It’s not easy to dance around the obvious

Helle Dale attempts to put her thinking cap on:

Americans are struggling to comprehend what happened to the fresh-faced young people we sent to Iraq. While most are serving honorably and bravely under incredibly difficult conditions, six will soon be court-martialed for abuse of Iraqi prisoners, for behavior most of their countrymen find disgusting and sick. And in one of the very prisons Saddam Hussein’s torturers used for their victims.

What happened, we ask? Iraqi prison guards may have tortured other Iraqis, but Americans are not supposed to do things like that.

No they’re not, so what happened Helle? Please tell us:

The problem that we may have to deal with is that in the wartime absence of the societal rules and norms, proper leadership and training, some people do behave appallingly and criminally.

So, what you’re saying is that “someone” sent inadequately trained troops into battle in order to perform certain tasks, and that someone in turn failed to properly supervise those troops. We wonder who that “someone” could be. Apparently, it cannot be the Secretary of Defense:

In the United States, Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld has come under heated attack and demands for his resignation are flying fast and furious from Democrats and liberal editorial pages. Yet, until anyone has demonstrated ? as opposed to speculated ? that any systemic problem exists for which Mr. Rumsfeld can be said to be responsible, that can hardly be considered more than political posturing.

Because you see, when things like this happen, it’s nobody’s fault:

So far it seems our problem is that boys ? and girls ? were sent out to do a man’s job without adequate training and supervision. They may not even have been familiar with the Geneva Conventions. They went wildly astray as a result. Or as the father of Jeremy Sivits, the first to be court-martialed, put it, “My son is not a trained military MP. He is a trained mechanic … Why was a mechanic allowed to handle prisoners?”

Imagine that — soldiers who were not familiar with the Geneva Conventions were put in charge of handling prisoners! Yet some people insist that somehow blame for this lies with those in charge of the armed forces, when it quite clearly totally and indubitably doesn’t. So instead why don’t we just feel a little bit bad about the whole thing and move on, ok? Awesome!

 

Comments: 3

 
 
 

We certainly should not attach any significance to Alberto Gonzales’ memo stating that the Geneva Conventions were “quaint” in view of the unique circumstances facing the U.S. after 9/11, and Rumsfeld’s public statements that we didn’t have to abide by the G.C., and the failure of anyone in the Defense Department to train soldiers about the requirements of the G.C. Undoubtedly, too, Lynndie England and the rest of those kids thought up all those torture techniques (including putting the guy on the box with electrodes attached to his penis and other body parts, a technique known as “the Vietnam”) on their own and without any instruction or encouragement from military intelligence. These things just happen. It’s nobody’s fault.

 
 

These sort of things are all too common in the USA, in the police cells and the prison cells, remember Rodney, how many times as similar things happened with no cameras around. The only thing new is digital, which means that pictures can be taken, with no need to send them out for processing.

 
 

Ps. how many more people have been King for a couple of hours?

 
 

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