Posted on 05/07/2004 2:26:54 PM PDT by RaceBannon
All right.
That does it.
I am going to say it.
EVERYONE who ever went to boot camp was humiliated more than these people were in Baghdad.
And I mean EVERYONE!
And I mean EVERYONE!
I went through Parris Island in 1973-74. I don't recall being sodomized with a chem stick, or being shackled to other naked recruits. I DO recall wanting to be there very badly. There was nothing at all that I would call abuse. I also recall a senior drill instructor who was reduced to Lance Corporal because some recruits took some of his comments the wrong way (according to him) and beat up a recruit pretty badly. Funny thing about that was (again according to him) that the private who was beaten up didn't say a word, but his wife later put a CONGRINT in and that got this Senior DI court marshalled.
Walt
I don't know any such thing. In fact, I know just the opposite. What was done to those POWs was disgusting, heinous and unworthy of everything this country stands for.
Some senior officers need to take a big hit, not just some E-4's and E-7s.
Remember this?
"When you pass along some of your duties down the chain of command to more junior non-commissioned leaders, you hold the latter responsible for producing. At the same time, you delegate to each subordinate the authority he needs to carry out his duty. In this way, each level of the chain of command, from division or air wing down to fire team, receives authority equal to its responsibilities; and each level carries out its missions under directiion and supervision of the next higher level.
Although you can delegate authority to your subordinates, you always carry the ultimate responsibility for all that your unit does or leaves undone."
--"Handbook For Marine NCO's; Second Edition" p. 301 by Col. Robert Debs Heinl, Jr.
"These events occurred on my watch. As secretary of defense I am accountable for them. I take full responsibility."
- Donald H. Rumsfeld, 5/7/04
Now cut the damn excuses.
Walt
We were never sprayed with urine. I don’t remember the exact punishment for requesting an emergency head call, but I’m sure it didn’t involve flashing the squad bay.
It sounds like your platoon had an unusually high sexual theme to the sadism that we all experienced, but it wasn’t comparable to the homo-erotic crap in those photos. Even at 40, I’d rather relive the worst week of boot camp (that I volunteered for) than spend an hour pushed into those prison photos.
Glad to see some marines know what honor is.
I don't know any such thing either.
Amazing - Rumsfeld shows everyone around here how to be a man, stand up and take responsibility to fix a problem and all the tough guys around here break down in tears over it. Some guys did wrong and cast dishonor upon every serving member of the U.S. Military. They are being punished for it. What they did is indefensible. Period. There is no excuse and no excuse is wanted.
This coming from a "man" who chuckles at atrocities committed against Southerners. I always knew you were nuts, Wlat, but I didn't know you were a hypocite as well.
You have more sympathy for Iraq POWs than southerners. What a Marine you are, Gomer.
And before people jump on me for flaming Wlat, check out the Civil War thread and see just what version of "honor" this person has.
USMC Boot Camp in 1966; the 3 drill instructors were brutal with one kid who'd lost his father days before being inducted...absolutely brutal.
Taguba was the investigating officer, not the commanding officer.
Your comment sounded as if you wanted to shoot the messenger. Your complaint is with General Karpinski, who commanded the 800th Military Police Brigade.
Those wav files of R. Lee Ermy, as the Marine Drill Instructor in "Full Metal Jacket" brings back many memories of my time at MCRD in 1970.
Obviously the pukes at Abu Ghriab were never exposed to that type of training. Because the idea of DISCIPLINE was completely foreign to them.
Semper Fi!
Talk about degradation... for the poor Second Leutenant who had to conduct that inspection!
you'er a Marine so clean it up!
Comparing an experience with an R. Lee-style D.I. to sexual abuse and torture of detainees in a prison is comparing apples to oranges. The former case is an instructor trying to make civilians into a cohesive unit of fighting men, the latter is a group of chuckleheads using their position of authourity to torture prisoners.
Ask yourself: Would I be making this comparison if it were Jessica Lynch in those photos? What would I be thinking if these were Iraqi troops occupying the US?
Finally, has it occured to you that by doing what they did these idiots all but shot your brother Marines in the back? Who do you think is going to take the increased heat during patrols and convoys? The reservists who are taking their place at the prison, or the Army and Marine boys on the front lines?
I just got this in an E-mail, it is appropiate:
The most accurate analysis so far.
The sexual humiliation of Iraqi prisoners at Abu Ghraib prison was not an invention of maverick guards, but part of a system of ill-treatment and degradation used by special forces soldiers that is now being disseminated among ordinary troops and contractors who do not know what they are doing, according to British military sources. The techniques devised in the system, called R2I - resistance to interrogation - match the crude exploitation and abuse of prisoners at the Abu Ghraib jail in Baghdad.
