Posted on 05/05/2004 1:08:37 PM PDT by aught-6
On the last day of April, a federal appeals court in Cincinnati provided what we must hope is the final word on John Demjanjuk. After a series of court actions spanning 29 years, a three-member panel decided he was indeed the Ukrainian-born prison guard known as "Ivan the Terrible"; at the Nazis' Treblinka death camp, in Poland.
The judgment leaves Demjanjuk, now 84, certain to be stripped of his fraudulently obtained U.S. citizenship.
By cruel coincidence, the court's ruling came the same day we learned that fellow Americans are capable of conduct as reprehensible as many Nazis, that war itself may be the catalyst causing men - and, yes, women as well - to commit unspeakable crimes.
How else to explain what happened at Abu Ghraib? That's the huge prison complex west of Baghdad - built, it was believed, to satisfy the sadistic bent of Saddam Hussein. This was where the now-deposed Iraq ruler had his political enemies raped, tortured and often killed.
U.S. forces took charge at Abu Ghraib a little less than one year ago. There seemed every reason to suppose our takeover would introduce a significant change in managerial attitude. But no. A profusely illustrated story of continuing abuse there now blackens our nation's name, rather than Saddam's, across the Arab world.
Seventeen service personnel have been relieved of duty at Abu Ghraib, and its commanding officer removed. Six soldiers face courts-martial on charges ranging from indecent acts to cruelty, battery, dereliction of duty and conspiracy to maltreat prisoners.
The facts are as plain as you'll find on any local police blotter – though somewhat more bizarre. As many as 7,000 Iraqi prisoners, mostly civilians, were in the custody of American reservists whose 372nd Military Police Company (western Maryland) has seen its overseas duty extended beyond a year. Either thinking it was their job to intimidate prisoners prior to questioning, or caught up in a spirit of collective sadism, the unit's men were joined by at least one woman in forms of brutality that can best be described as kinky.
No fewer than 20 separate offenses are set forth with sickening detail in a report prepared for the Iraq theater commander by Maj. Gen. Antonio M. Taguba. Claiming no psychiatric expertise, I can only wonder who has been overseas so long as to get any kicks from nine nudes piled in a pyramid.
Some Americans, perhaps, will cling to Stephen Decatur's hoary maxim, "My country, right or wrong." Others, let us hope, will press for the answers to some serious questions. Here are a few:
The outrages charged at Abu Ghraib, and now on display around the world, occurred in late October, November and December. Charges against alleged offenders, along with Brig. Gen. Janis Karpinski's removal, came more than three months ago. Why did it remain for enlisted whistle-blowers - and finally for the combined outlets of CBS and The New Yorker magazine - to make the scandal known? And why, oh why is Gen. Taguba's splendidly comprehensive report stamped "SECRET / NO FOREIGN DISSEMINATION?" Does the bunch in charge really believe things like this can be swept under a tarpaulin?
The dirty work was carried out in special sections of the prison enigmatically designated cellblocks "1-A" and "1-B." The failed C.O. pleads ignorance on grounds that these sections were off-limits to all of her command except those responsible for interrogations. Off-limits even to Gen. Karpinski? And if so, was prisoner intimidation in fact a CIA operation?
How does the Pentagon explain its standards for staffing Abu Ghraib? Was its C.O. qualified by previous training or experience for this assignment? The Taguba report found the prison's security force alarmingly short of the numbers needed. Moreover, their families say the six soldiers facing courts-martial had received no in-depth training on requirements of the Geneva Conventions. Why not? And what adherence to the rules of warfare may likely be shown toward American service personnel in the event of their future capture and imprisonment?
To what extent was prisoner interrogation "outsourced" to private contractors, as so many other support services have been? Two commercial firms - the Virginia-based CACI International, Inc., and San Diego's Titan Corporation - had employees at Abu Ghraib, according to an internal army report. (One civilian stands accused of raping a juvenile Iraqi inmate.) These workers are beyond military law. Is it therefore possible that uniformed personnel alone will pay for crimes in which hired hands, better paid though working alongside them, clearly participated?
Pardon my asking.
Shameful.
As I myself have compared school administrators to Nazis on FR, my nausea response to this article doesn't even register.
Yes there's a difference in degree between Nazi camp guards and these American turnkeys, but it's only in degree.
Defending Chip Frederick and his cronies on the grounds "The Nazis were worse": that dog aint going to hunt.
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