I think that you may be overestimating this guy's intelligence. I went through the Defense Language Institute a few years ago and there were a large number of people who have questionable intellects who made it through. I absolutely agree with your theory on him trying to get some payback. All of us who work in intelligence know that we are support, with some few exceptions, and we deal with it. I think this guy is just jealous that he can't be like the guys and girls outside the wire. I am coming to the end of my tour here in Iraq, and most days I only hear car bombs (IEDs) if they are very large or very close. The most dangerous thing I have done here is giong down to Basra to work with the British for a couple of months, but I kow that the work I do enables the guys on patrol to do their job more effectively, and that is good enough for me.
ArmyBryan
ArmyBryan, thank you for your service!
Matt, SEALs as knuckle draggers? Good one. 
I missed this interview but I would believe you over a bitter guy full of sour grapes and a big superiority complex. Man, envy of SEALs sure does breed contempt, doesn't it?
Another direct hit, Matt. Bravo Zulu (two flags you can't hoist for a Blue Falcon)!
Matt, I was fuming as I watched the PBS "report". I have been told that this just didn't happen. This Army specialist seems like a juvenile fabulist. Does he really believe that our guys would hang around a detainee's house long enough to torture? In the middle of the night, in very bad neighborhoods, with little or no backup?
I read that former BG Karpinski ran a very loose ship - little discipline and order - she has an agenda to rehab her rep - you have it exactly right.
I know Tony. Not as well as I used to--I haven't spoken with him since he got back from Iraq--but I know him.
Some things:
-He is very intelligent.
-You are right about the fact that this caused him to have problems with Army culture.
-I doubt a lack of success in the Army embittered him because he didn't join with the expectation of making the Army a lifetime career.
-I think he WAS embittered by the experience of interrogating innocent men who had been beaten up by patrols and who were considered terrorists by everyone else on base.
-He has a very defined sense of honor and morality. He also has a mean streak. Seeming contraditions, but that's life.
-He did not sit inside the wire at Abu Ghraib. Although he was their briefly at the start of his tour, I don't think he did any/much interrogation at Abu Ghraib. Mostly, he was stationed in less central parts of the country, out on patrol to grab people in their homes or doing interrogations in the smaller bases.
-Because his is honorable and moral, I would say that he is not lying. He might be painting an overly bleak picture of his overall impressions (the mean streak--hoping to nail someone's ass to the wall), but if he says the hypothermia torture or the in-home beatings happened, he's telling the truth.
I disagree with Tony on a lot of things. Most importantly: on the importance and need for the war in Iraq (he is against it, and I am for it). This is one of the main reasons we haven't spoken since he returned.
But I believe what he is saying to be true.
I just went and read your piece on Blue Falcons, and that doesn't describe Tony. He's not trying to advance his career. He was never an Army guy to begin with (don't ask me why he joined...some people just make bad decisions), and it never really grew on him. He is not actively trying to trade on his experience for personal gain. His motivation really is anger at the military for treating prisoners dishonorably.
Non-personal note: He says there is a paper trail. That should be investigated.
I'm sure Tony is a *great* guy. He is probably very intelligent and has great morals. But the problem here is his story doesn't fit. First off, Army E-4's *don't* shoot the shit with a group of SEALS. It just doesn't happen. Same with *any* special operators (force recon, SF, ect.) And the SOF will not under any circumstances discuss interrogation techniques with an Army E-4. I don't care what his ASVAB score was. This kid's story just does not parallel the way the Army works.
And in my 11 months in Iraq, I have *never* interrogated terrorists in the middle of a village. That is why there are D cells. So we don't have to waste our time doing it. We do bring MI with us to gather intelligence, but not to interrogate while we sit around stroking our willies.
I'm sorry, but he paints a picture that is very different from the way I see it as an Army E-4 infantryman on the ground and in the fight.
I hope the truth comes out.
Froggy,
Your analysis of many MI soldiers' problems in dealing with the Army way of doing things was spot on. Having spent six years in MI (four AD and two NG), I've seen it for myself. However, I think you were off-base in your assessment that Langouranis is jealous of the SEALs. My guess is that this guy hates just about everything military right now, and that he saw this as his chance to get even with the people he blames for making his life misreable. I've seen his type many times. They get sold a line of BS by some recruiter who knows less about MI than I do about brain surgery. "You'll wear civilian clothes," or "you'll work at an embassy." Then, after they finish training, they get sent to a tactical unit. That's when the meltdown starts. "Going to the field? Camouflaging trucks? Stringing concertina wire? My recruiter didn't tell me I'd have to do this!" In Langouranis' case, he actually got sent to a combat zone. And to make matters worse, he is serving in a war he opposes. Now it's payback time. He's a Blue Falcon, alright. A royal blue one at that.
And don't get too wrapped around the axle about the details in Langouranis' story that make no sense. About half of those dolts in the MSM still believe that Lynndie England got her orders to walk naked prisoners on a dog leash directly from Bush and Rumsfeld.
I saw parts of the special last night. My favorite was the part when the FBI agent (retired) said something along the lines (I'm paraphrasing here)"when you reach the point where you have psychologists coming up with ways to get inside people's heads, you have started to cross that murky line into torture". I suppose that means that every law enforcement branch in the USA is actually practicing torture to some degree. Are not interegation techniques used by the FBI the result of some pshychiatrist's research? wait a minute, don't ad agencies use consultants to shape their ad messages to get inside our head's to make us want to buy certain products? Don't the MSM make their money by selling commercial time to those corporations who pay for the commercials? Oh my God!! I just realized that those Burger King commercials I hate so much are actually forms of torture! I need to thank PBS for showing me the truth about torture. Unfortunately, I have to turn them off now as the TV is obviously a torture device that should be outlawed by the Geneva Convention.
Should be funny, in a good old fashion gallows sort of way, when in 10 years he's sitting in a Pub.
And he buys some guy who says he was a Marine a drink.
And then they exchange names.
And the Marine beats the wholly leaving dog tar out of him.
Because he was one of the Fleet Recon Marines.
Great comments everyone. Thank you for your first person accounts and personal experiences.
Right off the bat I can't imagine any of the guys I was on teams with, even the medics, taking some sh*tbag's rectal temperature...
And this clown is not a "noble" and "moral" man. He's a liar and a weasel.
Two things: This spc's testimony echoes of the same line of unsubstantiated BS that Kerry piled on his former shipmates during Viet Nam. Literally the same tone.
NE you nailed it. During the 3 years I was 'sentenced' to Navy recruiting I saw the Army recruiters say anything, and I do mean anything, to get a "butt on the bus".
