Really, I'm sick to death of this administration. Sicker than ever. I'm past being surprised or angry and now I just they'd choke on a chicken bone and die.
The sad thig is, though, that that's a shallow hope, because even that wouldn't solve anyhting. If Bush dies, the devil takes over and if he doesn't that asswad from my own fine state takes over. What a good idea.
It's a neverending pool of snot.
I just hope hte democrats can get their act together for the next election because if they can't win after all this, they can't win period.
While Bush and Co. aren't exactly discouraging what's going on, this is a problem at the command level, not the NCA level. The Commanding General, and her subordinate officers, should have initiated some NJP(non-judicial punishment) the second they learned this shit was happening.
Even if Bush told the CG's military boss to tell her subordinates to commence with the torture/humiliaiton, its not a lawful order, she didn't have to do it. Also, since she was a reservist, she didn't have much to risk by basically telling a military superior to piss off.
You're in a place that you can't get out of without military help.
You're surrounded by people who are already breaking the law and who consider torture to be okay. They have lots of guns.
You can't complain to above, because they're ordering the torture.
"The enemy" is nebulously defined, and you KNOW they're beating, torturing, and murdering innocent people and uniformed enemy prisoners.
The CIC's specific words, repeated often, are that all who are not with him are the enemy.
You're a reservist.
You want to tell me that you really would sit in the middle of Abu Ghraib and tell those people that you weren't going along with torture, that you were refusing a direct order that they all say is perfectly legal and have no problems obeying? You really don't think you're likely to get active front-line combat for the rest of your tour, or, worse, just get marked MIA and added to the torture queue until you confess how long you've secretly been an Al Qaeda mole?
You want to tell me that you really would sit in the middle of Abu Ghraib and tell those people that you weren't going along with torture, that you were refusing a direct order that they all say is perfectly legal and have no problems obeying?
I'm not saying I would of done that, because I'll never be in a position like that. I'm saying its what the CG should have done. The "I was just following orders" excuse, based on some very prominent historical precedent, doesn't work with what are illegal orders. If you're not a crazy, and apparently paranoid, neo-con, and had been promoted to the rank of General, you sure as hell know what constitutes a lawful order.
Now, should she have done that, she would have been relieved. Contrary to what you might think, relieving Commanding Officers because of a lack in confidence(or disobeying orders...) from their bosses, happens fairly frequently. If the order to relieve a CO comes from high enough in the Chain of Command, it will happen, quickly.
So, she's surrounded by subordinates with guns... so? First off, suggesting that her subordinates would have harmed her could be one of the most paranoid or conspiratorial things I've ever read. If she would have told the personnel committing the crimes to stop, and they didn't, she could have done all manner of things to discipline them, including busting them several paygrades(assuming they were enlisted), which is usually what hurts the most as far as non-judicial punishment goes.
I didn't catch that we were talking about the commanding officer.
I thought we were still discussing the low-ranking peons, specifically England and the other chick since we were saying "she".
You can understand why a reservist private might have the concerns I outlined, yes? Especially given the reported constant (and, worse, justified) fear of rape by fellow enlisted personnel?
My reading comprehension is through the floor because of a head cold. My bad.
As far as junior enlisted go, I fully expect them to follow every order with blinders on. All junior personnel, officer(yeah, that includes me) and enlisted alike, are idiots. The enlisted folks should get a less severe disciplinary action than the commanding general, but they won't because the US military judicial system is FUBAR.
I'm sure you're cognisant of the concept of "plausible deniability." And also the "Law of unintended consequences".
Let's say you believe that the city you're currently occupying is under grave danger from insurgents. You release a directive to find out who these people are and what they've planned using "any means necessary." Military intelligence is brought in and begins to implement ways to psychologically break the suspects down and get them to confess their nefarious plans.
Problem is, everything's happening so fast that you don't have enough trained MI staff to oversee the efforts and instead have to rely on the commanders, who are untrained as to how far they should go, and only know that they have to get this information "by any means necessary." And your commanders are of no help, because your prison has essentially been taken over by the military equivalent of the CIA and have been told to turn their face away from whatever might happen.
Now, some people, without training, wouldn't go far enough. The problem was that Lonnie England and her boyfriend weren't one of those types of people. They went too far. Way, way, *way* too far. And they brought the rest of the military staff in charge of the prison along for the ride.
So the question becomes then: how far up the chain does the blame go? There were hearings (of a sort) to determine how far it went. At first, it looked just as you said; that the problem was with the commander in charge of the Iraqi prisons at the time. Then other things started showing up; the role of military intelligence and who authorized it (Still secret, so far as I know); Alberto Gonzales's directives trying to get around the Geneva Convention and coming very close to authorizing the use of torture; and the Administration's very definite "hear no evil, see no evil, know no evil" approach.
