.S. commander in Iraq, is expected to order today that all U.S. and allied troops in Iraq undergo new "core values" training in how to operate professionally and humanely. Not only will leaders discuss how to treat civilians under the rules of engagement, but small units also will be ordered to go through training scenarios to gauge their understanding of those rules. "It's going to include everyone in the coalition," the official said.
Posted by BaoQingTian (Member # 8775) on :
quote:Originally posted by Bob_Scopatz: Even before the final report is delivered, Army Gen. George W. Casey, the top U.S. commander in Iraq, is expected to order today that all U.S. and allied troops in Iraq undergo new "core values" training in how to operate professionally and humanely.
This I think is the crux of the problem. The soldiers are trained trained trained to put their humanity aside and kill without hesitation. To attempt to teach humanistic values seems at odds with that.
For those that have no business even touching a gun, I doubt this core value training will matter one bit. For those that suffer psychological disorders from war and battle I also don't think core values will matter. I guess they're hoping that for the rest (the majority) these core values will somehow over-rule their training to kill. However, IMO this vast majority of soldiers isn't the problem.
Posted by Jim-Me (Member # 6426) on :
BQT,
I don't think that is an accurate depiction of military training.
They are trained to fight with lethal force. There is a wide gulf between that and being trained to put your humanity aside or kill without hesitation.
A huge part of military training involves precisely when and where you can and should kill. Fire discipline is a major issue, not just with civilian casualties, but also with friendly fire. Some people learn this the hard way by killing someone they shouldn't. Which means some people pay with their lives when they do. Whether this is an atrocity or merely a tragedy largely depends on the innocence of the person killed.
The epitome of soldier is not to be found in your typical action hero killing 10-15 bad guys in a vengence-driven berserker frenzy over a dead relative, but is more like the example of Randy Shugart and Gary Gordon, with whom you may be familiar from the movie "Black Hawk Down". Their discipline and precision under fire is a tremendous example, not only of bravery, but of incredible efficiency. Warriors are made of discipline, not rage.
Posted by BaoQingTian (Member # 8775) on :
Oh, I agree with most of what you said. I am not anti-military at all, and I have the highest respect for our soldiers.
However, I think training and planning to kill anyone, even potential enemies necessarily involves a fundamental suppression of the innate feeling that killing another human is wrong. To me, that's a fundamental part of my humanity, so training to disregard that is putting my humanity aside. I'm not suggesting that soldiers are mindless robotic killing machines. What I am suggesting is that killing others definitely blurs some inner moral lines.
Edit: Jim-Me, I apologize if my post sounded derogatory toward soldiers- it was not meant to be at all.
[ June 01, 2006, 02:10 PM: Message edited by: BaoQingTian ]
Posted by Jim-Me (Member # 6426) on :
I understand what you are saying. I just disagree that military training involves blurring those lines.
My point is that the actual training often revolves around sharpening those lines precisely because they blur very easily. Again, however, I'm speaking more to officer training than what happens in basic when I speak of my experience in training. My impression of the grunts I have met, however, leads me to conclude they have considered the issues carefully themselves.
And you aren't alone. I really should have voiced this disagreement earlier when Kasie posted. My experience with Marines has been that they are anything but the on-edge, one straw away from breaking the camel's back, killers her boyfriend describes. Again, from a purely practical standpoint, the raging, uncontrolled, ready-to-kill attitude makes not nearly as dangerous or effective a combatant as someone who understands that killing is a duty performed in defense of things worth fighting for and does so out of choice. Which is why a volunteer army is effective, why military training involves a great deal of moral development, and why I get ticked off when people say things like "they're just fighting for for haliburton's stock value" because that last statement most definitely *does* undermine the morale and effectiveness of troops in the field and such assertions should *not* be thrown about loosely.
Edit to add: if that last seemed off-topic, I was really trying to refer back to my earlier remarks about measured criticism, not commenting on anything BQT or Kasie (or Bob or anyone else) has said on this thread.
[ June 01, 2006, 02:53 PM: Message edited by: Jim-Me ]
Posted by The Rabbit (Member # 671) on :
quote:such assertions should *not* be thrown about loosely.
While I agree that such accusations should not be thrown about loosely, I also consider it the moral obligation of every citizen of democratic country to make such accusations when there is evidence to support them.
Posted by dkw (Member # 3264) on :
Jim, for people whose line is "killing people is wrong" military training certainly does blur it. Or at least move it.
Posted by Destineer (Member # 821) on :
quote:Jim, for people whose line is "killing people is wrong" military training certainly does blur it.
Which is not that disturbing when one realizes that "killing people is wrong," with no caveats or exceptions, is an indefensible principle.
Posted by dkw (Member # 3264) on :
But it is a practical one for the majority of people to hold as a guide to personal behavior.
Or maybe I should have stated it as "I should not kill this person" as the guide to daily behavior.
In daily life in a civilized society, people do not go around killing people. There is a very helpful taboo against it. Combat training messes with that taboo. Granted that the majority of soldiers are sophisticated enough to re-draw the line and don't kill people outside of combat situations, it is still not surprising that for a small percentage of people once the taboo is broken it is easier to break it in other cases. Some of them in non-lawful situations.
Posted by BaoQingTian (Member # 8775) on :
quote:Originally posted by Destineer:
quote:Jim, for people whose line is "killing people is wrong" military training certainly does blur it.
Which is not that disturbing when one realizes that "killing people is wrong," with no caveats or exceptions, is an indefensible principle.
Yes, but you are talking about a broad ethics discussion. dkw and I are talking about things on a personal level. If a crazed man barged into my home and threatened the lives of my family, and I killed him, I know I would agonize over that the rest of my life, even though the action is morally defensible.
Edit: dkw said it better
Posted by Jim-Me (Member # 6426) on :
quote:Originally posted by dkw: Jim, for people whose line is "killing people is wrong" military training certainly does blur it. Or at least move it.
I'll acede to "move", but I always find the idea of the modern "conscientious objector" to be really rather ugly. I don't mean a true conscientious objector, mind you, but the person who gets sent off to the front line and then suddenly has a moral problem with being asked to kill (even though at least one case I'm aware of was a doctor, who wouldn't be asked to kill anyone). If you don't ever think killing anyone is the right thing to do, joining a volunteer military is probably a poor career move.
I do think that pacifism is a noble, admirable, and defensible viewpoint.
Rabbit, if there's real evidence of wrong doing, yes. Profiteering is a criminal activity.
Posted by Jim-Me (Member # 6426) on :
I think there's a misunderstanding here about what combat training is or does. It's not taking someone who has no inclination to kill and making them a killing machine. It's taking someone who has decided that there are times when it is necessary to kill and teaching them how to do it. The moral aspects of combat training are all about when you should not do it. Yes, there is a great deal of "psyching up", not unlike football or other team endeavors encourage, but that is not training and a "hoo-rah" attitude is much more about personal, especially mental, toughness than about actual fighting. There's also a definite tongue-in-cheek/gallows humor angle to it as well.
Posted by dkw (Member # 3264) on :
Jim, I’m coming at this from the perspective of someone who’s done counseling with returned veterans who had trouble integrating back into civilian life. Whether it’s caused by the formal training or the personal “psyching up” necessary to do the job, I don’t know. I think it's a combination of both. But while I acknowledge, and have in this thread, that not all veterans have this problem, I think it would be absolutely criminal of us not to recognize that some do, and that the shift in mindset that we have asked them to undergo as part of their duties can be hard for them to reverse. And one Gulf War I vet told me that the only post-combat counseling he got was the chaplain lining everybody up just before they went home and saying “Now men, you’ve been through some tough things. Try not to take it out on your wives and kids.” I’ve worked with one family on their third generation of a cycle of domestic violence that started when Grandpa returned from WWII. This is a real part of the cost of war, and to not acknowledge it is, IMO, a betrayal of the soldiers and families that bear this particular cost.
Posted by Kasie H (Member # 2120) on :
Jim-me,
I actually wasn't implying that these people are on the edge of being killers, necessarily, just that they are on the edge of something the rest of us are not. I think you'll find some of the same qualities in club bouncers, for example, as you will in the Marines my boyfriend's friend described. Which doesn't indicate killing, necessarily.
dkw, I hate this war. Hate it, especially what it does to families.
I wish there was a way out of it.
Posted by Jim-Me (Member # 6426) on :
Dana, there is no doubt that actual combat changes people and that some have difficulty re-integrating into civilian life afterwards. These latter are, in my experience, a small minority, however, and the one study of which I am aware (done on Viet Nam era veterans) showed that veterans were, as a group, less plagued by psychological problems than their non-veteran counterparts.
I certainly do not intend to say that there is no such thing as PTSD or anything similarly ludicrous. It's true that the military environment is unique in being a place where killing is not only allowed, but positively celebrated. It's also very likely true that counseling for combat veterans is lacking, though I believe a great deal of that has changed since even 1992. Nonetheless, even then, free counseling was availible for the asking on any military base. If I had been more honest with myself at those counseling sessions, I might have been a lot healthier man a lot sooner.
Please don't take any of this to mean that because the people you speak of are relatively small minority that they should be discounted or ignored or left to "deal with it" because they are somehow defective. That would be furthest from my intent.
