When 11-M happened, three days before the Spanish elections, and it became progressively more obvious during the following days that the ruling party was withholding information they thought would weaken their position in the elections, all of their conduct finally came home to roost in an unprecedented electoral upset.

Result: Zapatero (who opposed the invasion of Iraq every step of the way) is now President, Aznar (who dragged the country into a war 90+% of the population wanted nothing to do with) is visiting Bush. In unofficial capacity.

It happened in Spain. It can happen here.

“The unmitigated gall of Kerry to actually appear on the ballot! What an outrage!”

The first is that it appears that the 800th MP Brigade was lead by officers that are severely lacking. BG Karpinski allowed good discipline to erode to the point that no single uniform standard was enforced. (This is a fundamental thing. If I can’t trust you to wear your uniform properly how can I trust you to use equipment whose sole purpose is to take the life of another human being.) The 320th MP Company (the specific unit in question) hadn’t done any real refresher training in over a year. To have a unit that ate up in her command is beyond excuse. All that taken into account, it doesn’t mitigate the fact that every one of the soldiers involved had detainee training and legal training in Basic.

MPs have two basic kinds of duty. The first is combat support. That basic mission is to secure rear areas, supply lines, troop movement lines, and EPWs and other detained combatants. The second mission is Provost Marshall duties. These are the basic law enforcement functions and running US Military prisons. All of these skills are taught in Basic Training over 17 weeks – the first nine being basic soldiering and the last eight being MP school. They were MPs, not cooks, mechanics, or chaplains’ aides. They knew what they were doing was beyond any legal interpretation. They are soldiers in the US Army, not kids on a tropical island dancing around a pig on a stake.

The second reason I am upset is how it is being treated. We could have used this situation as a powerful training example of how a democracy is self-policing. A single enlisted soldier informed his superiors of the problems and an investigation was started (let’s not forget this was in January). It could have been a shining moment and we missed it. The Army issued a press release 3 days later that the investigation was begun. Now the press, for whatever reason, didn’t follow up. The Army should have noticed and pressed the issue. They should have stood there and said, “We are investigating this. This is what we have. This is what we are doing.” We didn’t and the press slept. When one of the accused parent’s felt like his son wasn’t being given a fair shake he wrote members of Congress. They ignored him. So he writes David Hackworth. Hackworth now gets the press’s attention and all hell breaks lose. CBS is running around like they did some hard-core investigative journalism and uncovered something. The very members of Congress contacted earlier are saying they are shocked and were blind-sided. One in particular is equating the entire military with the torturers of the Hussein regime from the Senate floor. We have spent an awful lot of time standing on the street corner in sack cloths and ashes but we can’t even spend more than a single news cycle on the decapitation on video of a human being by monsters. I know you don’t like that term Adam but there is no excuse for what they did and how they did it. Those five gave up their humanity.

One company under a command that needs to be cashiered does not reflect the entire Army nor the Defense Department as a whole.

jerry
the conserva-troll

anything that’s reported in the press points out mistakes the american military has made must be quickly reported, then stomped out, because it’s simply not patriotic to continue to report about the damning situation.

however, if an american dies, it should be ON EVERY NEWS PROGRAM ALL THE TIME. because that’s different than americans torturing iraqis; who cares about them, they’re not americans!

(end sarcasm)

honestly, i’m not saying that one is more important than the other; they’re both horrific events. both deserve media attention. don’t shush one because you don’t like the message.

i’ve been hearing analysis that the people who beheaded mr. berg did so not because of the abu graib prison scandal but more out of a political move to incite americans. and on that level, it worked on me — i would like nothing better than to slice those wads of used toilet paper into pieces, bit by bit: starting with the toes and a pair of wire cutters.

the situation rings more true of the unsubstantiated tape of bin laden saying he support saddam right before american troops invaded iraq — a well-crafted piece of propeganda used to mislead americans into war for revenge. we’re more liable to take “vengence” on innocent iraqis who end up dead joining fundamentalist groups bent on destroying the invaders, and thus perpetuating a holy war.

so for the abu graib scandal, i think it does deserve the coverage it has been given because we’re in a country where 70% of the population probably doesn’t want us there, and now we’ve just shown that we’re really no better than saddam. we’re in for a lot of shit. because remember the prisoners have relatives, and they’ve had their own speculations floating around for months (so don’t go blaming the press completely for this one). instead of firing the people who pretty much let this happen, we’re blaming the underlings who had relatively little control over the whole situation.

now unless we’re planning on declaring a jihad in mr. berg’s name, i think the coverage is just fine as is.

The photos hit the news and THEN the administration began to act.

Today they released almost 300 innocent prisoners from our prisons in Iraq. WOuld this have happened at all if the press hadn’t released the stories?

This administration does nothing it doesn’t want to do unless it’s forced by public opinion.

Can’t we vote today? I just want this done.