Top Officers in Abu Ghraib Case Cleared

Remove all ads!

Well, that is because they actually think the government means what it sais and sais what it means.

Maybe a little quaint an idea of how to read gvt utterances, but still.

There you have a gvt keen on selling a war of choice no matter what, with varying arguments - starting with WMD over the neocon dream of WW-IV ( Finally! ), when the former started to become increasingly unpopular, they switched to spreading freedom and democracy and dug out old Wilson.

These second generation neocons in the second tier of gvt, are just crap. I can easily agree with Jeanne Kirkpatrick when she mocks "the belief that it is possible to democratize governments anytime, anywhere, under any circumstances." Democracy, she said, depends "on complex social, cultural, and economic conditions." It takes "decades, if not centuries." No sh*t!

I didn't see anything of that soberness during the runup to the war in Iraq. The idea was to march merrily straight to Baghdad, Damascus and Beirut and spread democracy. Ve vill winn zhe war because ve have Powerpoint! La-la-la. Ain't the sky nice and blue? Oh look, a daisy! ... and an oil well!
It's like with the german terror group RAF. While being both crazy, the first generation were the intellectuals, the second generation were the thugs.

As BTA said, what actually drove them is open to speculation - but my point is this: Where is the government oversight? Where is the Senate? They didn't get the replies either. There is a fair chance that a good deal of the policymakers in the US don't agree about what Iraq is about, let alone have a common strategy. Talk about receipe for disaster.

It was tell-tale when Rummy wrote that 'metrics memo', wondering how the US could determine if they win in Iraq - just one year after starting the war. I would expect having something like that at hand already when you start, but I'm old fashioned I guess.

I mean, who buys in on the ever changing official rationales is perhaps a fool, but then: When a gvt isn't honest, is constantly inconsistent in their argumentation - changing the tune with the polls, how can cou trust their motives?

And then all this sickening talk about 'abuse' being so fundamentally different from torture Is it? No, it's about circumvention, it's just orwellian newspeak: Let's no more use the word 'torture' which has a very negative connotation, instead let's speak of 'abuse' which is more positive. But that only blurs the discussion - to see how well, just read some of the posts here.
Like designer drugs being designed not to be on the blacklist while having the desired effect, the 'abuse' is torture outside the catalogue of traditional torture. It's still the same sort of criminal energy at work, it's all about inflicting pain and hurting, breaking in and coercing people.

And then, what really cracks me up is that there are still people who insist on the 'few bad apples' nonsense, despite 'Copper Green', 'extraordinary rendition' etc., just as if nothing ever came out about that. Reading Darkwolf I get the impression he never even heared the names Luti or Cambone.
IMO there is a fair chance that an undersecretary of defense for intelligence just doesn't sit around playing with himself all of the day. He must have played a key role in intelligence and shaping the respective policies, for, say, Gitmo and the other camps etc., for interrogation policies in Iraq and so forth.

But no, a few bad apples, no doubt. And better: The bad apples are punished! Gosh, I feel better already.

I mean, Darkwolf, read Bush's line "The United States is committed to the worldwide elimination of torture and we are leading this fight by example." and then think about 'extraordinary rendition' - that and promoting human rights and liberty contradict each other.
That is, the US don't lead by example atm and no matter how hard one tries to talk himself into it, he is just fooling himself.

[ May 12, 2005, 14:58: Message edited by: Ragusa ]

 

This, I have to agree with. Though I have to ask...have we ever?

 

@BTA,

Voice of common sense, what sweet music to my ears...

Ragusa,

First off,

is vulgar and offensive to any one with any moral sense, so what is the purpose of adding this vulgarity? It definitely indicates a lack of ability to be rational and emotionally detached on this issue.

Second, why don't you go rile against nations that actually have policies of abuse? Two of Germany's current bed fellows, Russia and China have a far worse record of human rights than the US, but I never see you ranting at them.

Finally, it is not our policy to abuse and torture. I don't think you understand the size of the US military. The people who commit these crimes are less than 1% of our military, probably less than .1%. Again, before I get accused of condoning this behavior, it is wrong, and it should be punished, but to hear you tell it, we are somewhere between Libya and Somalia in regards to our stance on human rights. If we cared so little for human rights there would be far more violations than the few that have occurred.