I spent 11 months in 1st Force Recon, I Corp, 1969, I also saw the PBS "report" and Spec 4 L's bs. I guanrantee if he had in fact been involved in combat/field interrogation or watched his buddy bleed out, he would not have been on the tube. No one on this blog can vouch for his "actual service" unless you were with him. He sure came across as a "rear rat" to me. Semper Fi.
I saw a small portion of the show and just moved on. It was obviously biased to the point of fantasy. Not a surprise but disappointing.
I'm a DLI Honor Grad, Class 9-87, Monterey, Russian, made 4,3.5, and 3.5 on my exit DLPTs. I spent five years working in various MI jobs, mostly at the tactical level. I had to graduate from Advanced Infantry Training to make Sergeant.
Lagouranis' is clearly not into his job when he says, "Well yeah, sleeping with 500 dead bodies and going through their pockets was -- I mean, it doesn't get much worse than that, you know? I mean, you really feel just a total sense of despair, and that you've crossed over into a realm where your friends and family are just never going to experience that, you know?"
Dead bodies are a gold mine for intel. And you know most of them are not good guys.
Next, "Well, I never saw too much with the interrogators.." This is a pretty clear cut statement that he did not see anything he was talking about.
And then, "The worst stuff I saw was from the detaining units who would torture people in their homes."
How does he know? Was he there? If he'd been on that team, he'd say it. So he must have heard it from an EPW.
Yet .... He admits that, "You point out a contradiction to them and they don't care, then they just have a new story and that's it. But I think that's true for anybody who's a prisoner being interrogated. You know, they feel helpless, so their story's going to change."
Then there is this whopper about a guy caught with a shovel and a cell phone. So the SPC calls the guy's boss and checks out the guy's story?
LOL. That's crazy!
I'd be pushing for them to go get the boss and search his place, too.
Hey Froggy....
I've been arguing with this guy about the show you watched. He keeps trying to tell me that actionable intelligence has never been gleened from any of these people that have been tortured. I disagree with him but there isn't a way to prove it is there? And I can't use the response that nothing has happened on U.S. soil since 9/11 to prove this.
What do you think?
-Dan
Hey Froggy....
I've been arguing with this guy about the show you watched. He keeps trying to tell me that actionable intelligence has never been gleened from any of these people that have been tortured. I disagree with him but there isn't a way to prove it is there? And I can't use the response that nothing has happened on U.S. soil since 9/11 to prove this.
What do you think?
-Dan
Just to clear some more things up...
Lagouranis isn't a noble or great man. He's somewhat more honest and moral than your average joe, but he's not Honest Abe or anything. He's not a publicity hound. I think he made a serious mistake in joining the Army, since it wasn't a very good match.
On other perspectives on what he said: I did not serve, so I have no authority to judge whether the details of his story pass the smell test.
All I'm saying is, if he says this stuff happened, he isn't making it up. I have some idea what his motivation is: it's not personal gain or desire for air time. It really is, to some extent, an attempt to do what he sees as the right thing.
I'm trying to separate the documentary, which seemed pretty badly made (prisoners in HOODS! oh my!), from what Tony was saying, which seems serious and troublesome. The only reason to discredit him is if the story is complete fiction and he is a source or contributor to that fiction. From what I know of him, I don't expect this to be the case.
When you discuss actionable intelligence based off torture:
Is that torture, as in skin peeled off with a knife, or beating with a section of hosepipe:
...or "torture" as in a pair of panties on a guys head, or naked pyramids?
"jeremiah" and "john jay" are the same guy, just fyi...
I don't know why the autocomplete used a different name on one form and not the other...
"He keeps trying to tell me that actionable intelligence has never been gleened from any of these people that have been tortured."
Am I correct in assuming that he is implying that he has read EVERY intel report of EVERY interrogation that has been done? Neat trick. He must be a speed reader. And he never sleeps. And access? Hell, I'm not even going there. You may ask him to clarify this for you next time he makes this assertion. Oh, and ask him which intel report format includes a line denoting whether any torture -- however you want to define that -- is used. I'd really like to know that one.
Personally, I can't make conjectures about what the SEALs and that particular E-4 talked about or swapped stories about, because I never had the oportunity to work with them when I was in the service.
That being said, once upon a long time ago, my ship went and "played" with Marine Recon Team 7 (if memory serves) off Okinawa. And I, as a lowly E-4 at the time had a chance to swap stories with those SF guys (some of it being quite wooly)... mainly because they were using the Stbd side of the torpedo room to bunk in and hold all thier stuff... and I was low enough on the ladder that my bunk was on the port side of the torpedo room (ah... nothing like sharing bunk space with a Mk. 48 ADCAP). Did they let something slip while telling sea stories? Maybe. Did I tell them confidential stuff they had no need to know about the nuke power program? Maybe. Difference is, I'll never tell.
All that being said... maybe there's a nugget of truth, and maybe there isn't. The only people who know if he's telling the truth are Tony, and the SEALs he talked to (if he talked to them). If there's an investigation, the facts will be borne out. If not... we'll never know. But please don't insult me and any other E-4's that have been in the military that have talked to SF operators. Of course it can happen. I know because it DID happen to me.
Dave and NE, I wouldn't care if our armed forces decided to pull toe nails and peel skin to get any information they need. And NE, of course he doesn't have time to speed read Intel reports, nor has he implied that he had.
I guess what I'm trying to say is, is there any information that we have gotten from our enemy, thru torture that can be coraberated (sp) with facts, that show that it has stopped anything from happening. I just wish our gov't would be more open about our successes so that the american people (crazy libs to be specific) could see how well we're doing and yeah sometimes people need to be hurt and even killed to get that info. That its worth it. I believe it is. But is there any way to prove it? -Dan
I was fortunate enough to miss the show apparently. From reading your description of it the guy sounds like a total tool.
Keep the faith is something that flew over the guys head. Somebody should have returned the favor and left his *ss outside the gate.
Matt,
I think Lagour-ANUS probably had too much time on his hands and was reading some good fiction-based military novels perhaps and decided he could make up a compelling story to feed to the radical Left.
I'm my years in the Intel Community, I never once dealt with any military personnel with a lower rank than O-4, with the exception of SOF Operators.
Keep up the good work.
-Steve O.
Matt posted the Link to the interview on Frontline. Go read it.
Langournis "heard" what the SEALs were doing. He never saw any interrogators he worked with harm anyone. He did see EPWs who looked roughed up. He whined about having to search the dead. He claimed that if 18 year old PVTs will "naturally" mistreat EPWs if they are not under supervision. And he said he believed the EPWs' stories, but then said they'd say anything to him. He complained about things like not getting the skinny from the grunts after a capture, but did he get on the horn and talk to the line unit to get this info? After all, he is supposed to be trained to ask questions!
He's just yanking the lure of the interviewer.
