Don’t bet the farm on it. This is old news. Even if there is a new hook, it’s the same story. As long as they have a good dodge (hurricanes, John Roberts, the other supreme court vacancy, evolution back in court, a rollerblading puppy, etc), they won’t go near it. It could piss of the people in charge and it will only get the same statements as the last one. Too much risk for very little payoff.
Hey thanks! Once I had to think about it because of this thread I was niggling curious. I was thinking Friday was “juicy news dump day” - forgot the print version would be a day late (once you start depending on the internet for all your news, you lose touch with what is being disseminated to the non-internet public).
I’m wondering, honestly, how many times this sort of thing has to come to light before you’ll start to think maybe there is a systematic problem here?
No sarcasm intended, I’m just curious. I mean, this has come up several times now, and on several occasions not just as an isolated incident but as what was apparently SOP in a particular detention area. As my father once told me; Son, if you turn on the light and see one rat, there’s ten. If we’ve heard about this two or three times, it’s happened more often than that.
There can’t be much question that the airborne units, the 82d Division and several independent brigades, are elite units. New graduates from West Point (the Trade School on the Hudson, the Brotherhood of Ring Knockers) lust for an assignment to the those outfits. They have priority for equipment. That is where promotion is. They may not be the best there is when compared to small, select, special purpose corps, but when you are talking about large maneuver elements they are unquestionably elite.
Elite means more than being six feet tall, fit and proud. It means disciplined and tightly supervised. Disciplined means they are trained and observant of that training. In the bad old days there was no out fit I would rather go into a fight with than the Airborne. You knew that they knew their business and would do their business with a minimum of confusion and a maximum of efficiency. You knew that their appraisal and reports were honest. You knew that its officers and NCOs took care of their people. You knew that their standards of performance and duty were high. You knew that they would not get you unnecessarily killed.
To read now that the 82d was routinely abusing, beating and torturing prisoners tells me that this was a matter of policy and standard procedure sanctioned and mandated someplace way up the ladder. You can’t blame it on the CIA, no decent troop commander is going to take his orders from the CIA. You can’t blame it on Military Intelligence. No decent troop commander will allow an MI type to usurp his authority. If this is true (and I very much fear it is) then we have a good and proud unit with its roots in the Muse-Argonne that has been taken over by the worst impulses, impulses that contradict and destroy everything that makes up the profession of arms.
My question is where is the platoon sergeant, the platoon leader, the first sergeant, the company commander, the sergeant major, the battalion XO, the battalion commander, the brigade commander or the division commander who stood up on his hind legs and said “this is my command. That stuff is not going to happen while I’m in command.” Where are the staff and professional officers, the doctors and the lawyers and the chaplains, who knew this was going on and either approved it or kept their mouths shut. This does not happen without sanction up and down the chain of command. What the hell has my army come to?
I am not entirely familiar with army protocol. I can only quote the NYT piece: The soldiers told Human Rights Watch that while they were serving in Afghanistan, they learned the stress techniques from watching Central Intelligence Agency operatives interrogating prisoners.
Captain Fishback, who has served combat tours in Afghanistan and Iraq, gave Human Rights Watch and Senate aides his long account only after his efforts to report the abuses to his superiors were rebuffed or ignored over 17 months, according to Senate aides and John Sifton, one of the Human Rights Watch researchers who conducted the interviews. Moreover, Captain Fishback has expressed frustration at his civilian and military leaders for not providing clear guidelines for the proper treatment of prisoners.
In a Sept. 16 letter to the senators, Captain Fishback, wrote, “Despite my efforts, I have been unable to get clear, consistent answers from my leadership about what constitutes lawful and humane treatment of detainees. I am certain that this confusion contributed to a wide range of abuses including death threats, beatings, broken bones, murder, exposure to elements, extreme forced physical exertion, hostage-taking, stripping, sleep deprivation and degrading treatment.”
Reached by telephone Friday night, Captain Fishback, who is currently in Special Forces training at Fort Bragg, N.C., referred all questions to an Army spokesman, adding only that, “I have a duty as an officer to do this through certain channels, and I’ve attempted to do that.”
The two sergeants, both of whom served in Afghanistan and Iraq, gave statements to the human rights organization out of “regret” for what they had done themselves at the direction of military intelligence personnel or witnessed but did not report, Mr. Sifton said. They asked not to be identified, he said, out of fear they could be prosecuted for their actions. They did not contact Senate staff members, aides said.
One of the sergeants has left the Army, while the other is no longer with the 82nd, Mr. Sifton said. Both declined to talk to reporters, he said.
A spokeswoman for the 82nd Airborne, Maj. Amy Hannah, said the division’s inspector general was working closely with Army officials in Washington to investigate the matter, including the captain’s assertion that he tried to alert his chain of command months ago. http://www.nytimes.com/2005/09/24/politics/24abuse.html?ei=5094&en=661326ef9747a50a&hp=&ex=1127534400&adxnnl=1&partner=homepage&pagewanted=print&adxnnlx=1127693057-PEp8liDFKtYnAAPeJN06UA
**
Spavined Gelding**, you nailed it. My feelings too. Where the hell is the Chain of Command?
