I am absolutely furious that these enlisted people are being tried

I despise them for losing their moral compass, but I understand the psychological conditioning that they have received. But in any event, prosecuting these people is the biggest frigging injustice.......


:mad:

strenuously.

They knew what they were doing was immoral. They HAD to know that. It's also illegal, and I doubt they didn't know that, too.

ALL people involved, from the lowest to the highest, should be tried. No exceptions. You don't get a "pass" to torture people just because you're a private.

The Nuremburg Trials demolished the idea of "I was following orders" as a defense to the commission of attrocious and immoral acts.

but we cannot do what THEY do. These kids were in hell for a year. They were expecting to go home 3 or 4 times. They are not the people who did those things. They are the stressed out KIDS who were USED LIKE PAWNS by the real criminals. Don't you see that by directing our rage at them we are playing directly into the hands of the real scumbags. The media is now going to cover their trials 24/7 when the investigations and trials should involve the cabal.

my desire for them to be tried with any sort of lack of sympathy for what our soldiers endure.

But at what point when you're shoving a lightstick up somebody's ass does it occur to one that it might not be the right thing to do?

Evidently SOME soldiers refused to participate in this, and reported the behavior. They endured the same situation torturers did, yet managed to do the right thing.

Not everyone reacts the same situation in the same way. That's the argument the right wing uses when they say that the poor have choices. They can go to school, they can stay awqay from drugs BLAH BLAH BLAH. So now you must understand these these kids did not have the mental fortitude to choose right. Would they have done something like this in West Virginia ... Ok well maybe...but that's not the point.....Seriously. When youcreated such a morbid existance some people will not make the right decisions. Should their lives be destroyed ?

to making those mitigating arguments during sentencing.

How about those low ranking SS concentration camp guards? Do you think the "just following orders under stressful conditions" defense works for them?

I watched the video diary of the guard on 60 minutes II. She had a nice bunk, pillows, blankets, clean clothes, food. No one was shooting at her, her main complaint was "boredom" while waiting to go home a Hero to her nice little home town USA.
Ever see a refugee camp any where in the world? "Stress" does not always result in brutality. In fact, it usually results in compassion.
I think these kids are the canary in the coal mine for our culture.

When a nation declares a war on an enemy, it is important to assess the reasons for the war. If a war is fought within the context of an honorable purpose, soldiers become warriors. When, on the other hand, the war is fought for illicit purposes, as is this war, the soldiers' psyche will react in very strange ways. They are no longer warriors. Rather, they are brutalizers. Some will be able to bear the emotional baggage, others will not.

On a side note, this is the core reason why America will never gain its world standing again. When we lost our national moral compass, we lost our ability to become noble warriors forever. We have been rendered useless bullies within the human conscience.

that if there is to be ANY hope whatsoever of restoring our world standing, we MUST prosecute those who have been recorded committing crimes against Iraqi prisoners.

We also need to prosecute the chain of command upward as high as possible. But letting the grunts walk would do nothing to improve our standing in the eyes of the world - it would do the opposite.

but I would bet that the world could care less about the grunts. They do want to see bush at the Hague though.

the men who were sodomized might care.

I believe the women who were raped might care.

I believe the people who were beaten and humiliated care, as well as their families, friends and countrymen.

but you changed the constituency

:)

You said what I was thinking more eloquently than I could. This needs to lead to courts Martial for the top people. People in the Pentagon. Any civilians in and out this administration that were involved need to stand trial. these were war crimes were they not?

see is the upper echelons getting away with it, which is what looks like will happen. That is the crime.

But the ones at the top, those bringers of "honor and integrity" :puke: must also answer for this.



http://www.wgoeshome.com

After seeing people killed left and right, she was told this was a good thing to do that helped her team. Morally, she failed, but I can understand how she rationalized it. One step at a time to desensitize you to torture people.

Going after the lowest ranking memory of the military force - obviously being programmed by military intelligence - is shameful.

How many have been killed in this war? How many have been tortured? We may never know.

that were tried at Nuremberg, using the "I was just following orders" defense? The judgments at Nuremberg disallowed this defense, and maintained that you are not absolved from committing crimes just because your leadership is ordering you to commit them.

the I'm just following orders defense and the mental abuse of the enlisted people crime.