But there is a pervasive image of soldiers as "trained killers". In the strictest sense, that is true-- they are trained to be capable of killing and many have done so. This emphatically does *not* mean, however, that they are juiced up and prepared to kill any and everything... with some demonic energy instilled in them by training and then barely contained by harsh discipline. Soldiers, as a group, simply aren't like that. There have been many posts in this thread treating them as a group, as if they are and inferentially blaming Haditha (and My Lai) on it. I think doing so not only misplaces blame for what happened, but reflects poorly on the soldiers who, day in and day out, over 6 to 18 month tours, never do anything like this and should not be lumped in with people who commit atrocities simply because they both had the same training.
Now what may well be organizational and cultural in nature has been the false reporting apparently made by several people involved in the incident. The marines have held up the promotion of a general officer pending a determination of exactly that.
Posted by dkw (Member # 3264) on :
Yeah. I was actually going to say earlier that this thread was reminding me of an article in the New Yorker a few months back that talked about treating problems with power-law distribution as if they were bell-curve distribution. The majority of soldiers are not the problem, so solutions centering on more “core values” training for everyone is probably not the answer. The majority don’t need it and those that do are hard enough cases that the general training won't be effective. (That’s assuming that the problems are isolated, not widespread. There needs to be, and likely is, an investigation to determine that, one way or the other).
Posted by Jim-Me (Member # 6426) on :
That is a really astute observation. I hope responsible people in high places make it, too.
I think the extra training won't hurt, but I sincerely think it's not the solution. It does give a "we're doing something about it" response while, hopefully, other people in charge are analyzing how to *really* prevent this kind of thing.
Posted by BaoQingTian (Member # 8775) on :
How effective is psychological screening? Do they already do an extensive battery of tests before someone is allowed to join up?
Posted by Jim-Me (Member # 6426) on :
They do some testing, I'm not sure how much of it is psych eval or how effective that is.
Edit: I should add that there is considerable evaluation done during basic training, which provides an opportunity to examine someone over an extended period of time in a stressful environment. I'd be inclined to prefer that ability over any written test or personality profile.
Posted by BaoQingTian (Member # 8775) on :
Absolutely. I guess simulations aside there's nothing that can truly stress and test an individual to the extent that they will be in battle.
Posted by airmanfour (Member # 6111) on :
Did you get commissioned at the end of your military training Jim-Me? Here's some insight into the mind of the Junior Enlisted.
I trained with marines for a year in an academic setting, and my favorite and most telling story involves a PFC or LCpl shooting a pizza delivery guy in the head with an airgun from the second "deck". Keep in mind, these are the highest-testing marines the Corps could get it's hands on and this is the kind of thing they did for fun.
The disturbing, and possibly untrue part of the story is after the Major/Master Guns were finished dishing out punishment, they congratulated the marines on their good aim.
I could go either way on the Haditha story, but I believe while the Marine Corps fosters a Devil Dog, Kill, Kill, Kill atmosphere, the responsibility lies with those that pull the trigger.
Posted by Lyrhawn (Member # 7039) on :
I don't think the psych tests are all that hardcore, hell, they let my brother in
I went with my family to pick my brother up at Parris Island after he finished training and I talked to him about it afterwards. They don't teach thoughtless aggression or, like someone said earlier, beserker murderous mentality. They teach an intense degree of lethality, but they don't stamp out humanity in the process.
The biggest changes I noticed in him were pride and discipline. He practically radiated those two things. He was so proud of what he was doing, and confident in it, and he was orderly and disciplined, which is fairly impressive given his rather untamed temper (which is a separate issue from Marine training). I think there was an element of brainwashing involved with the training. But it wore off as soon as he left the service. None of it however made him a very violent person.
I'm surprised this conversation hasn't turned to the Iraqi reaction to this incident. We've spent the whole thread talking about Marine training and the American media, what about the Iraqis? They're pissed as hell. They blame the American military, and even their prime minister said that the American troops don't care about the citizens, and that they shoot to kill with only suspicion and nothing else as justification, as evidenced by the gunning down of a pregnant woman on her way to the hospital last week, when her car accidentally moved onto a road closed by American Marines.
Sensitivity training isn't going to get us anywhere. With every raid on someone's neighbor, every door kicked down, every pregnant woman accidentally killed, every errant bomb that kills an innocent family and every tank that runs over a car that gets in its way, the situation grows worse and worse.
I'm beginning to wonder at what point we just need to leave, and let them fight the battle themselves. The problem right now, is that the insurgents are killing Americans, and the Americans in turn are raiding and taking out their anger on the Iraqis along with the insurgents. If we left, the Iraqis will have only one target for their ire, and that is the insurgents. I'm not even sure it's entirely a logical thought that the state of Iraq can successfully and peacefully exist at all. Both the British, Saddam and America have only managed to pull it of with either extreme military force or insanely brutal tactics.
I almost wonder sometimes at the logic: We send in troops to patrol the streets, and insurgents attack the troops. So we send in more troops, who are then attacked again, and it spirals upwards. What would the insurgents do if there were no troops there to be attacked? They'll be forced to attack regular Iraqis more directly, and more often, which should enrage the population against them, and one would imagine, NOT us. At least then we'll have a cooperative citizenry. I know that sounds cold. But thousands of them are already dying, and thousands of us too, for no change. Something has to change in our tactics for progress to be made.
I think we're approaching the point where it isn't our war anymore, it's theirs. It always would have been theirs, and they need a piece of the action, all of them (or at least as many as want it). The Iraqis are saying they want us out, they want to fight this war themselves. Who are we to tell them no? We can keep an extremely large striking force in country to monitor the situation. We've done what the president now claims was our reason for going in, we've spread democracy. Now let them choose to remain a single country or split up. Hell, didn't Bosnia and Herzegovina (it was a slavic country right?) just do exactly that and decide to split?
Our other purpose there is terrorism. Is anyone going to make a serious argument that we've made any progress on that? We've made the situation horribly worse. Maybe it's time we took a secondary role. Keep men in the area in case it looks like our troops could actually be useful, but otherwise, pull a large majority of them out of the theater of combat.
Haditha might be the first of many straws that break the camel's back.
Posted by Jim-Me (Member # 6426) on :
I was an honor disenrollee from the Air Force Academy. I still come into contact with a lot of military through my friends from there. The marines I've known personally have mostly been neighbors and co-workers.
Posted by Tatiana (Member # 6776) on :
I'd like to hear from soldiers with combat experience, what they think about this sort of thing. Is it a breach of discipline? Or is this the status quo?
These sorts of attitudes almost always come from the very top, in my experience. But since my experience is from things like the way we treat our customers being a reflection of the CEO's own customer focus, then I'm not sure it's valid in a military situation. With the extra discipline in the military, though, I would think it would be even more valid.
My worry from the things I've heard is that it's fairly common for our soldiers to treat all Iraqis as though they are sub-human. I heard rumors going back years that some soldiers killed random Iraqis for sport, and were not disciplined for it.
Abu Grahib, too, seemed to be business as usual rather than any splinter group breaking discipline. Am I the only one who gets this feeling? I feel like something has to be wrong at the highest levels for stuff like this to go on.
Our soldiers ARE America, to many people in foreign countries. It does us no good at all to win the war and lose the peace.
Posted by Jim-Me (Member # 6426) on :
Tatiana, on what basis do you say that Abu Ghraib seemed like business as usual? What on earth would give you the idea that Haditha is the status quo? An unsubstantiated rumor, likely based on the movie "Three Kings"?
These are serious accusations to bring against an entire class of people. It's just like expecting a black person to be a mugger or an hispanic to be a knife-wielding gang member.
It's precisely these kind of reactions, again, that require restraint and measure in our criticism and why I have made such a fuss here. People seem all too ready to believe the worst about our troops as a whole... and, on another note,this is also why bumper stickers and sappy country western songs, cheesy as they may be, are not deserving of the contempt they are often treated to.
Posted by dkw (Member # 3264) on :
You lost me on that last bit. Posted by Jim-Me (Member # 6426) on :
Lyrhawn, I wanted to just briefly say that I'm not ignoring you and you made some thoughtful points... they are just on a different scope than what I am concerned with here.
Posted by Jim-Me (Member # 6426) on :
Which bit, dkw? the bumper sticker support? I meant it as a tangent. A lot of people (not hatrack particularly more or less than anywhere else) will run down that kind of thing as mere jingo flag-waving. It's not... and it's especially not to the people who wear the uniform.
Posted by dkw (Member # 3264) on :
Oh, okay. You mean "support our troops" type bumper stickers and songs. I read it more as bumper stickers and country music in general and thought you were making some kind of analogy.
Posted by Jim-Me (Member # 6426) on :
Yeah... I was talking about the yellow ribbons and songs like Alan Jackson's "Letters from Home". Apologies for being vague.
Posted by Destineer (Member # 821) on :
quote:A lot of people (not hatrack particularly more or less than anywhere else) will run down that kind of thing as mere jingo flag-waving. It's not... and it's especially not to the people who wear the uniform.
I find this very frustrating, because I know a few of the troops and I do support them in the sense of respecting them and wishing them well. But where I live "Support the Troops" translates into "Support Bush"... and I don't.
Posted by Robin Kaczmarczyk (Member # 9067) on :
Any way you paint it, war is murder and soldiers are murderers.
