A travesty against human rights is underway that shouldn't happen in the United States.
Not against insurgents at Abu Ghraib. Not against terrorists at Gitmo. No, there are serious deprivation of human rights going on with our own citizens. Not ordinary citizens, mind you--these are citizens who have volunteered to go into harms' way at their country's call for service to defend our freedoms.
As you may have heard (not so much through the MSM, but certainly in the blogosphere and shows like Michael Savage and Hannity), there is a travesty of justice going on with 8 soldiers who were alleged to have murdered an Iraqi man. Michelle Malkin reports:
7 Marines and Navy corpsman being held in shackles with no charges against them as higher-ups investigate an alleged murder of an Iraqi man earlier this spring in Hamandiya. Excerpt: Did you know there are seven young Marines and a Navy corpsman sitting in a military brig right now in leg and wrist shackles -- despite the fact that they've not been charged with any crime?
The men are in solitary confinement, locked in 8'x8' cells at San Diego's Camp Pendleton, as investigators probe an April 26 incident involving the 3rd Battalion, 5th Regiment, 1st Marine Division. They are behind bars 23 hours a day; family members can only see them through inch-thick Plexiglas. Military blabbermouths have told the press that the service members are suspected of kidnapping and shooting a man in the Iraqi town of Hamdaniya. The Iraqi man's family reportedly came forward seeking payment for his death as media hysteria set in over the separate alleged atrocity in Haditha.
These men -- our men -- may be innocent. They may be guilty. Charges may or may not be filed this week. But this much is certain: The media leaks and the Murtha-fication of the case are already taking a heavy toll on the troops and their families
And Toni at the Bear Creek Ledger
recently adds:
Each time I read something more on how the Camp Pendleton 8 have been treated in the hands of NCIS and the Marine Corps I become more baffled. I don’t understand how the chain of command sees their actions and conduct here as a good thing for the Corps. This is one of the worst PR Campaigns anyone could conjure.
The defense has proof the NCIS uses a rubber hose (on prominent display) as a psychological intimidation tactic. What is wrong with these people? These are OUR troops here, not terrorists.
Then there’s the Marine Corps itself. First they go after Ilario Pantano based on a liars testimony, then it’s Haditha charges against Marines (thanks John Murtha for condemning them before being charged) and finally we have the Pendleton 8. All are a disgrace and black mark against the Marine Corps and NCIS.
From Mr. Jodka who’s son JJ is being held;
As to the allegation of coerced statements, Pfc. Jodka’s father, John Jr., described to me the psychological torture he believes his 20-year-old son has endured:
“Immediately after my son was removed from the war zone, literally moments after his rifle was removed from his hands, he was placed in a room for 7 to 7.5 hours ? no food, no water, no sleep ? and he was told that he was a murderer. They hammered away at him to give statements of what it was they wanted to hear.”
While
Rick Amato at Townhall relates:
They've been shackled in chains and held in solitary confinement, their defense attorneys have been denied access to key evidence of the case and now their right to request a waiver of a pre-trial hearing — known as an article 32 — has also been denied. Such has been the treatment of the men known as the Pendleton 8 in their quest to receive a fair, impartial hearing with a true presumption of innocence.
The Pendleton 8 are seven Marines and a naval corpsman being held in a brig at Camp Pendleton while waiting trial on charges of kidnapping and murder. On April 26, they were on an ambush mission in Hamdania, Iraq, designed to snare known local insurgents. The men are charged with allegedly taking an Iraqi villager, 52-year-old Hashim Ibrahim Awad, from his home, kidnapping him, placing him in a hole, shooting him repeatedly and staging the scene to make it appear he was an insurgent planting a bomb. The defendants deny the charges and claim they followed the rules of engagement. The federal government thus far has denied their defense attorneys access to evidence of the crime scene. Allegations are based upon witness accounts of Mr. Awad's neighbors. This case is separate from Haditha, Iraq, case.
