6 US Troops charged for maltreating Iraqi jail inmates

[The Mad Viking]

The situation faced is a common conundrum.

You have captured enemies who have information.

That information will save the lives of your friends, brothers in arms, countrymen, allies.

The prisoners are lying. They mock you. They insult you, and tell you that your country has no business being there.

The situation is untenable. Outside, chaos. Random, non-sensical violence. Certainly there is no sign that the insurgents deserve your respect.

So what do you do?

Treat the lying insurgent scum like royalty, and by inaction, let your friends DIE?

Or bite the bullet, and do what it takes to save American lives, to maintain a degree of order in the chaos.

*

In the absence of CLEAR AND UNEQUIVOCAL ORDERS to the contrary, you will get actions that the public considers torture. Inevitably, in occupations like this one.

It is BS to scapegoat the footsoldiers on this one.

And it is a compelling argument to get out, when you have to resort to the same tactics as the despot you sought to depose...

[DinoDoc]

Originally posted by The Mad Viking
So what do you do?

Treat the lying insurgent scum like royalty, and by inaction, let your friends DIE?

Come up with something other than sodomizing them with a chemical light. That doesn't seem like a good way to get truthful info.

[Kontiki]

And maybe not turn it into a photo shoot.

[DinoDoc]

That too.

[SlowwHand]

And if one p.o.w. was sodomized, that's wrong; but it's one.
It's not the norm. How many prisoners are there?

What has been done to our side?
Sorry. No crocodile tears for the Iraqi soldiers.

A discharge for those involved, because stupidity is not a defining characteristic you want to have in place.

Unless you're Iraqi.

[MrFun]

A discharge should be done for those involved not only because of their stupidity, but also for their inhumanity.

[Thorn]

MtG I spit on you. Since you like torture so much I'll be sure to do it to you when I establish my world-wide fascist empire.

After all according to me, you got what you deserved.

[the_ceebs]

From the 1978 protocol to the geneva conventions


2. The following acts are and shall remain prohibited at any time and in any place whatsoever, whether committed by civilian or by military agents:

(a) Violence to the life, health, or physical or mental well-being of persons, in particular:

(i) Murder;

(ii) Torture of all kinds, whether physical or mental;

( iii ) Corporal punishment ; and

(iv) Mutilation;

(b) Outrages upon personal dignity, in particular humiliating and degrading treatment, enforced prostitution and any form of indecent assault;

[Ramo]

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Two Iraqi prisoners were murdered by Americans and 23 other deaths are being investigated in Iraq (news - web sites) and Afghanistan (news - web sites), the United States revealed on Tuesday as the Bush administration tried to contain growing outrage over the abuse of Iraqi detainees.

[...]

An official said a soldier was convicted in the U.S. military justice system of killing a prisoner by hitting him with a rock, and was reduced in rank to private and thrown out of the service but did not serve any jail time.

The official, speaking on condition of anonymity, said a private contractor who worked for the CIA was found to have committed the other homicide against a prisoner.

http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&cid=578&ncid=578&e=1&u=/nm/20040504/ts_nm/iraq_abuse_usa_dc

Wow.

[Dis]

it would be easier if we did not take prisoners

kill them all

[MichaeltheGreat]

Originally posted by SlowwHand
And if one p.o.w. was sodomized, that's wrong; but it's one.
It's not the norm. How many prisoners are there?

What has been done to our side?
Sorry. No crocodile tears for the Iraqi soldiers.

A discharge for those involved, because stupidity is not a defining characteristic you want to have in place.

Unless you're Iraqi.

Or texan?

Discharge my ass, they violated several articles of the UCMJ, and the publicity attached to their actions puts US troops in the field at risk. The only difference here is that the officers should swing too, not walk away over the backs of the enlisted, like usually happens.


And Tex, you of all people should know, living there in Texas, that a defense "oh, some other people did worse to some other people, so what I done wasn't a big deal" flies in a court of law about as well as your average pig flies, and about as often.

[DinoDoc]

I'm taking bets on what happens to the general in charge of the prison.

[East Street Trader]

I was shaken by that dishonourable discharge sentence.

