The point about lack of training isn't as lame as we think

[dsc]

First, it is very accurate that anyone should konw that some of the worst things done by them was wrong. Any fool would know that those things are wrong.

But that said, a lack of training can lead to frustration and frustration can lead to people doing the wrong thing. These people were never trained the extent that a group of people in charge of people from a different culture should have been. Reservist training is just not that intense.

As a teacher I can honestly say that frustration can lead to losing your temper and either saying or doing something which you regret. Add to that the pressure put on these people to get confessions (from people who had nothing to confess in many cases) and it is easy to see how they defined acceptable behavior downward to fit their needs.

These people deserve punishment, but so do the people who put a group of untrained teenagers and very young 20 somethings in charge of those prisoners.

[Another Bill C.]

1. Everyone in the military knows

that the Uniform Code of Military Justice tells them not to carry out an illegal order.

The trouble comes when an officer with absolute control over your life or death gives you an order that you aren't sure is legal.

Do you go for the sure bet that your life will be in danger or at least really miserable upon disobedience of that order or the remote chance that you'll be discovered and punished at a later time (and in a more civil manner)?

[Nlighten1]

5. This is true...

I couldn't have said it better.

[Redleg]

10. Well stated.

And it is the fault of the commander to make sure the soldiers have been trained and can properly perform their duties. Period.

[Tinoire]

12. Yes, well said

because everyone doesn't know what an illegal order is... This has been experienced time and time again because soldiers are trained, brainwashed to just frigging follow orders.

That is the lame defense used by the people who give the orders. As a retired NCO, I'm effing sick of hearing that "soldiers can refuse to follow illegal orders"- they're not even trained anymore in what an illegal order is. Just told to follow orders and that accountability remains with the person who gave the order.

Poor perverted Lynndie swallowed that one hook, line and sinker.

[unblock]

2. it's about process, it's about safeguards. ASSUMING it wasn't policy.

first off, i think it's fairly clear that this was policy, not at all a few rogue mps.

but assuming for the moment that it was a few rogue mps, you are correct in that untrained underlings make mistakes. that's why untrained underlings don't get to be in positions where they can fly packed passenger planes or cause international incidents. that's why there's supposed to be a process to prevent untrained underlings for causing disasters.

so if it was just a few rogue mps, where the hell was the oversight?

[BeFree]

3. Untrained soldiers

Untrained soldiers put other soldiers at great risk.

It is the fault of the commanding officers when untrained soldiers are tasked to a job. The buck stops high up in this case.

Yeah, the peon PFC soldiers could and should have stopped, but the real mistakes were placing them there to begin with.

[bowens43]

4. This is nothing more then common sense.

EVERYONE knows that you don't do these things to another human being.

[Kanary]

15. I'd like to believe it's "common sense", as you say

That would be the world I would prefer to live in.

However, things have changed considerably. People say and do things to each other that would have been unthinkable 20 years ago.

Just look at how DUers talk to each other.... common sense would say that's not the way to discuss matters, and make friends and influence people.

So, all one can conclude is that the world has gone nutz.

Kanary

[tnlefty]

6. The question that no one seems willing to answer

During the hearings before the Armed Services Committee I heard Taguba and Cambone and a general whose name I can't recall stating over and over that everyone is trained in accordance with the Geneva Conventions, blah, blah, blah....

The question - If that is the policy and that is obviously what wasn't being done, WHO changed the policy.

Not one of them could address that very effectively. The dancing, dodging and bs was interesting to watch for a few minutes, but after that it really started ticking me off.

[Eloriel]

7. I'll go further than that, dsc

Personally, I think entirely too much emphasis has been put on the failings of these six soldiers. It's not that I think they should go scott-free, just that the strongest criticisms are not, IMO, adequately taking the real on-the-ground situation in the field.