"The Article 32 hearing is a sham," said defense attorney Jane Siegal, who represents PFC. John Jodka III. "Because the government has denied our opportunity to waive the 32, it is costing the Jodka family tens of thousands of additional dollars in legal fees. All this so the government can parade its coerced statements in front of the media. Coerced statements paraded in front of the media which will potentially pollute the jury pool."
The charges, at best, appear to be trumped. Kit Jarrell
notes:
Last night on the radio I was discussing this article by Chris Roach on the Innocent 8. Roach’s belief that the seven Marines and Navy Corpsman charged in the Hamdaniya case are guilty is based on “statistical probability” and his assertion that “there are likely very few false confessions in the American judicial system.”
There are quite a few problems with Roach’s research, however, and the conclusions that he makes are, by nature, also erroneous. The problem is that those who read Roach’s intellectual-sounding ramblings could very easily be swayed into believing that the Innocent Pendleton 8 are guilty, and nothing could be further from the truth. Let’s take care of this “confession” argument once and for all.
Errors + Errors = Wrong Conclusions
Before we get started, let’s take a look at something that should tell you right away about how much Roach knows concerning the case.
“…the foundation of [the Pendleton 8’s] defense are the alleged conditions of their clients’ confessions.” - 9/13/06
This shows a misunderstanding of the basic facts of the case, and especially the defense. The “foundation of the defense” is that the men did not commit the acts they are charged with. It’s not a complicated thing here. They’re not saying “We’re hoping to get off on a technicality.” They’re saying, “We did not kidnap, tie up, steal from, or murder this man.”
Now that you’ve seen the above statement from Roach, you can better understand my point. If you don’t even understand the facts, everything after that will be a faulty conclusion.
Roach goes on in the same article to talk about the “confessions” that the men supposedly made.
These incriminating statements are the key to the case.
Not so, says Donald G. Rehkopf Jr., who is a former Air Force prosecutor and defense attorney with a robust 30 years of experience trying cases.
“Confessions should be the icing on the cake,” he said. “If all the prosecution has are incriminating statements, then their case is weak.”
Weak? You mean confessions aren’t the “queen of proofs,” as Roach claims? If confessions are the icing, then where's the cake in this case? (WORTH THE ENTIRE READ)
The liberals have wailed and gnashed their teeth over some fraternity-like hijinx with some insurgents in Abu Ghraib, and over a bunch of non-issues at Club Gitmo--but where are the NYU fifth column lawyers from the ACLU to defend the civil rights of
American citizens, held in shackles in 8x8 cells? Where are the ACLU pot heads who continually scream that the terrorists are being held without a trial at Club Gitmo?
Sorry for the long-windedness of this post, but this makes my blood boil to no end.
But, you CAN help the Pendleton 8. Write to your congressman and senators. Don't stop bugging them until action is taken.
And can also help with their families--families with children with no father to support them.
Kit Jarrell at Euphoric Reality has taken up this most worthy cause.
Click here to donate to the families of the Pendleton 8. This money will go toward meeting their daily necessities, like food and housing:
The Innocent Pendleton 8 Family Fund is not for legal fees. It is not for defense experts or trial costs. It is for phone bills so their sons can call home from the brig. It is for diapers for their babies, groceries for their cupboards, gas for their cars so they can get to work. It is to help them survive financially while these horrifying circumstances are going on. A total accounting for all monies will be made public to all who ask, and the money will go directly from me personally to the families, in order of immediate need.
In front of Camp Pendleton, where these 8 men have been held in special confinement for over 130 days, there are rallies and media and national TV coverage. But back in little towns in Wisconsin, Massachusetts, Washington State, and other locations, their parents and wives don’t have enough money to feed their children. This story breaks my heart, and I hope that you can find it in yours to give even a few dollars to help these families.
This travesty of justice against fellow Americans cannot be allowed to go on.
Not in MY country.
Posted by leo at September 30, 2006 08:23 PM
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Comments
I've written about these guys also. It is a pretty awful affair. The good thing is that the treatment is so blatant and the "confessions" so coerced that they stand a good chance of being acquitted. When that happens I hope they press charges against NCIS and their superiors.