Funny you should ask. Seymour Hersh wrote about the political infighting associated with the Abu Graib abuses back in May 2004.
Key players:
Major General Geoffrey Miller - the commander of the task force in charge of the prison at Guantánamo, reviews Army program in Iraq. Recommends that the 205th Military Intelligence Brigade be put in charge of Abu Ghraib, a prison. Odd.
General Sanchez, in Iraq - appoints a secret inquiry in Jan 2004, headed by General Taguba, to investigate allegations of mistreatment in Iraq.
General Taguba - criticizes Miller’s report: "“the intelligence value of detainees held at . . . Guantánamo is different than that of the detainees/internees held at Abu Ghraib and other detention facilities in Iraq. . . . There are a large number of Iraqi criminals held at Abu Ghraib. These are not believed to be international terrorists or members of Al Qaeda.” Taguba noted that Miller’s recommendations “appear to be in conflict” with other studies and with Army regulations that call for military-police units to have control of the prison system. (Feb 2004)
Late Mar 2004: Miller is promoted: he moves from Guantánamo and is named head of prison operations in Iraq.
John Abizaid - in charge of Central Command, in Tampa Florida, Sanchez’s boss.
Donald Rumsfeld, Abizaid’s boss - “Secrecy and wishful thinking, the Pentagon official said, are defining characteristics of Rumsfeld’s Pentagon, and shaped its response to the reports from Abu Ghraib. “They always want to delay the release of bad news—in the hope that something good will break,” [a Senior Pentagon official] said.”
There is, of course, a link in the Chain of Command above Rumsfeld, but his views are a somewhat obscure.
You know I could have sworn that the 82 was one of the Federal divisions that was tasked with bringing order to New Orleans.
Declan
Crap like this just makes the US look so hypocritical when it criticizes human rights abuses in other countries. When Bush recently spoke before the UN, he commented that it was ridiculous to let known human-rights abusers like Libya be on the UN human rights commission. This statement by itself makes perfect sense, but I wonder how many ambassadors immediately dismissed it out of hand by thinking back on Abu Gharib?
From the CBC covering the Maher Arar trial: http://www.cbc.ca/cgi-bin/templates/email.cgi?category=World&story=/news/2005/08/11/arar-lawsuit050811
I realize that the US AG has nothing to do with the US military, however, the AG’s position suggests to me that the US government, at the highest levels, supports the use of what the civilized world would call toruture. With that sort of leadership, it is not surprising that gross human rights abuses repeatedly take place.
I guess just lopping off a finger or toe or two with garden shears wouldn’t qualify as torture, then?
(And, NO, I am not saying that the 82nd or anyone in Abu Garib did this.)
What a bunch of bastards.
Have to agree with you there except I’d say since the 60’s or earlier. I hadn’t been thinking of Navy troops when I made my comment. Since the Seals came out of the UDT, who were also highly trained and disciplined, they have become, probably, our most highly trained and disiplined troops of any kind from any service.
Bzzt! Wrong. That article says, and I quote:
**U.S. troops searched more than 8,000 homes in three cities, netting 350 detainees, according to court testimony. Even though Mowhoush was not arrested during the raids, he was moved to Blacksmith Hotel, where teams of Army Special Forces soldiers and the CIA were conducting interrogations.
At Blacksmith, according to military sources, there was a tiered system of interrogations. Army interrogators were the first level.
When Army efforts produced nothing useful, detainees would be handed over to members of Operational Detachment Alpha 531, soldiers with the 5th Special Forces Group, the CIA or a combination of the three. “The personnel were dressed in civilian clothes and wore balaclavas to hide their identity,” according to a Jan. 18, 2004, report for the commander of the 82nd Airborne Division.
If they did not get what they wanted, the interrogators would deliver the detainees to a small team of the CIA-sponsored Iraqi paramilitary squads, code-named Scorpions, according to a military source familiar with the operation. The Jan. 18 memo indicates that it was “likely that indigenous personnel in the employ of the CIA interrogated MG Mowhoush.”**
If you look at it, you’ll notice that it says that prisoners were handed over to one of the three groups. It doesn’t specify which one. In that article, the only mention by name of any SF personnel is of a retired SF soldier who went by the name of Brian in his emails.
I don’t see anywhere in that article where SF personnel are accused of any type of torture. On the contrary, it’s the CIA who seem to be charged with all kinds of stuff but since they are able to get any and everything to do with whatever they do in Iraq redacted, we may never know.
I wish my fellow Americans had the moral character to be outraged at this. However, I think the average American’s reaction would be: “So? 9/11!” Everybody that did this and their entire chain of command up to and including Bush are war criminals.
This might stop IF there was genuine national outrage. If everyone would peel those silly “I support our troops” stickers off their cars and sent it to their congressman with a letter stating why, then MAYBE something would change.