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Apples, Meet Oranges
Posted by Will Collier · 30 April 2004
What’s the difference between what a small but despicable group US soldiers did in Iraq and what Saddam (and every other Arab state) has been doing for decades? In our case, the people who did this will spend most of the rest of their lives in Kansas making small rocks out of big rocks. In every other case, they’d be promoted. End of comparison. (See Sgt. Stryker for an appropriate level of revulsion over this sorry event.) Comments
Stephen, What’s the difference between what a small but despicable group US soldiers did in Iraq and what Saddam (and every other Arab state) has been doing for decades? Um, unless I'm greatly mistaken, that's exactly the point he was making in the post. More accurately, his point is that such behavior is condemned by Americans, but endorsed by Middle-East dictators; thus, we are the better people. Posted by: John Beck at April 30, 2004 08:59 PMI have my doubts on the credibility of these photos - first off, if true the officer(s) and senior noncom in charge are finis as per their careers. All grunts receive general training or instruction in the Geneva Convention and the handling of POWS-civilians. Wanton or frivolous abuse of enemy prisoners in the ground forces is akin to a Navy commander or Air Force pilot abusing their command resulting in damage to their ship or plane - its a damn serious deal, besides denying intel a source(s) of information. We'' see. Posted by: JosephMendiola at April 30, 2004 11:53 PMThese people should be shot. They are trators. No Mercy. Derek Posted by: Derek at May 1, 2004 12:07 AMHow in the nine flaming hells can they claim to have been untrained in the Geneva Conventions' requirements? I was only in the Marines for two months (Mitral Valve Prolapse), not even long enough to complete Basic, and I had to read up on that. Granted, Army Basic isn't as comprehensive as what the Marines do, but these folks were MPs. Even if it were somehow overlooked in Army Basic, MP duties in wartime specifically involve handling & guarding POWs. I call BS on this Fredrick. There's just no *bleep*ing way they didn't know what the GC required. No. *bleep*ing. Way. Posted by: Cybrludite at May 1, 2004 01:08 AMWho told you it's a "small group"? The British just found out they have another "small group" there? And there are more than a few hints, especially by the accused US soldiers that their behaviour towards prisoners was inoficiall policy and lauded by the military intelligence service. Well, the latter probably qualifies as another "small group". Posted by: The Old European at May 1, 2004 08:30 AMWhat would you expect them to say, in their position? They are grasping at anything that might serve as an excuse ("We didn't get adequate training! We [sniffle] asked for more rules! Besides, the interrogators thought what we did was wonderful [sob]!" Uh-huh. "Interrogation techniques" is supposed to explain some fool pointing at a prisoner's crotch and giving a thumbs-up to a camera?) If interrogators did in fact encourage any of this, then there may be more than one brigadier out of work by the time this is done. Posted by: jaed at May 1, 2004 10:50 AMHere are a few more comparisons. In our society: The abuse is recognized as immoral by another soldier and reported to his military chain of command. "The investigation started when one soldier got them from a friend, and gave them to his commanders. " The military investigates and relieves the suspects. "Last month, the U.S. Army announced 17 soldiers in Iraq, including a brigadier general, had been removed from duty after charges of mistreating Iraqi prisoners." The military cooperates with the press and the report is made public (leaked?). Two weeks ago, 60 Minutes II received an appeal from the Defense Department, and eventually from the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, Gen. Richard Myers, to delay this broadcast -- given the danger and tension on the ground in Iraq.