By the way, this is related to a similar cause I've written about... the apparent sh*tcanning of Medal of Honor Recommendations for at least two marines. One, was killed rolling on a grenade to save four Marines. The other - First Sgt. Kasel rolled between grenades and another Marine TWICE - AFTER being shot in the legs. That was in Fallujah II - in 2004. The Marine Corps apparently doesn't think it is politically acceptable to have heroes recognized.
Posted by: Kahn at September 30, 2006 08:53 PM
This is, I think, what the Left has been yelling about.
It's easy to support supressing the rights of their enemies when those enemies are Arabs and terrorists, but when they expand the enemies list to include your friends, . . .
Whatever. The U.S. has decided to define the Pendleton 8 as enemies. We the people no longer have a say in this matter. Not lefties, not pro-Bush bloggers. No one.
Posted by: The Small Town hick at September 30, 2006 10:18 PM
I guess you short sighted conservatives didn't foresee that legislating away habeas corpus would also affect US citizens. Welcome to Bush's AmeriKa, where no one is safe from the state and you better stay in line or be imprisoned away for good.
Sorry, but you can't pick and choose who is entitled to constitutional rights and who isn't, so you voted to taked them away, so they are gone now for everyone. Be proud, this is what you all wanted.
Posted by: axis at September 30, 2006 11:15 PM
Posted by: Willem van Oranje at October 1, 2006 12:39 AM
These guys are being treated worse than terrorists. If you mistreat a terrorists, human rights lawyers and activists will be all over you yet there are no human rights lawyers to stand up for these guys. I'm sure if we had a General Patton today, he would have stood up to this situation. Unfortunately, if General Patton were alive today, he would not be allowed to serve in today's military. Today's PC military would not allow it.
In today's military you are not allowed to breathe on a terrorist wrong, yet volunteer soldiers can be imprisoned in shackles.
I can understand the desire of the press to make sure our enemies are treated humanely. After all, we are better than our enemies. Unfortunately they don't seem to care about our men in uniform as much as they care about making sure terrorists are treated decently. This is truly a messed up society.
Posted by: B.Poster at October 1, 2006 12:42 AM
What have we become? Is this gutting of our beloved constitution the beginning of the end of the Republic? What next, the rise of the Caesars? The stupidity is beyond words.
Posted by: tsmith at October 1, 2006 12:52 AM
WVO: Foleygate is being investigated. If anyone covered for Foley they will be resign or be forced from office. There are no talking points for this.
No one took terrorism seriously enough in July 2001. We still are not taking it as seriously as we should. To fight Iraq and Afghanistan correctly will require about 500,000 troops for Iraq and Afghanistan. We are going to need at least 1,000,000 more men in uniform. This is just for Afghanistan and Iraq. Both parties need to get on this right now.
Small Town Hick
You may be right, however, most of the yelling from the left has to do with the rights of terrorists. Now when the rights of American troops are being violated on a far more serious level they are silent. They seem awfully selective.
It seems to me that according to the left those who are tring to carry out American Hiroshima are good and those who are trying to prevent it are bad. The left seems to mostly be about being anti American rather than worrying about protecting liberty.
Government mistreatment of a terrorist or suspected terrorist is a front page stroy. Governemnt mistreatment of an American soldier is met with silence. If the left would focus on both the treatemnt of the terrorists and the treatment of American troops they would have some credibilty as the guardians of human rights.
Posted by: B.Poster at October 1, 2006 12:56 AM
axis,
There's a cure for liberal insanity, all one needs to do is, stop talking the way you do!
and above all, start living the Word.
Jeremiah
Posted by: Jeremiah at October 1, 2006 12:58 AM
Jeremiah,
I am for preserving constitutional rights, protections and freedoms that makes America what it is.