Don't you think some 18 year old from Heidelberg who grew up in the Hitler Youth Corp, was swept out to the Russian front, and then assigned to guard the body disposal unit prisoners in Auschwitz was mentally abused?

Is there any line at which people should accept responsibility for their actions? In my opinion there is.

extent than others. I would not do anything like that either. But there are many among us who did not benefit from the experiences that allowed us to develop that level of empathy. But for the chimp's war, these peolpe would probably never have been in this kind of trouble. Perhaps because they were raised in an isolated community...whatever...

If the measure of one's guilt in the commission of a crime is whether they had benefits and experiences that would give them a fundamental basis of understanding right from wrong, then there would no way to convict anyone of a crime without a completely subjective ruling.

Did Ted Bundy have a horrible childhood? Relative to his crime, it is immaterial. But would anyone seriously consider putting this monster back on the street because his father or mother were abusive?

This is an extreme example, but the logic applies to the soldiers in Iraq. They are grown ups. They have a responsibility to know whether their actions were illegal. They failed in that responsibility. So did their commanders. The commanders should face significantly greater penalty for their abysmal failure and for willful commission of crime.

as it is, only the little guys will be prosecuted and punished.

as in the case of Ken Lay, the rich guys, or the well placed power guys, will not be implicated at all.

It is the way it is.

I would suggest that no one let their child join the military. If it is necessary,take out a loan in order to finance their college education.

It exists only to be used by those who gain power to do with it what they will. Do not let your children be used in this way. It will do nothing for their growth as human beings at all. It is only a tool that is being for the past fifty years to gain power over those who are NO threat at all to us. But we kill them by the thousands anyhow.
That is the function of our modern day military. They are NOT there to "defend our freedoms"

They are there in order to invade , attack and grab what other countries have, little ocuntries, this does not obviously include the major countries such as Russian or China, or Germany--no it is onluy the devastated, already bombed thousands of times, that we use our military for--it is always a cake walk and we lose a couple of hundred, as the invaded, strive to resist this invasion of their country by firing upon us, or by other means, which theuy willingly sacrifice their own lives in order to kill some of ours.

Do not let your children do it.

The US military, is no longer a force that exists to "defend" the US.

Forget it. It is NOT that romamtic. It exists only to invade and intimidate those who have something we covet. The use of the private forces, as we have come to see in this occupation, actually diminishes and undermines our troops, who take an oath to defend us. But that is the reality.

The private forces number in the thousands and apparently are in the position of giving orders to the real troops. But they are accountable to no one.

This is a deterioration. We may as well only use the privatized, mercenary type of army. Why should our youth, who join to get some benefits, most likely, be sacrificed at all?



They are used by those who are greedy, to satisfy their coveting of the goods of other sovereign countries.

All it takes is a look at the numerous privatized forces that exist in Iraq and that are operating above the law--and are absolutely animalistic, and not connected at all to the military, with nothing stopping them at all--they know this. They are a force that has gone amok==like loose canons. They are truly despicable human beings.

is that one of the implicated MP's father received the pictures seen on 60 minutes II through an e-mail from his son. He was appauled and tried to contact the DOD, the executive branch, and the International Red Cross to no avail. So out of concern that his son might be scapegoated, he sent them to CBS, and now his son is scheduled to be scapegoated. Yet the bozo's in charge continue on with absolutely impunity.

It's totally abhorrent. We never should have gone there.

A war based on lies will only result in greater injustices and atrocities.

Bring them home now.

the parents realized that his crap was NOT right and their kids were caught up in it

You cannot take away all personal responsibility from someone. If I misbehaved when I was a kid and got slapped in school, my parents would be furious.. with me for doing something bad enough to get in trouble for. Nowadays it seems like the teacher would get in trouble, and that kind of attitude is what your post seems to suggest. These people like Lynndie England sure as hell should be put on trial, and IF they were given the impression that this kind of thing was okay, then those officers should be also. There are thousands of other soldiers in the exact situation who chose not to make those poor decisions and bring shame on the whole corps.

chose very well who would be put in the position of these guards. They chose the people who would serve THEIR purposes best.

People start to go whacko when they are in combat too long. It is a failed policy.