Not so much orders as winks.
“Son, I’m handing this stinkin’ insurgent over to you, and he may have information that would save the lives of your buddies. Now, them chicken-shit rear-echelon liberals got some rules, and I’m required to enforce those rules. But I’m going to the PX for about an hour, and I’ll check back with you when I’m done…”
As a freshly promoted 1Lt in the USAF I’d like to chime in with a couple comments.
Anyone can say anything they want. If these enlisted guys (of which I was one for 6 years) decided to go into CYOA mode and start saying that they were ordered to do it by their CO how do you prove that? It becomes a case of he said/she said. Unless an officer admits to giving the unlawful order, or if there is undeniable evidence that he/she did how do you send them to trial?
The enlisted troops that work for us (me) are not robots. They don’t just blindly do what they are told contrary to popular belief. I’m not gonna lie to you, some of the dumbest most immature people I’ve ever met are junior enlisted troops. There are also alot sharp kids in there. But they are all people who can think for themselves. There are very few that will blindly do whatever the hell they are told, without question.
That’s not an order.
What is your point here?
I think the point is that there is enough cirumstantial evidence out there to merit investigation as to whether the officers in charge gave orders to mistreat the prisoners.
The bottom line is that the OIC is always responsible. You’ve heard stories about Wing Commanders that were fired, demoted, or retired because there were too many accidents within the Wing while he was in charge? This is much the same thing. If the people under his command are so undisciplined that it turns into Animal House he should be relieved and at the minimum reprimanded for deriliction of duty. That there was no such punishment leads me to believe that what was happening was exactly what was supposed to be happening, and the investigation needs to determine where the soldiers got the idea that this was OK.
Even as an 8 year old I understood the concept of implied orders.
-Wolfian, Air Force brat
Henry II of England was once heard to say, “Can noone rid me of this burdensome bishop?” in reference to the Archbishop of Canterbury, Tomas a Becket, at the time. Later that night a few of the king’s men went out and killed Becket. Henry II managed to dodge the shitstorm that resulted and kept his crown and his head. In my humble opinion he gave an implied order and is worthy of some guilt. What do you think?
Closest I have to proof is Seymour Hirsch’s articles which include quites from Paul Tagabu’s report, which are damning enough:
Sounds pretty direct to me. Here’s a link to one of Hirsch’s articles, caution, has pics of nude Iraqi detainees but with naughty bits blurred
Under the circumstances, I feel quite justified in my cynicism. BTW, this is very old ground.
Yes, but the people who give those orders seem to be curiously invulnerable to prosecution by military courts, hmmmmmmmm?
Apparently, you didn’t get my point.
That’s cool. But what I was addressing wasn’t the bit about feeling responsible. I was addressing the bit about actually being responsible for the particular criminal act. In other words, I’m sure you would not have felt that you had actually ordered the person to commit the murder.
I’m glad you took your role as a commissioned officer seriously & I wish that more would do so. As a Petty Officer First Class, I also took my responsibilities very seriously.
There is the problem though that not all the folks who are going to screw up give advance indicators that they will do that.
How about we stick to facts instead of what you’re pulling out of nowhere? First off, what orders? Second, those who do issue unlawful orders are subject to prosecution for the very act of issuing an unlawful order.
But Monty, the simple fact is … the elephant you cannot ignore in this room … that no one but enlisted folks got nailed for this. What about all those people mentioned in the Hirsh report? The CIA agents, etc. The officer who told the noncoms not to worry about the torture-like activities? What about them? I agree England should be punished, though “time served” would have worked for me, *given that she was following orders.[\i]
Here’s what I think happened Monty. I think England and her fellow enlisted people got used as scapegoats, because if we follow the chain of command, it will lead eventually to Rumsfeld. He after all was the one who was all hot to get torture OK’d.
I think Rummy belongs in a jail cell, and would be there if there were any kind of rigorous investigation.
Here’s what I think happened:
England and her codefendants, all jerks and disgraces, took it upon themselves to do what they ridiculously and irrationally justified to themselves as something funny to do to the prisoners. I think that the command climate there was a disgrace but not that the commanding officer gave orders for them to do what they did.
Yeah, but then you have to ignore all of Tagliabu’s finding about them being ordered to soften up the prisoners by CIA types and others.
Evil, did Tagliabu name name’s (sorry, not clicking on anything that might be objectionable at the office)? I fully agree with Monty’s statement about the command climate. However, if an order was made, it might not have come from England’s et al commanding officer(s), but rather from officers outside their unit. If so, whom do you prosecute? Can you provide enough evidence[/u[ to a military court to gain a conviction? Do you have enough evidence for the conviction of an individual or individuals?
In a perfect world, those responsible for any crime would admit their guilt, or without admission, would leave behind enough evidence for a clear conviction. We are not in a perfect world, and sometimes you can suspect, maybe even know, someone is guilty, but not be able to prove it in court.
I will not say for sure that is what happened, just that it is well within the realm of possibilities. And it sucks, if these enlisted were following orders, that the order-givers walk away scot free.
If Paul Tagliabu is investigating anyone for crimes against humanity, it should be Bill Bidwell.
Heh, I was thinking along the same line, but I didn’t scroll to the actual quote so I could spell Taguba’s name correctly.
Undoubtedly this is the sort of rationalization that will be used for letting them get off scott free. But I just don’t buy it. We are supposed to believe that the noncoms’ senior officers allowed other officers to order them to do all sorts of, um, DIFFERENT and SPECIAL things … TORTURE I think they call it … to the prisoners at Abu Ghraib and the noncoms never came to their officers to tell that what was going on, or the officers never noticed, etc. I’m sorry, I just don’t buy it, and I don’t see how any reasonable person could. Those officers HAD to know what was going on. It’s not like they were out on patrol or something, it all went on, very much in the open, in that prison.
Attorney General Alberto Gonzales seem to be a good place to start, IMO. You can work up and down from there.
Imagine your an enlisted man, you get caught carrying out these heinous acts, nd you were given the old ‘nods as good as a wink to a blind horse’ type of order.
You have a choice here, admit it (and most enlisted men would have some loyalty to their unit, and maybe soem guilt) and hopefully get a lighter award, or try fling some shit around, excpet that you know already that it would be a case of your word against a superior officer, and no material evidence.
The chances of others acting as your witnesses are small, which of those would want to put themselves into a potential investigation ?
No, the real problem here is that enlisted men are usually far less sophisticated by dint of their youth and education than their officers, and are simply not wise enough to know what to say, or how to say it, and frankly, most enlisted men don’t have that much awareness of their military legal rights.(most are too niaive to even want to know)
If, as an enlisted man, you asked to see the legal literature under which you serve, I can tell you that you would have to ask your unit officer for a copy, and that means a strong chance of coming under certain suspicians, you would probably not be a popular person for a while, so the enlisted man opts for the quieter life.
The officers should be disciplined very heavily, not for the acts they did or did not do, but for having a regime where discipline and control allowed such things to occur, its this lack of supervision and watchfulness, poor training, poor inculcation of values that the officers are guilty.
I cannot imagine that a detention facility would not have officers around patrolling, this lack of supervision is an extremely serious failure of duty, and if they were around, why was it not halted, and why did the pictures come not from the military prosecutors, but from outside the military completely.
Here is the story of a junior officer who spent a year and a half trying to get his chain of command to give clear guidance on the treatment of prisoners. Read it and weep.
And this guy, Major General Geoffrey Miller, is the mofo who deserves the lion’s share of the blame for this stain on America. He and his big boss, Rumsfeld, of course.