Considering Torture
Here's a sober account of prisoner torture and homicides from Jon Henke of the QandO Blog.I'm not sure I agree that this is all a chain of command issue, however, since I think Jon Ronson made a good case as to why many middle ranking officers might be applying some half baked ideas, garnered on their own, over the past few decades and mis-applied in this situation.
I also think the statement, "there are no bad troops, only bad only bad leadership," to be incorrect. Clearly the army is always going to attract some small percent of sociopaths who view it as a practical and legal outlet for their perverse behavior. Lynndie England's boyfriend, Charles Graner, is an excellent example of the type. He was responsible for multiple abuses of prisoners before he got anywhere near Iraq, in a civilian capacity.
In this case, the problem then is that the leadership gave them more than enough leeway to go ahead.
I do agree with William Buckley's point, however, quoted by Henke in the article, which cites an excellent reason to be vexed with Rumsfeld.
If there is reason to be vexed by Secretary Rumsfeld, it is surely that he has not encouraged a Table of Organization that deals with that phenomenon other than simply by sticking him in a corner of Cuba without any avenue of hope or resolution. If it was decided that he should face the firing squad, then at least there would be judicial proceedings to contend with, successfully or unsuccessfully.
And as Buckley wrote that a year ago, there's been plenty of time to follow through.
posted by Alcibiades @ 9:29 AM
0 Comments:
Post a Comment
<< Home