I'm from Boki-land I know Max, i've been following this board since you drafted Nachbar and I know how some 'pearls' think or view the world... but nevertheless it still a wake up call every time I read some mastermind thoughts here.
You're right, and they were wrong. Here's an example from the Japanese War Crimes trial of General Tomoyuki Yama****a... "The prosecution presented evidence to show that the crimes were so extensive and widespread, both as to time and area, that they must either have been willfully permitted by the accused, or secretly ordered by the accused. . . . As to the crimes themselves, complete ignorance that they had occurred was stoutly maintained by the accused, his principal staff officers and subordinate commanders; further, that all such acts, if committed, were directly contrary to the announced policies, wishes and orders of the accused. The Japanese Commanders testified that they did not make personal inspections or independent checks . . . to determine for themselves the established procedures by which their subordinates accomplish their missions. Taken at full face value, the testimony indicates that Japanese senior commanders operate in a vacuum, almost in another world with respect to their troops, compared with standards American Generals take for granted. This accused is an officer of long years of experience, broad in its scope, who had extensive command and staff duty in the Imperial Japanese Army in peace as well as war. Clearly, assignment to command military troops is accompanied by broad authority and heavy responsibility. This has been true of all armies throughout recorded history. It is absurd, however, to consider a commander a murderer or a rapist because one of his soldiers commits a murder or a rape. Nevertheless where murder and rape and vicious, revengeful actions are widespread offences, and there is no effective attempt by a commander to discover and control the criminal acts, such a commander may be held responsible, even criminally liable, for the lawless acts of his troops, depending upon their nature and the circumstances surrounding them. Should a commander issue orders which lead directly to lawless acts, the criminal responsibility is definite and has always been so understood." ... and Judge Jackson's Opening Remarks on behalf of the Prosecution... While it is quite proper to employ the fiction of responsibility of a state or corporation for the purpose of imposing a collective liability, it is quite intolerable to let such a legalism become the basis of personal immunity. The Charter recognizes that one who has committed criminal acts may not take refuge in superior orders nor in the doctrine that his crimes were acts of states. These twin principles working together have heretofore resulted in immunity for practically everyone concerned in the really great crimes against peace and mankind. Those in lower ranks were protected against liability by the orders of their superiors. The superiors were protected because their orders were called acts of state. Under the Charter, no defense based on either of these doctrines can be entertained. Modern civilization puts unlimited weapons of destruction in the hands of men. It cannot tolerate so vast an area of legal irresponsibility. Even the German Military Code provides that: "If the execution of a military order in the course of duty violates the criminal law, then the superior officer giving the order will bear the sole responsibility therefor. However, the obeying subordinate will share the punishment of the participant: (1) if he has exceeded the order given to him, or (2) if it was within his knowledge that the order of his superior officer concerned an act by which it was intended to commit a civil or military crime or transgression." (Reichsgesetzblatt, 1926 No. 37, P. 278, Art. 47) Of course, we do not argue that the circumstances under which one commits an act should be disregarded in judging its legal effect. A conscripted private on a firing squad cannot expect to hold an inquest on the validity of the execution. The Charter implies common sense limits to liability just as it places common sense limits upon immunity. But none of these men before you acted in minor parts. Each of them was entrusted with broad discretion and exercised great power. Their responsibility is correspondingly great and may not be shifted to that fictional being, "the State", which cannot be produced for trial, cannot testify, and cannot be sentenced. The Charter also recognizes a vicarious liability, which responsibility recognized by most modern systems of law, for acts committed by others in carrying out a common plan or conspiracy to which a defendant has become a party. I need not discuss the familiar principles of such liability. Every day in the courts of countries associated in this prosecution, men are convicted for acts that they did not personally commit, but for which they were held responsible because of membership in illegal combinations or plans or conspiracies. and... The real complaining party at your bar is Civilization. In all countries it is still a struggling and imperfect thing. It does not plead that the United States, or any other country, has been blameless of the conditions which made the German people easy victims to the blandishments and intimidations of the Nazi conspirators. ... Civilization asks whether law is so laggard as to be utterly helpless to deal with crimes of this magnitude by criminals of this order of importance. It does not expect that you can make war impossible. It does expect that your juridical action will put the forces of international law, its precepts, its prohibitions and, most of all, its sanctions, on the side of peace, so that men and women of good will, in all countries, may have "leave to live by no man's leave, underneath the law."
I agree that it was wrong but where to from there? How does the scale of the wrongs committed compare?
I read an article in the New Yorker about a Slovenian philosopher (Zizi or Zizou or zizky or something?) who said that Slovenian politics was dominated by Lacanians (a french psychoanalyst from the 30's) vs. Heideggerians....I bet you their D&D message boards are a little more nuanced, lol.
Well, of course a wrong is a wrong. Ask the next guy to get abused. I'm talking about what I consider to be a politically-motivated "hysteria" about this.
FB indights the "command structure." Does that include the Commander in Chief or is there a more realistic view of who knew and/or facilitated these abuses? No limitation is indicated in his post and many posts here have sought to associate GWB with these events.... and don't give me that "The buck stops here" crap! That is overly romantic.
I see that only on your side Giddy... by trying to frame this as a "political attack" you are really the one playing politics with this by trying to set up a rhetorical argument that favors your candidate/party. The torture is factual. The influence it has on our policies and goals in Iraq are evident. The harm it has done to our national prestige and honor is blindingly obvious. This is not a Republican vs. Democrat issue... this is an issue that strikes at the heart of this country and our place and standing in the world. To look at this as "politically-motivated hysteria" you have to be an ultimate cynic or simply uninformed.