You are for stripping those all away until all you have left is a police state like communist China. Torture, Murder, permanent imprisonment, no trials, no lawyers, spying on everyone, these are all good things in your books
So who is the more insane? Me or you? LOL
Posted by: axis at October 1, 2006 01:11 AM
Orange--you're a retard.
WTF does Foley have to do with this story..
What a moronic BDS imbecile you are.
Get a life, idiot.
Posted by:
Psycmeistr at October 1, 2006 01:34 AM
axis you ignorant slut, the right you speak of do exist for these men and they are being ignored. Instead of fighting for them, you take this attitude?
How was you Candians history dealing with the Indians up there? They still own all the land - right?
Posted by: Kahn at October 1, 2006 08:38 AM
psycmeistr
It's amazing, people like Orange support child molesters when they're democrats. Take democrat congressman Gerry Studds for instance. Not only did he have sex with a male minor he was elected time after time after that. How hypocritical of Orange and other democrats, at least we get rid of these sick bastards. Democrats support them.
You can read more about it here.
And we can also talk about Congressman Frank running a gay child prostitution ring from his apartment.
Posted by:
CJ at October 1, 2006 11:33 AM
B. Poster;
"Unfortunately, if General Patton were alive today, he would not be allowed to serve in today's military. Today's PC military would not allow it."
Agreed. An unfortunate byproduct of peacetime is that civilians want and expect warriors to act like, to be, civilians.
They cannot. Their job requires a certain mindset that is outside the civilized pale. Liberals need to accept this - even if they can't understand it.
"In today's military you are not allowed to breathe on a terrorist wrong, yet volunteer soldiers can be imprisoned in shackles."
Both behaviors are wrong. Above all, the military needs to maintain self-control and discipline. They are the purveyors of force, and they must be able to control how much force is used. The existance of abuse is of less concern to me than the fact that it is being done apparently without orders. Rot in the command structure cannot be tolerated - the military has too much potential for destruction to allow it to be used unmonitored.
"most of the yelling from the left has to do with the rights of terrorists. Now when the rights of American troops are being violated on a far more serious level they are silent. They seem awfully selective."
The left is not omniscient. If it doesn't show up in the MSM, it doesn't show up in their blogs.
I haven't seen this news item on FOX, either. Maybe it should.
Jeremiah,
"There's a cure for liberal insanity, all one needs to do is, stop talking the way you do!
and above all, start living the Word."
The Word is Love. The Word is Peace. The Word is Forgiveness.
Remember that.
Posted by: The Small Town hick at October 1, 2006 03:43 PM
A few observations:
One, the anger in this blog seems to be aimed primarily at human rights lawyers. Last time I checked they aren't the people prosecuting these soldiers, it was the military using the MCOJ, so the question is why are the military doing this?
Two, as for Habeus Corpus these soldiers do not have that right, once you sign into the military they own your life because according to them you have the right to your freedoms, but you equally have the right to sign them away. Without this an effective military can't be established as their focus will be diverted from being an effective military. Only their families have the right to sue the government as they had not signed away their rights, which is as it should be.
The way this looks to me is that politics has entered the military and I wish they would just let the military do their job instead of having people 'speak out' against or for the administration. This is one of many areas where I would not like politicians being in charge.
Posted by: JM at October 1, 2006 05:08 PM
Well, we can all only hope that you conservatives get what you really want and that these men will be tortured and sodomized over and over with foreign objects and threatened with vicious dogs. If I were a conservative, I might want to get my picture taken beside them, bound, gagged and naked.
Posted by: axis at October 1, 2006 07:56 PM
Small Town Hick
Thanks for the reply to my post.
The biggest problem with the Iraq war and the broader GWOT seems to me to have been we have never been able to quite decide what we want to do. Is this primarily a law enforcement operation? Is this a limited military engagement limited to simple regime change and little else? Is this a broad based effort to establish western style democracy in Iraq and possibly through out the entire middle east? All of these broad based groups who have different goals and wish to achieve different things had to be brought together to craft a policy for the GWOT and the Iraq war. The result of this has been the US government has often times simaltaneously pursued polices that are contradictory!! Part of the bitter fruits of this government gridlock, if you will, is we ended up with force structures for Afghanistan and Iraq that were to large to avoid the responsibilty of running major war efforts but the number of troops commited was to small to actually conduct the war as effectively as we should have!! With regards to Iraq and Afghanistan we can "adapt and win" a decisive victory and commit the necessary resources to Afghanistan and Iraq.