Langournis only uses first person singular in a few sentences. The rest is clearly hearsay and he is clearly naive when it comes to reading people and building a case.
I have buddies at FT Hood who scored many, many times at checkpoints in Iraq just by looking at man and knowing he was up to something. Imagine if they could also have spoken Arabic.
As for actionable Intel - for multiple accounts of where it comes from and where it leads, go read Yon's posts.
I just watched the interview. All I had done before this was read the interview online. There is at least one significant difference between the two media.
Tony is significantly less positive about the SEALS using hypothermia on camera than he is in the online interview. His onscreen quote isn't an exact match of anything online. I don't know why this is--it seems like sloppy reporting. So...I'm going to have to go with my eyes and the onscreen quote. What he says about the SEALS on screen is third-hand information, and is not the kind of thing that would stand in a court of law. What he says about the use of hypothermia techniques seems much less severe in general.
So, on the hypothermia count, all that I can believe is that there was a technique passed around the MI units of wearing subjects down by forcing them to stay in uncomfortably cold shipping containers. Not hovering near death with rectal thermometers to keep them alive. I don't know exactly what I would define as torture, but I don't think that qualifies.
(He says that some of the techniques he was using--muzzled dogs, specifically--were considered torture. That doesn't seem like torture to me, so I might not be the best judge...)
His information about the on-patrol beatings is not substantially different, though I didn't check to see if it's an exact match. That still seems like torture and a serious, investagatable charge.
Jeremiah:
The "mighty" Mujahideen are deathly afraid of dogs, not sure why -- they use dogs as an intimidation technique.
Call me heartless, but I wouldn't bat an eye if the U.S military made the next tower of babel out of a naked insurgent pyramid.
You're not heartless Dave... you're a realist. All those danged liberal bleeding hearts in the MSM need to just get over the righteous indignation that our guys might have offended some likely suspect's tender sensibilities while trying to get info to help "our side" win and while keeping "us" and the guys on "our side" realatively safe from attack.
They just really need to rethink their priorities.
This sounds like the PBS special right before the 2004 election which was supposedly on the candidates. What it really was....a 2 hour taxpayer funded infomercial for John Kerry.
Froggy..don't you think you owe it to your SEALS to write a rebuttal along these lines to Frontline and maybe copy you someone on the "Hill" who works on the committee to fund PBS. I did send an email to my Senator about the infomercial. I was beyond angry after watching.
I didn't get to see, "The Torture Question," mostly because I can smell the liberal bullshit from a mile away, but did it feature things like Nick Berg or Paul Johnson having their heads mercilessly rent from their bodies?
Probably not.
I like this little quote about Frontline in the "blogad" to the left:
"...a work of straight-down-the line journalism, not advocacy, and both sides are heard." Los Angeles Times
Riiight.
You know what I would like to see? The reaction of the men and women of the military as they watch this propaganda machine.
PBS can go pound sand up its collective ass.
I refused promotion.
I was very clear in the interview that I didn't see the SEALs use ice water. I heard about it however from many prisoners over a period of months. I also heard it from a guard who did see it and saw them use a rectal thermometer.
I also was clear about the fact that I did not see force recon torture people. But when a family of 14 tells you the same story of Marines torturing the father at the time of capture, you have to believe it. These people didn't have an opportunity to coordinate their stories before I spoke to them.
Frontline corroborated my story with other people I worked with.
Tony
By the way, I also heard about the Seal tactics from CIF who was questioning me about deaths of detainees at the hands of the SEALs in Mosul.
If you are OK with torturing people during wartime, fine. Don't attack me though for telling what I saw and heard. I never said anything in any interview that was untrue and without revealing how I obtained the information.
Tony,
I'm a little curious about your first line of rebuttal. Refused promotion? Why? How many years were you in? why on the "Frontline website does it show you as a Spc-4 (ret.) meaning retired? Can't say I know of many retired Spc-4's.
I'd also like to question exactly why you would relay information that you have no first hand knowledge of. This is exactly the kind of fantasy bullshit that has given Viet Vets such a bad rep a la Winter Soldier / John Kerry.
Exactly how did Frontline come to use you a a main source of information? Because of your highly placed position and rank among the interrogation teams? Because of your familiarity with the C&C and SOP for interrogations conducted by all the branches of the military including Spec Ops?How come none of the corroborating personnel were featured?
The fact that this was a PBS production, tells me everything I need to know. PBS has has never been known for it's journalistic objectivity.
Let me get this straight, Tony. You are telling me that members of a SEAL Platoon performed this hypothermia procedure with ice water and rectal thermometers in the presence of a military police guard at Abu Ghraib. You then were informed of this by that guard and repeated that charge on national television. That is your story?
I am not retired. I was discharged honorably.
I refused promotion because I didn't want to convey orders that I disgreed with to soldiers.
The SEALs I was talking about were in Mosul, not Abu Ghraib. I got this story from a guard, many prisoners and a Special Agent from CID. Why would I doubt it after all that evidence?
Tony,
Was the CID agent there when this happened, or was he repeating what he was told during interviews with witnesses? While we're talking about the CID agent, why was he giving you details about an ongoing investigation? Were you taking part in the investigation, or was he just talking out of school?
As to the prisoners, do you consider them reliable sources? Most, if not all of them are terrorists (Baathists or foreign fighters).
ONE
I lived and worked in the Middle East for close to seven years. Fear of dogs is a big CULTURAL thing.
TWO
If no actionable intelligence has been gained why do we continue to interigate prisoners? Think of all the money we could save if we just did away with all the MI budgets.
THREE
This guy saw more in twelve months than most of us see in twelve years. His story does not pass the smeel test.
FOUR
Thanks to all the real warriors.
NE,
the CID agent wasn't present during the SEAL interrogations. He collected stories from prisoners and American witnesses like I did. The prisoners might lie, but it is hard to believe they could all tell us the same lie.
Repeating things and events as if you were there and had experienced them, and then allowing a national film crew to interview you and take those quotes and inject a perspective is very dangerous and creates more problems than it solves...whatever your point was.
To believe a family of 14 that thier father was tortured, this coming from a society that is tribal based; fractured and divided by religious and ethnic divides whose own social and religious morays implore them to decieve all people who are outsiders, thats quite dubious.
Tony,
I don't understand the refused promotion because you did not want to relay orders you disagreed with. Did you refuse to attend PLDC or were you selected for promotion without attending NCO school?
As an MI E4, I was Squad leader. I was also in charge of tactical movements and led patrols. How can you be in the Army and not be placed in leadership roles?
Did you talk to the line unit that captured the detainee to get their side of the story? What kind of relationship did the interrogation teams have with the line units in regards to processing detainees and getting background on the capture?
Frontline took some of my comments out of context. I explained everything but I didn't end up getting all of that on the program.