The limitation will become clear when all the facts are in and we know where the buck ended up... and there is simply not enough to say the President is beyond explicit or complicit blame in this. It would add insult to injury if we drew a line at some organizational level and said we will look no further. By the way, the tone of your post suggest to me that you care more about W being elected then the principles of our country. Also, it's "indict."
Here's the thing...we are at war with an enemy that knows no boundaries. They have proved this time and time again. And perhaps we have proved that we are willing to throw the rule book out the window as well. Is abusing and torturing innocent people wrong? Yes. Are our (and their) means of extracting info and other things from pow's outlandish? Yes. You will probably find this to be a ridiculous analogy but ... when my kids pull some crap and no one owns up to it...they all go to their rooms until one comes clean. I know that there are 3 innocent kids and one triggerman (or lady) but this usually gets to the botrtom of it. (I say usually because the younger ones are scared to rat out the older one). Anyway, what I am saying is that ultimately, this is the type of "interrogation" that is going on. My kids are holding markers that destroy walls and the Iraqi soldiers are holding guns that kill our soldiers. What to do?!
How did I frame it as a political attack? Are you saying that I've anticipated these harsh requests to terminate the careers of some of these in the Bush Administration? Are you denying that those kinds of implications or remarks haven't been littered throughout these discussions-- less so in this thread than some of the others for sure. The torture is factual. I never said it wasn't. I questioned the extent of it and I asked for a comparative scale of it since our brave soldiers were being compared to Nazis and Japanese from WWII whose ability to perpetrate horror on other human beings is legendary. This is not like that. Obviously I think the cynicism resides elsewhere.
What I care about is undue politicking around very serious matters at a time when we are involved in a far-flung war effort and waiting for our next act of terorism on our own soil. I care about America more than GWB; I have four children to ensure a future for.
I don't have a problem with interrogating POW's to get information. Even if that involves some unsavory techniques. It's war and you have to do what you have to do. My problem is the perverted sexual humiliation that seems to be going on in these photos. I'd like to think our troops are heros risking their lives for our safety, not a bunch of sadistic sexual perverts who get off on torturing naked men (or women for that matter). I only hope that this is an isolated incident and not widespread.
Somebody decided there was no need for oversight... ______________ Buyer had been set to work at infamous Iraqi prison By Terry Horne terry.horne@indystar.com May 9, 2004 A year ago, civilian Pentagon officials told U.S. Rep. Steve Buyer, R-Ind., then a lieutenant colonel in the Army Reserve, that they didn't need his Gulf War experience and would send someone else to provide legal oversight of an Iraqi prison camp. Pentagon officials could not be reached Saturday to say whether anyone was ever sent. Buyer told The Indianapolis Star on Saturday that he had warned the Pentagon about the need for strict oversight. The congressman, who became a colonel last month, said he told Charles S. Abell, a top Pentagon civilian official for personnel, "Let me tell you what a peace-stopper is: Just mess up at a prisoner-of-war camp." But, Buyer said, Abell and his boss, Pentagon personnel chief David Chu, told him the Defense Department had rejected the Army's plan to send him to the unit overseeing the Abu Ghraib prison complex outside Baghdad. Months later, inmates were stripped naked, beaten, sexually humiliated and abused in violation of military and international law. The Army's internal report documenting those abuses found the lack of knowledge about basic legal requirements a major contributing factor. And the report included the assignment of a senior military lawyer, which the Army termed "critical" to prison operations, as one of its nine key recommendations. That indicated Buyer's proposed posting was never filled. Buyer said he would not claim that his assignment would have stopped the abuses. However, he knew the importance of assigning a lawyer from the Judge Advocate General's Corps to an interrogation center. In Operation Desert Storm, Buyer was the Judge Advocate General officer monitoring compliance with international law at one of the two main prisoner-of-war camps. "If there ever is an area that is susceptible to abuse and maltreatment of prisoners, it would be during the interrogation process," Buyer said. Buyer said he was within days of being shipped out to Iraq in March 2003 as the senior military lawyer to the 800th Military Police Brigade, the unit operating Abu Ghraib and the same unit that ran the Western Enemy Prisoner of War Camp in 1990. Senior military officials, including then-Army Chief of Staff Gen. Eric K. Shinseki, had approved his posting, he said. Then his assignment was pulled. Buyer said he called Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld to protest but wasn't able to talk to him. Instead, he talked to Chu and Abell, neither of whom could be reached for comment Saturday. Buyer said Chu and Abell told him his status as a congressman might make him a target, endangering not only himself but those around him. One of Buyer's advisers, retired Army Reserve Maj. Gen. Paul C. Bergson, said the Pentagon's decision not to send Buyer was understandable. However, there was still a need to send someone of Buyer's experience and rank, Bergson said. Bloomington attorney and Army Reserve Col. Michael Carmin was Buyer's counterpart at the other main prisoner-of-war camp in Desert Storm. Carmin said that when he learned Buyer's call-up had been aborted, he simply assumed the Army had found someone else with similar credentials. "Somebody made the assessment," he said, "that there wasn't the need to fill the slot."
I'm not even saying what I think. It's what the report by the U.S. military thinks. The commanding general at the prison said that the interrogation wing was seperate, and that intel folks, civilian private contractors, and others were allowed to go there without her knowing what was going on. Two of the people who were at the prison mentioned the same thing. They said people would come to them all the time and get the prisoners. I don't think this, because I want to believe it. At first I was sure that there may have been a case or two here and there where interrogators went over the line in trying to get information out of prisoners. I wasn't happy about it, but I believed that this wasn't something condoned, allowed, or widespread. The report by the U.S. military changed my feelings on all of that. Look at the pictures. Do they look like they are worried they are doing the wrong thing? They might have even thought that it was wrong. That is a problem in the command structure.