 

Come on, its more than a few cases of abuse. Charles Grander commited more than a 'few cases' cases all by himself!

I thought the point of the topic was that top officers were cleared, rather than how wide the abuse actually is?

From my point of view it seems to be 'Blame it on the woman'.

 

Doh! They spare us the preaching, at least See the new partnership between the US and Sudan - that has just massacred a few hundret thousand people in Dhafur. A great buddy against Al Quaeda, no doubt.

What I dislike is the discrepancy between the actual words and the deeds. If Bush was serious with human rights, freedom and liberty, Sudan would have to remain a pariah state. That it isn't anymore, makes me think it was just rhetoric anyway.

At the moment you can see the US reiterating 1980s and 1970s 'rollback', this time against Islamists - a ruthless policy that made the US ally themselves with the really odious rightwing regimes in South America in order to fight communism, or anything left - and that is the dark side of Mrs. Kirkpatrick who intellectually rationalised this policy in her famous essay 'Dictators and Double Standards'.
I am not going to dispute sense and nonsense of 'rollback' here, that is better left to another thread, all I say here is that I'm highly sceptical.

At that time, much unlike today, the US at least were silent. Bush's crew preaches against torture and sends people to prison in Syria. Or Pakistan. Sure thing.

Darkwolf, that other part, the overall size of the US military is irrelevant. The intelligence branch and jailers in the US military are a small minority, too. I don't speak out verdicts over 'the US soldier' as a torturer. Just get off this 'few bad apples' nonsense and look at what we have.

We have official programs like 'Copper Green', and I can only urge you to read the article by Hersh. We have the decision right through Cambone and Miller to adopt the special access programs, originally used for heavy guys and Al Quaeda suspects with the heavy duty methods and all the humiliation stuff, on ordinary Iraqis who were picked up not by SpOps troopers but ordinary soldiers in street sweeps and house raids - consequently they included some 70 to 80% bystanders who were threated that way - just because Pentagon didn't have a better idea on how to gather intel about the alarmingly increasing insurgency in Iraq - 'getting tough' and 'gloves off' felt good and evidently there was pressure from the top to get a grip on this asap.
Therefor the use of torture, sorry, 'abuse'. The special access program worked on Al Quaeda, so they used in on Iraq. It had worked once and it'll work again. It's quite simple, they wanted results, and quick.

I find it telling that in the Pentagon this approach was dubbed 'to gitmoize' Iraq.

What I do say is that the US does have a policy of torture, sorry, 'abuse'.

The US also do have a policy of 'extraordinary rendition'. Fullstop. You cannot deny this. The whole point of the US delivering people to jail in Syria is that the Syrians will torture these detainees, will do the dirty work the US won't do. That is torture by proxy. And it is a policy that spread under the reign of Mr. Cambone who was directly responsible for all of these policies.

My comment on Cambone was simply aimed on that you seemingly underestimate his influence and don't grasp the scale of his involvement. So when you stop being offended, you may well see my point. He's a 'desk culprit'. He organises implementation of policies and Abu Ghraib is the result of these policies. Abu Ghraib is not an aberration.

I say the Bush administration is aiming low, on the military to deflecft criticism from the politicos and from the White House. I have no no doubt that Graner and Lynndie are guilty, but I think they are merely pawns to be sacrificed, and are treated unfair.

Because once you admit responsibility, and take consequence, you admit mistakes - plus you might to have to close down your little shops of horror - and that ain't gonna happen under Cheney and Bush.

IMO the politician at the top organising and ordering a policy that went out of control as it did in Abu Ghraib, is just as responsible as one Mr. Graner or Ms. Lynndie at the executing end.

So what I'm telling you is that you're closing your eyes to this.

[ May 12, 2005, 18:57: Message edited by: Ragusa ]

 

That is a misleading statement at best. You make it sound like a we have normalized relations. The article describes an intelligence partnership, e.g. an arrangement to exchange certain knowledge. I don't know the details of the deal, but I read nothing that indicates we have condoned any human rights violations in the Sudan.

As far as Sudan being buddies with Al Queada, wasn't it the Sudan who offered Osama to Clinton?

In regards to al-Libbi, IIRC, the US didn't capture him, so we didn't ship him anywhere. Personally, I could care less what the Pakistanis do to Osama's number 3, but then I am "less civilized" than your average European, so that isn't to surprising.