Yes, they're supposed to disobey illegal orders. But that means at least two things:

1. They have to know with certainty that the orders are illegal; and

2. They have to be willing and able to buck the system to do that.

Let's think about the reality on the ground. Matcom made an interesting and insightful comment in a thread he started recently. He said that when he was in the military (in a combat unit), they weren't taught to be nice to the people they were going to be fighting (whoever those people might be). While the MPs aren't combat units, that's still an apt point. We know from all our wars that in order to go to war in the first place, encourage Americans to kill others, you have to dehumanize the enemy. Gooks, ragheads, Jerries, Japs, etc. This means that the entire culture, the very atmosphere itself, is permeated with racist, dehumanizing sentiment.

I think there's also probably some built-in disdain for the fact that Iraqis haven't been living in a democracy but under a dictatorship. Doesn't this also lend itself to thinking less of them? And don't forget, most of our troops have been thoroughly ingrained with the propagandistic lie that Iraq and Saddam Hussein were responsible for 9-11. None of this lends itself to a culture of care and compassion for POWs -- quite the opposite, in spades.

Remember too that Taguba said that the absence of training was documented -- or more accurately that no one could produce documentation of ANY training for these troops. One or more of the 6 who are being charged have said they didn't even have Geneva Convention cards. That sounds appalling to me, since it's my understanding that every GI is supposed to have that -- but if it's a lie it will easily be shown to be by testimony from their peers, I would think. So far I haven't seen that. It may come later.

We also know that the military command from Rumsfeld and Cambone, down to Abazaid and Sanchez fully supported torture. FULLY! Rumsfeld is on record speaking dismissively if not downright derisively about the Geneva Conventions. If anyone here thinks that this didn't get thoroughly communicated (not directly, but by osmosis) down to most of the officer corps, especially the brass, esp. with Rummy's record of canning non-yes-men officers (like Shinseki), then you need to spend a little time talking to some vets.

We also know that the rules were Miller's suggestions to start with and that after the scandal broke (but well before it was leaked to CBS), the Pentagon's "answer" to the "problem" was to bring over the general whose very suggestions had created the problems. Don't think that message didn't get communicated loud and clear too.

Further, the soldiers charged were subjected to the "influence" (Taguba's word in the hearings earlier this week) of both higher ranking MI, CIA and contractors who easily could have intimidate them to the max -- yes, even to the point of making the soldiers think their "suggestions" or directions or orders overrode anything they thought they knew. It would be VERY easy for authoritative, higher ranking MI personnel to convince mere MPs that "we do things differently in MI and esp. the CIA, and so the rules you learned or think you know don't apply." Too, the chain of command for these folks wasn't even all that clear. Hell, Rummy couldn't (or wouldn't) detail it in his testimony to the Senate Armed Services Committee. Murky chain of command makes the whole thing even more difficult.

And on this point you further have to remember how even Brigadier Kapinski got buffaloed. Her own complaints and questions about confusing lines of communication and chain of command weren't heeded either. She failed her brigades big time, no doubt about it, but IMO SHE was failed at least as badly if not more so.

Further, we also know that the top enlisted man charged so far (a Staff Sgt, E-6) HAD complained to an officer (an LTC or full-bird) and the Staff Sergeant's concerns were brushed off, just as Centcom itself and the Pentagon and the White House had completely brushed off the ICRC's alarming and graphic report. Why? Because they WANT to continue to use torture. We all know that too.

As I understand it, there's a specific process that anyone disobeying what they consider an unlawful order is supposed to go through. For the sake of argument, let's assume that everyone in that unit knew that process. What boggles my mind, given all that we know about the Pentagon on down -- including every single officer in the chain of command for this unit, is what it would have taken to get someone, ANYone to not just take a refusal to obey a lawful order seriously but make any decisions in favor of the disobeying soldier. This fact wasn't lost on these six either.

Given a climate like this, one that is awesomely and overwhelmingly pro-torture and stacked against them, IMO it would have taken a fairly sophisticated and savvy, better trained and most of all extrenelt courageous soldier (like Darby -- and even his first reporting was done anonymously) to buck the system.