Anything else is just trying to justify something without justification.
Unfortunately, the USA is a culture based primarily on war, so as a murder-culture, we are more prone to justify it eh?
Posted by Jim-Me (Member # 6426) on :
hmmm... I may have to take back that part about pacifism being defensible... (I kid, I kid...)
May I ask, Robin, what part of the world you are from? or, rather, which you admire?
Posted by BaoQingTian (Member # 8775) on :
Don't bother Jim. He lives in Mexico. Has an unbelievable amount of antipathy for the USA. Click on his profile and read several of his posts. I've had difficulty engaging him in any sort of continuous dialog, so frankly I just gave up.
Posted by Fishtail (Member # 3900) on :
No, Abu Ghraib is NOT "business as usual." And for all their marvelous teamwork and interoperability, your military forces are NOT a monolithic entity. Yes, they do share values and vectors, but they are composed of individuals...individuals taken from American society as a whole, I might add. Just as any group of Americans is...your Army, Navy, Air Force and Marine Corps are all microcosms of humanity as a whole. Some humans, when circumstances and internal motivation allow, do horrible things. That does not mean those things were directed to them, or even permitted, beyond that echelon.
I'm not a ground pounder, but several of my compatriots have served on the ground in both Iraq and Afghanistan, and you have assurance from them that it's an aberration, not "business as usual." War IS hell, but your military is not composed of soulless demons.
Posted by Lyrhawn (Member # 7039) on :
quote:Originally posted by Jim-Me: Lyrhawn, I wanted to just briefly say that I'm not ignoring you and you made some thoughtful points... they are just on a different scope than what I am concerned with here.
Thanks for the recognition
I'll have to start a "Haditha, the continuing saga" thread.
Posted by scholar (Member # 9232) on :
quote:Originally posted by Jim-Me: Tatiana, on what basis do you say that Abu Ghraib seemed like business as usual? What on earth would give you the idea that Haditha is the status quo? An unsubstantiated rumor, likely based on the movie "Three Kings"?
I believe Abu Grahib is based on more than a few rogues because it isn't just one place. There are reports of torture in Afghanistan, Iraq, etc. Abu Grahib was much more news worthy because there were pictures. Under conditions of anonymity, higher ups have admitted to policies that violate human rights- "if you aren't violating someone's rights you aren't doing your job." The pictures of torture show techniques that the CIA used in the 70s. That indicates research and training, which isn't typical rogue behavior. Human Righs Watch, AI, and Red Cross are still reporting abuse pretty much everywhere American troops are. Ghost prisoners (ie vanishing prisoners) requires someone higher up as well, since getting rid of the paper work on a prisoner takes some effort. So, I have trouble believing the gov does not have policies that include abuse. However, I do not blame the troops, I blame the higher ups (specifically Bush cause I think the buck should stop there). As far as Haditha, I haven't heard enough evidence to judge yet, but the torture seems policy.
Posted by Tatiana (Member # 6776) on :
scholar is right about the reasons I suspect what went on at Abu Grahib is widespread and sanctioned at the highest levels.
As for the other, I heard it from more than one eyewitness, telling about different incidents. I find it very worrying. I wonder who we are becoming, as a country.
Posted by Bob_Scopatz (Member # 1227) on :
I wonder who we've been all along.
Really, the point about the military being a cross-section of the US is partly true, but partly not. There is certainly a broad demographic there, but I also have to point out that because it is an all-volunteer service, it is by definition a self-selected sample of Americans.
There are people in our population who would never be in the military under any circumstances and their "input" is not really part of the US military as it is composed today.
There are also people who the military will not take, and their input is not part of it either.
I would hesitate to say, however, that the average person in the military is any different from the average person in the population on a variety of metrics I would find meaningful (intelligence, propensity for violence, for example). But there are a few that they DO differ on:
- proportion female - proportion female in combat positions - proportion female officers outside the medical and selected other fields. - proportion of homosexuals. - proportion of illegal aliens - proportion over 40
Some of these make me doubt the true "representativeness" of our armed forces. But then, I don't worry so much about that. If we're going to have an all-volunteer service, I'm okay with self-selection and non-representativeness in general.
If there is active discrimination (as is the case regarding homosexuals), then I do have a problem.
But that's not what this discussion is about.
I believe that there are more incidents than we know about, and that more incidents are likely as this conflict continues.
But I don't believe for a minute that we could ever drive the probability of things like this to zero. Any situation involving humans and weapons has some non-zero probability of going in an undesired direction.
What I do believe, however, is that in many of these situations, one word or action at the right place & time can cause it to stop, or make it far less damaging overall. And for that reason, I support the idea of generalized training for every troop.
I also think we need more scrutiny of our people who are over there, and (obviously) ways to weed out the bad actors than we have now.
I don't know what those ways might be, but I can think of a few things that might be worth trying:
- find out who comes from abusive homes and pay closer attention to them during their training and first few deployments. - Study the backgrounds of the folks who do go bad and see whether there are some common threads worth researching. - Look at long vs short deployments; hot zone time; other variables and see if there's a pattern that increases stress to the point where we should be worried about tipping a few of the more susceptible folks over...
Anyway, there are no doubt people inside the military who think of these things as part of their job and probably have the data to work with too.
It'd be interesting to see what some of these studies show, if anything.
Posted by Jim-Me (Member # 6426) on :
That's not a bad list of things to do, Bob, and definitely one courageoous action at the right place and time can definitely prevent this type of thing.
As to Abu Ghraib, I'm going to be very preciuse here. What was done was wrong, and it was degrading. Characterizing that as "torture" betrays a gross misunderstanding of what torture actually is. Ask John McCain or Sam Johnson about what torture is. Read Into the Mouth of the Cat, the story of Lance Sijan, who went through such torture that when his cell mates came back and reported his story, he received the Medal of Honor (posthumously). Read the late Admiral Stockdale's work on the subject. Then come back to stories of "stress positions" and sleep deprivation and you might see how silly these accusations really are.
Now I'm well aware that Senator McCain has called for statements that we do not and will not torture people, and I think he is right. I haven't followed the debate that closely, but I'd be willing to bet that this very disconnect of definition is at work here-- I'd bet he doesn't consider these kind of things torture.
Off topic, try a stress position yourself for free: Stand about 8 to 12 inches more than arm's length form a wall. Then lean forward, supporting your weight with your two index fingers. That's a stress position. I've been in it.
Posted by Bob_Scopatz (Member # 1227) on :
Jim-me:
I'm sorry, but while I agree that there are different types of torture, denying that what went on in Abu Ghraib was torture is incorrect. It violates the Geneva convention for treatment of prisoners, it was intended to frighten, cause pain and humiliation -- to break down the person.
quote:The "United Nations Convention against Torture and Other Cruel, Inhuman or Degrading Treatment or Punishment"(UNCAT) came into force in June 1987.
Article 1 1. Any act by which severe pain or suffering, whether physical or mental, is intentionally inflicted on a person for such purposes as obtaining from him or a third person information or a confession, punishing him for an act he or a third person has committed or is suspected of having committed, or intimidating or coercing him or a third person, or for any reason based on discrimination of any kind, when such pain or suffering is inflicted by or at the instigation of or with the consent or acquiescence of a public official or other person acting in an official capacity. It does not include pain or suffering arising only from, inherent in or incidental to lawful sanctions.
Those who are pointing out that the Abu Ghraib situation violates the above are not being silly.
We are VERY SERIOUS. And we are appalled that our countrymen did this, and that there's a good chance that at least some of it WAS officially sanctioned -- the big question in my mind is how far up the chain of command in the military and the CIA this went, not whether it did or not. And if there was CIA involvement (not military intelligence) then I would also like to know a bit more about our command & control structure.
And, I'll also point out that there are many of us who look at the situation and think: well...that's what we KNOW about, what about the stuff we don't know about.
The US is still practicing "extraordinary rendition." Until that practice stops, claims about not using torture (which I realize you're just making a claim about Abu Ghraib, not our entire military and intelligence force) are going to lack a certain credibility.
Posted by Jim-Me (Member # 6426) on :
quote:Originally posted by Jim-Me: What was done was wrong, and it was degrading.
Again, I in no way condone what happened at Abu Ghraib.
I also think it's ridiculous that we are using words like torture to condemn our own troops when we have an enemy who beheads living people, known non-combatants no less, with a knife... a F$^*%$ KNIFE, mind you... to make a propoganda videotape.
And I think your "and this is just what we know about" statement is *exactly* the kind of unwarranted sentiment I have been warning against this entire thread. The implication of your statement is clear-- "I bet our people are doing much worse and it's just being covered up."
It is exactly that kind of atmosphere, that presumption of guilt, which colors the VAST majority of war criticism I have seen, and precisely why not a whit of it has swayed me from my support of this war.
Upon re-reading I feel I should add-- lest my profane emphasis be taken incorrectly-- it is not anger at you, but my continued shock and disgust at the incident I am citing which drove that stridency.
Posted by Tatiana (Member # 6776) on :
Jim-Me, torture doesn't produce good information, and it's not good for any other military or political goal. In fact, it's extremely counterproductive. So what is its purpose? I know of only two purposes.
1. To terrorize a population. 2. Revenge.
Because the enemy is so much worse is that reason for us to do something that's militarily and diplomatically disasterous to our own cause?
