Looks like our guilty soldiers will be imprisoned, lose rank and pension, and be dishonorably discharged. Here is a question a military person here may be able to answer... Let's assume I'm told by my superior officer to perform an action I deem immoral, unethical, or just plain wrong. Now, let's assume I don't want to perform said action. What would happen to me in the Armed Service for refusing to follow an order like that? Even if doing so would, sometime down the road, end up keeping me from a court martial? Am I court martialled either way? Seems like a lose/lose situation. It was proven in the War Crimes tibunal after WWII that "I was just following orders" doesn't stand up in court.
It seems to me you have the same conclusion on this as i do. The underlings are going to get shafted again.What i dont understand is how (Kerry) who is a self proclaimed war criminal can run for president of the U.S. He said he has done far worse than what these GI's did. Can the Vietnamese come here and arrest him like the Jews do to the Germans. Makes for interesting thought anyway. ED
It appears its wrong but I don't know the details My dad was in the Army and said Sh!t flows down hill. He lost rank because he didn't like his CO (commanding officer) and told him to kiss his A$$ and made a racial remark and that was in 1972. It also is that way in the private sector. They always find a pawn to dispose of when something goes wrong.
Those ragheads were all terrorists and whatever was done to them was necessary or it would not have happenned. Chinese torture would have been my choice.........but our gov't wants to whitewash the whole thing at the expense of those who put their lives on the line. I SAY COURT MARTIAL RUMSFELD AND BUSH IF THEY ARE GOING TO CARRY OUT THIS FIASCO!!!!! :af:
Chain of command? Anyone that was or is in the military knows that game, Remember Lt. Calley? A joke to say the least, someone has to go down to put out the fire
You sure they are / were "all" terrorists? Heard on the news yesterday three arab guys who were reporters for Reuters news agency got picked up, "abused" for 3 days and then released when their western employers started asking questions about where they'd gone. I don't want to be judgemental, but we are saying the reason we went into Iraq was because of a brutal and undemocratic regime, if we behave in a brutal and undemocratic manner what was the point? On the other hand there is no way on this earth I could do the job your American GIs or our British Squaddies are doing out there, so I find it hard to criticise anyones actions too much who's out there facing what those guys are facing. But push comes to shove, we signed the Geneva Convention, we act to bring our values to the rest of the world, we need to show what those values are. If someones a terrorist, try then in a court and execute them cleanly (assuming they're guilty of course!). There have been incidents involving British soldiers (some proved false allegations, some proved true) and the guy they beat to death recently was a thief not a terrorist or enemy combatant. Also I want to know what the definition of abuse is. I've heard some of its just "name calling" and stuff. PLEASE! Don't waste my news time with that trash. But fake executions, electrocution, peeing on people, beatings, torture... not on.
You can be court matialed, but the information would come out during the trial. So maybe they would agree with the soldier that it was unethical and not honorable to perform an action such as this because the Rules of war set by the geneva convention which states the way prisoners will be treated during the time of war.
Actually come to mention it we had something similar here in the UK. Ended up in the civilian criminal court but it was all over a soldier who refused to follow an order because it was unethical. I don't remember the detail, I don't think he was posted in Iraq. He was exhonerated in court and the MOD told to re-instate him without prejudice. However, I wouldn't want to be guessing how it will look on his record. As a CO would you want a soldier in your unit who had taken the Army to court and won for not following orders? I guess he's not up for a dazzling career
Tough call. You kind of answered your own question in a way though. Much of the so-called torture is a joke compared to what Hussein has done. I don't care if they peed on them or not quite frankly. I wouldn't do it "personally", but what do you expect an interrogation to be like? We can't bring them coffee and donuts and just "wait it out". If these people are holding any info which may contribute to harming my family in future terrorist attacks, pee away! You can't compare us to Hussein's regime unless you're totally misinformed...not that you are, I'm speaking in general.