And we're far from done yet, as more investigations are approved and the judicial system exposes other criminal actors and conspirators. "General Sanchez also authorized an investigation into possible wrongdoing by military and civilian interrogators." We as represented citizens are horified and are empowerd to hold our military and elected leaders responsible. We agree with Lt. Col. Bill Cowan that we need to take our lumps on this regardless how damaging externally, because it would be more damaging internally not to. In the Arab society: Information is leaked out at risk of life and limb, often by defectors and dissidents that are cloaked in skeptism and suspicion. Atrocities are seldom reported. Officials are not held accountable. The disease incubates, spreads and rots. "During Saddam's brutal rule, Arab media rarely criticized or even highlighted news of atrocities reported by world human rights watchdogs. Iraq activists always complained that ignoring the abuses encouraged the Iraqi dictator to carry out gross human rights violations." * CNN was "keeping silent about terrible human-rights abuses" in Iraq for fear of loss of innocent life while felt empowered to "refuse to participate in a [US] government-sponsored media campaign in Iraq".* "There were correspondents who thought it appropriate to seek the approbation of the people who governed their lives. This was the ministry of information, and particularly the director of the ministry. By taking him out for long candlelit dinners, plying him with sweet cakes, plying him with mobile phones at $600 each for members of his family, and giving bribes of thousands of dollars. Senior members of the information ministry took hundreds of thousands of dollars of bribes from these television correspondents who then behaved as if they were in Belgium. They never mentioned the function of minders. Never mentioned terror."* This is hardly a complete comparison. But the Arab media would be wise to not only criticize us and decry our failure here. They would also be wise to learn from it. Posted by: Tim at May 1, 2004 11:14 AMNone of this matters. What's important is that America is imperfect, and therefore the greatest evil ever known! Posted by: Robin Goodfellow at May 1, 2004 12:37 PM Well.. I'm personally getting revulsed at the excuses and evasions y'all are making for this travesty, but that's just me. Posted by: David Ross at May 1, 2004 07:04 PMAs much as I fear and mistrust the Anti-Victory* propaganda machine, and loathe its relentless drip-drip-drip of defeatism and negativism, I am willing to concede that these events took place as reported. The perps should be punished. But I have not gotten too discomposed over this event. Before this war ends -- in victory for America and its allies -- our enemies will do worse things to us and we will do far, far worse things to our enemies. I've accepted this. * Formerly known as "Anti-War" Posted by: victorious at May 1, 2004 08:20 PMYeah. "Shit happens." Fuck you. I guess shit is happening in Chechnya. I didn't support this war so we could go over and build new rape rooms. You apologists disgust me. Posted by: Disgusted at May 1, 2004 10:20 PMThis is a sign that the Iraqis have not done a good job of winning our hearts and minds. They should ask themselves what they did to make us hate them so much that we would do something like this to them. Maybe they should reconsider their policy regarding infidels. This is all their fault for alienating us the way they have been doing for decades now. This is a war against Christians. It is time for the Iraqis to stop occupying our troops lives. No one likes to have their troops occupied and this will only generate hatred and violence toward Muslims everywhere. This incident only proves that the Iraqis have lied to us and do not have good intentions. Now imagine hearing the above while watching video of Americans burning Arab/Muslim nation flags and yelling "Death to all Muslims!" and then setting fire to pictures of Iraqi tribal leaders while grinning and dancing and celebrating the torture of the "enemy" as though we had just won the lottery. That is what we hear and see whenever they murder, burn, torture and/or mutilate our troops AND innocent civilians. It is always our fault they did these things to us or to each other. My statement above is no different from what they say and write about us every single day in the Arab/Muslim societies and the media. If you are Arab or Muslim you should know that how you felt reading the statement above is how we feel when Arabs/Muslims make the same absurd statements about us every single day. They say it when they attack us and they say it when they attack each other and all while accepting billions of dollars in financial aid. And we have been seeing this for YEARS now, so don't bother with the occupation excuse. This was going on LONG before we went into to Iraq and is actually a part of the reason we are in Iraq right now. Much will be made of this all across the globe, so I want point out that this type of thing and much, much worse occurs on a daily basis in other parts of the world and no one is shocked or outraged by it. This is because America, and to a lesser extent the West in general, is always held to a much higher standard than anyone else. These facts, and the fact that it was an American soldier that reported these crimes, is a testament to the high values and ideals that America stands for. This is a very rare thing for the U.S.A. or it would not be the huge and shocking story it is today. The American people are ashamed of these criminals and what they have done. There is NO excuse for this kind of thing and I will not attempt to make any. Those soldiers are a disgusting and shameful disgrace and they should be prosecuted to the full extent of the law and they will be. We blame ourselves for this and will work to make sure it does not happen again. We will not be blaming anyone else for what our own people have done. We accept responsibility for this. You will not see us naming refugee camps or streets after them in appreciation of the horrendous crimes they have committed. We have too much honor and integrity for that. *** Please imagine for a moment how differently things could have gone in Falluja if Iraqis had reacted as described in the above paragraph. Think of how many lives, on both sides, could have been saved.