We must first decide if we are at war. Many people are not convinced that we are. I think we are, however, good people can and do disagree. If you are going to conduct a war effectively, you will need people like General Patton. To conduct a war effectively, requires the support of the American people, the entire government, and the news media.
Given the current domestic political situation, this will not be happening right now. As such, I expect most of our troops to be gone from Iraq by July 2007. By July 2007 there will likely be 10,000 troops or fewer based in Kurdistan. These will be primarily special forces who will be backed up by air support. They will be prepared to intervene in the Iraqi civil war, as necessary, to prevent the formation of terrorist camps. Hopefully this strategy will work, as it is the one we will be using. If my prediction is wrong, I will come here and admit it.
I agree that torturing a terrorist or placing American soldiers in shackles are both wrong. It is my understanding that American soldiers will not be allowed to use the "enhanced interogation techniques." As I'm writing this, I'm undecided about how I feel about the interogation techniques we are allowed to use. Whatever we decided finally decide we can do I would suggest that the interogators will be required to be subjected to the very same techniques as part of their training.
While the left is not omniscient, they do have a substantial prescense. They and their sympathisers dominate the msm. They and their sympathisers also occupy important positions in all branches of the government. Human rights lawyers actively monitor the actions of the military. It seems unlikely they would not have known about this yet the only extensive reporting on the shackling of American soldiers that I have been aware of has been the links provided here and at worldnetdaily. As for Fox News, I wish they would report on it.
JM
My main anger with human rights lawyers has been they have been on top of the case where the US has abused POWs or has been suspected of it but they have largely ignored the cases where the human rights of American soldiers have been abused. Given their close monitoring of the US government it seems unlikely they would not have known about this.
Overall the human rights lawyers have actually done some good work here. We are better than our enemies and we do and should hold ourselves to a higher standard. The problem is it seems they are highly selective in whose rights they defend. They would have more credibility if they would hold both America and its enemies equally to account. To date, they have largely given America's enemies a pass. At least this is how it seems to me.
You are right that when a person agrees to become a soldier they sign away many of the rights that an American civilian has. The need to keep order and the need to respect the rights of our soldiers and the rights of POWs is very difficult. We must remain ever vigilant.
Posted by: B.Poster at October 1, 2006 08:25 PM
Axis
As I pointed out before, I'm undecided on whether the interrogation techniques we are using are okay or not. We need to balance the need to protect the rights of detainees with the need to prevent things like "American Hiroshima."
In many ways the Jihadist enemy is the most dangerous enemy the western world has ever faced. While the do not posses the power of the former Soviet Union or current enemies like Russia or China, they will not be worried about things like MAD, as the Soviet Union was or as Russia or China or would be. Combine a mentality that will not be worried about things like MAD with the desire to use weapons of mass destruction and their willingness to use homicide bombers to carry out the mission this is a very dangerous enemy and needs to be treated as such.
It is with this in mind that we must decide which interrogation methods we can use.
I think subjecting Jihadis to things like loud noises, extreme cold, sleep deprivation, or standing for long periods of time are probably acceptable, however, I'm uncomfortable with water boarding. Sodomy with foreign objects or any form of sodomy would never be acceptable. Anyone doing this should be prosecuted to the fullest extent possible. As for the use of vicious dogs, they would have to be muzzled, if they were to be used. A muzzled dog would be of little use any way. This probably should not be allowed. I don't think we are using this now.
If incidents of sodomy occurred, you may be talking about Abu Ghraib. The people who carried out Abu Ghraib have been prosecuted and are serving jail time. Its time to move on. I'm fully confident that if any one were proven to have engaged in acts of sodomy they would be prosecuted.