I was selected to go to the board and refused. I was also slotted for automatic promotion and refused. I did sometimes have leadership positions, but wasn't in a decision making position. It was logistical and not policy related.
I did talk to the units that I found had tortured prisoners. They stonewalled me.
It was my duty to report this stuff. Why don't you guys understand that? I never lied or made anything up. I reported what I saw and heard and said how I obtained the information. That is my duty as a soldier. Go ahead and attack me for that.
Anthony,
We have a name for people like you, in the military (that I've served in for 22 years).
Shitbird.
You sound like a typical malcontent. Someone that thinks they're better (smarter) than all their leaders.
Like others have said, you don't pass the smell test.
Stop spreading hearsay, you tool.
'The prisoners might lie, but it is hard to believe they could all tell us the same lie.'
That's not hard to believe at all. I frequently hear the same lie when I listen to various MSM outlets.
Anthony,
I still don't understand why a CID agent was running his mouth about a sensitive ongoing investigation. I'm not saying it couldn't happen, just that it shouldn't.
As for your duty to report wrongdoing on the part of your fellow service members, the report should go through your chain of command and/or the IG. Not to the news media.
What about your fellow soldiers? Would no one else come forward? I find it hard to believe that only one soldier would refuse to stand by and do nothing as the LOAC are violated.
Tony,
I really don't think that you understand what your duty was as a soldier. To me, you sound like your duty was primarily to yourself. You demonstrate absolutely no fidelity or affinity with your service, and by your own admission you took steps to avoid responsibility as some kind of protest against the Army. I could see your frustration in the interview, and your postings here have only reinforced that view.
It is clear to me that your intent with respect to joining the Army and what you actually found yourself involved in ended up being about as far apart as could be imagined. I'm sure that, in and of itself, was a primary source of your consternation. You never "bought in" to the Army and certainly not into your job in MI. You never bought in to the Iraq War. Your alienation from the whole situation in which you found yourself negatively impacts your objectivity and therefore your credibility. Nothing that happened in Iraq was going to make you happy, so you decided to look around for stuff that pissed you off.
I'm not saying that you probably didn't run across some bad apples and some fucked up situations. I'm sure you did. You were in the middle of a fucking war, man. From your lowly E-4 perch, your view of the overall situation and your access to pertinent information does not provide an expansive view. You were looking at your war through a drinking straw, it only seemed like you stood atop the mountain.
You probably weren't cut out for what you were involved in, and that doesn't make you a bad person. But, once you were there, your first obligation was to your unit, the Army, and the United States and you decided instead that your first obligation was to Tony. So you took care of Tony, and everybody else came next.
That's blue falconry my friend, and all that squawking you did on PBS was nothing more than a little man lashing out at the people he came to despise. You clearly have a lot of intellectual potential, but you do not have very good judgement. Being a smart guy doesn't make you right, having and displaying your intellect is a responsibility as well.
You talked about "vibes" at Abu Ghraib. You put off a distinct vibe that you are a malcontent who is hostile to the mission and the leadership. That vibe is going to attract others with similar proclivities and filter out more balanced perspectives. Whatever shit you heard from your buddies was coming from other malcontents with alternate agendas just like you had. You and your "sources" created a nice little echo chamber where all of your stories made sense.
I am aware of many things that SEALs did in Iraq that I will never discuss in a public forum. I am a frogman, but I never served in Iraq. I maintain my fidelity with my brothers who daily risk their lives trying to do a very dangerous job. If I were to betray my comrades by not even giving them the benefit of the doubt in the same way that you have done, I would feel ashamed. Apparently you do not. That is a character flaw that you should see about fixing.
One more thing that CTG brought up. It is clear now that the insurgency that we have been fighting in Iraq was planned by Saddam long before Baghdad fell. The leadership of the insurgency is just as savvy as the NVA were back in the day and know quite well how to use propaganda and innuendo to harm the "Great Satan". Of course these prisoners are going to allege torture, it is probably one of the first resistance techniques they are told to employ. Who better to tell their stories to than an MI specialist with an attitude problem?
Froggy,
You guys can't make a logical arguement. You can say I'm angry and petty and a Blue Falcon. Say that all you want. You aren't addressing what I said. I told you what I know about what happened in Iraq.
If you want to defend the SEALs against what I said, fine. Why attack me?
And I did put all this up through the chain of command several times and nothing happened. I went to the media last.
If you knew that US military personel were breaking the law and acting immorally, would you do something about it? You should. That is your duty.
Also, why does everyone on this site mention that I was only a specialist? We specialists are the ones who were in the interrogation booths. Who is going to know more about detainee abuse than we? No officer knows more about it than I do.
Anthony,
Not everyone has made an issue of your rank. I served in tactical MI units. I know that the folks near the bottom of the ladder do most of the actual work.
I do have a problem with your implication that you were the "one moral man" in the whole equation. That's an insult to everyone in uniform. You may not have intended it that way, but that's the way it shakes out.
If you consider going "to the media last" your duty, then you clearly have no idea what the word "duty" means. Furthermore, I don't doubt that you were in the interrogation booth, I just don't believe that your perspective from that vantage point offers much in the way of a global assessment of the intelligence effort in Iraq. Officers do know more about that than specialists typically.
You have absolutely no way of knowing what happened to the reports made up your COC. Many of them may have been acted on without your knowledge or permission, specialist. Just because the Force Recon guy that you didn't get along with didn't get courtmartialed as a result of your sworn statements, medical records, and photos doesn't mean that you were blown off. And if you were blown off, it was probably because charges coming from a whining crybaby like yourself do not tend to excite the passions of Army CID.
I'm not worried about being personally blown off. It wasn't personal for me. I did get along with Force Recon. I had no problem with anyone in the unit. The SEALs were fine to me too. I wasn't OK with what they were doing though. I tried to stop their illegal behavior through official channels. When I got out of the military I went to the media. I did the right thing, Froggy. You need to explain what you mean by "duty" if you disagree.
I know the investigations didn't go anywhere because Force Recon kept bringing in abused prisoners and because no one came to look at the evidence I prepared or to talk to me or the abused prisoners.
If you think that the Geneva Conventions are wrong or that UCMJ is wrong, then go ahead and say that. Don't attack me though for trying to hold the military to the law. That is my duty.
I challenge you to refute me with an arguement and not resort to name-calling.
Froggy,
There were many times in Iraq when I was confronted with an intelligence officer who was so ignorant of intelligence gathering and of the situation in Iraq and of the people in Iraq that I was embarassed for him. I had to inform him of the most basic information. I'm smart enough to understand what I saw and heard over there. And I was in a position to see and hear a lot.
The attacks on me on this site are focused on my rank, access, attitude and intlligence. No one of these undermine what I have said. I only said what I knew and I said how I came by the information. Go ahead and see how you can attack that.
