DtheC: Since the story has changed, I retract that assertion.
And I’m sure he’s stopped beating his wife by now, too.
Passing judgements on other people who are in situations we are not is passing judgement on other people in situation we are not. Whether you are passing judgement on a President and a Military Leadership or I am passing judgement on several soldiers.
At least I’ve walked in those soldier’s shoes, in that I’ve conducted combat missions, under fire.
But I at least had the decency to admit that I was not only expressing my personal opinion formulated on a gut feeling, but that I was ready and willing to admit that I was wrong and publicly apologize should I be proven so.
So why do you feel the need to put me in a moral/logical full-nelson and wrangle me off of that position?
ExTank, I’m not saying that I’m trying to defend these soldiers from the judicial action headed their way, and you can drop the pissy statements about me being “incomprehensible.” This is Great Debates, not the Pit.
All I’m saying is that their decision might have been understandable. Should they still be punished? Yes. That was a part of the decision that they had to make. Either risk their lives in a particular case as ordered or face the consequences. They’ve made their decision, and now they’ll have to own up for it. But whatever it is, I’m pretty sure that it’s not mutiny.
From Loach:
It’s clear that if you look at the sentence in totality, you have to be refusing the order, “with intent to usurp or override lawful military authority.”
It doesn’t make them incorrect either. I understand your point in this statement. But for now, it is about the only thing we have to go on. It sounds reaonable to me though. Especially since it comes from people that have been there for many months doing this work. I could cite the letter Gen. Sanchez wrote to the pentagon earlier this year addressing the lack of support and inadequate supplies they have been dealing with. The Pentagon yesterday came out with a comment that his concerns had been taken care of. Not true though…there are still a lot of vehicles that are substandard and awaiting repairs and armor to be added. These were the vehicles the 343 “mutineers” were expected to drive into a combat area without an armed escort.
My simple point in all of this is that it isn’t a case of black and white. I really expect this will all be swept under a rug somewhere. It is too close to the election for this to be blown out of proportion.
and BTW
Pres. Bush more or less ignored this situation when he was questioned about it in a press conference.
Cowardice in the field is about the worst thing you can accuse a soldier of, and you should be awfully sure of yourself because you make that accusation.
And in this case. I don’t see cowardice. 18 seasoned soldiers don’t just turn pussy overnight. I think their claims about shoddy equipment and armor need to be taken seriously and not just dismissed out of hand as snivelling excuses for cowards.
It’s not like the “accusation” (which I haven’t made, BTW) has any weight, legal or otherwise. It’s not like I own a media empire and I’m trumpeting “Cowards!” from the front page of every newspaper and website.
You mousetrapped me pretty well with that, but I didn’t have ot walk into it, so, oh well.
I haven’t “passed judgement” on them; I admitted to a gut feeling, is all. If I could explain it more rationally than that, I would have done so already.
A snappy comeback may have been something like: “Gut feeling? Pepto-Bismo is your friend,” or, “Gut feeling? That’s your head, inserted where the sun doesn’t shine.”
Granted, the second borders on being a flame, and might attract the unfavorable attention of a Moderator, but it may have been worth it anyway.
And you’ve nailed me in one respect: I don’t think all 19 are cowards. I should have been more clear earlier. I think perhaps one or two higher ranked individuals balked at the mission, and ran their mouths, and convinced the lower ranked members of the platoon that the mission was suicide, and the only way they could save themselves was to miss the convoy assembly formation as a means of protest.
It is supposition; speculation; unfounded on fact. Just a gut feeling and 8 years of military experience, 8 months of that in a hostile “war zone.”
ExTank did not call them cowards, but I did and stand by that. I too am willing to apologize publicly if I am wrong, and would even apologise to the individuals in question if I am wrong, but I sincerely doubt that I am.
I have been under fire and I have served in war zones and I have risked my own life to perform my duty. I had a choice - to abandon my duty and run away, forcing others to risk life and limb to do my job. But I didn’t. And that is the difference.
And that is why I feel secure that I am allowed to pass judgement on these few, even from my arm chair.
If these guys had done this mission before, and knew what they were getting into, then not showing up in formation to do it is an act of cowardice; if they felt it was unsafe but could be made safe, they had a duty to inform their chain of command about it and had a right to refuse the order to go - simply not showing up was not an option. Forcing their buddies in the same unit go off and do the mission they refused to do screams to me that they only cared of their own safety and cared not a whit about anyone else’s. Again, that says ‘cowardice’ to me.
