More of the Same

[skunk]

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk_politics/3675215.stm

Looks like it's not just your lot.

What is the answer here? Whichever bunch of thugs we employ to carry out these "humanitarian" exercises, the sad truth remains that they are a bunch of thugs. How incredibly depressing.
:(

[takao]

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk_politics/3675215.stm

Looks like it's not just your lot.

What is the answer here? Whichever bunch of thugs we employ to carry out these "humanitarian" exercises, the sad truth remains that they are a bunch of thugs. How incredibly depressing.
:(


really bad :( ...in the last 2-3 days the coalition can really be lucky with their censorship of the iraqi news.... i hope those responsible get their punishment....

you just can't do this... this is just inhuman treatment...

[mactastic]

you just can't do this... this is just inhuman treatment...

Not only that, but if our justification for war is going to rest on humanitarian grounds we risk looking as misguided on that aspect as we did on WMD.

[skunk]

God what a mess! :mad: :(
But at least it may shake up the polls. Not that it's much in the way of a silver lining.

[numediaman]

skunk, I just saw this on the BBC web site and was about to post it.

This stuff is not new -- its just that now the pictures are getting into the hands of the media.

I think has been caused by the fact that we have young, inexperienced troops over there who are falling into the trap of reacting to the car bombings and sniper attacks. In addition, morale has not been good ever since the troops learned they would be there for a long time. (I'm not talking about the recent extensions, but the fact that tours of duty have been too long for a while. In Vietnam, tours were measured in months. In WWII, troops were routinely taken off the front lines after weeks of active combat. In Iraq, the troops were told they could be there up to a year -- then recently it was extended even further.)

[Desertrat]

numediaman, I think it's less the length of time than the "changing the rules". When you're expecting some specific length of time for your tour, and then Oops! you're extended, it's a heavy hit.

In WW II, you were in "for the duration". Many in the 1st Infantry Division, "The Big Red One", served from North Africa on to VE Day, with little of the rotation to rest areas that you mentioned. My father, with the 3rd, mentioned one stint of a week or so in a rear-area rest camp; he was in Europe in combat from August of '44 until the liberation of the town of Dortmund with its work camp.

The Korean tour for the Army was 16 months; for the Marines, one year. All services' Vietnam tours were for one year.

The vast majority of the men in our military were draftees and enlistees. Relatively few from the Reserves or the NG, compared to the present day.

Now, with so much of our military being NG and Reserves, it's a harder hit to be extended than in the past. It may reduce the overall cost to have our military in this format, but there are other problems besides money...

'Rat

[numediaman]

I would agree, 'Rat. Though in WWII, so many men in uniform, they used to rotate troops very frequently. Nonetheless, the problem here may be worse than I thought when I wrote that post.

Did you read the Hersh story I posted from the New Yorker? The story strongly implies that the treatment of the prisoners was not a random act of violence. If true, some heads will roll over this (other than the six GIs so far identified.) In fact, if true, this would truly be a war crime -- not simply an example of GIs run amok.

[Desertrat]

What with moderating over at thehighroad.org and trying to be reasonably useful to my wife's business, I don't always follow up on links. :)

Somewhere I ran across a reference to some Germans caught in the same sort of Bad Stuff.

As far as "war crimes", the argument will probably be about whether the U.S. idiots should be let out of Leavenworth long enough for any other legal actions...

'Rat

[IJ Reilly]

For this to be a truly "random" act, the photos of the events would have to be equally random. Based on my understanding of probabilities, this has to come under the heading of "not bloody likely." I certainly hope it's not so, but I'd guess that these photos of US troops smiling for the camera while they're committing unspeakable acts against Iraqi prisoners is evidence of a wider problem. After all, people don't often do terrible things unless these acts are encouraged by their peers and, in the military at least, condoned by their commanders.

All of which leads me to wonder whether the US troops in Iraq aren't being encouraged to think just a little bit more of themselves as conquerers than as liberators.