Your article (Hersh) is just under a year old. The editorial "extraordinary rendition" is from 2003. The rest of the articles seem to all be from 2003 as well. None of them have any evidence that states that anyone higher than Gen Miller actually authorized torture or abuse of prisoners. Gen Miller is currently under investigation.

I will admit that things got out of control, and having read the articles you posted, that it was more wide spread than I had thought, and that perhaps not enough is being done to punish those who were complicit.

However I do not believe that the President or is administration had full knowledge of what was occurring, and given that I have not seen evidence that this continues to occur, I am not willing to stand by while they are attacked, and America is generalized as a nation who cares less about human rights. Perhaps in the slew of articles you posted earlier in this thread you posted something that provides evidence that this action is still going on. I am sorry, but I don't have the time to read all of them (you really aren't known for brevity Ragusa ),. Repost it, or PM it to me and I will take a look at it.

Given the evidence that you have posted, I would have to say that prior to the exposure of AG, there were more abuses than I had thought. I also have to concede that in fact some inappropriate behavior was not specifically prohibited by policy, as the new policies were not clear enough in what was not acceptable. I do not believe that a specific policy advocating torture was provided, but will concede that the bounds of what was accepted were expanded, and that certain individuals took this to mean "if policy says I can go an inch further, they must mean I am to get results regardless of methods", so they took it to far. What level that occurred at has yet to be determined. It certainly wasn't at the level of those who were taking these actions, and there is no evidence to indicate that it was within the President’s Cabinet. I am betting on Miller, though his handlers may have had knowledge or have just been maintaining plausible deniability.

That said, I still don't believe that this invalidates the entire effort, or places the US on a standard with Syria or China on human rights.

I will agree that (and have always agreed) that we definitely did some damage to our relations with the indigenous people, and that it makes recruiting for the insurgents easier, and our job harder. I sincerely hope that this is traced back to those who actually made the decisions to take these actions, but will not join in on a witch-hunt. That is just as bad as it getting white washed away.

 

Yeah, now there we have a general in the Pentagon already, the Gitmo guy.

You really believe that Miller just went and started this stuff without asking his immediate superiors, without being ordered? Like by Rumsfeld or Cambone?

Hardly.

For a military leader not having full knowlegde about what your unit is doing is dereliction of duty. As an elected official you're accountable and just as responsible for what happens in your shop.

If the folks didn't have full knowledge about what was underway they were incompetent organisers, and that alone would be reason to fire them. You just don't 'miss' something that's being orchestrated in three to fifteen countries on two continents - that requires organisation, and at one point you see the bills and reports on your desk, when you're assistant Secretary of Defense for intelligence for instance.

The problem with Abu Ghraib shows the dilemma the US forces found themselves in: They were overtasked. That explains how some untrained amateurs like Graner and Lynndie could screw up the whole thing by making it public. The problem with them wasn't what they did but how they did it - they lacked discipline and training. One could blame the officers for sending them there unprepared, but as Rumsfeld said: "You go to war with the army you have".
Sure, Miller could have said no, we don't have enough trained men, but when you're a general under Rummy and his goons you can perhaps say no to an imprudent order maybe once or twice before Rummy has his will, how foolish however, and you're being trampled, humiliated or sacked.

Just think about Gen. Shinseki - he was retired and even got his pension cut for stating the bloody obvious truth, that the US lacked troops. They made him an example.

And 'plausible deniability' is great. If that's the case you have politicos 'burning' a general for their mistakes, a guy who likely has risked his life for his country and dedicated his life to the military would end up like ... degraded, pension cut, for following their orders. "Yay, we're with the troops!".
I guess not even the neocons are crazy enough to do that - the Pentagon would be up in arms and lynch them. That's why it is so much easier to punish privates and NCOs, they don't have contacts and friends with influence. They can't kick back.

That 'some damage' caused now predictably shows as 'look for yourself', whenever the US adresses human rights overseas. Not to mention that the US will have a very hard time to win over muslims to help the US. The torture, the religious aspect especially, has discredited the US significantly. In the Arab world, Bin Laden today has a greater moral authority than the US, and the US gvt and Bush have no one else to blame but themselves for that.

Insofar this is just about whitewash and being pissed off about it.

PS: The Sudanese intel chief, that guy the US flew over to the the US in a CIA jet, is the guy suspected to have helped organising the massacre in Dhafur.