Oh, by the way, the Raleigh newspaper just published an official statement from the Marines that says that only one abuse report was submitted by me. Which one? The 24th MEU sat on the rest of the reports that I sent up.
By the looks of your interview, you were engaging in hypothermia inducement tactics yourself. You say you were in charge of your interrogations and you used dogs, and other tactics that you now find are in violation of the Geneva Convention or the UCMJ. Your use of those tactics was not, by your own admission, a result of your training in MI. They were adapted from what other units in the theatre were apparently doing. You heard about it from whoever and tried it on for size. Now you get religion and say that the way you were conducting the interrogations was professional, but the people that you learned it from were out of control. That sounds very convenient to me.
Additionally, I do not believe that you ever witnessed a SEAL or Force Recon platoon take down an HVT house in Iraq. They wouldn't let you near it. So you don't have any idea what happens in the heat of those battles, son. You may chit chat with some Team guys and bum a smoke from the FR corpsman or whatever, but your ass was not in the stack and going through those doors. Unless you are the man going through that door, you don't have anything to say about what happened behind those doors. The SEAL platoons in Iraq have been working almost exclusively with the CIA since very early in the conflict and the CIA guys that operate with the Platoons don't have need for Army MI interrogators.
I am calling you a liar if you contend that you personally witnessed Navy SEALs torturing prisoners in their homes or at some disco you heard about. And I am calling you naive if you believe every torture story told to you by a prisoner in your booth.
You participated in a coordinated slander of every person you ever worked with by volunteering for that interview. The bias demonstrated by Frontline during that piece was staggering, and you buddy fucked everyone you served with by allowing yourself to become a tool with which to bludgeon your comrades.
You are no better than John Kerry. He came back from Vietnam and testified before Congress that his comrades had committed all manner of war crimes based on just as flimsy bullshit charges as you have laid out here. I hope for your sake that this was not some publicity stunt to launch your political career, because we will not forget what you did on that show.
I cannot prove a negative after the fact from half a world away, Tony. But you have shown yourself to be a craven and self centered buddy fucker on Frontline and here in my comments. You have no credibility to make many of the charges you have made and I suspect that is the reason your desperate attempts to "hold the military to the law" were unfruitful. Who the fuck do you think you are anyway?
Tony,
Torture and abuse is what Saddam did to his people. Check out some of those videos. If you were not happy with the results of your complaints you could have gone to your Congressman or others in the chain of command upon your return instead of the media. Your case seems weak since you never saw the abuse as it was occuring and take the word of detainees (terrorists) over your colleagues in the military. I'm pretty sure these guys don't just raise their hands and turn around to be handcuffed when they are 'arrested'. Your course of action makes you a tool for the terrorists and their propaganda machine. I'm sure they are happy to have you on their team. You may even appear in their museum like Kerry and Fonda.
Interesting you find it your 'duty' to 'hold the military to the law' in the middle of a war and yet you have little proof other than hearsay. I'm embarrassed for you/by you.
I'm just a civilian but even I know of multiple reports that Al-Quaeda told it's terrorists/detainees to claim torture upon their capture.
Also, I wasn't aware that bin laden and his boys had signed the Geneva Convention. The definition of torture is still hotly debated and whether the 'detainees' were covered under the Geneva Convention (while you were there) was/and still is unresolved. That you have decided to be judge and jury of your colleagues doesn't speak well of your character. But at this point it doesn't surprise me that you think you know better/more than your superiors...
You went about this the wrong way and the only parade you are likely to receive is from the media (and Cindy Sheehan).
Apparently Tony Lagouranis (shitbird) is waging an email campaign on some of the people that have posted anti-shitbird comments here. What a tool.
He sent me an email trying to defend himself and his actions.
A truly detestable POS (and First Class Blue Falcon)...
Well, I'm sure Tony has gone home by now, but judging by his own comments, the most he can muster is second hand evidence for torture or what he represents as torture. In other words, he has no evidence.
So what are you doing running your suck to the press about things you don't know? Hell, I'd back you, grudgingly, if you stopped a commission of a major crime, if you stopped some crazy wet-work, if you blew the whistle on something. But Tony, you don't have anything but innuendo.
For all you know as a fact, everything you said could be a lie, even enemy propaganda. And you bought it and spread it. Don't play aggrieved here, your problems don't compare to the communities you've damaged.
...and still no pictures...
pretty much says it all.
Well, that and that he brought up the Geneva Convention. Correct me if I'm wrong, but if you get caught sans uniform, you are at best completely unprotected, and at worst, subject to being shot on the spot as a spy. The GC only applies to UNIFORMED troops of a recognized army, of which these lying bozos are neither, and OF COURSE they ALL had the SAME "torture" story- it's the one they were TOLD to tell you Tony. Duh.
Tony,
I hate to tell you this, but it isn't your duty to hold the military to the law. It is the responsibility of those in command, perhaps the JAG corps, those in government who have experience and objectivity. By going to the MSM you essentially relied upon the least objective group with little to no actual experience to "hold the military to the law." You might as well have death row inmates sit on capital murder juries.
Your duty is to report what you observe that concerns you up the chain of command. It is their duty to evaluate all the intelligence and act appropriately. Have you considered that with a wider view of intelligence your superiors saw the same patterns of abuse accusations emerging, with control groups claiming the same shit. And by a control group I mean a group they can verify were never mistreated. This would indicate a pre-meditated set of accusations they were instructed to make; or had discussed prior to capture. And with evidence to dispute claims of abuse, or no evidence to prove it, your superiors elected to give the benefit of the doubt to Americans and not terrorists. And that perhaps they felt with no verifiable evidence from reliable sources they should hesitate to give the MSM and insrugents ammunition to use as propaganda. Ammunition you gladly offered anyway. And perhaps they didn't feel they needed to keep you in the loop on this, as your first duty is to follow your orders.
Offering fuel the insurgents can use for recruitment simply to satisfy what you consider to be your duty is weak. You can't do anything about what you believe happened now, as it is in the past tense. Yet there is a future consequence for what you did, that may harm American soldiers, and certainly the image of America. Undeservedly I might add.
You reported what you heard up the chain of command, and having no actual first person evidence of what you claim, your duty ended there. Had you witnessed these things, had reported them, and believed they were still occuring I might understand your attempt to "protect the image of the US" by making sure it stopped before the MSM got a hold of it and the info was used by the insurgents as propaganda. But going to the MSM only did what your duty should have led you away from. Your duty was to protect and serve the US and its image, and the military. You could have used what you had to protect these things, instead they were your target. What does that really accomplish anyway. You have tarnished your uniform and flag, as well as everyone elses. And that doesn't help prevent prisoner abuse.
