The noble, the brave, and the sickening

[LovetoCamp]

According to an AP article, The brass is going ahead with this "6 rogue lower-enlisted" thing. I'm not buying it. If this is a Military Police Company, than there exists platoon leaders, a company commander, battalion commander who should be taking the fire. This entire unit should be sacked and its colors burned. I don't believe for an instant 6 PFCs took it upon themselves to act like this. If the intelligence folks and MP officers are hanging these 6 out to dry......I can see a herd of pencil neck officers doing this, I just can't imagine them actually getting away with it. Makes me sick thinking about it, the covering it up and blaming a private. It would make me want to throw someone else's medals over a fence.

[firstpusk]

"So you think that the President should spend his time watching CNN? That's a productive use of his time."

 

 

No. 'Where in the World Is Carmen Miranda?' would be much more appropriate.

[Zahnada]

I must say that it's really nice to see Bush standing behind Rumsfeld. If no new incriminating evidence against Rumsfeld turns up and he is allowed to keep his job, my level of respect for President Bush will go up. It would be so easy for Bush to pin the blame all on Rumsfeld and fire him. Nobody within the GOP would fight the decision and it would silence all the other critics.

 

That's what I really like about President Bush: loyalty. He's very loyal to his staff and friends. Another example is that most candidates would have replaced Dick Cheney with someone more personable and likable by the public for the next election. Bush is sticking with his man. That speaks volumes in my mind.

[Adrianvs]

I'm having trouble accepting the notion that these 6 enlisted acted entirely on their own as well. It first I thought that the main factors involved were the combat and prison conditions, psychology of martial training, and just plain old-fashioned sadistic "blowing off steam." What is giving me pause is the motivation of those who orchestrated all of these events. It does seem to be a set of isolated incidents. They seem to be planned and staged isolated incidents, however. Soldiers were recruited to perform these acts and others were instructed to take pictures. That is more disturbing than the notion that these soldiers went did this to get some 'funny' for posterity. Somebody else wanted the pictures. Who was that and for what purpose did they want them? I am beginning to accept the possibility that the pictures have already served the purpose for which they were made.. There is little evidence either way yet, but it would not surprise me at all.

[Proud Eagle]

That would be the bombshell of the year if it turns out some officer or NCO was staging all this for the purpose of creating (or having the ability to create) such a scandal. I don't think it is likely, but it is certainly possible. I can also see the Army deciding to cover up such an event, since it really doesn't benefit anyone for that to be the explanation.

 

More likely however was that there was serious problem in communicating the standards to these MPs. From what I have heard, these MPs were basically loaned out to MI folks. It is quite possible that through the combination of orders received from the MP and MI commanders that they decided they were supposed to help make these prisoners talk. Without proper supervision (the MI people weren't really their commanders, so they didn't have to supervise them, the MP chain of command was cut out of this section of the prison, so they couldn't supervise them) they assumed what they were doing was all part of orders. They then continued to escalate their actions, still thinking it was part of what they were supposed to be doing, but long since having past what was intended.

 

Sometime in the 70s Stanford did a study on prisons. They took a group of psychology students as volunteers. Some of them were selected to be prisoners and others were selected to be guards. Within a matter of days the guards were degrading and humiliating the prisoners. Some of the prisoners even attempted to revolt. They used forms of mental torture so affective several of the prisoners had breakdowns. Even the professor running the experiment began to lose perspective and started seeing the prisoners as something less than human in a space of days. Another researcher who came to observe several days into the experiment essentially had to snap the guy out of it. The experiment was terminated because they realized it posed a risk to the physical safety of the students and ran a very high risk of causing permanent psychological trauma.

 

So if this is what happens when a group of psychology students in the US are placed in a prison setting in a controlled research environment, it is little wonder that abuse takes place on the far side of the globe in a war zone. It is a wonder that far worse things haven't happened far more frequently. I would also point to some of the problems with the domestic corrections system. California for one has some very severe problems with its prisons. It isn't unheard of for prison guards here in the US to be involved contributing to the deaths of prisoners.