We want due process for terrorists and for interogators. While we are giving due process to terrorists, America's national security interests need to be respected. If the President gets out of line, we can expect the supreme court to get involved, as they did in the Hamden case.
Finally, I would suggest whatever interrogation techniques we decide we can use the interogators should be subjected to exactly the same techniques as part of their training.
Posted by: B.Poster at October 1, 2006 10:39 PM
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I've written about these guys also. It is a pretty awful affair. The good thing is that the treatment is so blatant and the "confessions" so coerced that they stand a good chance of being acquitted. When that happens I hope they press charges against NCIS and their superiors.
By the way, this is related to a similar cause I've written about... the apparent sh*tcanning of Medal of Honor Recommendations for at least two marines. One, was killed rolling on a grenade to save four Marines. The other - First Sgt. Kasel rolled between grenades and another Marine TWICE - AFTER being shot in the legs. That was in Fallujah II - in 2004. The Marine Corps apparently doesn't think it is politically acceptable to have heroes recognized.
This is, I think, what the Left has been yelling about.
It's easy to support supressing the rights of their enemies when those enemies are Arabs and terrorists, but when they expand the enemies list to include your friends, . . .
Whatever. The U.S. has decided to define the Pendleton 8 as enemies. We the people no longer have a say in this matter. Not lefties, not pro-Bush bloggers. No one.
I guess you short sighted conservatives didn't foresee that legislating away habeas corpus would also affect US citizens. Welcome to Bush's AmeriKa, where no one is safe from the state and you better stay in line or be imprisoned away for good.
Sorry, but you can't pick and choose who is entitled to constitutional rights and who isn't, so you voted to taked them away, so they are gone now for everyone. Be proud, this is what you all wanted.
Deleted - Off Topic
These guys are being treated worse than terrorists. If you mistreat a terrorists, human rights lawyers and activists will be all over you yet there are no human rights lawyers to stand up for these guys. I'm sure if we had a General Patton today, he would have stood up to this situation. Unfortunately, if General Patton were alive today, he would not be allowed to serve in today's military. Today's PC military would not allow it.
In today's military you are not allowed to breathe on a terrorist wrong, yet volunteer soldiers can be imprisoned in shackles.
I can understand the desire of the press to make sure our enemies are treated humanely. After all, we are better than our enemies. Unfortunately they don't seem to care about our men in uniform as much as they care about making sure terrorists are treated decently. This is truly a messed up society.
What have we become? Is this gutting of our beloved constitution the beginning of the end of the Republic? What next, the rise of the Caesars? The stupidity is beyond words.
WVO: Foleygate is being investigated. If anyone covered for Foley they will be resign or be forced from office. There are no talking points for this.
No one took terrorism seriously enough in July 2001. We still are not taking it as seriously as we should. To fight Iraq and Afghanistan correctly will require about 500,000 troops for Iraq and Afghanistan. We are going to need at least 1,000,000 more men in uniform. This is just for Afghanistan and Iraq. Both parties need to get on this right now.
Small Town Hick
You may be right, however, most of the yelling from the left has to do with the rights of terrorists. Now when the rights of American troops are being violated on a far more serious level they are silent. They seem awfully selective.
It seems to me that according to the left those who are tring to carry out American Hiroshima are good and those who are trying to prevent it are bad. The left seems to mostly be about being anti American rather than worrying about protecting liberty.
Government mistreatment of a terrorist or suspected terrorist is a front page stroy. Governemnt mistreatment of an American soldier is met with silence. If the left would focus on both the treatemnt of the terrorists and the treatment of American troops they would have some credibilty as the guardians of human rights.
axis,
There's a cure for liberal insanity, all one needs to do is, stop talking the way you do!
and above all, start living the Word.
Jeremiah
Jeremiah,
I am for preserving constitutional rights, protections and freedoms that makes America what it is.