"I only said what I knew and I said how I came by the information. Go ahead and see how you can attack that.
p>
But that's not what you did Tony- you talked about what you heard second or third hand from others- not what you saw, or what you could possibly KNOW as fact.
"Oh, by the way, the Raleigh newspaper just published an official statement from the Marines that says that only one abuse report was submitted by me. Which one? The 24th MEU sat on the rest of the reports that I sent up."
Please provide our copies, then. Surely on a matter this important, you kept copies for yourself?
"There were many times in Iraq when I was confronted with an intelligence officer who was so ignorant of intelligence gathering and of the situation in Iraq and of the people in Iraq that I was embarassed for him."
Isn't that your job. You're the language specialist, you studied the language and culture. My Dad was a college boy who went to the Army Language School (as it was known then) in '55 for Korean. There is little question that he understood the culture, people and language better than many officers and non-coms he worked with, I don't think he assumed that they should've known more, or that they were idiots. Even if they were, there are some everywhere- no? The trick is to deal with issues constructively, within the framework available to you. Going straight to complaints is usually the least effective way to go.
I am also surprised at the vagueness of your commentary. I would've expected that you'd be quoting us UCMJ sections, and Geneva Convention paragraphs, and report numbers.... buy no, none of that- just lots of vague 'I heard this and that'. And you wonder why folks doubt you?!?
If anything you said was true, than I am only sorry that it fell to someone totally unable to effectively address the problem. I cannot believe that there is no one else who would speak up about such issues, and assist you.
Froggy,
I have people like this in my profession. They are mostly kept out of the loop, and have no real access to the big picture. The intelligent ones who want more access will pick up an awful lot . But not having the background or access they believe they have or desire to have, they get "uppety" about perceived problems. They will tell me about them, I will look into it, and then I will make a decision or take some form of action/inaction based on my wider view. I feel I don't have to report back to them as I am the employer and they work for me on an hourly wage. But when they have an overdevelped sense of importance they expect me to clear through them what I decided to do. They want to be "at the table" when it comes to the final decision. They want to be included in the resolution. Without getting to see it resolved first person they believe they were blown off. And sometimes they have been, which really pisses them off. Usually I tell them it's been taken care of and send the message that I want to know who the hell they think they are questioning me about how I resoved their perceived problem. And they usually slink away and decide to quit, or not be involved, or barely do their jobs anymore, or (most popular) light a candle about this issue and never drop it. This sounds like Tony here. He didn't get to be at the table for the resolution he hoped would take place, so as far as he's concerned it either didn't happen or didn't happen how he wanted it to. I find they usually think it was never looked into, when it was most often the case that we ruled out making the change they requested. They are very difficult to have work for you, can never be reasoned with, and ultimately will bad mouth you for years. Can you imagine having this guy gathering intel for you. He might start the interrogation by informing them of their rights. You might as well have the ACLU conduct it.
Once again I have to commend my readers on their very thoughtful comments. Weatherby, you struck directly to the heart of what I have been trying to convey. I have seen and dealt with these types of people in the military and on the outside. They have an inflated sense of their importance and role in a given situation and therefore develop expectations that are not only unrealistic but totally inappropriate to their status. That is why your rank is an issue, Tony.
Douglas also importantly addresses the proof requirements for making accusations of this kind and at this level. We in the blogosphere do not come out with something until it can be verified with a high level of certainty. Tony has shown me nothing that would indicate that he a) actually witnessed objective and irrefutable acts of torture. b)understands the role of the Geneva Convention with respect to what he actually witnessed or c) understand the implementation of the UCMJ as it relates misconduct on the battlefield.
Mr. Smartypants here speaks in innuendo, platitudes, and hearsay and is seemingly incapable of identifying specific violations of either the UCMJ or the GC. You had your chance Tony.
I am not giving you a further platform to attempt to weasel your way out of what you did. I would be delighted to hear that your new found celebrity got you recognized on the streets of Chicago and got your teeth knocked down your throat.
C'mon, guys and gals.
Give ol' Anthony Laqour-anus a break.
He doesn't seem any more opportunistic, prevaricating, slanderous, and treasonous than me.
It's been an excellent education reading the comments here. My thanks as a civilian. My main observation of Tony, once he deigned to grace us with his presence, is that he is a most excellent example of Useful Idiot and Blue Falcon, both.
Matt, I also agree with your comparison of him to Kerry. Both Tony and JfnK seem all too eager to betray their brothers and whine "war crimes" for revenge and self-aggrandizement.
Honest to God, whatever our guys are doing over there to protect us is OK with me. That's the harsh and crude reality of the war we're in.
Reading your last comment, Froggy, I don't know whether I've been banned also. Hopefully not, but is your site to do with what you want, so I have no grounds for objection if it happens...
What Tony described is grounds for a war-crimes investigation. He could be wrong or deceived on all counts, but he described war crimes. It is the responsibility of the armed forces to determine whether those accusations are true. Commenters have come up with many explanations of why he could be wrong. Some of those explanations may be right, but there's no way to judge without an investigation.
Going to the media with this might have been a mistake. I find most of the media to be pretty traitorous in their coverage of the war these days. So going out there, in the current environment, and giving them more fodder to use against the war is a pretty serious decision. But if the armed forces were sitting on the charges, then he did the right thing.
But also important: now that he HAS gone to the media with it, the involved branches of the military have to show that an investigation took place or is in process.
The response from the Ft. Lejeune captain (I think this is what Tony was refering to earlier: http://www.newsobserver.com/nati...-9267816c.html)
doesn't cut it. It's not enough. Claiming that there is only one report on file implies that Tony is correct in saying that the armed forces refuse to investigate most of what he described (again, I trust that if he said he filed multiple complaints, then there are multiple complaints on file). If there are investigations taking place, someone has to describe their scope and what state they are in.
The main reason that publicity is a mistake is because of how bad the news coverage is. A sensible response is that the actions of a few do not tarnish the reputation of all the soldiers. Every organization has bad people in it. Self-policing is important to maintaining the high standards which give the army its honorable reputation. A good news report would explain this and would show how an investigation is proof of integrity. Unfortunately, to steal from Rumsfeld: you do not go to war with the news organizations that you want, you go to war with what you have.
I really dislike the idea of giving the liberal media more material to work with. I also find it hard to offend people I am indebted to. But the reason the armed forces have such a reputation is because the vast majority of them are honorable. That reputation won't be damaged by a few investigations.
Jeremiah? I hope this is not this Jeremiah all dressed up and reasonable like...
But in any case... What Tony described is grounds for a war-crimes investigation.
Wrong, you investigate based on evidence, and not hearsay, or else why waste all of those man-weeks digging stuff up? Tony has no evidence, so what, the job of the government is to keep digging until they prove him right? I thought we deposed the Baath party, not adopted it into the US constitution.
