posted
Okay -- I was going to resurrect one of the threads about the prisoner abuse in Iraq, but couldn't find an appropriate one to bump. And I know the situation has been talked to death, so I'm not trying to start another debate.
But I was reading on-line today the affidavit (Statement) given by Jeremy Sivits at his court marshal. All ten pages of it.
I was wondering if any of the rest of you have read it, and if it changed your perspective on the events any at all. Sivits was not a "main" abuser, by his accounts, and he got hard time and dishonorable discharge -- I wonder how much harder they will go with Granier and some of the others that did most of the abuse.
The only thing about what he said that really stuck out in my mind was that in the incidents he recalls -- these detainees WERE really guys who had been involved in armed conflict with our guys -- not just random people rounded up. At least in one part he talks about Grainer being made because "this detainee had tried to kill some of our guys".
I'm not trying to justify what they did as being right. I just want your feedback on the statement if you read it.
quote:The only thing about what he said that really stuck out in my mind was that in the incidents he recalls -- these detainees WERE really guys who had been involved in armed conflict with our guys -- not just random people rounded up. At least in one part he talks about Grainer being made because "this detainee had tried to kill some of our guys".
It's war, they're supposed to try to kill our guys. Our guys are trying to kill them. Were our guys surprised by this?
And, even if you feel like Granier had a right to be mad about this, he was reacting to it by handcuffing a prisoner to a bed and repeatedly hitting his wounded legs with a baseball bat.
I am absolutely disgusted by attempts to justify this. "Well, they were trying to KILL our SOLDIERS!! That means it's OKAY to force them to masturbate in front of their captors! Duh!" I mean, forget that they're defending their country from foreign invaders, they deserve to be beaten to death for daring to defy us! We know what's best for them!
posted
And kat, I'm blown away by your constant need to reduce this to mere "embarrassment" of the prisoners!
Posts: 2220 | Registered: Jun 1999
| IP: Logged |
posted
I mean, if you want to talk about all of this abuse as mere "embarrassment" of some guys, you could similarly reduce rape to a mere "embarrassment" of a woman. After all, it doesn't usually do any real physical harm, does it? Why do people get so darn worked up over it?
Seriously, if you want to continue to think about this as us just leaving some prisoners cold and naked and embarrassed, as you've mentioned several times, do whatever floats your boat. But you'll be kidding yourself. This was real, awful, sexual and physical abuse, and you can't just dismiss it.
Posts: 2220 | Registered: Jun 1999
| IP: Logged |
posted
I'm not trying to justify what they did, Ayelar, as I said clearly in my first post. I do not think that because he said, "they were trying to kill our guys" is reason to act toward them in the same uncivilized manner.
I thought I made that clear -- as far as my personal opinion on it.
I just was pointing that particular statement from the affidavit because in previous posts here, some people said that the prisoners that were abused we just innocent, rounded-up civilians of Iraq, not people who should even be detained.
posted
Whatever it was, it wasn't killing them. I saw this big, dramatic web page about the abuse, and the clincher, the ominous last line, was that one prisoner died. Which is terrible. And a drop compared to the ten thousand civilians that have died so far.
Why on EARTH does a soldier killing someone one day make him a hero, and humiliating someone the next make him a monster?
posted
Farmgirl, the message I got from your post was that you felt that the punishments were perhaps a bit harsh, especially given that one of the abusers had a reason to be mad.
Posts: 2220 | Registered: Jun 1999
| IP: Logged |
posted
If there's so much outrage for the people in the prisons, where's the outrage for the people that died before making to the prison?
Posts: 26077 | Registered: Mar 2000
| IP: Logged |
posted
The real lesson from this is that it's probably not a good idea to have people who's primary training is how to kill others guard people who were trying to kill them.
Although I'm not sure why we didn't already know this.
