Explain this verdict to me.Follow

The government/military takes care of its own, I suppose?

Godwin's Alert!

We didn't really take "I was just following orders" as an excuse from the concentration camp guards, did we?

Seriously, I'm not even trying to raise a fuss here. I'm wondering if I'm interpreting this correctly since I'm not knowledgable on military benefits and discharges.

I'm just just saying I think thats why they are recieving the benefits....because someone higher up knew what was going on and probably felt guilty.

Actually, there are some questionable deaths from the jails. It's cool though, because only the terrorists and killers were killed whereas the innocents in confinement probably weren't, right?

That aside, the bright red "Godwin's Warning" was also to indicate that what I was saying was largely tongue-in-cheek. You'll note my next sentance begins with the word "Seriously", indicating that I am done being deliberately facetious. I will say though that I don't accept "we were following orders" as a valid excuse for breaking the law or violating conventions. I guess I'm not a good soldier.

I heard on NPR that they were placed on "special" courtmarshal, meaning they could only serve a maximum of 1 year in confinement if found guilty, along with the disorderly conduct discharge.

Agreed. Rummy has said everything but "Yes I approved the program."

I personally think even blaming it on just the grunts and no real higher-ups is a travesty. I guess it's the power they wield..

The other thing is benefits from the VA and other organizations the give veterans benefits. The reason he was demoted was that if you are sentenced to the brig you are automatically demoted to E-1. This is done as to not let military protocall get in the way of the guards doing their job. For example a SSgt gets busted for something and is sentenced for a year in the brig. If he retained his rank he would have to be afforded different quarters and curtisies that prisoners of lower rank as well he would outrank the majority of the guards in the brig.

On to another subject.

1. An illegal order WILL NOT BE FOLLOWED!!! Following an illegal order makes you as guilty as the person issuing the order. So they were guilty whether they were given an order or not.
2. The Court Martial was probably convened by an officer outside the command. He didnt give this soldier preferential treatment please you all act as though the US military is the boyscouts or something. The US military is a professional military service the best trained fighting force this planet has probably ever seen. It isnt some good ole boy group of guys who go around shootin **** up. If anything the courts martials will be harder on these people as they have brought a disgrace upon the US Military.
3.

Are you freaking kidding me???? We do it for the money huh? I guess that would explain why the majority of the Military exists below the poverty line. I have been in the Military for over 14 years, attained the rank of Gunnery Sgt (E-7), have very specialized training that would fetch almost 6 figure saleries in the civilian world know what I make a year? less than 50k that's with my housing allowance. And for making all that money I get to be deployed away from my family about 6-8 months a year on average, get shot at in far off countries, live in mud holes, and eat food stamped with the label "for Military or livestock consumption only". Your right we do it for the money. MORON.

The fact that the pictures were obviously staged is part of what makes this a difficult issue to just blindly point the finger of blame around.

First off. You have to determine exactly what actions were taken. If all these soldiers did was take staged photos of naked prisoners designed to imply that they were being tortured, then you've got a problem. That sort of tactic is completely legal depending on what sort of prisoners you are dealing with.

For this, we get back to the concept of illegal-combatants (which is defined in the Geneva Conventions). If the prisoners that were in the photos were just criminals rounded up by the local Iraqi security forces, then they cannot be used in that way. If the prisoners are legitimate PoWs (uniformed combatants taken prisoner during the war), then they cannnot be used in that way. However, if they are people who were captured in an "occupied" area, who did not identify themselves as combatants at the time the area was occupied, and who stayed in the area possing as civilians, and who then used that cover to make attacks on the occupying force, then they most definately fall under the "illegal combatant" catagory and are not protected to the same degree by the Geneva Conventions.


If those prisoners fall into that category, then they can be stripped and photoed. They can be subject to some forms of torture (psychological specifically). They can be deprived of contact with the outside, and a number of other "rights" that normal prisoners have.

It is very common practice when you've captured illegal combatants to use various psychological means to get information out of them. This includes using photos and sounds to convince them that their compatriots have already been tortured horribly, or killed, or have already confessed, or whatever, in order to get them to talk. This is the kind of stuff that the CIA does with caputured illegal spies all the time (more during the cold war then today though).

So the issue here is whether these relatively low ranked enlisted soldiers had any idea whether this was an illegal order or not. If they were told that these were illegal combatants, and they were ordered to conduct what is really a pretty stadard psy-op on them, then they were under absolutely no obligation to refuse the order. In fact, they could have been courtmarshalled for refusing!


I've heard all sorts of different stories on this. I've heard that the population of the prison only contained PoWs from the war (which would make them uniformed prisoners and entitle them to the highest level of Geneva Convention protection). I've heard that it contained mostly civilian criminals of the "normal" kind (mostly picked up by Iraqi security forces for various crimes like looting and such, which still entitles them to a normal level of rights). I've also heard that the prisoners were "terrorists", which while not an official category according to the Geneva Conventions, can be taken to mean illegal combatant depending on how they came to take whatever action got them imprisoned.

Without knowing who the men in those photos were, and what they were in prison for, and the extent of what was actually done to them, it's pretty much impossible for us sitting at home to make any intelligent assessment of the legality of the actions or the appropriate punishements that should result from them.

Nice post Gbaji... (O_o)b

I have never seen anyone say our allies are better, it is just for this incident the gulty are Americans, and America will have to take responsibility for their actions, and that will include going after all envolve not the just low level people to be used as a scapegoat, but those that gave the orders and know about it and did nothing to stop it.



Ah yeah if you are in a country and trying to change their way of life to one of peace and tolerance, you can not go around torturing people. To change a person you have to lead by example not be a hypocrit and say Saddam is evil for torturing people, but we have good intentions so it is ok for us to do it.



IMHO no one has a rightto torture another person, not soldiers, not the CIA, not Saddam, not even police officers. There is no excuse for torture especially if you are part of a treaty saying all a person has to give is name, rank ans serial number. Or are you saying all the tortures that were done to americans in Vietnam are right. As far as some not being uniformed soldiers as an excuse. What is a uniform? A distictive outfit intended to identify those that wear it as members of a specific group. Which can mean a lot of things as to what their dress code is they can use armbands, certain colours, or other articles of clothing to identify them selves.

All but one of the people I know that went into military service did it for the benefits. One person went to the marines since he was gungho on the marines, not for patrotic reasons just that it was what he was raised to do. All of the rest did it for scholarships and education.

Edited, Thu May 20 09:01:37 2004 by dirges

Granted, I can only add about four people to the total, but everyone I know who's served joined because they were told in high school by the recruiters that they'd get money for college, learn skills worth all kinds of money in the "real" world, they could get cushy army jobs working on computers and stuff, etc. Of course, all of them, upon leaving the army, said never ever to join and it sucked worse than suck itself.

Again, an admittably tiny sample size, but it's 100% for me I don't doubt there's people who join for other reasons, but the recruiters who canvass the high schools don't use "great feelings of patriotism and protecting freedom" as their selling points.