One former British special forces officer who returned last week from Iraq, said: "It was clear from discussions with US private contractors in Iraq that the prison guards were using R2I techniques, but they didn't know what they were doing."
He said British and US military intelligence soldiers were trained in these techniques, which were taught at the joint services interrogation centre in Ashford, Kent, now transferred to the former US base at Chicksands.
"There is a reservoir of knowledge about these interrogation techniques which is retained by former special forces soldiers who are being rehired as private contractors in Iraq. Contractors are bringing in their old friends".
Using sexual jibes and degradation, along with stripping naked, is one of the methods taught on both sides of the Atlantic under the slogan "prolong the shock of capture", he said.
Female guards were used to taunt male prisoners sexually and at British training sessions when female candidates were undergoing resistance training they would be subject to lesbian jibes.
"Most people just laugh that off during mock training exercises, but the whole experience is horrible. Two of my colleagues couldn't cope with the training at the time. One walked out saying 'I've had enough', and the other had a breakdown. It's exceedingly disturbing," said the former Special Boat Squadron officer, who asked that his identity be withheld for security reasons.
Many British and US special forces soldiers learn about the degradation techniques because they are subjected to them to help them resist if captured. They include soldiers from the SAS, SBS, most air pilots, paratroopers and members of pathfinder platoons.
A number of commercial firms which have been supplying interrogators to the US army in Iraq boast of hiring former US special forces soldiers, such as Navy Seals.
"The crucial difference from Iraq is that frontline soldiers who are made to experience R2I techniques themselves develop empathy. They realise the suffering they are causing. But people who haven't undergone this don't realise what they are doing to people. It's a shambles in Iraq".
The British former officer said the dissemination of R2I techniques inside Iraq was all the more dangerous because of the general mood among American troops.
"The feeling among US soldiers I've spoken to in the last week is also that 'the gloves are off'. Many of them still think they are dealing with people responsible for 9/11".
When the interrogation techniques are used on British soldiers for training purposes, they are subject to a strict 48-hour time limit, and a supervisor and a psychologist are always present. It is recognised that in inexperienced hands, prisoners can be plunged into psychosis.
The spectrum of R2I techniques also includes keeping prisoners naked most of the time. This is what the Abu Ghraib photographs show, along with inmates being forced to crawl on a leash; forced to masturbate in front of a female soldier; mimic oral sex with other male prisoners; and form piles of naked, hooded men.
The full battery of methods includes hooding, sleep deprivation, time disorientation and depriving prisoners not only of dignity, but of fundamental human needs, such as warmth, water and food.
The US commander in charge of military jails in Iraq, Major General Geoffrey Miller, has confirmed that a battery of 50-odd special "coercive techniques" can be used against enemy detainees. The general, who previously ran the prison camp at Guantánamo Bay, said his main role was to extract as much intelligence as possible.
Interrogation experts at Abu Ghraib prison were there to help make the prison staff "more able to garner intelligence as rapidly as possible".
Sleep deprivation and stripping naked were techniques that could now only be authorised at general officer level, he said.
ALL the above abuse is patty-cake, sandbox, child's play compared to the unspeakable torture in Evin and other Iranian Islamic prisons. Perpetrated mostly n their own people (like Saddam did to his) and on the occasional foreigner like the Canadian journalist Zahra Kazemi the mullahs killed during severe interrogation.
Their belated effort - after some 25-years - to officially ban torture in their prisons only serves to point out and acknowledge it was there all this time. And despite the edict torture is still currently in daily use. Probably under another "name". Similar to the head mullah of the iranian judiciary declaring Iran was holding NO politicial prisoners. Like Clinton's what "is, is" the mullah claims those held are detained for waging war against God (aposthasy) and not for political reasons!! The "sharia" or holy law of Islam is the governing political system in Iran.
The sole arbiter of God's will and consequent torture, death and injustice? The dictatorial, unelected mullahs. Only they can speak to God. And only they can hear what God replies and demands. And implement it as the direct orders of their deity. Good grief!
And the naysayers in the USA and "old Europe" appear to want to allow another similar regime to take over in Iraq with a Shia Islamic Iraqi Republic based on Khomeini's Islamic Iranian Republic. Iraqi, Moqtada Sadr, the Iranian backed renegade cleric as he is so mildly described, has that goal in mind. Iranian Revolutionary Guardsmen have openly multiplied the ranks of his Mehdi militia that is killing Amreican soldiers and contractors.
And we pussyfoot around with him and his ilk to avoid Arab criticism and sensitivities. As if anything we do, or any nicety we adopt will change their opinions. Other than avoid giving our internal, self-serving, partisan politicians - mostly but not solely of the liberal persuasion and no knowledge of the real world outside the USA , from having an excuse to attack and denigrate our country, our brave (as well as some misguided) soldiers.
We achieve little or nothing and risk everything.
Alan Peters
Orange County, USA
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