I think if the military doesn't want the public to assume there's more guilt there that is being covered up, they could start taking episodes like this (breaches in discipline, if that's what they are) much more seriously. Always they are there after the fact, when the press uncovers something, or the public, it seems. Never do they seem to uncover these incidents first themselves.
[ June 03, 2006, 11:17 AM: Message edited by: Tatiana ]
Posted by Lyrhawn (Member # 7039) on :
Well, torture CAN produce good information. But I've yet to be convinced that it's the best method of extraction.
Posted by scholar (Member # 9232) on :
quote:Originally posted by Jim-Me: I also think it's ridiculous that we are using words like torture to condemn our own troops when we have an enemy who beheads living people, known non-combatants no less, with a knife... a F$^*%$ KNIFE, mind you... to make a propoganda videotape.
But based on the pictures and descripions, we did torture them. Just because the enemy also does some very bad things does not change the definition of torture. Nor should it change what an honorable nation should or should not do.
Posted by Bob_Scopatz (Member # 1227) on :
Did we have any evidence to suggest that the people we tortured had performed vivisections on anyone? Otherwise, the comparison is just prejudice against a whole group of people for the actions of a few -- same problem you seem to want to avoid when it is the US under criticism.
Posted by Destineer (Member # 821) on :
quote:Did we have any evidence to suggest that the people we tortured had performed vivisections on anyone? Otherwise, the comparison is just prejudice against a whole group of people for the actions of a few -- same problem you seem to want to avoid when it is the US under criticism.
Right on, Bob. Especially because the Iraqi insurgents are not one big, organized group -- they're a bunch of smaller groups with roughly the same goals. I would imagine their methods vary from one insurgent group to another.
If one mob family assassinates a judge's wife, this doesn't license the police to say "We're fighting the kind of criminals who would assassinate a judge's wife," even when they're pursuing another mob family that has never done anything this bad.
quote:And I think your "and this is just what we know about" statement is *exactly* the kind of unwarranted sentiment I have been warning against this entire thread. The implication of your statement is clear-- "I bet our people are doing much worse and it's just being covered up."
It is exactly that kind of atmosphere, that presumption of guilt, which colors the VAST majority of war criticism I have seen...
When facts are hidden by secretive leaders, many people will assume the worst. The right response is usually transparency. Our leaders have not responded this way, for some reason, so they reap what they sow.
Posted by Bob_Scopatz (Member # 1227) on :
Yep. I had a long-winded version of that in my post and deleted it.
Well said.
Posted by Jim-Me (Member # 6426) on :
I will stand pat on my last post.
If someone else wants to beat their head against this particular wall, by all means, but I'm obviously not making a dent.
Posted by Bob_Scopatz (Member # 1227) on :
Sorry.
Been lied to too many times.
Posted by Destineer (Member # 821) on :
By all means, stand by your opinions, regardless of arguments that tell against them. Sounds all too familiar these days.
To expand on what I said before, I do not "assume the worst" about what this government is doing to its prisoners. I assume what I think is most likely given the very limited evidence I've been allowed to see. This evidence includes the fact that a US citizen was held without charge for more than a year, the fact that members of this administration have defended the government's right to torture, and the fact that our prisoners have been badly abused in the recent past (torture or not, call it what you like, the salient point is that it was wrong).
On the basis of this evidence and given that many of our prisoners are being hidden from the media and the Red Cross, I think it's likely (though not certain) that worse abuses have happened.
Posted by Bob_Scopatz (Member # 1227) on :
Destineer,
But you ARE assuming. I think it's perfectly reasonable to pessimistic about this, but if it is okay to do so based on assumptions and personal deductions from past experience, then it must also be fine for other people to reach opposite conclusions based on their personal experience.
There's really no need for anyone to get snarky about it. We should recognize the limits of the information we possess and acknowledge that there IS at least a chance that the government is telling the truth.
I think the point about my opinion on it wasn't that I KNOW the worst has happened (and they're just not telling us), but that I just figure it's worse than we've been told because I've become used to our government telling us as little as they think they can get away with. When it becomes obvious that the next shoe is about to drop, then a little more bad stuff gets "hinted at" then a little more, then a little more.
I'm not just talking about the current Bush administration either.
It's just the way these things work in this country.
And among the worst offenders in terms of disclosure are the intelligence services and the military. I can see reasons for that, but to be quite frank, it doesn't make me want to rush right out and believe what they say. Knowing that they feel they have valid reasons for withholding information from the public isn't the same as earning my trust.
And Jim-me, I know that it must hurt to realize that a large segment of the public feels this way about the military. But, if the military can't see how its actions have earned that level of distrust and waiting for the other shoe to drop, then I'm the one who is mystified.
I also think it's important to make clear that I still honor the sacrifice that men and women make by joining the military and serving in whatever capacity (including warfare, but also just the low pay and tough life that goes with being in the service at any time).
I believe the military is necessary and does a mostly good job. The things I would change about them are things that they probably will never change -- like full disclosure and a lot more independent review. I understand that. I just don't like it.
And I don't think I have to support EVERY aspect of the organization in order to count myself as a supporter of the individual men and women in it.
Posted by Bob_Scopatz (Member # 1227) on :
I openned this article figuring I'd see what I expected about the claims in Haditha inspiring many more claims (and most of them bogus).
This appears to be something else. I mean the circumstances of this man's death, and the apparent attempt to buy his brother's complicity in the coverup is really weird.
But from what it says, charges are being filed even before the Haditha case, so the military must feel it has a case against the troops involved.
cr@p.
Posted by Samprimary (Member # 8561) on :
quote:While I don't condone what happened at Abu Ghraib, it's a whole different order of abuse on several levels. Roughly the difference between illegal fraternity hazing and mass murder (in terms of civilian crime).
It is beyond me to be able to understand how it became common to compare the Abu Ghraib abuses as being equivilant to 'fraternity hazing.' I cannot think of any less appropriate comparison which has managed to be taken even remotely seriously.
Posted by Jim-Me (Member # 6426) on :
I will answer that one, since it involves clarifying something I said earlier.
I said "Illegal fraternity hazing."
I've heard cases of fraternity hazing taken so far as to produce death on more than one occasion. If you think I'm saying that's a minor deal, then you mistake my intention.
But if you think that's comparable to gunning down dozens of people in cold blood, I seriously suggest you adjust your moral compass.
Posted by ClaudiaTherese (Member # 923) on :
The is an excellent article about the Haditha developments in the weekend NYT. I'll see if I can pull up a link and bugmenot password.
Posted by Rakeesh (Member # 2001) on :
quote:By all means, stand by your opinions, regardless of arguments that tell against them. Sounds all too familiar these days.
Funny, I was thinking the same thing. About your smug, "Isn't this so sad, that you're so stupid," tone of voice, I mean.
quote:This evidence includes the fact that a US citizen was held without charge for more than a year, the fact that members of this administration have defended the government's right to torture, and the fact that our prisoners have been badly abused in the recent past (torture or not, call it what you like, the salient point is that it was wrong).
It is not just members of this Administration which defend such things, Destineer. All too common to label it as such, though. So sad. Also whether or not it was torture is definitely salient. That's a very nice sidestepping you just tried. Until just now, you were very much focused on whether or not it was torture. Now the important thing was "it's wrong".
Posted by Kwea (Member # 2199) on :
My aunt just retired as a Col from Marines. She spent almost 30 years in the reserves, with about 10 more being active duty (started off that way, plus activation times during war).
She was the top expert (or one of them) in rapid deployment, and the day after she retired they called her house and tried to activate her.
She was activated for about 6-7 years for the first Iraq war too. They said they were on stop-loss retention, and she shouldn't have been able to retire...and she said to take it up with the Gen who signed off on her discharge. Posted by scholar (Member # 9232) on :
How is there even a debate over whether or not what happened was torture? We have the pictures, we have descriptions and we have a definition everyone has agreed on. What happened clearly fits the definition of torture. Why then, do we keep calling it abuse?
Posted by sndrake (Member # 4941) on :
quote:I will answer that one, since it involves clarifying something I said earlier.
I said "Illegal fraternity hazing."
I've heard cases of fraternity hazing taken so far as to produce death on more than one occasion. If you think I'm saying that's a minor deal, then you mistake my intention.
It's still an inappropriate comparison on at least a couple of levels.
1. "Hazing" is an activity people consent to be subjected to. There is no comparison between "hazing" and being subjected to being stripped, put in close contact with other inmates to approximate sexual activity, being threatened with dogs, having wires attached to you and told your're going to be electrocuted.
2. Related to number one - all this is done by people who you at least perceive as having life-and-death control over you. And you - as a prisoner - have no idea if their behavior has limits at all.
In short, equating Abu Ghraib abuses with "hazing" is like equating a gang rape with an orgy. One's consensual and the other isn't. And even if you don't approve of either one, they aren't even close in terms of behavior and intent.
Posted by Jim-Me (Member # 6426) on :
Ok...
DOES SOMEONE REALLY WANT TO SIT HERE AND ARGUE THAT ANYTHING THAT US SOLDIERS DID AT ABU GHRAIB WAS COMPARABLE TO GUNNING DOWN 30 UNARMED PEOPLE IN COLD BLOOD?
