Saturday, May 08, 2004

Sergeants and Privates and Generals...

..oh my!

It's not my custom to acknowledge the accuracy of Republican Senators around here, but I have to admit that I agree with Sen. Lindsey Graham's observation during the Rumsfeld testimony that "...I would be very disappointed if the only people prosecuted are sergeants and privates."

Me too. But...

As the specific charges against the Al Ghraib enlisted guards are fleshed out, what little sympathy I might ordinarily muster for those at or around rank I once held have become thoroughly exhausted, and their feeble excuses don't make their cases any stronger.

Although SP4 Sabrina Harman complains that "...the prison had no standard operating procedures and on Tier 1A..." and "...she was never schooled in the Geneva Conventions' rules on prisoner treatment," it's simply beyond belief that a crash course in treaty law was required for a civilized human being to understand that this kind of behavior is wrong:

"Harman is accused by the Army of taking photographs of that pyramid and photographing and videotaping detainees who were ordered to strip and masturbate in front of other prisoners and soldiers, ...with photographing a corpse and then posing for a picture with it; with striking several prisoners by jumping on them as they lay in a pile; with writing "rapeist" on a prisoner's leg; and with attaching wires to a prisoner's hands while he stood on a box with his head covered."

Nope. As a friend says, "No excuses are necessary, because none will be accepted."

PFC Lynndie England, who you may know as 'the lady with the leash' from one of the more vivid of the published Al Ghraib photos, is the latest to be charged. England was the company clerk who apparently had free access to the cell block which the commanding General of the MP Brigade claims she couldn't get into.

Although England's family is full of assurances that she's not that kind of person at all, Army investigators have charged her with "...assaulting Iraqi detainees on multiple occasions; conspiring with another soldier, Spc. Charles Graner, to mistreat the prisoners; committing an indecent act; and committing acts 'that were prejudicial to good order and discipline and were of nature to bring discredit upon the armed forces through her mistreatment of Iraqi detainees.'" When not busy otherwise conspiring with SP4 Graner, they conspired to concieve a child, as well.

This is not, as has been widely asserted, a failure of training. No adult, civilian or soldier, MP or grunt, should require special training to understand that assaulting detainees, committing 'indecent acts,' posing with corpes or forcing prisoners to masturbate for the camera are simply and completely wrong. These two, and the other five guards facing similar charges, should be prosecuted and punished. That's beyond dispute.

Bush, like many of his subordinates, is trying to dismiss the entire matter as the "wrongdoing of a few." In an important sense, he's right. In the context of the hundreds of thousands of US troops that serve honorably and would never participate in the kind of torture meted out at Al Ghraib, it is indeed the wrongdoing of a few. He's wrong, though, to the extent that the few that have now been criminally charged represent the full extent of the problem.

It's the wrongdoing of a few (and I note the choice of words. The other side are 'evil' doers. Our side has a few 'wrong' doers...), but I'll take the liberty of suggesting a few more who should face criminal charges.

800th MP Brigade Commander Brigadier General Janis Karpinski was clearly derelict in her duties. If Lynndie England could get into that cellblock, Karpinski should have.

Maj. Gen. Geoffrey D. Miller, who, following an inspection tour of the Iraqi prison camps, recommended that the MPs "be actively engaged in setting the conditions for successful exploitation of the internees." That's the policy that set the subsequent torture at Al Ghraib in motion.

Lt. Colonel Jerry Phillabaum, CO of the 320th MP Battalion, who the Taguba report found guilty of "...rarely supervising their troops and failing to set basic soldiering standards for them..." for dereliction.

205th Military Intelligence Brigade commander Colonel Thomas M. Pappas, whose interrogators improperly assumed supervision of the MP guards and reportedly directed some of their more heinous actions.

Lt. Col. Steve Jordan, who directly supervised the Joint Interrogation and Debriefing Center at the prison.

Any senior officer in the chain of command who recieved and dismissed the regular stream of reports from the ICRC over the last year detailing torture and other human rights abuses at Al Ghraib, Camp Bucca and other US operated prison camps.

And of course, Rummy. I'm not sure if there are any criminal charges that actually apply, and as a civilian, he's not subject to the UCMJ, but he's simply got to go. He says he takes responsibility. Treat him as though he's responsible.

And sign the petition.

We can take care of the man ultimately responsible in November.

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