 

I for one certainly hope that the ongoing investigations are able to shed some more light on how and why this was able to happen. It seems impossible that someone didn't at least suspect what was going on. If they did, then we must know why they didn't try to stop it. If no one knew, we must find out how such a thing was able to happen without anyone noticing.

[LovetoCamp]

There is absolutely no way, and I mean no chance at all, that this Pvt E-2 Englund, and her E-3 and E-4 buddies did this on their own. A couple lower enlisted MPs are going to get 6-8 Iraqi killers to strip and pile up. Don't think so.

 

They were acting with guidance from someone they believed had the authority to order this type of treatment. Captain, Colonel, Special Agent.......

 

 

[Rooster7]

There is absolutely no way, and I mean no chance at all

 

Considering that you werent there. Considering that with each new day the world gives witness to more and more bizarre events perpetrated by individuals as well as governments. I think youre overstating your position. You might be right. But, you might be wrong. I dont doubt the capacity of countries or individuals to act foolishly and/or to do evil.

 

[LovetoCamp]

I stand by my possible overstatement. Would you like to bet on it Rooster?

 

[Fat Old Guy]

All it takes is a ring leader to say, "What if we did .. . ."

[LovetoCamp]

C'mon, you were an officer, do you really believe that 6 rogue MPs would violate what they know their job description to be, their general orders, the UCMJ, and everything else to take and strip a POW bare and take a polaroid gawking at his genitals and have them pile up naked.

 

I just don't buy it that we have 6 extremely stupid soldiers serving in the same place at the same time. They wouldn't have done this without being told to and now their being sacrificed. I've known plenty of Military Police Sergeants and not one of them would have stood by one second for this. There's some brass involved here.

[Rooster7]

There are a lot of things that I wouldnt bet onfor example:

 

Several years ago, I would not have ventured to bet that -

 

Two teenagers would walk into their high school and kill 9 of their peers.

 

OR

 

A Christian sect would willingly, barricade themselves in a compound in an effort to avoid the law, placing their children in harms way.

 

OR

 

The U.S. government would storm the same compound with no imminent threat resulting in the deaths of over 80 Americans.

 

OR

 

A mother would let the family car roll into a lake, killing her children.

 

OR

 

A U.S. President would commit sexual acts with an intern in the Oval office while on the phone with a Senator.

 

OR

 

OJ Simpson would cut the head off his ex-wife and get away with it.

 

OR

 

Federal agents would shoot a mother holding her baby between the eyes.

 

OR

 

Two idiots would blow up a federal building killing hundreds.

 

OR

 

19 fools would fly jets into buildings killing thousands.

 

Of course, this list can go on and on. What would our great, great grandparents say if they were alive today? The point is: There are plenty of unexplainable, senseless acts occurring on a daily basisIm not convinced that these soldiers could not have acted on their own. Im not placing any bets. But then again, I would never have placed bets on the aforementioned events, YET they happened just the same.

 

[ASM1]

And, I might add, it is every American's duty to stand above it all and not lower ourself to become a part of it. Think Folks!

 

ASM1

[Rooster7]

ASM1,

 

Im thinking...

 

Thinking...

 

Thinking...

 

Yet, I cannot come up with an explanation for your words.

 

Did someone suggest that we should lower our standards? No offense intended, but what are you talking about?

 

[SR540Beaver]

Rooster,

 

A few years ago I wouldn't have bet that our government in the midst of fighting the terrorists who attacked us would have committed 150,000 soldiers and 10's of billions of dollars to overthrow another government and occupy a nation that posed no credible threat to us. But we did. Now here we are looking at pictures of POW's being abused at our hands.

[Adrianvs]

"That would be the bombshell of the year if it turns out some officer or NCO was staging all this for the purpose of creating (or having the ability to create) such a scandal. I don't think it is likely, but it is certainly possible. I can also see the Army deciding to cover up such an event, since it really doesn't benefit anyone for that to be the explanation."

 

No, it would be the media trying to cover up such an event. I think that the Army would be glad to pin the abuse on the schemes of an anti-war saboteur within its ranks. As I said before, there is no evidence (aside from circumstantial) that this is the case, but it is interesting. There is an important question to ask, however. If some brass is/are involved, what could their motivation possibly be for producing these pictures and allowing them to be distributed among enlisted?