[ May 12, 2005, 23:01: Message edited by: Ragusa ]

 

You actually expect that a 3 star general, with multiple divisions rolling up to his command is going to know every action of every soldier under his command? All 30,000+ of them? That is very unrealistic. That is like expecting the CEO of a mid sized corporation to know about every part and piece or chemical that goes in every product they make, and to hold him responsible if someone down the chain elected to use an inferior item that resulted in defects that caused accidents. Unless the CEO issued the directive to cut costs regardless of safety, he is not the culpable party.

Using your logic, Johnson and FDR, as the Commanders in Chief of our military at the time, should be held responsible for every war crime that occurred in Vietnam and WWII.

To the best of my knowledge, Miller does not report directly to Rumsfeld or Cambone.

What I think happened here is that President Bush, frustrated with the lack of intel that was coming out of Iraq and Afghanistan, asked for options to get better results. During the discussions, among many of the ideas presented, Rumsfeld suggested turning up the heat on the detainees, and possibly expanding the scope of who was to be detained. Bush gave him a go ahead, but we will likely never know if he authorized or implied that the human rights of these individuals be violated, or if random people should be grabbed of the street. Rumsfeld went to his subordinates and said that the President is not happy with the level of intel coming out of Iraq and Afghanistan, so we are going to turn up the heat, and it was disseminated down. Now comes the mystery. Somewhere, and it could have been with Bush, Rumsfeld, or at any level all the way down to and including Miller, it was decided that it was appropriate to push the envelope. It is evident that Miller is guilty of something, but until there is evidence that it went higher up the chain of command, I say innocent until proven guilty, or forced out of office by the will of the American people in the case of the President.

Miller is a 2 star General, the Generals above him expect him to do his job and honor his oath. It is entirely possible for a 2 star to have operations that his superiors are not aware of, especially if they are relatively small. Miller, as a Major General, would be expected to have approx 15k troops under his command: that is 3 brigades, 9 regiments, 18 battalions, 72 companies, or 288 platoons. Triple all of those for a Lt. General (3 star). You think that it is impossible for a Lt. General to be unaware of what one of the almost 600 companies he has under his command was ordered to do something that he didn’t specifically approve, and that he should be prosecuted for it as an accomplice?

Your point is? Seems to back up my claim. They didn't bring over the head of state, or the foreign minister.

So the head of security might be dirty, and they gave him a plane ride to DC. Other than the fact they should probably fumigate and delouse the plane after they take him home, what does that prove?

 

The idea of responsibility from the top isn't all that revolutionary. When you have a CEO who screws up big deal and tells his shareholders: "Well, I didn't know ..." They will not be impressed and fire him anyway.

He must have had it organised to have known in time in case something went wrong. The least they did wrong on the political side was inadequate oversight and allowing conditions that led to the abuse of detainees in Iraq.

To the kids in the armed forces, to Graner and Lynndie, everybody held in Abu Ghraib prison or in Gitmo was a terrorist, and you could do whatever you wanted, private reprisals for 911 on arbitrary arabs included.
You couldn't kill them, that'd be stupid and would get you in trouble. It wouldn't be so good to break many bones, unless you could claim it was an accident. But except for that, you could just do what you wanted. Rules only came up right after Abu Ghraib went public and the sh*t hit the fan.

That was sure not the rule but the reports about that have now been read and heared so often that there must be something behind it. It seems, 'roughing up' arrested and detained Iraqis was widespread. Soldiers are chatterboxes - that detainees were meant to be softened up was most certainly known to the troops sweeping them up. Need a hand?

Then tell the kids the old rules no longer apply. "They will be handled not as prisoners of war because they're not, but as unlawful combatants. As I understand it technically, unlawful combatants do not have any rights under the Geneva Convention," Donald Rumsfeld said at the time. The result was that detaines were fair game.

The bad effect of such a policy on morale of the troops and discipline is self-evident. It starts to create a culture of coercion in the military, too. Abu Ghraib is only the most public and thus visible manifestation of the problem.

That the pentagon politicos didn't get the idea something like that would happen, that oversight would be necessary, tells you a lot about them - as they know everything already anyway, they don't need back-up plans. But the plan sure looked just splendid on powerpoint ...

