What did leaders expect in war - a rose garden?

St. Louis Post-Dispatch | 05/07/2004 | Bill McClellan

[Graybeard58]

I am not offended, shocked or disgusted at the photographs from Abu Ghraib prison in Baghdad. The Iraqi prisoners are hooded and naked. In one photograph, a prisoner is standing on a box with his arms outstretched. He has wires attached to his arms. According to the accounts I have read, he was told he would be electrocuted if he fell off the box. I imagine he was terrified. In many of the photographs, you can see American jailers smirking. My reaction is, So what?

[OldTypeAmerican]

I have a question about all this talk of "abuse". This could be one of 2 things. Either they're some sick wierdos who get off abusing people in which case they should be tried for war crimes against the Iraqis, or they were following orders to soften up Iraqi enemy combatants for intelligence to extract information from in which case the military people who revealed this should be tried for treason against the USA. What do these liberal pansies want us to do when we need to extract information from captured prisoners? The most we can do is threaten to withold jelly from their peanutbutter and jelly sandwiches? Yeah, that'll work. If this administration's political opponents have to ok everything our intelligence community does and run it by the public, we have already lost and big time.

[R. Scott]

Aren’t the self righteousness full of pride?

[Immanuel]

Blessed are the merciful: for they shall obtain mercy.

[R. Scott]

Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld has at last recognized the Geneva Conventions. Observing, correctly, that Iraq’s televised display of captured American soldiers violated the laws of war, Rumsfeld said that the conventions spell out the rules governing international armed conflict.
The United States is right to insist that Iraq honor the Geneva Conventions. But its position is weakened by failure to practice what it preaches in holding 641 prisoners without charges at the U.S. military facility in Guantánamo Bay, Cuba.

I read the article. Nowhere did it say that Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld has decided that the captures Iraqis are POWs or have the right to be treated as POWs. He stated that the convention should be obeyed - and so far we have followed the rules - the rules as published, not the rules as interpreted by media talking heads.

[mlmr]

Personally, in this sort of war, I think the best option is to take no prisoners, ever.

[spunkets]

That's right he said the GCs should be obeyed.

Here's a copy of a US govm't doc that specifies the prisoners are to be treated as POWs.

See the Taguba report.

"4. (U) EPWs and Civilian Internees should receive the full protections of the Geneva Conventions, unless the denial of these protections is due to specifically articulated military necessity (e.g., no visitation to preclude the direction of insurgency operations). (ANNEXES 19 and 24) "

[Graybeard58]

Personally, in this sort of war, I think the best option is to take no prisoners, ever.

Except that prisoners can sometimes provide valuable information.

[mlmr]

Except that prisoners can sometimes provide valuable information.


PERHAPS. bUT IN THE LONG RUN, THEY ARE LESS PROBLEMS IF THEY ARE DEAD.

[austinite]

You know they are right, we are cruel. Maybe not. They don't know cruel, they want us to leave, then lets. As soon as we leave the NUKING may begin. At least its painless, no torture.

[usadave]

I don't see much, if any, difference between the defenders of these atrocities on this thread and the perpetrators themselves.

Then, obviously, you don't see very well.

[TheDon]

Well said. Americans are rather naive about how the world works. And they have little imagination about just what the US could be doing in the world, if we wanted to.

[TheCrusader]

"Force protection and concern of the safety of our troops should be the main consideration in this issue. For these reasons, I feel the damage that has been done in the use of these methods has outweighed any possible advantage."

Force protection and concern for troop safety was the main reason for the methods used in the treatment of these assassins, terrorists, torturers and thugs. You can be sure that many of them sang like birds. Now when they are captured they will know that the liberals and pacifists are in control of their incarceration and they will find no need to talk or be cooperative. They will probably ask for Dove cold cream soap and filet minion.

While everyone should be concerned about a few MP's abusing their authority, it should always be kept in mind that the abuses were the exception and not the rule, and that the abuses, though bad, did not even come close to the term being used to describe it, namely, "atrocity". Take note that all the men in the photos were in superb physical shape, muscular and well fed; and none of them were showing wounds that were untreated, etc. Contrast their overall condition with that of the Nazi concentration camps, or the condition of the American POWs in the initial phases of the war and the description "atrocity" becomes a sad joke. The whole thing is being grossly overblown by the vehemently anti-Bush, anti-war media.

[MEG33]

Good grief. I deplore the acts,want them punished and the people who ran a sloppy command given career ending chastisements.

You have lost perspective, and perhaps need to to read the report, when the investigation started and steps already taken before the furor. It was announced in January by Cent Com. This was not widespread.

We've had worse scandals in US prisons.

[CobaltBlue]

Absolutely. What do the pussies think happens in war?

In real wars, real men force prisoners to simulate oral sex with each other, and simulate anal sex, and force them to masturbate, and all kinds of real he-man stuff like that.

[CobaltBlue]

Oh, right, why bother with prisons and prisoners at all? Kill all the Iraqis and let God sort them out.

[CobaltBlue]

No Prisoners! Absolutely. That's the way Lawrence of Arabia did it in the movies, by golly!

[R. Scott]

That's right he said the GCs should be obeyed.

The Secretary of Defense said it? And you offer the article 15 report as proof? Where is the connection?

Here's a copy of a US govm't doc that specifies the prisoners are to be treated as POWs.

I see you are either not familiar with legal or military writing and word usage.
“EPWs and Civilian Internees should receive the full protections of the Geneva Conventions…”
It does not state that they shall receive . There is a difference.

[IrishRainy]

Exactly what atrocities?

[Jim Noble]

What our leaders expected in this war was a completely improbable "Iraqi" Arab renaissance, in which pushing the Saddam government out of power in Baghdad without antecedent death and destruction and subsequent heavy occupation would create conditions favorable to American policy in the middle East.

They were wrong.

[spunkets]

" I see you are either not familiar with legal or military writing and word usage."

The statement is explicit and was written by mil authorities. The word "should" is used and it says there is limited and specific mil necessities where they "should not" be. Given the specific reasons the rule should not be followed under the "unless", mil personnel are directed by this to treat both EPWs and civilian internees with full protection of the GCs.

"4. (U) EPWs and Civilian Internees should receive the full protections of the Geneva Conventions, unless the denial of these protections is due to specifically articulated military necessity (e.g., no visitation to preclude the direction of insurgency operations). (ANNEXES 19 and 24)"

" The Secretary of Defense said it? And you offer the article 15 report as proof?"

Yep. In fact both Rumsfeld and Bush are at the Pentagon this morning discussing the damage caused by all of those that have an inabilty to understand and follow simple English word usage.