*** I pray that one day the Middle East will progress enough that when a crime of this nature is committed by their people the world will be as shocked and outraged as they are today to hear Americans have committed these horrible crimes. But as it is today, these things and much, much worse, are such a common occurrence in the Middle East that they rarely rate even a mention on the nightly news. Posted by: Cherice at May 2, 2004 01:14 AM"I pray that one day the Middle East will progress enough that when a crime of this nature is committed by their people the world will be as shocked and outraged as they are today to hear Americans have committed these horrible crimes. But as it is today, these things and much, much worse, are such a common occurrence in the Middle East that they rarely rate even a mention on the nightly news." Sadly enough the one and only thing that I could still concede to your attempt to regain the higher moral ground is the difference in the numbers of victims of Saddam's tortures and the number of victims of yours soldiers. Apart from that there is not much difference left in the respective attitudes towards human life. the difference in the numbers of victims of Saddam's tortures and the number of victims of yours soldiers. Apart from that there is not much difference left in the respective attitudes towards human life. If you think the only difference here is numbers, you are a moron. Saddam's torturers did not humiliate their victims. They mutilated and killed them. What a few rogue American soldiers did is bad. What Saddam's government(and just about every other arab government) did as a matter of policy was far worse. We can condemn the wrongdoers and still keep our perspective. And, as Dan Drezner says, spare me the outrage from the Arab street. Let me add, spare me the outrage from the "anti-war" people who tried to move heaven and earth to keep Saddam's torture chambers operating. Posted by: Bill at May 2, 2004 02:41 PMTo all the people out there who defended LtCol West's torturing of a prisoner, this is what you get. Execute these pigs and retrieve some semblance of honor to our army. You Reap What You Sow. Results of LtCol West Posted by: Mike Rentner at May 2, 2004 03:45 PMTO: Mike Rentner "To all the people out there who defended LtCol West's torturing of a prisoner, this is what you get." -- Mike Rentner Funny... ...when I first saw the photo, I thought the guy wired for sound was participating in a Prop-Blast Ceremony; a time-honored tradition amongst officers of US Army paratroopers. Did it myself in '77. I took offense that he was not an officer, let alone a paratrooper. But then if NCOs were officiating, I can understand what happened. Once I saw a pair of NCOs try to get a national guardsman, on detail to recover parachute deployment bags after a night jump, hooked the guardsman up with a reserver, attached to the little web belt on his fatigues. After talking hiim up and connecting the chute, they were hustling him towards the opened door... You should have seen the expression on his face. Regards, Chuck(le) P.S. If the officer had known about this they probably would have put a stop to it immediately. They would know that it was a bad idea to PO all the paratroopers in the area by doing this sort of thing. Then again, the nude shots? That would have brought down even more paras. But they'd have had a different motivation for that.... Posted by: Chuck Pelto at May 2, 2004 06:20 PMDRUDGE is reporting that it was US civilian contractors whom had interrogated and secured the prisoners - in any case, a federal employee is a federal employee whether uniformed, civil service or private contractor. Even if the uniformed guards and their commanders were not formally responsible or did NOT per se put these detained Iraqis in their final positions, they had a professional duty to stop any form of prisoner abuse, theirs or others, military or civilian, no matter how benign or "in fun", a duty which I'm certain the Army or interservice JAG's, courts-martial prosecutors, or Leavenworth will no doubt remind them of. The NCOS and privates might have a slim chance depending on how reasonable their explanation is, but their chance(s) are exponentially better than those for the "the man" and lower commissioned silvers/butterbars in charge! Its great to be king or a general except when something like this happens. In any case, they aren't "guilty" until the courts martial deterrmines them to be so - hey, in the former USSR and still China, one could be found NOT guilty BUT STILL BE [QUIETLY] EXECUTED! As far as their families know, and according to the local police, their dead men ran off with girlfiend(s) or were kidnapped by bourgeosie NATO agents, or decadent capitalist evil Americanskis - you know, the ones whom won't trade with the USSR just because the USSR is working to overthrow andor destroy them!? Yep, them thar Soviet expats a'left the USSR to end up in the Clintons and Kerry's future USSA - Unitarian Socialist States of Amerika; or the CCSA/CSSA - the Clintonian Confederacy of Socialist Amerika or the Confederate Socialist States of Amerika, etc., aka USSR West! We love you, First Lady, JUDY DEAN! Posted by: JosephMendiola at May 2, 2004 09:50 PM>How in the nine flaming hells can they claim to have been untrained in the Geneva Conventions' requirements? Even if they had been trained - Geneva Conventions thats old