In that sense, the statements of these people are incredibly relevant and we should try to learn all we can from them.
posted
I cannot forumlate why it is so, but it seems right to me. (that killing during war-time can be justified, but abuse is still wrong)
Posts: 16551 | Registered: Feb 2003
| IP: Logged |
posted
Kat when they were still free and fighting, they had at least a theoretical means to defend themselves via weapons. Once someone is taken prisoner, they are made extremely vulnerable.
There is a vast difference between shooting someone who can shoot back, and forcing helpless prisoners, however vile their acts while armed were, to sexual degredation.
I never figured that the people that the soldiers were making do this were *nice* people. "Nice" people don't shoot people whether they are our soldiers or the opponents. Soldiers aren't paid to be "nice". But there are boundaries to behavior and clearly the line was crossed.
posted
You are totally not answering my question, kat. If it's okay to downplay this prison abuse because it wasn't (always) fatal, then why is it not okay (I assume) to downplay rape when it isn't fatal? Aren't we pretty much talking about the same type of thing? Why aren't you able to get past the idea that all we did was make these prisoners lose a little face in front of their buddies?
Posts: 2220 | Registered: Jun 1999
| IP: Logged |
And to answer your original question, no, reading the statements doesn't change my opinion of what happened there, or what should be done to the people who did it or allowed it to happen.
Posts: 2220 | Registered: Jun 1999
| IP: Logged |
posted
To recount some of the things that happened to prisoners:
being beaten until they bled, being forced to beat other prisoners, being stacked naked and blindfolded for hours on top of and under other prisoners.
No matter what these people had (possibly) done in the past, while they were our prisoners we abused them to a disgusting degree. Remember, our soldiers share about the same degree of "guilt" that most of these people do, if these are just common soldiers. Would we even remotely tolerate our soldiers being treated the same way by Iraqis were they captured?
Posts: 15770 | Registered: Dec 2001
| IP: Logged |
quote:The three detainees were brought to 1A from the general population portion of the prison after they allegedly raped a fifteen-year-old boy who was also in general population. The detainees were stripped, handcuffed together were laid down. This was a humiliation tactic to get information about the rape. These photographs were taken after the three detainees were forced to run and crawl up and down the hallway. They were also subjected to varous exercises to wear them down, such as holding their hands above their heads, or out straight. This incident lasted approximately four to six hours, but not continuously. Shortly after these photographs were taken the detainees were allowed to dress and return to their cells. They eventually confessed to raping the boy.
posted
Nothing that has been done in Iraq, from the decision to invade to the abuse in the prisons to handover next month as we hightail it out of there is okay.
I think these soldiers are being made scapegoats for the collective guilt and lack of foresight of everyone who decided going to war was a good thing.
Posts: 26077 | Registered: Mar 2000
| IP: Logged |
posted
I'm reading the statements now. I know that everyone will try to protect themselves but Svits appears awfully dumb and innocent compared to England. England's is far more coherent and intelligent statment, and scarier as a result.
posted
FG, I don't have an issue with any of the methods described in your specific quote, assuming that they happened exactly as stated and nothing more. I do, however, have a problem with photographs being taken. That does nothing to aid in the interrogation process.
Posts: 2220 | Registered: Jun 1999
| IP: Logged |
posted
Simply put, how on earth do we know they did if most of our evidence is that confession? There are numerous cases of people confessing to things they didn't do under torture. If you were already being punished for something you didn't do, but the worst would stop if you confessed, what would you do?
Posts: 15770 | Registered: Dec 2001
| IP: Logged |
posted
What I see is that these soldiers were put in the role of general police (obviously - arresting someone for rape on a person of the general population) but they don't seem to have any of the training or procedures of a general police force, such as we have here. I think if someone in, say, Dallas, is arrested for rape, police are not allow to go through these types of means to get a confession. So I'm not sure why soldiers were allowed/encouraged to do it.
Again, as has been said by Dag -- these people weren't really trained for what they were being asked to do. They are trained as soldiers to fight in battle -- not to be general police and prison guards.
posted
I agree, fugu, except that I don't think any of the methods listed in that quote would be tortuous enough to force an innocent person to confess. Lying naked on the floor would be the worst, but running and crawling up and down the hallway, or holding your arms out straight, I don't think that automatically crosses my line.