I AWAIT YOUR CASE WITH BATED BREATH.
Otherwise, enough already.
Posted by dkw (Member # 3264) on :
Do you really want to argue that because someone else did something worse what we did was okay?
I wouldn't let a five year old get away with that argument, why should we accept it from the adults in our military?
Posted by Dagonee (Member # 5818) on :
quote:Do you really want to argue that because someone else did something worse what we did was okay?
I've just read this thread twice, trying to pay close attention.
Did Jim-Me say that he thought what was done was OK? I didn't see it, although my attention did wander at several points.
Further, Jim-Me's last post didn't seem to deal with any actions by anyone other than us.
Posted by Chris Bridges (Member # 1138) on :
I also think it's ridiculous that we are using words like torture to condemn our own troops when we have an enemy who beheads living people, known non-combatants no less, with a knife... a F$^*%$ KNIFE, mind you... to make a propoganda videotape.
"Torture" doesn't refer to a specific act or to a specific number of acts. I consider what happened at Abu Gharib torture. I also consider what terrorists do for their videos torture. I do not consider them at all comparable in scale, in much the same way that I don't consider slugging a man as bad as beating him for twenty minutes with a crowbar. But in both cases the charge would be "battery" and the resulting punishments should be correspondingly appropriate. "Rape" includes the drunken date who pushes too far as well as the kidnapper who abducts a 13-year-old girl and serially abuses her for weeks. The range for "Theft" includes shoplifters and career bankrobbers.
Your argument, Jim-Me, seems to be that including both cases in "torture" trivializes what the terrorists do. I'd argue that not including both trivializes what happened at Abu Gharib.
Posted by Jim-Me (Member # 6426) on :
quote:Originally posted by dkw: Do you really want to argue that because someone else did something worse what we did was okay?
I wouldn't let a five year old get away with that argument, why should we accept it from the adults in our military?
I came into the thread to make two points-- that Abu Ghraib should not be compared to what Haditha appears to be and that neither is representative of our military. Whether Abu Ghraib rises to torture or not is not salient to these points and hinges on what you consider to be "severe". Given the history I quoted, I have suggested that "severe" is farther out than people calling Abu Ghraib "torture" realize, but I have not ONCE in this thread suggested that Abu Ghraib was anything but criminal behavior. It's at best disingenuous (and, frankly, I find it insulting) for you to suggest I have.
But then again I'm ex-military, so apparently you all expect this behavior of me. Or worse behavior, considering I was expelled from the military for failing their *moral* standards.
At least now I have the comfort of knowing that no one paid any attention to what I was saying, instead simply inserting their own mental arguments for my side. For a while there I was scared that I had forgotten how to speak English.
Posted by Jim-Me (Member # 6426) on :
quote:Originally posted by Chris Bridges: Your argument, Jim-Me, seems to be that including both cases in "torture" trivializes what the terrorists do. I'd argue that not including both trivializes what happened at Abu Gharib.
What I'm very frustrated by, Chris, is that this is a totally sidebar thing to the central points I tried to make. The degree to which those points have been obliterated by people trying to shift the argument is evident in what you are assessing my main point to be.
Your points about a continuum of unacceptible behavior under one blanket term, however, are well taken. My rebuttal would be that the definition we are working from, by including the word "severe", ipso facto means that we are talking about a specific range on that continuum. Compared to my historical examples, Abu Ghraib does not rise to the level, "severe".
Thanks for at least *trying* to figure out what I was saying.
Posted by dkw (Member # 3264) on :
Jim, no one has suggested anything about your personal morals. I think this particular argument that you're using is weak, but I think you're a decent guy. I would hope that we've had enough interaction that you'd know that by now.
Whether or not a particular action rises to the level "severe" or "torture" or any other descriptor is, to me, completely independent of whether the other side does worse. We don't measure ourselves by their moral standards, but by our own.
Posted by Chris Bridges (Member # 1138) on :
Compared to my historical examples, Abu Ghraib does not rise to the level, "severe".
And I'd agree with you. Doesn't mean it's not torture, though.
Posted by Kasie H (Member # 2120) on :
***** Apparently, the Marines who committed this crime might have been using speed at the time.
From the blog post about it:
quote: The wife of a Marine staff sergeant from the same battalion accused of killing civilians in Haditha, Iraq told Newsweek that "a total breakdown" in disclipine including drug and alcohol abuse may have been partly to blame.
"There were problems in Kilo Company with drugs, alcohol, hazing, you name it," said the woman unidentified by Newsweek. "I think it's more than possible that these guys were totally tweaked out on speed or something when they shot those civilians in Haditha."
Dana, just what is it that you think I am arguing?
I haven't tried to justify a single US action. I haven't impugned a single Iraqi action except the beheading of hostages. Where do you get the idea that I am justifying Abu Ghraib at all when I have REPEATEDLY AND WITH EMPHASIS asserted that it was an illegal action?
The point about my personal morals is to remind people who are insisting that they "support the troops" that when they say that Abu Ghraib or Haditha is business as usual, they are broadly and generally condemning and impugning the troops without basis in fact. They can call that supportive if they want to. As someone who is definitely impugned by their assertions (again, someone who has been officially declared less moral than the people they are saying are no more than sadistic mass murderers) I am yes, taking this personally. My point is not that you are thinking I am a bad person, but to get the people on this thread to be careful of the brushes they paint with.
I tried to withdraw somewhat gracefully. I ignored Destineer's snide nonsense (till just now). and people still piled on. Well, I gave notice in another thread that I would not sit still for this treatment. Press me and I will get right in your face.
So, again, I challenge you to either show me where I tried to say any US action at Abu Ghraib was "okay" or take it back. You are trying to paint me as arguing for something I am not arguing for and as I said, that's disingenuous.
Chris, again, the definition we are working with includes the word "severe". Your own example of a fist versus a crowbar is relevant here. Ii's perfectly possible to kill someone with either one. But using a crowbar makes it "assault with a deadly weapon", not just battery.
Finally, I'd like to go back to sndrake's post and explain why it's *arguable* (not saying it's clear or evident) that the illegal hazing is, in fact worse.
1) As I said earlier, illegal hazing can be and often is, life threatening. Nothing at Abu Ghraib (of which I'm aware) rises to that.
2) as you point out, the hazing happens on volunteers. They are making a reasonable assumption that they will not be subjected to illegal or life-threatening behavior in the process. The fact that they are is a violation of trust. You could argue that a life-threatening betrayal of someone's trust is the morally worse action.
Posted by Bob_Scopatz (Member # 1227) on :
quote: Nothing at Abu Ghraib (of which I'm aware) rises to that.
Jim, what I think you're arguing, that part of it that I'm disagreeing with, is that the actions of Iraqui insurgents (beheading people with knives, etc) is somehow relevent to how we judge the behavior of our own troops. If you're NOT claiming that it's relevant, then I don't see why you brought it up.
No, you didn't say it was "okay." But asking if you were was no greater a stretch than the post it was responding to, where you in all capital letters demanded to know if people thought that the actions at Abu Ghraib were comperable to gunning down 30 people. In fact, my word choice was in direct response to yours. You are the one who brought up the other atrocities. No one else has been comparing them, no one has said that they are somehow less horrible because our side has also done bad things.
Posted by Dagonee (Member # 5818) on :
quote:In fact, my word choice was in direct response to yours.
I'm at a loss to see how, since the gunning down of 30 people was done by our troops, and your response to the all-caps quote spoke of comparing things done by them to things done by us.
Further, when a definition contains the word "severe," comparison is necessary in applying that definition. Even if you disagree with the contention that Abu Grahib wasn't torture, merely evaluating the question requires a comparison to be made.
Posted by dkw (Member # 3264) on :
quote: Even if you disagree with the contention that Abu Grahib wasn't torture, merely evaluating the question requires a comparison to be made.
I don't see why. "They did worse" is again, IMO, not a valid argument, whether in preschool or international affairs.
Edit: and "we've done worse" isn't either. The specifics there were refering to Jim's earlier post about the knives and beheadings. "Do you really want to argue" phrasing was in response to the immediately proceeding post's word choice. Does that clear it up for you, Dag?
Posted by Dagonee (Member # 5818) on :
"Severe" is inherently a comparison. A "severe storm" is only understood in context of storm severity in general and selecting a demarcation point for where the category begins.
Jim-Me has not said "they did worse" in the context of excusing behavior, which is what a five-year old does.
"X is worse on the severity scale than Y" is a very necessary step in evaluating where Y falls on that scale.
This is especially true when Jim-Me has continually condemned the actions at Abu Grahib as wrong.
Posted by Jim-Me (Member # 6426) on :
quote:Originally posted by Bob_Scopatz:
quote: Nothing at Abu Ghraib (of which I'm aware) rises to that.
Fair enough.
Posted by scholar (Member # 9232) on :
quote:Originally posted by Jim-Me: Ok...
DOES SOMEONE REALLY WANT TO SIT HERE AND ARGUE THAT ANYTHING THAT US SOLDIERS DID AT ABU GHRAIB WAS COMPARABLE TO GUNNING DOWN 30 UNARMED PEOPLE IN COLD BLOOD?
I AWAIT YOUR CASE WITH BATED BREATH.
Otherwise, enough already.