Europe. >Even if it were somehow overlooked in Army Basic, MP duties in wartime specifically involve handling & guarding POWs. And this is one of the problems, the only POW in Iraq seems to be Saddam Hussein. May be the one who decided not to give the Red Cross access to prisoners should re-think that position. Also, not giving prisoners access to lawyers shows a rather low level of respect for the system of justice. I admit for my country (Germany) I tend to share that level, at least after they released 2 terror suspects, who are closely connected to 9/11, but may be I should also re-think some of my positions. Don't get me wrong, I'm not just looking for someone guilty that would be really old-European. Posted by: Jens Schmidt at May 3, 2004 02:04 AM"If you think the only difference here is numbers, you are a moron. Saddam's torturers did not humiliate their victims. They mutilated and killed them. What a few rogue American soldiers did is bad. What Saddam's government(and just about every other arab government) did as a matter of policy was far worse." You ain't seen/read nothing yet. "Citing a report by Maj. Gen. Antonio Taguba, New Yorker writer Seymour Hersh said the mistreatment of prisoners was done "to break down somebody before interrogation" at the direction of U.S. military intelligence. One Iraqi was killed during an interrogation, he said." The same General Taguba who wrote his report on torture by US soldiers in Iraqui prosions already in February seemed more concerned in that report about military police participating in creating "favorable conditions" - US armed forces newspeak for torture - for subsequent interrogation by military intelligence people than by the practice occurring itself. You want to talk about differences in policy? Tell me more about it. Posted by: The Old European at May 3, 2004 02:38 AMYou want me to tell you about differences in policy? I could go on for some length. I could tell you about body parts amputated. I could tell you about about people being actually electrocuted, not just threatened with it. I could tell you about systematic rape as a tool of intimidation. I could talk about thousands and thousands of prisoners unambigiously dead, not a vague report of one dead. But why am I telling you this? You know this, you're just ignoring it. Moron. Posted by: Bill at May 3, 2004 11:33 AMSo we are now where we started. The US soldiers didn't do amputations and electrocutions. They did systematic rape as a tool of intimidation. They did use a whole arsenal of other methods of torture, including fake executions. And the dead prisoner is is not a vague dead. He's really dead. Moron. What it boils down to is the difference in numbers and the period of time looked at. Given the same time Hussein had to torture Iraq you still think the USA would come away with a better record? TO: All There's something 'odd' about the photo of alleged abuse of Iraqi prisoners on Drudge at the moment. For one thing, the so-called prisoners look awfully 'white' to me. Furthermore, there are no indications of continual exposure to the Sun, no tan lines at the wrist, on the arms or neck. Things that you expect from people who are in the Sun quite a bit. Then there is that guy on top, the one with all the muscles. Didn't know that Iraqis were into body-building. I think that particular shot is a 'set-up'. Regards, Chuck(le) Posted by: Chuck Pelto at May 3, 2004 01:19 PMOld Euro: Sure, except for the ended careers and the impending hard labor in Leavenworth, the lack of mass graves, and all the other giant differences, the US actions are identical to those of Hussein. (One Iraqi is reported dead. Was he murdered, as he would have been by Hussin's men? Did he die of a heart attack not caused by 'torture'? We don't know yet, but by God that's not stopping you, is it? Obviously it was murder. I mean, if it wasn't, then the US isn't the same as Hussein, and then those filthy Americans might be morally superior.) Noted. How long did it take a "small group" of formerly morally superior US soldiers to degenerate into torturers. Less than a year. I bet it has got something to do with the Iraqi sun. Or food or water or whatever. Posted by: The Old Europe at May 3, 2004 03:17 PMOk, this is going to be my last response to "Old European". First of all, by "vague", I meant the reports were vague, as in you have some second-hand reports filtered through Seymour Hersh that somebody might have been killed by coalition captors and the body dumped. But you're ready to jump right on that and declare it equivalant to hundred of thousands of bodies in mass graves. Basically, you are a moral idiot. Secondly, what "systematic rape" are you babbling about? They forced the prisoners into humiliating poses simulating sodomy, as I understand. Atrocious behaviour, to be sure, but not rape. Simulated executions? Gee call me a simple minded American, but that sounds like a pretty huge difference in kind from, you know, actual executions. This behaviour is unacceptable from American soldiers and should be punished accordingly, but the fact is, if these accusations had been made against any other middle eastern government(except Israel), the likes of Amnesty International wouldn't even have bothered to write it down. You want proof? Check out this Whether a simulated execution is an improvement depends on the position you're leaving from. If your moral yardstick drops according to the law of gravity as soon as your soldiers leave US soil they're indeed doing better than Saddam's soldiers. Try and sell your huge improvement to your own people. Let's have some fake executions in your prisons. When did Bush announce that he was going to export a small-scale definition of democracy and human rights to Iraq that would nicely fit in with norms in the region? Posted by: The Old European at May 4, 2004 08:14 AM |
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