Posted on 12/09/2003 4:16:55 AM PST by Ispy4u
Under the strain of command in a dangerous situation, Lt. Col. Allen West committed a serious error in judgment. And in a military environment, such errors by a commanding officer cannot go unpunished.
Informed on Aug. 20 that an Iraqi policeman might have information about potential attacks on West and his troops, the colonel invited soldiers under his command to beat the suspect as West looked on. When that did not produce the desired effect, West threatened the prisoner, first firing a pistol into the air, then holding the pistol to the policeman's head and firing a shot into the ground nearby.
Not surprisingly, the terrified suspect then began babbling information. As is often the case when such crude techniques are used, it later proved impossible to verify whether that information was accurate or whether it had been invented by the suspect in a desperate attempt to save his life.
Nor was it clear that the suspect was guilty. As U.S. intelligence officers testified in a preliminary hearing in the case, Iraqis will often finger an innocent person to American troops as a way to wreak personal revenge on each other.
Unfortunately for West, there is no question whatsoever about his own behavior in the case, or that it violated U.S. Army regulations. After complaints were filed by other soldiers, the colonel was relieved of command and is awaiting word whether he will be court-martialed on charges of aggravated assault and communicating a threat. If found guilty, the well-respected officer could be sentenced to up to eight years in prison.
It is hard not to feel sympathy for West, and almost impossible to sit in judgment of him from afar. "If it's the lives of my men and their safety," he said in his preliminary hearing, "I'd go through hell with a gasoline can." His case has even drawn congressional interest, with two U.S. senators suggesting that West deserves to be commended for his actions, not prosecuted. And certainly, a prison term does seem an unduly harsh punishment.
It is even more difficult to condemn West for violating the standards of the Geneva Convention for warfare and occupation when more senior U.S. officials are themselves treating those rules as inconvenient guidelines that can be ignored at will. The hundreds of prisoners captured in Afghanistan and held under harsh conditions by the United States in Guantanamo Bay, for example, have been ruled ineligible for protection under the Geneva Convention because they are supposedly "enemy combatants" rather than prisoners of war.
That effort to redefine the problem calls to mind the argument used by the North Vietnamese more than 30 years ago to justify their cruel treatment of captured American aviators. John McCain and others in the Hanoi Hilton were not prisoners of war, we were told, but war criminals who deserved what they got. In other words, it is always easy to find a justification if you want one badly enough.
It is also true that in Iraq, we are engaged in a bitter struggle with people who do not recognize such distinctions. As the West case illustrates, it is tempting to then fight the battle on their terms, and in rare cases it may indeed be necessary to do so.
But those and other distinctions are part of why we're fighting. We believe such rules are important to civilized life; our opponents do not. In the eyes of the Iraqis, it is hard to distinguish ourselves from the previous regime if we ourselves do not attempt to live by the rules we claim to uphold. The suspect threatened by West, for example, was a policeman, and hundreds of U.S. personnel are trying hard every day to convince Iraqi policemen that such tactics are simply unacceptable.
For military reasons, punishing West in some way is mandatory. The tactics that he used that day contradict the values this country is supposed to be defending. Allowing an officer of his rank to evade consequences for such behavior would send an unmistakable signal up and down the ranks and greatly erode the discipline our soldiers rely upon in tough situations.
Certainly, the pressures of combat help explain his mistake. They do not excuse it.
Jay Bookman is the deputy editorial page editor.
I never gave them any such credit. I would like to see the enemy at 0% effectiveness. Whereas you seem to think that the ROE are designed for fair play and the enemy should be allowed a certain amount of effectiveness in killing our troops. If West's actions saved one American life in the battlefield then he was correct.
You continually ask others to prove that his action saved lives. In every report posted that claim is made. Since neither of us was there we can only go by the reports available to us. You ask us to prove he saved lives by action as way to deconstruct that arguement. Since you, apparently, are arguing his actions were unneccesary, prove your arguement.
I just love it when self-styled military geniuses and moral paragons run off endlessly at the mouth about war being just a hair removed from a freepin' card game.
Rules, ya know.
While LTC West may not be a 'hero' he was the senior man on the scene.
I do not condone letting soldiers beat a person, be it an enemy soldier or a spy but LTC West's personal action, IMO, do not merit the attention they have been getting.
