More Abuse - Responsibility & Accountability?

[RickSp]

From today's NT Times.
3 in 82nd Airborne Say Beating Iraqi Prisoners Was Routine

Three former members of the Army's 82nd Airborne Division say soldiers in their battalion in Iraq routinely beat and abused prisoners in 2003 and 2004 to help gather intelligence on the insurgency and to amuse themselves.

The new allegations, the first involving members of the elite 82nd Airborne, are contained in a report by Human Rights Watch. The 30-page report does not identify the troops, but one is Capt. Ian Fishback, who has presented some of his allegations in letters this month to top aides of two senior Republicans on the Senate Armed Services Committee, John W. Warner of Virginia, the chairman, and John McCain of Arizona. Captain Fishback approached the Senators' offices only after he tried to report the allegations to his superiors for 17 months, the aides said. The aides also said they found the captain's accusations credible enough to warrant investigation.

In separate statements to the human rights organization, Captain Fishback and two sergeants described systematic abuses of Iraqi prisoners, including beatings, exposure to extremes of hot and cold, stacking in human pyramids and sleep deprivation at Camp Mercury, a forward operating base near Falluja. Falluja was the site of the major uprising against the American-led occupation in April 2004. The report describes the soldiers' positions in the unit, but not their names.

After the revelations about Abu Ghraib and Baghram, this may not seem like anything new. What I find telling is that a captain and two sergeants appear to have tried to report the abuses through the chain of command but were ignored. The Captain Fishback attempted to report the abuse for 17 months!

So far the military has managed to protect officers from charges in the abuse scandal. Only privates and sergeants have been charged with crimes. Is it possible that seniors officers were completely ignorant of the actions of troops under their command or did they know and turn a blind eye as appears to be the case with the 83rd Airborne? Will the senior officers succeed in covering up their actions and once again blame only the enlisted and noncoms? How long will officers get away with giving illegal orders and then blaming their own soldiers for following them?

[Osborn F Enready]

RickSP said:
What I find telling is that a captain and two sergeants appear to have tried to report the abuses through the chain of command but were ignored.

I say:
While I am not trying to de-rail the topic, I would like to point out something.

The American people have been trying to report Constitutional Abuse since as far back as I can remember through their "chain of command" and they get the same result. Is power run amok within that same system military a big suprise? Not to me.

When accountability takes a back seat, so do everyones rights, ideals and beliefs. This is just another sign of the establishment operating under a false set of goals, that the American people have no knowledge of, and won't as long as the establishment wants it that way.

[RickSp]

Come on Osborne, at least pretend to try to stay on topic.

"The American people have been trying to report Constitutional Abuse since as far back as I can remember..." Makes me wonder how far back you can actually remember.

More information on the abuse, from Time magazine.
A decorated Army officer reveals new allegations of detainee mistreatment in Iraq and Afghanistan. Did the military ignore his charges?

The Human Rights Watch report—as well as accounts given to Senate staff—describe officers as aware of the abuse but routinely ignoring or covering it up, amid chronic confusion over U.S. military detention policies and whether or not the Geneva Convention applied. The Captain is quoted in the report describing how military intelligence personnel at Camp Mercury directed enlisted men to conduct daily beatings of prisoners prior to questioning; to subject detainees to strenuous forced exercises to the point of unconsciousness; and to expose them to extremes of heat and cold—all methods designed to produce greater cooperation with interrogators. Non-uniformed personnel—apparently working for the Central Intelligence Agency, according to the soldiers—also interrogated prisoners. The interrogators were out of view but not out of earshot of the soldiers, who overheard what they came to believe was abuse.

Specific instances of abuse described in the Human Rights Watch report include severe beatings, including one incident when a soldier allegedly broke a detainee's leg with a metal bat. Others include prisoners being stacked in human pyramids (unlike the human pyramids at Abu Ghraib, the prisoners at Camp Mercury were clothed); soldiers administering blows to the face, chest and extremities of prisoners; and detainees having their faces and eyes exposed to burning chemicals, being forced into stress positions for long periods leading to unconsciousness and having their water and food withheld.

Prisoners were designated as PUCs (pronounced "pucks")—or "persons under control." A regular pastime at Camp Mercury, the report says, involved off-duty soldiers gathering at PUC tents, where prisoners were held, and working off their frustrations in activities known as "F____a PUC" (beating the prisoner) and "Smoke a PUC" (forced physical exertion, sometimes to the point of collapse). Broken limbs and similar painful injuries would be treated with analgesics, the soldiers claim, as medical staff would fill out paperwork stating the injuries occurred during capture. Support for some of the allegations of abuse come from a sergeant of the 82nd Airborne who served in both Iraq and Afghanistan. Human Rights Watch quotes him as saying that, "To 'F____ a PUC' means to beat him up. We would give them blows to the head, chest, legs, and stomach, pull them down, kick dirt on them. This happened every day. To 'smoke' someone is to put them in stress positions until they get muscle fatigue and pass out. That happened every day. Some days we would just get bored so we would have everyone sit in a corner and then make them get in a pyramid. This was before Abu Ghraib but just like it. We did that for amusement.