You are for stripping those all away until all you have left is a police state like communist China. Torture, Murder, permanent imprisonment, no trials, no lawyers, spying on everyone, these are all good things in your books
So who is the more insane? Me or you? LOL
Orange--you're a retard.
WTF does Foley have to do with this story..
What a moronic BDS imbecile you are.
Get a life, idiot.
axis you ignorant slut, the right you speak of do exist for these men and they are being ignored. Instead of fighting for them, you take this attitude?
How was you Candians history dealing with the Indians up there? They still own all the land - right?
psycmeistr
It's amazing, people like Orange support child molesters when they're democrats. Take democrat congressman Gerry Studds for instance. Not only did he have sex with a male minor he was elected time after time after that. How hypocritical of Orange and other democrats, at least we get rid of these sick bastards. Democrats support them.
You can read more about it here.
And we can also talk about Congressman Frank running a gay child prostitution ring from his apartment.
B. Poster;
"Unfortunately, if General Patton were alive today, he would not be allowed to serve in today's military. Today's PC military would not allow it."
Agreed. An unfortunate byproduct of peacetime is that civilians want and expect warriors to act like, to be, civilians.
They cannot. Their job requires a certain mindset that is outside the civilized pale. Liberals need to accept this - even if they can't understand it.
"In today's military you are not allowed to breathe on a terrorist wrong, yet volunteer soldiers can be imprisoned in shackles."
Both behaviors are wrong. Above all, the military needs to maintain self-control and discipline. They are the purveyors of force, and they must be able to control how much force is used. The existance of abuse is of less concern to me than the fact that it is being done apparently without orders. Rot in the command structure cannot be tolerated - the military has too much potential for destruction to allow it to be used unmonitored.
"most of the yelling from the left has to do with the rights of terrorists. Now when the rights of American troops are being violated on a far more serious level they are silent. They seem awfully selective."
The left is not omniscient. If it doesn't show up in the MSM, it doesn't show up in their blogs.
I haven't seen this news item on FOX, either. Maybe it should.
Jeremiah,
"There's a cure for liberal insanity, all one needs to do is, stop talking the way you do!
and above all, start living the Word."
The Word is Love. The Word is Peace. The Word is Forgiveness.
Remember that.
A few observations:
One, the anger in this blog seems to be aimed primarily at human rights lawyers. Last time I checked they aren't the people prosecuting these soldiers, it was the military using the MCOJ, so the question is why are the military doing this?
Two, as for Habeus Corpus these soldiers do not have that right, once you sign into the military they own your life because according to them you have the right to your freedoms, but you equally have the right to sign them away. Without this an effective military can't be established as their focus will be diverted from being an effective military. Only their families have the right to sue the government as they had not signed away their rights, which is as it should be.
The way this looks to me is that politics has entered the military and I wish they would just let the military do their job instead of having people 'speak out' against or for the administration. This is one of many areas where I would not like politicians being in charge.
Well, we can all only hope that you conservatives get what you really want and that these men will be tortured and sodomized over and over with foreign objects and threatened with vicious dogs. If I were a conservative, I might want to get my picture taken beside them, bound, gagged and naked.
Small Town Hick
Thanks for the reply to my post.
The biggest problem with the Iraq war and the broader GWOT seems to me to have been we have never been able to quite decide what we want to do. Is this primarily a law enforcement operation? Is this a limited military engagement limited to simple regime change and little else? Is this a broad based effort to establish western style democracy in Iraq and possibly through out the entire middle east? All of these broad based groups who have different goals and wish to achieve different things had to be brought together to craft a policy for the GWOT and the Iraq war. The result of this has been the US government has often times simaltaneously pursued polices that are contradictory!! Part of the bitter fruits of this government gridlock, if you will, is we ended up with force structures for Afghanistan and Iraq that were to large to avoid the responsibilty of running major war efforts but the number of troops commited was to small to actually conduct the war as effectively as we should have!! With regards to Iraq and Afghanistan we can "adapt and win" a decisive victory and commit the necessary resources to Afghanistan and Iraq.