37 people have been reported dead in US custody between 2002 and 2004 in Iraq and Afghanistan. At least two of these were ruled homicides, though as far as I am aware, the government has yet to prosecute anyone. So, until we get accurate details about these 30 odd deaths, I would have a hard time saying which is worse.
Posted by Dagonee (Member # 5818) on :
quote:Edit: and "we've done worse" isn't either. The specifics there were refering to Jim's earlier post about the knives and beheadings. "Do you really want to argue" phrasing was in response to the immediately proceeding post's word choice. Does that clear it up for you, Dag?
No, because you're making a different mistake that I wouldn't tolerate from a five-year old. You're acting as if the unacceptability of "they did worse" as an argument to prove something "okay" - your word - means that one can never say "they did worse."
He clearly didn't say it was "okay." He's stated throughout the thread that it's not "okay."
To be clear: "They did worse so what I did wasn't bad" is not a valid argument. That does not mean that all arguments that start with "they did worse" are automatically invalid.
Posted by dkw (Member # 3264) on :
Dag, my opinion is that the comparison that needs to be made is to our country's standards, not to those of anyone else.
And what, exactly, was the point of bringing those other actions into the discussion if not to say that they affect how we judge our troops actions?
Posted by Jim-Me (Member # 6426) on :
quote:Originally posted by dkw: No one else has been comparing them
Yes they have. As I said earlier, one of my two central points was that Haditha and Abu Ghraib are not comparable. I was making that point precisely because people were comparing them. I was asking them not to.
My all caps post says nothing about justifying Abu Ghraib... and definitely not by comparing it to enemy action since gunning down 30 unarmed people is something that allegedly, but it appears actually, was perpetrated by US troops.
As far as my being the one bringing that particular atrocity up, that would be Bob, in the thread title.
Posted by dkw (Member # 3264) on :
I believe I already clarified that the "other attrocities" I was refering to were in your earlier post.
Posted by Jim-Me (Member # 6426) on :
quote:Originally posted by dkw: And what, exactly, was the point of bringing those other actions into the discussion if not to say that they affect how we judge our troops actions?
Setting a bar of what constitues "severe."
Posted by Dagonee (Member # 5818) on :
quote:And what, exactly, was the point of bringing those other actions into the discussion if not to say that they affect how we judge our troops actions?
Because one can't discuss severity without discussing other actions at some point.
For example, all rainstorms make things wet. Therefore, calling some storms severe and some storms not severe can't depend on mere wetness.
Not all rainstorms lead to rivers exceeding their basin and causing floods. Therefore, flooding is one candidate criteria for storm severity.
We know this by looking at different storms and comparing them.
Posted by dkw (Member # 3264) on :
Jim, I will admit that I was being pissy about the tone of your post rather than addressing its argument. In fact, now that I think about it, I was using, “you’ve done something just as bad” to tell you to lay off the people making a comparison. The irony is painful. I apologize.
Posted by Jim-Me (Member # 6426) on :
quote:Originally posted by scholar: At least two of these were ruled homicides, though as far as I am aware, the government has yet to prosecute anyone. So, until we get accurate details about these 30 odd deaths, I would have a hard time saying which is worse.
So 2 homicides which have yet to be prosecuted means all 37 deaths are the result of US torture? or are you trying to say that 2 of what appear to be negligent homicides (from the description in Bob's article, they were not trying to kill him but their actions, shich may or may not have been criminally negligent, resulted in his death) are really comparable to a squad of Marines gunning down 30 unarmed civilians, with full knowledge that they were?
Posted by Jim-Me (Member # 6426) on :
thank you, Dana.
edit: I have to admit I don;t quite follow you on the irony.... all I was really concerned about was that you seemed to be accusing me of saying what I was not saying.... which was very upsetting to me (obviously).
And it's not just you, by any stretch. I am sorry that I directed so much at you when there's a broad range of posters I was frustrated with.
thank you, too, for sticking with it this far.
Posted by Jim-Me (Member # 6426) on :
Lest this get lost in the flurry.... this could be a significant development.
I wonder if the "speed" in question is methamphetamine or the "go-pills" in common use by the military. Both would be troubling, but for vastly different reasons. It could also be someone setting groundwork for a defense along the lines of the F-16 pilot who killed several Canadians in a violation of the rules of engagement.
*goes to read links*
quote:Originally posted by Kasie H: ***** Apparently, the Marines who committed this crime might have been using speed at the time.
From the blog post about it:
quote: The wife of a Marine staff sergeant from the same battalion accused of killing civilians in Haditha, Iraq told Newsweek that "a total breakdown" in disclipine including drug and alcohol abuse may have been partly to blame.
"There were problems in Kilo Company with drugs, alcohol, hazing, you name it," said the woman unidentified by Newsweek. "I think it's more than possible that these guys were totally tweaked out on speed or something when they shot those civilians in Haditha."
I would like more details on these 37 deaths. I would also like to know if these were all the deaths that occurred since things still have not been fully reported. And actually, I think it takes a far more evil person to rape and torture someone to death than to gun someone down. Even if you didn't "plan" their death, that is still just as much of an atrocity as killing unarmed civilians.
Posted by Jim-Me (Member # 6426) on :
quote:Originally posted by scholar: I would like more details on these 37 deaths.
I would, too. I don't have any problem with people criticizing the lack of detail in stories we have so far. I tried to make that clear at the beginning of the thread.
Posted by Destineer (Member # 821) on :
Jim, why does it matter whether US atrocities and Iraqi atrocities are comparably bad?
Posted by Rakeesh (Member # 2001) on :
In terms of some of the moral judgements getting thrown around, it certainly matters. It also matters because you're not asking the only person here making the comparisons.
---------
On the issue of torture: I think we need a new vocabulary for this sort of thing, because the connotations of the word 'torture' are very different from the denotation. I think it's quite a bit like war, actually. Few if any nations are in the indefinite future going to challenge the USA in an open, conventional forces war...and yet here we are, engaging our military in several places across the globe in serious combat using conventional forces.
We are 'at war' but not 'at war'. We need a new set of vocabulary for that, too. And before I get stomped for it, this has no bearing on whether or not I think prisoner abuse is wrong: just that the word 'torture' gets used for anything between humiliation and beatings within an inch of one's life, and I think that breadth of meaning is pretty silly for such an important topic.
Posted by Jim-Me (Member # 6426) on :
quote:Originally posted by Destineer: Jim, why does it matter whether US atrocities and Iraqi atrocities are comparably bad?
Why does it matter whether I pick my nose or kill and eat my neighbor if they can both be labeled "disgusting"?
And it's not a matter of US atrocities vs. Iraqi atrocities. It's a matter of what is an "atrocity". My Lai and, apparently, Haditha are atrocities. Abu Ghraib was a bad thing. I have consistently used US atrocities throughout this thread and only mentioned an Iraqi one once.
Attempts to paint widely disparate acts with the same brush are disingenuous. In this particular instance, this tactic is being used to dishonor US soldiers *in general*.
The fact that you are consistently misreading my statements, especially after I *just* got done painfully hashing this out with dkw, tells me you are being deliberately obtuse. Stop it.
Posted by Bob_Scopatz (Member # 1227) on :
Rakeesh,
I don't think the comparisons matter one bit for "moral judgement." Especially in the lack of full disclosure from our government and the military in particular, the people who pay for and support those entities are left wondering what is being done in our name.
That's a different situation than our relationship to any other soldiers (or "enemy combatants") anywhere else in the world.
The point is that the folks who did these things are US. We and they are one in our eyes and in the eyes of the world.
I draw the line on such things by making clear that I realize that I don't have full information. But I also point out that this encourages, rather than discourages, speculation.
When we have people who argue in favor of how limited this all is forgetting that the CIA killed a man during "rough questioning" at Abu Ghraib and that no-one has been prosecuted for that death yet, and yet a bunch of grunts who were stupid enough to abuse prisoners and take photos of it have all now been charged, tried and sentenced, it makes me wonder.
The CIA killed that man before the rest of the Abu Ghraib stuff started happening. The fact that Graner was insider enough to pose with the corpse after the fact at least opens up the possiblity that his earllier stories were true about how the stuff they were doing to the prisoners WAS sanctioned by someone higher up the food chain (if not his actual chain of command.
And I do note that the Brits have given an officer an honorable discharge AFTER he refused to return to Iraq and fight alongside our troops. They apparently bought his condemnation of the pervasive attitude of dehumanization of the Iraqis in general. Look...say what you will, but the Brits are known for a few things militarily:
1) High degree of honor (and yes, I know they've had their problems) 2) Not giving out honorable discharges just to shut people up.
Unless their military has gone way downhill, that event among our closest allies should at least give us pause.
In the context of the odious practice of "extraordinary rendition" the idea that we are somehow a non-torture state is just ludicrous. We have sent people to countries knowing that those countries torture prisoners. If we'll do that, and not torture them ourselves, then we're just squeemish, not anti-torture.
The Red Cross doesn't even know how many prisoners we are holding, and where. Let alone their names.
These are the things being done in my name that I want answers about, and I want them to stop.
This kind of stuff is what dishonors the sacrifices of our troops. Not me saying it, but actual people actually doing it!
And if we signed a treaty banning torture, and then do some of the things that are defined as torture in that treaty, then we're guilty of torture.