[bishop]

while i don't like hearing this sort of news, the one good thing about stories like this is that it helps raise opposition to the war - by making people sick and embarrassed of what we're doing over there (and why we're even there in the first place).

anything that speeds up the return of our troops is good news imo. i really don't care all that much about the iraqis. that said, the abusive troops and the officials who blocked the whistleblower definitely need to be handed to a military tribunal.

[RickSp]

while i don't like hearing this sort of news, the one good thing about stories like this is that it helps raise opposition to the war - by making people sick and embarrassed of what we're doing over there (and why we're even there in the first place).

anything that speeds up the return of our troops is good news imo. i really don't care all that much about the iraqis. that said, the abusive troops and the officials who blocked the whistleblower definitely need to be handed to a military tribunal.

I care about the Iraqis, both from a humanitarian and a practical point of view. For every prisoner abused or tortured, two, three or four insurgents may be inspired to fight against the brutal invader occupying their country. Should we really be surprised that the insurgency is growing?

[bishop]

maybe you misunderstood what i was trying to say.. i certainly don't want us to be abusing/torturing iraqis.. the reality of it all is that as long as we stay in iraq, we'll continue to see these sorts of problems. the only way to end these problems will be to withdraw. and that's a decision that only our country can make, not iraq. iraq can protest and do whatever else they like, but we won't leave until the american public is so thoroughly disguisted with the war that we finally withdraw. to the best of my knowledge, that's why we finally withdrew from vietnam - so this will likely be the only way we can get out of iraq.

our abuses in iraq do create problems for our troops. no doubt about it. but, the abuses also increase disgust over the war, which will hopefully culminate into demands for a cogent withdrawal plan/exit strategy..

[Osborn F Enready]

RickSP said:
Come on Osborne, at least pretend to try to stay on topic.

I say:
I did Rick, and I even went through the trouble to clarify in writing that I was not intending to derail the topic, just pointing out a reason as to why this is not a "suprise" to me.

I find it tragic, to say the least. It is ammunition against our nation in the eyes of every enemy we have, or will ever face. It is a sign of a change of ideals, of structure, and of loyalty of this military to its government. It smacks of corruption, and it wreaks of lies from the government as more information seeps out into the public eye.

The funny thing is, that people like me were some of the first to give credit to the stories as they surfaced, while others remained "on the fence" or in just plain denial immediately. It doesn't mean I am happy about it, but it sure does make me glad I had the SENSE to be skeptical about an organization that claims to be working "in my best intrest" while never having solicited my opinion.

The rift between the American people because of politics, doesn't any longer stop at the gates to the military base. Our nation is divided, as well as its military is. It is corruption by design from within.

RickSP said:
Makes me wonder how far back you can actually remember.

I say:
Thanks for the unsolicited insult.

Bishop said:
Should we really be surprised that the insurgency is growing?

I say:
No.

[bishop]

you misquoted me.. i never said that. heh, but it's kind of funny that you spent the time to respond to such an obvious statement.

[Osborn F Enready]

Bishop said:
you misquoted me.. i never said that. heh, but it's kind of funny that you spent the time to respond to such an obvious statement.

I say:
Your right, and I apologize. I confused the name and the post when I was scrolling, so again I apologize.

The reason I took the time, is because I thought you said it. I was simply pointing out it was another area that you and I agree on the situation of the war because I thought you said it.

[bishop]

when it comes to the war, i don't think we have any significant disagreement..

[RickSp]

An update:

Officer Criticizes Detainee Abuse Inquiry

WASHINGTON, Sept. 27 - An Army captain who reported new allegations of detainee abuse in Iraq said Tuesday that Army investigators seemed more concerned about tracking down young soldiers who reported misconduct than in following up the accusations and investigating whether higher-ranking officers knew of the abuses.

The officer, Capt. Ian Fishback, said investigators from the Criminal Investigation Command and the 18th Airborne Corps inspector general had pressed him to divulge the names of two sergeants from his former battalion who also gave accounts of abuse, which were made public in a report last Friday by the group Human Rights Watch.

Captain Fishback, speaking publicly on the matter for first time, said the investigators who have questioned him in the past 10 days seemed to be less interested in individuals he identified in his chain of command who allegedly committed the abuses.

"I'm convinced this is going in a direction that's not consistent with why we came forward," Captain Fishback said in a telephone interview from Fort Bragg, N.C., where he is going through Army Special Forces training. "We came forward because of the larger issue that prisoner abuse is systemic in the Army. I'm concerned this will take a new twist, and they'll try to scapegoat some of the younger soldiers. This is a leadership problem."

Scapegoating younger soldiers? Never!

They only go after the masterminds like Private Lyndie England, for example.