Don't confuse "ethical" with "legal". US Soldiers of all ranks take an oath, swearing to defend the Constitution and Laws of the US of A. No soldier is expected to carry out an illegal order, quite the contrary, they are (at least I was) trained and expected to clarify a suspect order, and if it was illegal, then NOT to follow it. The lessons of WWII are/were clear, "just following orders" is absolutely not a defense. Now, if push comes to shove, then it will take a Court Martial (guess whose?) to decide whether or not the order was really illegal. (on a side note, a Court Martial is not inherently a bad thing, it's simply a military court trial) So, like somebody stated above, if the order falls into that "grey area" of legal/illegal, you can be put into a tough situation. Now, I don't think that the UCMJ (Uniform Code of Military Justice) allows for group sex or attack dogs as part of legal prisoner treatment. I could be wrong....
DON'T FORGET!!! The "News" media has conveniently neglected to mention that there were three soldiers (I believe a 2LT, a SGT, and a SP4) who refused to participate in the "interrogations", because they felt they were inappropriate and illegal. THAT'S HOW THE INVESTIGATION STARTED! Anti-Americans keep talking about how the "system failed", etc, but in reality it worked. There were those who say a wrong, stood up and said so, and they should be applauded, not ignored. Also, note that in WWII Germany, there was NO record of the Germans prosecuting ANY German for refusing to "follow orders" when those orders were clearly wrong. That's why that lame defense didn't even stand up than, nor should it now. (Because I think those guilty soldiers should do some really hard time, please don't assume that I have much sympathy for the Iraqui prisoners - from what I understand, they were the worst of the worst - mostly human trash, but still human. well, maybe barely...)
It is a well know fact that given the right situation most people are capable of performing acts that are cruel and sadistic. The only way to guard against this is with maintaining the proper social structure and leadership. The fact is that the climate created (by our leaders) made the action by the guards very likely to happen. So what is going to happen is the poor undertrained and poorly lead grunts are going to bear the brunt of the blame for the prison scandel. A very sad day for our country.
FIRST! You don't have to obey an illegal order. EX. Your company commander orders you to stand in the street for an hour during heavy trafic. The problem is you have to weigh the different outcomes of your decision. If #1 you obey you might get run over. If #2 you ask "why" you could be insubordinate and immediatly punished in some minor form. If you #3 dis-obey you could immediatly be punished in some minor form. With #1 if you get hurt the person giving the order will probably end up with their ass in a sling but, thats not much consolation when you are in the hospital. With #2 or #3 you may have to take some sort of B.S. punishment right up to the point that you go to someone higher in your chain of command . Going up the chain of command has it's downfalls though... If you were not on someones "**** list" before this you probably will be now. By following the chain of command you could get stonewalled by a bunch of people operating in the "good ol' boy's network". Hopefully you will have someone up the chain that has some sence of right and wrong and put a stop to all this without getting all big shots involved. The next step is the Judge Advocate General (JAG) or the Chaplains office. Either of these 2 options by-passes the chain of command and is likely to get a WHOLE lot of people involved. This can either end up in a very quick resolution to the problem or you may just find yourself back in the same situation as before but now with a bunch of angry superiors who may have gotten a blemish of some sort on their records. In my time in very few problems got to this level and even fewer needed to get past it. The Jag or Chaplains office can usually put the smack down on the idiot who told you to stand in the road and blow enough smoke thier way that they leave you alone. If not I've seen several people transferred to a different unit or even enlisted to be a chaplains aid to get them out of the situation. Last step is writing your senator/congress persons. This starts a whole new type of investigation called appropriately enough a "congressional". This is a pack of papers roughly the thickness of a Sears catalog (the old ones!) that causes a lot of people to explain what has happened. Again depending on whats happened during the first handfull of steps you may find your level of misery is no better than having just taken your chances with the traffic.... Bottom line though is that if anyone orders you to perform an illegal or unsafe action you need to have the brains to stand up and say "NO". Yes there may be consequences. These consequences may iron themselves out quickly or they may get worse but the choice is yours. If you can live with torturing a person because someone "told you to" then fine. Just don't cry about it when someone else smacks you hand!