Just because the cases involve psychological torture mostly doesn't make us better than other torturers. It means that we're willing to violate the treaty. If you'll do it a little, will you do it a lot? Again, in the absense of full disclosure, the mind is free to roam -- to places where our operatives like the CIA person who killed the man at Abu Ghraib. Where does he go? What does he do to people?
Until we have details on that guy's actions, and others like him, and know what has happened to folks that we've "rendered" "elsewhere," I think it's perfectly legitimate to wonder if the US is engaging in more overtly physical forms of torture of prisoners, contrary to our treaties.
And if these are isolated incidents involving bad actors, then, again, who is that CIA guy, and what prison is he in?
Posted by Jim-Me (Member # 6426) on :
I agree that full disclosure will do nothing but good. I know of no reason to avoid it. I can think of a few reasons to delay it, the best one (in every sense) being to take care that the information presented is accurate. I gather this is largely Senator McCain's position, is it not?
Posted by Rakeesh (Member # 2001) on :
quote:Just because the cases involve psychological torture mostly doesn't make us better than other torturers. It means that we're willing to violate the treaty. If you'll do it a little, will you do it a lot?
I fail to follow this logic, Bob. By this line of reasoning as you're using here, one lawbreaker (litterer) is just as bad as another lawbreaker (vandal) who is just as bad as another lawbreaker (rapist).
Just because I believe there should be another definition for what was done, does not mean that I believe we are not guilty of torture. Because we have signed treaties saying we wouldn't do it, and we have done it. I challenge you to point to where I've said or suggested otherwisie.
Torture, incidentally I suspect virtually every other nation on Earth-including the Brits, to the IRA.
Now when I point that out I'm sure to get people jumping on me for it, pointing out that this does not make it acceptable, or even less awful, for us to be guilty of torture. I'm just pointing it out. I'm introducing the point that we've done something awful. Lots of people have done the same awful thing, maybe even worse. As Americans it is our special duty to be more concerned with what our soldiers do than with what other nations' soldiers do.
Posted by Samprimary (Member # 8561) on :
quote:Originally posted by Jim-Me: [QB] I will answer that one, since it involves clarifying something I said earlier.
I said "Illegal fraternity hazing."
I know, and it's still a terribly, obscenely inappropriate comparison for reasons I should not have to explain to anyone.
The events in Abu Ghraib were in no way comparable to fraternity hazing of any sort. Unless, of course, there's a university around these parts somewhere that I don't know about that will apprehend men and women with convoys and hold them in prisons for months while abusing, torturing, and occasionally even killing them.
quote:But if you think that's comparable to gunning down dozens of people in cold blood, I seriously suggest you adjust your moral compass.
Where in my post do I suggest that it is? You are misreading my position greatly.
Posted by Jim-Me (Member # 6426) on :
*head asplode*
Posted by Destineer (Member # 821) on :
quote:Lots of people have done the same awful thing, maybe even worse. As Americans it is our special duty to be more concerned with what our soldiers do than with what other nations' soldiers do.
I've become confused about what people are disagreeing over in this thread, because I endorse this statement completely. It sounds exactly like the point I was trying to make before.
Posted by Bob_Scopatz (Member # 1227) on :
quote:As Americans it is our special duty to be more concerned with what our soldiers do than with what other nations' soldiers do.
I agree.
Sorry I took so long to respond here. I missed this thread last night.
quote:I agree that full disclosure will do nothing but good. I know of no reason to avoid it. I can think of a few reasons to delay it, the best one (in every sense) being to take care that the information presented is accurate. I gather this is largely Senator McCain's position, is it not?
I agree Jim-me. I don't really know what McCain's position is in detail.
One point that I think is worth making is that if there was independent review, skeptics like myself would have a lot less cause to say that delayed disclosure is due to stone-walling, but rather was legitimate in the pursuit of accuracy.
As long as the military investigates itself, I think they leave themselves open to this kind of criticism.
The fact that the prosecution of the guards at Abu Ghraib is completed and we don't even a person charged in that death that I referenced is a case in point. If they can gather evidence, try and convict in that period, what's the holdup in finding out which CIA operatives were present just before that man died and letting the world know that at least someone has been held for questioning.
It's not like we need names, at least not until/unless there is a conviction.
I don't like the implications of that particular delay because it means, to me, that the grunts are going to take the fall for what may be a much more far-reaching cover-up of physically extreme torture was used.
It begins to look like a show for the press rather than a real search for truth or justice.
Posted by Destineer (Member # 821) on :
I even agree that torture is the wrong word for the Abu Ghraib crimes. It's not like they were going all Jack Bauer on the prisoners.
But we need to come down hard on that kind of behavior, because it undermines our stated goals of helping out the Iraqis. If our troops are going to act that way, there really is no point to our being in that country.
Posted by Samprimary (Member # 8561) on :
quote:Originally posted by Jim-Me: *head asplode*
Well hey, as long as you're reading my posts right, you're welcome to disagree!
Or agree, or explode, or whatever is happening here.
Posted by Rakeesh (Member # 2001) on :
quote:But we need to come down hard on that kind of behavior, because it undermines our stated goals of helping out the Iraqis. If our troops are going to act that way, there really is no point to our being in that country.
Yes, we do need to come down hard on such behavior. And frankly, I would have been in favor of coming down much harder on all involved in Abu Ghraib than we have thus far. Farther even than the exact offense in and of itself might deserve, simply because they wear the uniform and their actions brought disgrace to their units, their services, and their nation. Not to mention the indirect but undeniable impact on PR and public sentiment in Iraq, which has a direct impact on the amount of violence there to Iraqis and international soldiers.
But "our soldiers" are not acting that way there. Some-a tiny minority-are acting that way there. Which is quite different, and clarifying that is not the same as minimizing or dismissing it.
Posted by Destineer (Member # 821) on :
quote:But "our soldiers" are not acting that way there. Some-a tiny minority-are acting that way there.
I absolutely agree. But if one soldier misbehaves, that's one too many, and not just from a moral standpoint.
It's essential to our mission in Iraq that none of our troops act that way -- because success requires that the Iraqi on the street see US forces as friendly. These people won't give us the benefit of the doubt. So all of our soldiers must be scrupulous. If they can't (which is entirely possible) our mission of rebuilding the country has already failed.
I would add that sending mixed messages about the wrongness of torture and abuse won't make it any easier to expect near-perfect ethical behavior from the troops.
Posted by MrSquicky (Member # 1802) on :
Jim, I'm wondering. You keep saying that people shouldn't make accusations about worse things happening at Abu Ghraib and how it was all on the level of illegal fraternity hazing. What do think about the pictures and videos that the Bush administration classified at the 11th hour?
I have no personal knowledge on what's on the classified material, but, considering the descriptions of it being "much worse that what we've seen" by people who have seen it and the administration's hiding it away, I have a really bad feeling about it.
I don't want to be the country that minimizes and hides things that it's representatives do wrong. Besides being wrong, I think that it hurts us in the long run. In my opinion, we'd be better served to come out openly with what happened, how it was the actions of isolated individuals (fingers crossed on that one. I don't actually fully believe it based on what I see as a casual attitudes towards torture that's been displayed) that the military, policitians, and general public strongly disapprove of, and that those involved are punished severely and openly.
Consider the Catholic Church's response to the sexual abuse scandal. They minimized and covered up. The laity response was at least as strongly leaning towards defensive as outraged. Does anyone trust them anymore? The Church came out looking like an organization that needs to be severely punished in order to police itself. I don't want America to fall into the same trap, but that's the way I see our leaders taking us.
[ June 09, 2006, 12:11 AM: Message edited by: MrSquicky ]
Posted by Rakeesh (Member # 2001) on :
quote:I would add that sending mixed messages about the wrongness of torture and abuse won't make it any easier to expect near-perfect ethical behavior from the troops.
Yes indeed, it would not help. It's a good thing no one here is doing so.
Posted by Robin Kaczmarczyk (Member # 9067) on :
Antipahty for the US of A?
WRONG!
I love the US of A. And it's out of that love for it that I can speak the way I do.
BTW. I'm in Hollywood right now.
Posted by Rakeesh (Member # 2001) on :
To channel a much-missed reptile, "Who the hell is Robin Kaczmarczyk?"
Posted by Jim-Me (Member # 6426) on :
quote:Originally posted by Rakeesh: Yes, we do need to come down hard on such behavior. And frankly, I would have been in favor of coming down much harder on all involved in Abu Ghraib than we have thus far. Farther even than the exact offense in and of itself might deserve, simply because they wear the uniform and their actions brought disgrace to their units, their services, and their nation. Not to mention the indirect but undeniable impact on PR and public sentiment in Iraq, which has a direct impact on the amount of violence there to Iraqis and international soldiers.
But "our soldiers" are not acting that way there. Some-a tiny minority-are acting that way there. Which is quite different, and clarifying that is not the same as minimizing or dismissing it.
Everything he said.
Posted by Jim-Me (Member # 6426) on :
quote:Originally posted by MrSquicky: I'm wondering. You keep saying that people shouldn't make accusations about worse things happening at Abu Ghraib and how it was all on the level of illegal fraternity hazing.
I most emphatically do NOT keep saying that. I haven't said it once. Which is why I keep getting more and more angry with this thread, because you are all distinctly putting words in my mouth and ignoring my main points no matter how clearly I state them.