This story is not yet done. The only thing that's been clear to me for a very long time is that it doesn't just involve those that perpetrated the offenses and their immediate command staff. I don't know how high it goes, but it is clear it goes higher than that.
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(no subject)
Date: 2006-02-15 12:23 pm (UTC)The sad thig is, though, that that's a shallow hope, because even that wouldn't solve anyhting. If Bush dies, the devil takes over and if he doesn't that asswad from my own fine state takes over. What a good idea.
It's a neverending pool of snot.
I just hope hte democrats can get their act together for the next election because if they can't win after all this, they can't win period.
(no subject)
Date: 2006-02-15 04:12 pm (UTC)Even if Bush told the CG's military boss to tell her subordinates to commence with the torture/humiliaiton, its not a lawful order, she didn't have to do it. Also, since she was a reservist, she didn't have much to risk by basically telling a military superior to piss off.
(no subject)
Date: 2006-02-15 04:19 pm (UTC)You're in a place that you can't get out of without military help.
You're surrounded by people who are already breaking the law and who consider torture to be okay. They have lots of guns.
You can't complain to above, because they're ordering the torture.
"The enemy" is nebulously defined, and you KNOW they're beating, torturing, and murdering innocent people and uniformed enemy prisoners.
The CIC's specific words, repeated often, are that all who are not with him are the enemy.
You're a reservist.
You want to tell me that you really would sit in the middle of Abu Ghraib and tell those people that you weren't going along with torture, that you were refusing a direct order that they all say is perfectly legal and have no problems obeying? You really don't think you're likely to get active front-line combat for the rest of your tour, or, worse, just get marked MIA and added to the torture queue until you confess how long you've secretly been an Al Qaeda mole?
(no subject)
Date: 2006-02-15 08:34 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2006-02-15 10:29 pm (UTC)I'm not saying I would of done that, because I'll never be in a position like that. I'm saying its what the CG should have done. The "I was just following orders" excuse, based on some very prominent historical precedent, doesn't work with what are illegal orders. If you're not a crazy, and apparently paranoid, neo-con, and had been promoted to the rank of General, you sure as hell know what constitutes a lawful order.
Now, should she have done that, she would have been relieved. Contrary to what you might think, relieving Commanding Officers because of a lack in confidence(or disobeying orders...) from their bosses, happens fairly frequently. If the order to relieve a CO comes from high enough in the Chain of Command, it will happen, quickly.
So, she's surrounded by subordinates with guns... so? First off, suggesting that her subordinates would have harmed her could be one of the most paranoid or conspiratorial things I've ever read. If she would have told the personnel committing the crimes to stop, and they didn't, she could have done all manner of things to discipline them, including busting them several paygrades(assuming they were enlisted), which is usually what hurts the most as far as non-judicial punishment goes.
(no subject)
Date: 2006-02-15 10:57 pm (UTC)Your optimism is simultaneously inspiring and baffling.
(no subject)
Date: 2006-02-15 11:43 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2006-02-16 12:53 am (UTC)I thought we were still discussing the low-ranking peons, specifically England and the other chick since we were saying "she".
You can understand why a reservist private might have the concerns I outlined, yes? Especially given the reported constant (and, worse, justified) fear of rape by fellow enlisted personnel?
My reading comprehension is through the floor because of a head cold. My bad.
(no subject)
Date: 2006-02-16 01:13 am (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2006-02-15 08:13 pm (UTC)Let's say you believe that the city you're currently occupying is under grave danger from insurgents. You release a directive to find out who these people are and what they've planned using "any means necessary." Military intelligence is brought in and begins to implement ways to psychologically break the suspects down and get them to confess their nefarious plans.
Problem is, everything's happening so fast that you don't have enough trained MI staff to oversee the efforts and instead have to rely on the commanders, who are untrained as to how far they should go, and only know that they have to get this information "by any means necessary." And your commanders are of no help, because your prison has essentially been taken over by the military equivalent of the CIA and have been told to turn their face away from whatever might happen.
Now, some people, without training, wouldn't go far enough. The problem was that Lonnie England and her boyfriend weren't one of those types of people. They went too far. Way, way, *way* too far. And they brought the rest of the military staff in charge of the prison along for the ride.
So the question becomes then: how far up the chain does the blame go? There were hearings (of a sort) to determine how far it went. At first, it looked just as you said; that the problem was with the commander in charge of the Iraqi prisons at the time. Then other things started showing up; the role of military intelligence and who authorized it (Still secret, so far as I know); Alberto Gonzales's directives trying to get around the Geneva Convention and coming very close to authorizing the use of torture; and the Administration's very definite "hear no evil, see no evil, know no evil" approach.
This story is not yet done. The only thing that's been clear to me for a very long time is that it doesn't just involve those that perpetrated the offenses and their immediate command staff. I don't know how high it goes, but it is clear it goes higher than that.