[Neserk]

All of which leads me to wonder whether the US troops in Iraq aren't being encouraged to think just a little bit more of themselves as conquerers than as liberators.

COnsidering what I've seen of the military training that went on/goes on at VMI I'm not the least bit surprised. What comes around goes around...

[IJ Reilly]

Worst fears realized...

Iraqi Prisoner Abuse Appears More Extensive

Several accounts describe infliction of physical and mental pain. A sergeant charged in the investigation says intelligence officers encouraged such actions.

By T. Christian Miller
Times Staff Writer

May 2, 2004

WASHINGTON — At least one Iraqi prisoner died after interrogation, some were threatened with attack dogs and others were kept naked in tiny cells without running water or ventilation, according to an account written by a military police sergeant who is one of six U.S. soldiers charged in a growing scandal over prisoner abuse in Iraq.

The account of Staff Sgt. Ivan "Chip" Frederick II, along with interviews Saturday with other soldiers in Frederick's unit and senior U.S. and military officials, paints a portrait of a prison that spun out of control last fall as thousands of captured Iraqis poured into its razor-wire confines.

In some cases, as few as a dozen U.S. soldiers were responsible for overseeing more than 1,000 prisoners. Escape attempts were common. Mortar fire from insurgents rained down on prison grounds, killing U.S. guards and Iraqi prisoners.

Relatives of Frederick, who faces court-martial in connection with the alleged sexual and physical degradation of prisoners in Iraq, gave The Times a copy of the account that they said was handwritten by Frederick shortly after his arrest in January.

Frederick, 37, wrote that U.S. intelligence officers and civilian contractors who were conducting interrogations urged military police at the Abu Ghraib prison west of Baghdad to take steps to make prisoners more responsive to questioning.

Military intelligence officers have "encouraged us, and told us, 'great job,' that they were now getting positive results and information," he said in the neatly written 10-page document that covers a two-week period of last fall.

One U.S. official said 50 to 100 Iraqis had died in U.S. custody during the last year, victims of mortar attacks, heat exhaustion, wounds suffered in battles and attacks by other prisoners.

Although Frederick said one prisoner died after interrogation, the official said that so far no such allegations had been independently substantiated. He said the deaths from other causes amounted to a small percentage of the estimated 35,000 Iraqis who had spent time in U.S. detention centers.

Still, he said that the abuse allegations and other evidence showed that Iraqi prisoners had suffered under U.S. custody.

"There was a mentality that the people we're in charge of are not humans," the U.S. official said. "That's not consistent with our values. The people who were doing this lost it."

The New Yorker magazine reported Saturday that it had obtained a 53-page U.S. military report that concluded that Iraqi prisoners had been subjected to "sadistic, blatant and wanton criminal abuses" at the prison, which before last year's U.S.-led invasion had been Saddam Hussein's primary killing ground for political enemies.

The author of the report, identified by the New Yorker as Army Maj. Gen. Antonio M. Taguba, said it appeared that some of the inmates had been beaten and sodomized, perhaps with a broomstick or a chemical light.

[...]

They blamed a failure of leadership that led to lax or nonexistent standards and pressure from the top to produce results in the intelligence-gathering efforts that were screening thousands of Iraqi detainees.

Frederick wrote that he saw naked Iraqis crammed into cells that were 3 feet by 3 feet, unable to lie down. He said he was instructed to place inmates in isolation cells without water or toilets for as long as three days at a time. Sometimes, inmates were handcuffed to the cell door or made to wear female underpants.

"I questioned this and the answer I got was this is how military intelligence wants it done," Frederick wrote.

He also described incidents in which he believed force was used without justification. In one case, a man who appeared to be mentally disabled was shot with nonlethal bullets while standing near a fence, singing. In another case, a man with a broken arm was put into a headlock and choked, he said.

Frederick questioned his commander "about how prisoners were treated," he wrote. "His reply was 'Don't worry about it.' "

[...]

http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/iraq/la-fg-abuse2may02,1,2927600.story