Compared to invading Iraq in 'Operation Rose Petal' all that may only be a minor blunder, but it is significant enough and gives testimony of the still vastly underreated incompetence at work.

And that's just for letting Abu Ghraib get out of hand - the other stuff, the special access programs in the Pentagon and the things the CIA does or 'extraordinary rendition' happen on purpose, exactly as they were planned. When the US deport some poor s.o.b. and hand him over to the Egyptians who torture him that is not an accident but the sole purpose of the exercise.

As the saying goes in German: The fence is as bad as the thief himself.

Besides, a good article: The Road to Abu Ghraib

 

Bed Buddies? You mean like these two?

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/7777528/

Well, they might be just car buddies:

Germany must be jealous. Their Homeboy has a new Homie

 

Gotta admit, this stuff boggles the mind.

We don't torture. No sir. We do give people to torturers, and take them back after they've broken; but we don't torture.

Which moron thought that was a good policy? If you're going to torture, torture. If you're not, don't. This "We don't, but our best friends do" crap is just...*shrug*

 

This policiy sais aloud 'Torture is all right, but unfortunately law prevents us from doing it at home so we have to find this circumvention to do it!'

Then add Bush's line "The United States is committed to the worldwide elimination of torture and we are leading this fight by example." I wonder what he is talking about. Probably he is putting his MBA to good use and talks about outsourcing.

As I said, the fence ain't better than the thief himself.

 

US army medics accused in abuse, but never brought to justice.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/health/3579792.stm

A wee quite by Hippocrates:

Its niave to think this is strictly limited to Abu Ghraib.

 

By the way, this article is amusing, but I haven't found it elsewhere; has anyone watched the ABC News it refers to?

http://english.aljazeera.net/NR/exeres/CD18AC08-3434-487B-AA1D-8C3AF8ECBDDB.htm

Interesting, imo. How come they always get to know more and see more after they get demoted or fired, hm? It was your watch as well, lady.

 

There are also pieces of truth in her quotes. Reservists are generally regarded lower than their career counterparts...Hell, I didn't even know they had reserve generals!!

It's always funny that the top military commander has the responsibility to look after things - to claim the didn't know about it is dereliction of duty at the very least...And personally, I think a general that doesn't do their duty should be punished more severely than a PFC.

 

Bel,

This is stretching my knowledge a bit thin, so it might be subject to revision by someone who is more knowledgeable than I.

There are 2 types of commissions, reserve and regular military. It is possible for a soldier to be a Major in the reserve, but only a Captain (using Army rank here) in the regular forces. A regular Army captain would have to salute a reserve Major, who really only carries the same rank in his regular army commission. However, if the Major were called up to the regular duty, the Major would revert to Captain, and the Captian that used to have to salute the ex-Major would no longer have to. This may no longer be true, but at one time if an officer didn’t make grade (get promoted within a certain amount of time) they were forced to resign or retire, but they could move over to the reserves and make grade there (which is usually easier), and they keep their career. If this is still going on it could end up with all the poor officers who couldn’t make grade moving into the reserves, which leads to questions as to the quality of the reserve officer corp. Hence the reason they lost their rank upon returning to the regular force.

So a general in the reserves could be a colonel in the regular Army.

I don't believe that there are any part time reservists above the rank of Major, but again, I am not in the military, and I haven't looked at this issue in a long time.

It is sad that we have reservists who have know idea of how to run a detention facility having to do that job. Someone needs to take responsibility for this and get trained people in there, or get the people they are using trained, but it seems to be a low priority compared to holding back the insurgency and getting the infrastructure rebuilt.

 

@ DW,

What you say is theoretically true, but it doesn't happen all that frequently. I know of other people who switched from active military to reserves, received a higher rank as a reservist, and maintained that rank upon returning to active duty. For example, one of my co-workers who was a major in the active forces, switched the the reserves, where he was eventually promoted to Lt. Colonel. After his unit was activated, he retained the rank of Lt. Colonel.

 

Thanks for the clarification.

 

Another point on the stronger role of the pentagon in the 'war on terror'.

The CIA is subject to congressional oversight. That is, they have to tell the intelligence comittee what they're up to. The Pentagon isn't subject to this degree of oversight and that's why that's where the odious part of the work is done.

It's practically guaranteed that this lack of oversight results in screw-ups that backfire. That's inherent to the 'we do whatever we want to do' approach.