It's really pissing me off.
I said people shouldn't make broad, unsubstantiated accusations about things like Abu Ghraib being "business as usual" on the basis that "the administration is covering it up." The act of generally insulting US soldiers because we can't see the invisible cat in the chair is bad enough, but those accusations damage the war effort and play right into the hands of the insurgency... people who make and spread those assertions are among the insurgency's strongest allies.
As for the illegal fraternity hazing comment, what I said was that My Lai compared to Abu Ghraib was like mass murder compared to illegal fraternity hazing. Observe:
quote:Originally posted by Jim-Me: Mentioning these allegations or the actions at My Lai (pronounced "me lie", in case you young-uns were wondering) in the same sense as Abu Ghraib is kind of upsetting.
While I don't condone what happened at Abu Ghraib, it's a whole different order of abuse on several levels. Roughly the difference between illegal fraternity hazing and mass murder (in terms of civilian crime).
By challenging me on my assertion (which I stand by with a minor adjustment) that the vast majority of what happened at Abu Ghraib was not "severe" (from the definition someone else cited) enough to rate as "torture", people have effectively ignored the main thrust of my comments and continually painted me as minimizing or even justifying the abuses at Abu Ghraib when that is patently untrue.
Which is why I'm pissed. For three pages now you people have consistently ignored everything I'm saying in order to deliberately paint me as holding an unreasonable and unjustifiable position. It is, as I have also repeatedly said, disingenuous. So far only one person has offered an apology for so doing.
For the rest of you, please learn to read.
Posted by Destineer (Member # 821) on :
quote:Yes indeed, it would not help. It's a good thing no one here is doing so.
I wasn't talking about anyone here. I was referring to the guy who just signed an anti-torture bill while reserving the right to ignore it if it gets in his way.
Posted by scholar (Member # 9232) on :
Jim-me, if it makes you feel better, I don't judge the actual soldiers at all. I judge Cheney and Rumsfield and Bush and the other top guys. It is a commander's job to control those beneath him/her. I would think most of the actual soldiers are victims. I get upset over calling Abu Ghraib abuse instead of torture because I think the very word choice is a way of minimizing what happened. MrSquicky pointed out that many of the pics have been classified. Descriptions of those include proof of rape. So, I look at this story, see proof of people being killed and raped. I get very annoyed to then hear it minimized as just psychological or not severe.
Posted by MrSquicky (Member # 1802) on :
Really Jim, because that's not what I've been reading at all. For example:
quote:While I don't condone what happened at Abu Ghraib, it's a whole different order of abuse on several levels. Roughly the difference between illegal fraternity hazing and mass murder (in terms of civilian crime).
quote:As to Abu Ghraib, I'm going to be very preciuse here. What was done was wrong, and it was degrading. Characterizing that as "torture" betrays a gross misunderstanding of what torture actually is.
quote:And I think your "and this is just what we know about" statement is *exactly* the kind of unwarranted sentiment I have been warning against this entire thread.
What I've read is you minimizing what happened and ignoring the fact that we don't know the full extent of what happened, but have reason to believe it's worse that what's come out. Or is murder and rape covered under your "illegal fraternity hazing" charaterization?
I think that the decision to hide and cover-up what happened at Abu Ghraib was a poor decision. Full honesty and outrage are, to me, the best ways to handle a situation with rogue soldiers. When the Bush administration doesn't take this course, I think the reprecussions of this (including *gasp* people thinking that there's more going on than they are telling) it's their fault.
Maybe, to you, that makes me a aid to the terrorists. I kind of think people who do as you do, letting the administration get away with minimizing and covering up our mistakes and whose line seems to be "the things they let us know about aren't that bad" hurt the country more than people who are trying to get them to be honest.
edit: When the administration classifies media from Abu Ghraib at the 11th hour, when they won't let the Red Cross visit their prisoners, when they float the idea that torture is something that they're not necessarily prohibited from doing, when they oppose John McCain's "We don't torture." resolution, when they farm out torture under the name of "extraordinary rendition", they give the appearance to American citizens and the rest of the world that we are the sort of country that is not all that concerned about torture and that may even employing it clandestinely. The best way I can see to counter that is to make as big a fuss about it as I can, so that people know that for at least some of us, torture is really not okay and it's not something that we're willing to accept may be happening.
Back to the Catholic example,the vast majority of Catholics are really not okay with priests molesting children and then the administrators covering this up and moving the priests around. That's not the problem with their response. The problem was that they seemed at least as concerned about defending the Church, covering up what could be covered up, and minimizing what couldn't as they were about extreme outrage that the Church let this happen.
Despite your frequent assertions, I don't think anyone has accused you of thinking that what happened at Abu Ghraib was okay or right, but you seem a great deal more concerned about minimizing it than outraged that it happened or that the Bush administration is still covering what is likely the worst parts of it up.
[ June 09, 2006, 12:41 PM: Message edited by: MrSquicky ]
Posted by Jim-Me (Member # 6426) on :
I've said explicitly and repeatedly and even in all caps that my point is that things like My Lai and Haditha are an entirely different order of evil than what happened at Abu Ghraib.
I cannot make it anymore clear than that. If you can't read, that's not my problem.
Posted by Robin Kaczmarczyk (Member # 9067) on :
quote:Originally posted by Rakeesh: To channel a much-missed reptile, "Who the hell is Robin Kaczmarczyk?"
I thought I knew most of the reptiles on this planet.. What reptile would that be?
Also, I did a little altavista search on 'who is Robin Kaczmarczyk'..
Dangerous replies!
Posted by airmanfour (Member # 6111) on :
I realize that me saying "trust us" won't get me real far, but here's the deal. These are real people under an enormous amount of stress and cracking. It happens. Is it excusable? Heck no. Will they be punished? Heck yes.
Stop lumping military screw-ups together. Two different services in totally different Commands. Abu Ghraib involved stupid Soldiers (you wouldn't believe how dumb some of those guys are), and Haditha involves incredibly stressed and emotionally destroyed Marines. The dumb Soldiers thing can be fixed, but if walking down a street remains as harrying as it is now, an entire Marine Company flipping out again remains a (remote) possibility.
Posted by Destineer (Member # 821) on :
quote:I realize that me saying "trust us" won't get me real far, but here's the deal. These are real people under an enormous amount of stress and cracking. It happens.
I'm sympathetic to this.
But if it's true, we shouldn't be involved in an operation where success requires our troops to scrupulously respect the rights of a suspicious civilian population. If atrocities are in some sense inevitable, the leadership should realize this and be more reluctant to begin wars.
Posted by scholar (Member # 9232) on :
I will believe the Haditha was people cracking. The Abu Ghraib was too organized to be just stupid people.
Posted by airmanfour (Member # 6111) on :
I don't remember the whole story behind Abu Ghraib, but if memory serves, only one person was charged with anything. I think the Colonel in charge may have been punished too, but I'm of the opinion that someone needed to be blamed, and the poor Colonel in charge had enough rank for the big cheeses to nail in a "look what we did to make it better" kind of way. I don't think the abuse of prisoners at Abu Ghraib was policy as much as unsupervised dummies.
The reason that I think stupid was to blame is the military entrance exam. You either need a 36 or a 45 out of 99 to pass and be assigned a job. I doubt Jailer requires a score much above the entrance score.
To give you an idea how dumb these kids can possibly be, I took the ASVAB (Armed Services Vocational Aptitude Battery) with the Army. It's when we found out our scores and the two guys the recruiter took to test with me didn't have a combined score that equaled mine, I decided to join the Air Force.
Edited because I dislike extraneous letters
Posted by Morbo (Member # 5309) on :
airmanfour, like you I don't remember all the details of Abu Ghraib, but certainly more than one person was charged and convicted. If I had to guess without research, I'd say 6-10 were courtmartialed, with most found guilty or pleading guilty to something.
As far as
quote:Originally posted by airmanfour: I don't think the abuse of prisoners at Abu Ghraib was policy as much as unsupervised dummies.
, that's certainly debatable. Some of the soldiers convicted said more than once they were charged by interrogators with "softening up" certain prisoners. Of course, that's obviously self-serving on their part.
But when you have an administration that describes the Geneva Conventions as "quaint", and a president who signs the McCain torture bill with a signing statement that essentially reserves the right to torture anyway, as well as a dozen other policy decisions that have erased bright lines regarding torture and abuse, it would seem that policy is plausibly involved as well as stupidity.
Posted by scholar (Member # 9232) on :
Another major problem is the use of consultants. Outside companies are being hired to help with interregoations. They are not US military. I thought that was why the general running the prison did not get punished- because the interrogation was under the command of a consultant and she had no power of them, though the consultants were allowed to give orders to the troops.
Posted by Robin Kaczmarczyk (Member # 9067) on :
And that's just the stuff they got caught doing. What about the stuff they will be able to hide well?
Posted by Rakeesh (Member # 2001) on :
It is something to think about, but, "What about the stuff we don't know about?" is an accusation that can be hurled at anyone, anytime, anywhere.
So while it becomes more important depending on the integrity of the accused party and its past deeds, bear in mind that the question of itself is hardly damning.
Posted by Robin Kaczmarczyk (Member # 9067) on :
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