We must first decide if we are at war. Many people are not convinced that we are. I think we are, however, good people can and do disagree. If you are going to conduct a war effectively, you will need people like General Patton. To conduct a war effectively, requires the support of the American people, the entire government, and the news media.
Given the current domestic political situation, this will not be happening right now. As such, I expect most of our troops to be gone from Iraq by July 2007. By July 2007 there will likely be 10,000 troops or fewer based in Kurdistan. These will be primarily special forces who will be backed up by air support. They will be prepared to intervene in the Iraqi civil war, as necessary, to prevent the formation of terrorist camps. Hopefully this strategy will work, as it is the one we will be using. If my prediction is wrong, I will come here and admit it.
I agree that torturing a terrorist or placing American soldiers in shackles are both wrong. It is my understanding that American soldiers will not be allowed to use the "enhanced interogation techniques." As I'm writing this, I'm undecided about how I feel about the interogation techniques we are allowed to use. Whatever we decided finally decide we can do I would suggest that the interogators will be required to be subjected to the very same techniques as part of their training.
While the left is not omniscient, they do have a substantial prescense. They and their sympathisers dominate the msm. They and their sympathisers also occupy important positions in all branches of the government. Human rights lawyers actively monitor the actions of the military. It seems unlikely they would not have known about this yet the only extensive reporting on the shackling of American soldiers that I have been aware of has been the links provided here and at worldnetdaily. As for Fox News, I wish they would report on it.
JM
My main anger with human rights lawyers has been they have been on top of the case where the US has abused POWs or has been suspected of it but they have largely ignored the cases where the human rights of American soldiers have been abused. Given their close monitoring of the US government it seems unlikely they would not have known about this.
Overall the human rights lawyers have actually done some good work here. We are better than our enemies and we do and should hold ourselves to a higher standard. The problem is it seems they are highly selective in whose rights they defend. They would have more credibility if they would hold both America and its enemies equally to account. To date, they have largely given America's enemies a pass. At least this is how it seems to me.
You are right that when a person agrees to become a soldier they sign away many of the rights that an American civilian has. The need to keep order and the need to respect the rights of our soldiers and the rights of POWs is very difficult. We must remain ever vigilant.
Axis
As I pointed out before, I'm undecided on whether the interrogation techniques we are using are okay or not. We need to balance the need to protect the rights of detainees with the need to prevent things like "American Hiroshima."
In many ways the Jihadist enemy is the most dangerous enemy the western world has ever faced. While the do not posses the power of the former Soviet Union or current enemies like Russia or China, they will not be worried about things like MAD, as the Soviet Union was or as Russia or China or would be. Combine a mentality that will not be worried about things like MAD with the desire to use weapons of mass destruction and their willingness to use homicide bombers to carry out the mission this is a very dangerous enemy and needs to be treated as such.
It is with this in mind that we must decide which interrogation methods we can use.
I think subjecting Jihadis to things like loud noises, extreme cold, sleep deprivation, or standing for long periods of time are probably acceptable, however, I'm uncomfortable with water boarding. Sodomy with foreign objects or any form of sodomy would never be acceptable. Anyone doing this should be prosecuted to the fullest extent possible. As for the use of vicious dogs, they would have to be muzzled, if they were to be used. A muzzled dog would be of little use any way. This probably should not be allowed. I don't think we are using this now.
If incidents of sodomy occurred, you may be talking about Abu Ghraib. The people who carried out Abu Ghraib have been prosecuted and are serving jail time. Its time to move on. I'm fully confident that if any one were proven to have engaged in acts of sodomy they would be prosecuted.
We want due process for terrorists and for interogators. While we are giving due process to terrorists, America's national security interests need to be respected. If the President gets out of line, we can expect the supreme court to get involved, as they did in the Hamden case.
Finally, I would suggest whatever interrogation techniques we decide we can use the interogators should be subjected to exactly the same techniques as part of their training.