Besides, even the worst of what Tony described hardly fits 'torture' unless you will stipulate that we torture every class of BUD/S, Recon, and Rangers, not to mention the rest of our ground pounders.
Brad,
That's not me by a long shot. That website is almost the total opposite of what I think about the administration and the war. Most people who think that way haven't left the safety of college 'radicalism'.
Tony is a witness. That's evidence. It's not enough evidence to convict, but it is enough evidence to start an investigation. Maybe the investigation is short because there isn't enough evidence. Maybe the investigations have already all been completed. But they have to be done.
You imply that doing the investigations would waste too much time and energy. In some crimes that is a valid argument for not doing an investigation. But IF that's a standard for war-crimes accusations, I want to hear someone in the army say that and defend their reasoning. I strongly doubt that that will be their position.
The ice-water hypothermia and beating prisoners in their homes are both torture.
Environmental hypothermia (in a mild climate) and the use of muzzled military working dogs might be torture. I don't really consider them torture, but I haven't thought about it long enough.
The same two words describe Tony as they do John Kerry: Benedict Arnold. And Jeremiah, nice to see you carrying water for your friend but you're arguments are just as implausible as his. You have apparently not read a word that Froggy and many other posters who, I would say, are far more knowledgeable about absolutely everything your friend thinks that he is. The worst part of this whole debacle is that other than blogs and Yon the real story, thanks to the MSM, is never heard.
jeremiah, forgive me if I mistook your identity. But again, you might as well sequester me to be a witness at the Enron trial as investigate the SEALs with the 'evidence' that Tony has. Whatever experience he has, he can hardly speak about SEALs or Recon and even his own army unit.
And no, beating prisoners in their homes is not, necessarily, 'torture;' it could be run-of-the-mill 'assault,' if it is not accidental (like parking your butt in front of a door when it's breached, smashing a nose) or justifiable (resisting arrest). Like Abu Ghraib was abuse (panty-turbans do not make torture), other laws exist on the books and should be countenanced before torture is thrown out. Based on evidence. Thus the original sin of the discussion; charging without evidence.
Anthony,
Who stonewalled you at the line units? Was it the TOC NCOIC or were you able to get down to the executing platoons? Did you cultivate relationships with the grunts or not? Were you able to go out and see what they were doing and how they conducted their missions and give them feedback to make their job easier? Was this something you came up with a plan for and then sugggested to your command?
As an interrogator, you were handed detainees who may have been ruined for intel value by their treatment - your turf. Furthermore, you were not getting enough info from the line units to be able to question the detainees - again your turf. You have ample reason to personally get in someone's face or to work the face to face contacts to fix things.
The few times the BN or BDE TOC NCOIC dicked with my collection teams or our LRRPs, either our NCOIC or myself drove over to the TOC and worked things out right away. Once the line units understood what we could do for them, they worked us into their missions and embedded us in their operations.
And I don't understand your reluctance to make Sergeant as this would mean you can influence the situation to make it better for all involved.
Red River,
email me when you have some time.
RR- why do I think we'll not get a response to that? (assuming Froggy would let it in if there were one).
I think we all know by now...
Froggy, how many times would you guess you were hypothermic in BUD/S and as a SEAL? Just wondering as a tangent to this discussion.
Here's the key passage from the PBS interview:
"Well I joined because I wanted to learn Arabic. I had no interest in interrogation. And this was before 9/11, so I didn't even expect we would go to war."
I think we get the picture, Tony. Smart kid finds the arab world interesting, realizes the military has the best intensive language training available, signs up figuring he'll never have to 'play army', then gets stuck in a combat zone interrogating people he has romanticized in his mind...
But we're reading this all wrong, eh Tony?
In the interests of full disclosure, I have banned Tony from the comments because I felt that he was using them to slander people and had failed to present anything approaching "evidence" of war crimes or torture. I felt that I had given him a fair opportunity to present his side of the matter and that he was ultimately unconvincing and frankly disingenuous toward the people he was accusing. If he wants to email me to appeal this decision, then I will reconsider it. He has already emailed other commenters and here is a sample from one of those emails, "By the way, I am smarter than many of my former leaders. You know that is true. You can't be in the military for 22 years without realizing that idiots rise up in the ranks."
So that pretty much sums up his attitude and by the way that jibes perfectly with my speculatory statements made in the initial post. I feel like we know what we need to about Tony, and if he wants to make some more media appearances to show the world how much smarter he is, then he can do it somewhere else.
As to my hypothermia in BUD/S, yeah, I remember that happening more than once! When I got out of the water after our 5.5 nautical mile open ocean swim in 2nd Phase, my body temperature was 92.3F. That swim lasted 3 hours and 28 minutes (and my pair came in 4th place) but I don't remember considering it torture.
I quit watching Frontline years ago, because of its leftist tilt. Why watch something you know is full of half-truths and outright lies? You can get those on any national "news" report every day.
Because somebody has to be there to call bullshit when they do it.
Brad,
Tony's evidence IS slim, which is why I've backed off something I said originally. I started out saying: "if Tony said x happened, it happened." Reading more about it, I realized he's saying he saw evidence of crimes, not the crimes themselves. OK, a mistake on my part. Unfortunately, the change doesn't let everyone off the hook. It means that more evidence has to be gathered. That's why there needs to be an investigation (or record of an investigation having been done).
Also, you're right that it might not be 'torture'. In a busy conversation I just grabbed the word of the day for convenience. If something happened, it might be 'assault'. But, although that might be significant difference in court, it doesn't make much of a difference at this point in the discussion. Both torture or assault of POWs are crimes. If a broken bone or something happened during capture, that's obviously not a crime. But if a unit was intentionally breaking prisoners' bones after capture, that's a crime. Whether or not that happened (and, if it did, why) is what needs to be investigated.
The original sin of this post: charging soldiers with war crimes in a public forum without evidence, is what bothers me the most about defending Tony. Leveling such accusations can only be justified if the army has resisted doing the proper investigations. What bothers me is that I don't know whether this happened. I knew we wouldn't be hearing from PBS whether the army had done anything to investigate the question (since the goal of the documentary was to portray the army as evil). Tony wrote above that he "sent this up through the chain of command several times and nothing happened." That's vague, and it might mean either that there were no investigations or that the result of the investigations wasn't what he thought the proper result should be (Weatherby's charge).
This is why I want to hear from an army spokesman about what exactly has been done about Tony's written complaints. If his complaints were properly investigated (and he was informed of such), he did the wrong thing in going public like this. If they weren't, though, he did right.