Presumably there were some really strong mitigating factors (I mean really strong). Because dishonourable discharge seems trivial as a response to murder.

[MichaeltheGreat]

Originally posted by The Mad Viking
The situation faced is a common conundrum.

You have captured enemies who have information.

That information will save the lives of your friends, brothers in arms, countrymen, allies.

The prisoners are lying. They mock you. They insult you, and tell you that your country has no business being there.

The situation is untenable. Outside, chaos. Random, non-sensical violence. Certainly there is no sign that the insurgents deserve your respect.

So what do you do?

Treat the lying insurgent scum like royalty, and by inaction, let your friends DIE?

Or bite the bullet, and do what it takes to save American lives, to maintain a degree of order in the chaos.

*

In the absence of CLEAR AND UNEQUIVOCAL ORDERS to the contrary, you will get actions that the public considers torture. Inevitably, in occupations like this one.

It is BS to scapegoat the footsoldiers on this one.

And it is a compelling argument to get out, when you have to resort to the same tactics as the despot you sought to depose...

Unfortunately, you're a bit wrong on this one. Interrogation and obtaining prompt intelligence from prisoners is an essential fact of life, but there are effective methods and ineffective methods, and interrogators have to be concerned about the quality, complexity, and time-sensitivity of the information they're trying to obtain.

The actions taken against the prisoners (forget for the moment whether the intent was information extraction or abuse or something else) were taken over a period of months. That's useless for any purpose of obtaining time-sensitive intel. The organizations responsible also kill off any argument about tactical intel. These prisoners were handled by an independent MP brigade and an independent MI brigade, not the MP and MI companies of a division in the field. Any information these people would give would be pretty heavily bureaucratized through the chain of command.

It's a bit different from the battalion commander a few months ago who put a pistol to the head of a prisoner in the field, then pulled the trigger after pulling the pistol a couple of inches to the side. He scared the **** out of the wrong guy (prisoner turned out not to be an insurgent) and was shafted for it because the news got out, but what the colonel did was completely legitimate - he was trying to obtain info that was of immediate importance in the field where his men were engaged with the enemy. That situation rates a lot more slack in prisoner handling than does routine imprisonment for an indefinite time.

As far as whether these prisoners lied or mocked their captors, most prisoners in situatiions like that get pretty docile. There are no lawyers, nobody to run to, nobody but the guards who have essentially unlimited power over you. You have to be damn-near suicidal and fanatic to do anything other than comply with whatever you're told to do in that situation.

You don't have to treat prisoners like royalty at all - in fact, you have to show them at all times who is in control, but there are correct, legal, and non-sadistic ways of doing that. Procedures for safely and effectively handling high-risk prisoners have been pretty well hammered out. They just weren't applied from a command level on down. Seeing Karpinski whining on national TV the other day made me want to puke. Here's someone who is supposedly a goddamn O7, trying to publicly duck any responsibilty and make excuses. It's command responsiblity, period.

There are also effective ways of interrogating prisoners, and it's been pretty well established that disorientation and psychological manipulation are more effective than humiliation, threats, or actual torture, if you have the time and place to put those in practice. As we do and did in Abu Ghraib.

There is nothing, absolutely nothing, that excuses the misconduct that has been documented so far.

[MichaeltheGreat]

Originally posted by East Street Trader
I was shaken by that dishonourable discharge sentence.

Presumably there were some really strong mitigating factors (I mean really strong). Because dishonourable discharge seems trivial as a response to murder.

In WW2, there wasn't a single allied soldier even subjected to a court-martial in regards to handling of enemy prisoners of war. It is trivial, and there's a big difference. In the days of WW2, we covered for our own when it came to dealing with the enemy, and we knew we were in a decisive fight, where we would win or lose in an absolute sense, and the winners would dictate whatever terms they desired to the losers. There was also a bigger risk of domestic political fallout if one of our (meaning any allied country's) soldiers was prosecuted for doing something to the enemy, regardless of circumstance.

Now, wars are much smaller, much less total in every sense of the word, and much more subject to political scrutiny and posturing.