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Banned from the DCMBs since 2002. 15000+ posts
Joined: Jan 2002
Posts: 15,367 Likes: 14 |
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Dave the Wonder Boy said:
Well, T-Dave, while I disagree with some of your last post, I do appreciate the more polite discourse, and even your acknowledgement on a few points.
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Originally posted by Dave:
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Originally posted by Dave the Wonder Boy:
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If four cops in L.A. beat up a suspect, that doesn't undermine the criminal justice system in California. Those are the actions of four cops, not those of the legal system of California. And those cops are accountable before the California legal system for the laws they violated.
Actually, I think it does undermine the legal system in California, and so did the rioters who protested when the cops in the Rodney King trial were acquitted. Perhaps you've picked a bad analogy.
In any event, we are not talking about 4 bad cops bashing a guy on the street. What we have here is an already volitile situation where many soldiers tortured prisoners, and who say they were told by their superior officers to do this.
I think the analogy is still a good one. Four L.A. cops wearing badges ostensibly represent the legal system of California.
But they were not acting in a manner consistent with California law, and they were charged with those violations.
Similarly, the 7 U.S. military police, their 8 superior officers who looked the other way and let it happen, and the 4 U.S. non-military intelligence interrogators who ostensibly encouraged the abuse, are all being prosecuted, either(the enlisted men) by military court or (the civilians) by U.S. civil law.
The law endures, the violators will be prosecuted. The U.S. is not, by any attempted stretch of the Arab or European press, who have had nothing good to say about the United States anyway, whether a month ago, a year ago or five years ago, no matter how well the U.S. was/is adhering to democratic principles.
I think you didn't finish this sentence...?
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The one part that bothers me is that I think the pre-set punishments for these prisoner abuses are not enough. To merely be dishonorably discharged or have their careers ruined is not enough. They should face jail time of at least a year or two each.
Yes, I agree with that. Not only because justice must be done, but seen to be done. Gaoltime would serve to let the soldiers' fellow officers know that this behaviour will not be tolerated. it would let the American people and the West know that soldiers are not above the law (a position which many people have always thought, by reason of the US government's refusal to let the ICC have jurisdicitonal over its soldiers): it would also go towards placating Arab fury.
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If the order for these abuses came from up the chain of command from the Joint Chiefs, Rumsfeld, or even Bush himself, democratic institutions will reveal the truth and oust the guilty.
( I don't believe for a second it goes even as high as the field commanders, but I want to put that argument to rest, regardless).
But if it did, Bush and Rumsfeld would be prosecuted, and democratic institutions would still be proven to endure, even in that worst-case scenario.
Yes. I suppose we will all await the outcome of the investigations.
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[Investigation began in January, and the military police in question were relieved of duty within days.
The investigation has been going on since January.
But that's my point. It took 4-5 months for it to become public, and even then only by a leak to CBS. Couldn't the administration have anticipated a leak on what was clearly going to cause enormous problems in the Arab world, and pre-empted it?
The Bush adminsitration could have handled this a lot better, but once they realised it was a gathering firestorm they started moving in the right direction. I think Bush's apology shows that he realises as commander in chief he must ultimately be responsible for the conduct of his troops, and, as I intimated in the context of Mccain, it also shows that he is a decent enough human being to regards such conduct on his watch as unacceptable and worthy of public and humble contrition.
The leak that Bush chewed out Rumsfeld over not telling him about the photos earlier was also a clever move. Bush is downshifting blame (rightly or wrongly) to an unelected official, who is very unpopular in the Middle East.
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The involvement of the press (the liberal press) did nothing but compound, exploit, exacerbate and distort what truly occurred, before all the facts have been investigated, creating a distorted Arab rage that further endangers U.S. troops (specific example: Berg's beheading four days after the story broke).
All I really saw was on CNN and the frontcover of "USA Today". I didn't read much of the way of stories about it as I was on the move in Georgia. There was little need for any sort of distortion of the story, if the press wanted to cause trouble: the photos speak for themselves. Even an illiterate farmer in the arse end of Lebanon, upon seeing these photos, knows what happened.
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