And DtC - I think you’re wrong. People do ‘turn pussy’ overnight, even hardened soldiers. They did this convoy many times before - BFD. They didn’t this time, and then attempted to justify it to themselves and to others, circumventing their chain of command and exposing information to the general public that will result in more soldiers dying if the insurgents realize they can target this group of reservists in sustained attacks and get lots of kills. It’s not like insurgents in Iraq can’t access the internet and use this information to plan future attacks against this same group of soldiers based on information that they now know about how vulnerable they are.
These 19 are the worst kind of cowards, pure and simple, and whilst I believe this is not mutiny they deserve everything the military can throw at them in punishment for this act.
He should ignore it. When the president, any president, gets involved in platoon level operations the military is in big trouble. I expect the upper leadership should investigate to see if this is indicative of a larger problem but they should leave the actual investigation and discipline of this unit to the commanders on the ground.
Except for the fact that the commanders on the ground are often part of the problem. I don’t expect the White House to get involved, but this kind of thing should be handled at the Division level at the very least.
Except for the fact that the commanders on the ground are often part of the problem. I don’t expect the White House to get involved, but this kind of thing should be handled at the Division level at the very least.
What **Loach said. Brigadier General James Chambers is Commanding General 13th COSCOM (COrps Support COMmand), the Division-sized support unit that supports III Corps (at least it did when I was at Ft. Hood, 88-91)
Some folks may not realize it, but this is a pretty big deal, even if the military doesn’t publicly play it up.
I don’t know for certain that the damage is as bad as GomiBoy makes it out to be, but it very well could be; which is why the military really does not like soldiers discussing operational matters outside of authorized channels. Discussing policy matters outside of channels is only slightly less offensive, even if said policy is public record.
Heads may very well roll for this even if the internal investigation quietly (hush-hush) determines that they were carrying Death Fuel in rolling time-bombs through the worst fighting in Iraq in their birthday suits, and were perfectly justified in telling their CO to go fuck himself with a flag pole.
I think the military may not be playing it up to try their hand at the ‘security through obscurity’ game. If they don’t jump up and down about it, the bad guys might not realize that this is prime intel.
But please note what else I said - concerns about the safety and justification for a mission don’t make one a coward, and I do believe these guys had a legitimate reason to question orders. What they did, instead of legally questioning dangerous and potentially useless orders, was fuck off and hide from their duty, allowing their mates to go out and do it for them. That is the lowest kind of cowardice to me.
There’s no evidence that “their mates did it for them.” The army says “the mission was completed” but that doesn’t mean it was completed in the same trucks under the same conditions or that it was the same contaminated shipment.
What **Loach said. Brigadier General James Chambers is Commanding General 13th COSCOM (COrps Support COMmand), the Division-sized support unit that supports III Corps (at least it did when I was at Ft. Hood, 88-91)
Eveyone Else:
I put my finger on my “gut feeling” this morning.
This:
“Hi Mom, this is Amber. This is a real, real big emergency. I need you to contact someone. I mean raise pure hell. We yesterday, we refused to go on a convoy to Taji. That is above Baghdad. We had broken down trucks, non-armored vehicles and we were carrying contaminated fuel. They are holding us against our will. We are now prisoners.” Comes Across To Me As Something Like This:
To be honest, it comes across to me-an independent observer half-way across the world, as this:
…I think its woefully unfair, from the evidence presented so far, to allow your “gut” to speak in the place of actual evidence. To imply cowardice, especially from that snippet you quoted, is in my humble opinion, unfair. No evidence of cowardice has been presented, no evidence that anyone wanted to hide from duty. All I see is a unit standing by each other-as a unit should, to highlight problems that have occured since the war began, that if they hadn’t have made there stand, more soldiers would have died unessercerily.
I said it was my opinion…no! I said it was a gut feeling. I’m not trying to convince anyone that my “gut” is correct, just that I have a rational, reasonable basis for having it. Allow me my intestinal vapors, especially if I have already publicy claimed that I would publicly apologize should my internal goins-on prove incorrect and unfounded.
The military seems to be seriously mum about it, for reasons I suspect are in line with GomiBoy’s hypotheses.
FWIW, the stuff on the military boards I’ve been reading seem to split down about like so:
45% = Wait And See!
45% = Good For Them!
10% = Hang 'Em High!
Mutiny. The issue appears to turn on “usurping” or “overriding” authority. This nonmilitary guy sees no evidence for “usurping”. What does “Override” mean in this context? Isn’t disobeying an order “overriding” authority?
Right way to do this. Ok, fill me in: what is the “Right way” to avoid inappropriately hazardous orders (assuming for the moment that the orders were ill-advised, if not “Death fuel in rolling time bombs”)?
cowardice (small c), as applied to some, not all, of the 18. Um, what’s wrong with the, “Really poor judgment” hypothesis?