Given this extremely pro-torture climate, I am not at all sure I could have done the right thing (tho I don't think I could've engaged in the torture either so I probably would've gone insane or committed suicide), certainly not at age 20 or 22 and probably not at 26 either. Maybe I would have, but I'm not at all sure.

So I won't be demonizing these six soldiers (nor excusing them, as I said). What I al;ready know about what they went through and were subjected to is quite bad enough. And there's lots more we don't know I'm sure. I want to see that chain of command court martialed and punished so I can be assured that these six aren't just scapegoats (against whom all kinds of things can be alleged and even fake documents created). I would also like to see the MI people involved brought under investigation and court martialed and punished (yeah, like that'll happen).

[dsc]

8. You said it much better than I did

[Tinoire]

13. Thank you! n/t

[msmcghee]

14. All good points

I'd add one more to the list:

Psychological studies being discussed this week show pretty conclusively that the default behavior in a situation where one group has complete physical control over another is that there will be abuse - and it develops rapidly if not actively checked. It even happens when both groups are the same ethnicity, speak the same language and have no previous grievances against each other. Power corrupts.

Lack of training sounds like a good way to deflect blame to some combination of previous commands and even previous administrations. And of course, they're bound to bring up their favorite fantasy, Clinton's "gutting of the military".

I'd bet it didn't take too many written orders for this to happen, perhaps none. It was ready to happen and all it needed was the slightest encouragement. From the pictures of MI officers participating - it looks like they got plenty.

It will interesting to see if the shit will roll uphill for once, and how far.

[Eloriel]

16. Yes, that's true too -- and Tinoire

so glad to have you validate some of my thoughts and concerns about this whole ugly mess. I have NO doubt in my mind that some of these six are pretty ugly people. PFC England is looking more and more like someone I definitely wouldn't want to even know.

But I STILL want to see officers charged, dammit. And a pretty good handful of them.

[Eloriel]

17. A real life example

Subject: A real life example
Message:


http://www.reviewjournal.com/lvrj_home/2004/May-14-Fri-2004/news/23881...

Nevada Guard MP saw abuse firsthand
Yerington woman landed in trouble for documenting treatment of Iraqis

snip

According to the transcript, an Army investigator testified at the secret hearing that a systems analyst had asserted that an older female soldier from a Nevada National Guard unit had "told him of some stuff going on."

The Nevada National Guard soldier had documented the abuse but her chain of command admonished her for reporting it, according to the Los Angeles Times account.

A grandmother of seven, Menesini would not give specifics about the type of abuse she witnessed but said it wasn't of the sexual humiliation nature blamed on prison guards from the Army Reserve's 372nd Military Police Company from Maryland.

Nevada's 72nd MP Company set up the prison, which had become dilapidated after it was used as a death camp and torture chamber under the reign of Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein, who has since been arrested.

-- more --

[Rebellious Republican]

9. My experience having served 10 yrs full time active duty and

2 yrs active reserves and 4 yrs inactive. I was in a Navy CB unit during my two active reserves. The training was atrocious, what few times we practiced combat tactics. I never even saw an M-16 while I was with the unit, instead we used palm frawns for our weapons and pine cones for hand grenades. I shit you not, forget live fire at a range. I went inactive because I thought it was a joke, and got out when my time came. I do not ever recall getting any Geneva rules training during our GMT sessions, and do not find it hard to believe these kids did not have cards, I was never given one. I could go on but I believe the stories about poor training. I saw it first hand!

I know, whats a Sea Bee doing with AC wings, long story, I was not a Sea Bee in my previous active duty life. I was a Photomate Aircrewman, the drill location nearest me with a photo billet was a CB unit. Which was not a far cry from when I was a combat camera team member with FMF in Beirut in 83.

[ibegurpard]

11. Who thinks it's lame?

I certainly don't.