Posts: 2220 | Registered: Jun 1999
| IP: Logged |
posted
I was listening to Bob and Tom on the way over and they were commenting on how reasonable it is to expect the military to mistreat their prisoners, since those prisoners were almost certainly intending to kill them and almost certainly know information that would help keep them safe if they could extract it by any means necessary.
I turned to Christy in some exasperation and said, "Duh! That's why the military should never run a prison!"
posted
Being bound and piled together in a heap with other prisoners and having solders jump on you and step on your fingers and toes... does that cross the line?
AJ
(Also the whole incident as I read the transcripts sounds terribly juvenile, like a fraternity stunt gone awry. Surely the military has far more sophisticated techniques available for reliable information!)
quote:Nothing that has been done in Iraq, from the decision to invade to the abuse in the prisons to handover next month as we hightail it out of there is okay.
I think these soldiers are being made scapegoats for the collective guilt and lack of foresight of everyone who decided going to war was a good thing.
I don't disagree with anything here, FTR.
Posts: 1839 | Registered: May 1999
| IP: Logged |
ABCNews just PULLED from its website those very affidavits I had linked to above. Pulled completed. No longer linked to from their home page, and trying to pull them up from my cache -- just blank .pdf s
posted
Actually I never thought about it from the perspective that they are scapegoating for a bunch of eff-ups at the top during the entire military action. It is definitely possible though.
quote:Being bound and piled together in a heap and having solders jump on you and step on your fingers and toes... does that cross the line?
That definitely crosses my line. I think it's the actual physical threat or extreme sexual humiliation that really makes it obvious that you're not just doing it for the sake of the interrogation. Making someone uncomfortable, like by having them hold their arms out for a long time... I don't like it, but I can understand how you could justify using such a method to get needed information. But putting a prisoner in a situation where they would rather be found guilty and face the undeserved consequences than face more of the torture? No.
I'm still working out where exactly my line is.
Posts: 2220 | Registered: Jun 1999
| IP: Logged |
posted
I guess reading them did change my perspective. Yes it wasn't right, and I'm not condoning the actions in the slightest.
But the whole incident from the statments seems more like the "schoolyard bully" version of torture. Yes it should have been checked sooner. Yes there was an instutional culture of permissiveness. But this was like the "Org-caveman" cairacture version of torture rather than the sophisticated torture of the Spanish Inquisition.
AJ
It's not right either way, but the order of magnitude of the wrong from those statements is far less than what the press has been portraying.
It was an interesting note that PFC England is pregnant with the apparent ringleaders baby too.
posted
I think what changed in my mind (if anything) while reading them -- is that I was surprised that the accounts weren't much worse. I mean, by the media hype, I expected the true play-by-play details to be horrific. So it wasn't as bad as I expected (although it is still bad, and wrong, Ayelar -- I'm not backing down on that).
Kind of like going to see a really scary movie, but then you aren't nearly as scare by it as you THOUGHT you would be -- where the anticipation of the facts is deeper than the actual.
They also seemed like pretty isolated incidents by these two accounts.
posted
I, on the other hand, don't see us "high tailing it out of there" any time soon. The handover, when you get into the details, means very little.
posted
I guess so, AJ... and since I don't watch any mainstream TV news, I had no expectations when I read it. It's pretty appalling all by itself.
Posts: 2220 | Registered: Jun 1999
| IP: Logged |
posted
There wasn't anything mentioned in these accounts about forced sexual stuff other than the masturbation. (which is still wrong, don't misunderstand) But, a lot of the news accounts mention stuff far worse, more graphically. I cynically wonder if these were the sanitized statments for the press or something.
posted
No, it didn't change my perspective. But given my perspective, there really wasn't any chance it would.
Posts: 10886 | Registered: Feb 2000
| IP: Logged |
Printer-friendly view of this topic
