WashingtonPost.com: Defense Rests in Abuse Court-Martial.
I feel sorry for the soldiers being prosecuted because of the Abu Ghraib incidents. They are being made scapegoats in order to prove something to the Muslims, like we really need to prove anything to them.
According to the testimony, senior military intelligence officers knew about and encouraged the behavior, but it's the soldiers following their orders being court-martialed.
I believe that the highest levels of military intelligence condoned these types of tough questioning tactics, and these tactics were taught at the top secret military intelligence training school at Fort Huachuca, AZ.
Furthermore, I don't understand why it's OK to drop bombs on the enemy and kill them, but it's suddenly a big violation of the rules of war to make them wear underwear belonging to the opposite sex.
4 comments:
First of all, many of the prisoners in Abu Ghraib were in fact not the enemy. They were just innocent civilians who had gotten picked up in the confusion.
Secondly, they did a lot worse than make them wear underwear of the opposite sex.
But you are correct that the low ranking soldiers are being made scapegoats for what was probably a semi-official policy.
I started reading this blog because I thought I would find a lot in common with a self described libertarian. I was wrong. Here is the sad thing: I actually agree that the invasion of Iraq was better than starving them through sanctions, but your rational in defending torture is wrong.
Why is it not ok to humiliate the enemy? I've addressed this before in my blog http://www.donotremove.net/mexigogue/archives/002870.html but a recap would be that when enemy fighters are considering surrender but they know they will be treated inhumanely if captured, it makes them more likely to fight to the death. No problem unless it's your brother who gets capped when this enemy fighter takes a last stand rather than surrendering.
Unfortunately, nothing that happened in that prison constituted "torture" in any sort of normal, classic, sense of the word. Were the soldiers being investigated and tried stupid, should have known better, violating various U.S. rules, laws, regulations? Yes, they certainly did and the U.S. military was already on the road to taking care of it (probably slower than it should have been).Bullshit.
Just in case you forgot exactly what happened at Abu Gharaib, see here for a reminder. Do you continue to insist that that's not torture in the "normal, classic sense of the word?"
Yours truly,
Mr. X
...disgusted...
If you go check on what the Iraqis say, the worst day of what happened at the hands of the soldiers was much better than any day in Saddam's prison.That's your response? We're not as bad as Saddam Hussein? We're the fucking American people! I'd like to be able to say a little more about my country than, "Well, we're better than Saddam Hussein."
And did you actually click the link and look at those pictures? You really don't think that's torture?
Yours truly,
Mr. X
...getting sick...
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