So he fired a shot into the air, then held the barrel to the person's head, then fired a shot into the ground. Did he harm the person? NO.
LTC West is the type of officer I would want commanding me and my men. Did he think about the consequences when he acted in this manner?
I believe he did and counted the safety of the men under his command as worth more than the safety of his career.
I realize that this is necessary for you to continue to act like a morally pompous ass, but...
No one, to my recollection, has suggested or even implied that the military have no rules. That you suggest such shows the vacuity and thoughtlessness of your position.
Unless you know something the rest of us don't: Col West's style was ignoring the rules 100% of the time and encouraging his men to do the same?
Absolutism is so juvenile!
Indeed, no rule is absolute so long as safety is the issue. IF safety is an issue the rule can be broken. It is a universal rule of transportation, self defense and war.
That doesn't mean those people enjoyed what they had to do...it doesn't mean we became the enemy because their is a huge moral difference between the baisis for fighting the war and, in 99% of the cases, between the very methods and intent of the severe circumstances.
If someone is toturing, dismembering or brutalizing for the sake of the brutality or in sadistic ways...then, yes, punish the deed. Or, if someone uses their judgement in a case like this to extract info and that judgment proves out wrong...then discipline the one doing so.
But when the judgement proves correct, when the mission is accomplished, when US casualties are minimized or altogether avoided...and when the very prisoner is neither seriously injured or permanently marked in any way (and IMHO, even if he was), then you should laud the officer and seek more who can do the same, that is have the judgement pan out to the accomplishment of the mission and minimizing or avoiding casualties.
In WW II, my Dad indicates to me that it took almost two years to get to a point where we understood this clearly, understood the mortal danger we faced and the types of ends we had to go to to defeat it and preserve our way of life and very liberty. That learning occurred through hard experience, and the currency was American blood.
Best regards.
This is the sort of puerile desperation rant I would expect in a high school debate when all else fails...
Best fregards and again, God bless you and yours for your sons upbringing and his decision to serve.
So the questionable action of one man now condemns our entire military and its leaders. Okay, now I know where you stand. You are simply anti-military and would seemingly like to see it dismantled.
That is what we are taught to do, that is how we win wars.
You win wars by being tougher, smarter, kill more of the enemy than they do you and by destroying their ability to fight. Not by engaging them in discussions and handling them as if they were your own citizens. They are trying to kill us and whatever means we can use we should to stop them from that goal.
You can have the best trained army in the world, with the most technologically advanced equipment. We do. In the hands of unmotivated soldiers who are poorly led, these advantages mean absolutely nothing. So then you have a professional officer corps, skilled in the art of war, leading a well equipped army, whose subordinates do not trust such leaders with their lives and will not or cannot obey orders. You then have chaos and inevitable failure.
This is the risk of going forward with the court martial. MG Odierno has shown that following the letter of the law (going to an art.32 hearing) is more important than the morale of soldiers. What soldier is going to want to fight for his chain of command, when that same chain of command punishes, far beyond any appropriate measure, commanders who try to protect them from the enemy?
The court martial of LTC West is unprecedented. I've been around the army since 1976 and cannot think of a single court martial more destructive to morale than this one. I grant you LTC West should be punished; only because no wrong deed should ever be tolerated. But that punishment should have been a verbal reprimand with the admonition not to do such actions in the future.
The more this is on the front page, the more the army loses. Going the court martial route destroys morale and any confidence soldiers might have in their leaders. JAG types (army lawyers) don't think about this; its not their job. But commanders at all level realize the implications that any punishment West gets will be viewed as a sop to political correctness.
The commanding general of the 4th Infanty Division has shown incredibly poor leadership by ever allowing this 'charge' to see the light of day. This is what happens when you have careerists and lawyers running a war, instead of soldiers and warriors. He should know better better than to give the impression that he doesn't give a damn about his soldiers; which is the result of his extremely poor judgement in this case. Who would want to be a soldier in the 4th ID these days? MG Odierno, CG of the 4th ID, should be relieved of command, and LTC West reinstated.
Exactly. By his actions he sets the tone and the limits even more than by his orders.
Even if you have never held a position of authority in the military this principle should be familiar with the raising of children.
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