Sharon, Actually, to compare those people to animals is a gross insult to animals.
It was interesting how everyone, from Bush and Rumsfeld, on down to Karpinski, the prison's commanding officer, were so quick to declare that the soldiers caught in those photos were simply a small group of evil people acting on their own. Obviously, that was done to try to contain the damage and to protect the higher-ups.
Bush has to watch "60 Minutes 2" to know what's going on in his own government? (yeah, sure, and anyway if that were true how'd he know to change the channel from "American Idol" or whatever else was on opposite?) Rumsfeld knew months ago and did nothing; even Colin Powell, a member of Rumsfeld's own administration, tried to warn him of the abuses. And for Karpinski to make excuses, pass the buck and play the blame game is particularly reprehensible--as I understand the military, the commanding officer is responsible for everything that happens under his or her command. The "honorable" (yeah, right!) thing for her to have done would have been to accept responsibility and to accept whatever punishment was due. But as we can see from Bush on down, responsibility means nothing unless you're at the bottom.
If it were true that these were a few rogues acting on their own, why would they take pictures of themselves and pass them around? They obviously weren't afraid of getting caught. And some of the backgrounds suggest that these atrocities took place in open cellblock areas where anyone, including superior officers could walk in at any time.
The families of these people are making the usual excuses that "they were just following orders". Maybe. But to this day, news articles appear about former Nazi concentration camp guards now in their 70's and 80's being deported from the US for lying about their wartime service. Their war crimes occurred more than 60 years ago, when these people would have been in their late teens or early 20's. Obviously, these people would not have been top echelon Nazis, but just a bunch of little guys who were "just following orders". Yet, we still hold them accountable. And so it should be for these current scumbags, from Lynddie English all the way up the chain of command (and given the horror of rape and sexual assault that all women have to fear, especially in wartime, English deserves a special place in hell).
Karen Allen
From: Sharon Nicolary <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> Reply-To: Sharon Nicolary <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> To: Brian Siano <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> CC: UnivCity listserv <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> Subject: Re: [UC] Proud to be an American? Date: Mon, 10 May 2004 19:50:39 -0400
Dear Brian:
Your first paragraph is an excuse and one that I find absolutely ridiculous.
There is no distinction, war time or not. As human beings we are meant to act
like human beings not like a bunch of animals.
--
Sharon Nicolary
Quoting Brian Siano <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>:
Wilma de Soto wrote:
Dear Al,
Wow!
Having never been in a wartime combat situation, it is difficult for me to judge what I would do in such a situation. However, I feel that the US should always take the high road and not participate in these “hi-jinks”.
It's important to draw an important moral distinction about wartime atrocities-- specificially, when it's part of official policy. Wartime is when young men are thrown into a situation where the laws of civilization are suspended, where their lives are in danger, and they're given the weaponry to defend themselves and inflict casualties on the enemy. So it's inevitable that there will be events such as My Lai, and practices like taking ears and skulls as souvenirs. Commanders can try to reduce this sort of thing, and there are soldiers who struggle to _not_ engage in such acts. But this is what happens when you put young men and women into war. Doesn't exonerate anyone when they _do_ do horrible things.
But when atrocities are part of actual policy, that's another moral issue entirely. That's when there really is a choice to commit evil acts. Events like Operation Speedy Express in Vietnam weren't the acts of dogfaces in a dangerous field; they were decisions and policies made by people who weren't in the thick of war, who weren't in danger, and who had no real risk if they chose not to raze villages or torture prisoners.
And the torture in the prisons in Iraq were, by all accounts, policies set by higher-echelon officers and military intelligence.
And the moral horror here is even worse since the establishment of the Geneva Protocols and the Nuremburg Trials. It may seem silly to talk of laws regarding warfare, but they do exist, and they're there for important reasons. These rules should be part of the basic planning of any conflict. And they were explicitly ignored.
And let's carry this principle back to my earlier point about how certain kinds of atrocities are inevitable. That point also means that steps can be taken to prevent or reduce them. Soldiers can be educated about conduct in the field, the treatment of prisoners, and in relations with civilians. Prisons in occupied territories can be administrated with explicit, careful attention paid to preventing the kid of abuse and torture we've been reading about.
In other words, all of this was easily foreseeable. It was also preventable. The people running this show should have known better. And the Bush Administration invaded Iraq partly because, they claimed, they wanted to prevent these particular kinds of atrocities against Iraqis. This places the people who're running that prison on a _lower moral level than Nazis_.
But, as the occupation has demonstrated, the Bush Administration had no conception of how to administrate the occupation of a state. The experience of Bush, Cheyney and Rumsfeld rests solely in the realm of crony capitalism. That's acceptable experience here in America, with its stable institutions and robust economy. But it does not make them the equivalent of a Truman or an Eisenhower, men who had some knowledge of history, and who managed to rebuild Germany and Japan into stable democracies. Even someone as self-concerned as Douglas MacArthur managed to do a decent job of rebuilding Japan. The men of the Bush Administration have never really been responsible for the real nuts and bolts of running amodern state. It's as though an eight-year-old child who'd grown up eating at Le Bec Fin was suddenly put in charge of running agricultural policy.
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