On a minor note: Comparing his accusations to what people have volunteered for doesn't really apply. The willingness of the subject is vital to the question. Consider the legality of sex with a partner who is willing compared to one who is unwilling. One is something that people volunteer for all the time; the other is rape.
Let's see:
-I have "evidence" that Tony is making fanciful and nonsensical statements... in my opinion, and that's all that counts.
- I can produce "witnesses" to these events: they're all in County lockup, but that does not mean they wouldn't lie to me, right? I also have a lot of handwritten notes about what a guy told me he heard from another guy who was drinking in a bar with a guy who saw the whole thing, he swears he did...
- I have no actual eyewitness testimony, just "evidence" and "eyewitnesses"
- I conclude that Tony is on heroin, crack, LSD and cat laxatives AND is huffing Aquanet White hairspray; and I DEMAND a full investigation and a Federal trial.
- The one complaint I provably made was investigated and came up empty: I feel that since the investigative body didn't agree with me, it must be wrong and corrupt.
- I now go to a news outlet I KNOW is mortally opposed to everything Tony stands for and give them an hour-long tape of my unfounded allegations.
I am now as honorable as Tony. Right?
Jeremiah,
Ref: the above
So then you're pretty much talking out of your a**.
Never pass up an opportunity to shut your mouth, as the saying goes...
"By the way, I am smarter than many of my former leaders. You know that is true. You can't be in the military for 22 years without realizing that idiots rise up in the ranks."
It's called the "Peter Principle." It states that "everyone rises to the level of his own incompetence." It happens sometimes, and you'll find it in ANY large organization, from the military, to corporate America, to (believe it or not) university faculties. Sucking it up and dealing with it is just part of being a professional. It's also worth noting that being "smarter" isn't the same as knowing more.
MENSA is full of failures.
Tony and Jeremiah are one and the same. Tony's obviously intelligent. He's trained in intel, and so would be smart enough to play the "good cop, bad cop" routine on a comment thread. He's playing both "characters" in a play designed to make himself look good.
My evidence? Like Tony, I have none but I'm passing my theory on anyway.
Having said that, the writing styles are very similar (excellent spelling and grammar, well thought out ideas, obvious thought behind the posts), despite the relative shortness ad curtness of Tony's posts and the longer more verbose Jeremiah posts.
Further, no public acknowledgement by Tony of Jeremiah, who claims to know him and is defending him. If someone publicly defended me, I would be sure to publicly thank him for it.
And my last hunch: Jeremiah's posts are sandwiched by Tony's posts. When Tony was commenting, we saw nothing from Jeremiah. When Jeremiah posts, we see nothing from Tony.
-Jake
Here's a recent photo of douche rocket Tony, a zit on the ass of the US military.
Drat, the HTML didn't work. http://www.killertoys.com/prodpics/blue falcon.gif
Sorry--meant to say Tony's posts are sandwiched by Jeremiah's.
It just seems too convenient, overall: the pro-war friend on a pro-war blog who knows the anti-war former military guy. ...
-Jake
same ol' same ol'
Kerry and the whole "Winter Soldier" crap did the same dance.
Military types.... Stand by for a ram!!
See:http://ice.he.net/~freepnet/kerry/
douglas,
Again, you're being too hard on my Benedict Arnold-in-arms. I can tell we are two rotten peas in a pod, so please lay off him.
After all, I signed up for the Navy, after not being successful in trying to dodge the draft, because I knew the Vietnamese didn't have a Navy to speak of. That way, I could look cool, avoid any real potential danger from the enemy, and add this service time to my CV, in order to serve my future political aspirations by becoming even more Kennedyesque to the public.
When I finally did take to the swift boats, I made sure to take a typewriter and 8mm camera with me in order to record my "heroism" for posterity. Of course, I ended up looking like a Big Foot goofus, but that's besides the point.
While I'm not really sure what happened in-theater, as I've told so many different versions of so many different stories, and everyone knows what a tangled web we weave when first we practice to deceive, I do know I did one or more of the following:
a) witnessed war crimes and atrocities first-hand, but did nothing to try and stop them.
b) eye-witnessed war crimes and atrocities, but did not bother to even report them up the chain-of-command.
c) actually committed war crimes and atrocities myself
I then wrote myself up for at least a couple of bogus Purple Hearts, left my men behind after only 4 months, and came back stateside, in order to provide secondary-source, hearsay evidence aka slander against truly noble warriors, which resulted in these veterans being spat on and called "baby killers" when returning home, and the US pulling out before the job was done, resulting in 2 to 3 million innocent and defenseless Laotians, Cambodians, and South Vietnamese being murdered and held in totalitarian chains the past 30 years.
Additionally, I found time to not report an assassination plot against 6 US Senators proposed at a KC VVAW meeting, time to contribute to "The New Soldier", with a cover mocking the marines and navy corpsman that raised the flag at Iwo Jima, and time to meet with Madame Binh et al in Paris at least once.
To summarize, I believe Anthony Laquor-anus and I to be cut out of the same cloth and deserving of the same respect and admiration. After all, it's not every day that such opportunistic, prevaricating, slanderous, and treasonous poseurs, literally and figuratively, get away with murder and don't get court-martialed, drawn, and quartered, which is obviously what we deserve.
i have to admit that you all seem to be pretty biased yourselves. while it is true that he was not an eye witness, that does not immediately make his statements worthless or baseless. as someone pointed out, it is not solid direct evidence, but it sounds like enough to start an investigation. a few other nuggets in my humble opinion:
it is quite possible to be smarter than the vast majority of people in your chain of command. i know for a fact that i am smarter than the vast majority of officers, even when i was an E-4. and we all know there's plenty of idiot lieutenants that don't know shit from shinola.
E-4's in MI are often in the know, and in the middle of everything. and often they aren't. rank in army MI is often irrelevant and it is not strong evidence of tony's credibility or lack thereof.
none of you know more than he does about the specific allegations that were made by his subjects. while it is true that the terrorists are trained to allege torture, it doesn't mean they're all lying. in fact, we know they're not all lying because military members have been prosecuted and convicted for assault and murder of detainees. i find it reasonable and logical to deduce that something *specific* happened from multiple sources if they were properly seperated, which is what tony alleged.
the seals, on at least one occaision, had use for an MI army e-4, mainly because of his arabic language skills. he was brought on an operation. this i know for a fact. so it is not totally preposterous that an army e-4 would have direct knowledge, and very easy to believe that someone in tony's position would have heard about the various interrogation techniques being employed by various units from multiple independant sources, thus making it credible information without first hand knowledge.
going to the media was probably not a good idea. discussing interrogation methods in the public is definitely not a good idea. i understand that someone could get frustrated if they perceived nothing was being done about the alleged activities, but a more appropriate channel would have been up the IG chain or to members of congress behind closed doors. i'm sure there are some dems out there that would have been happy to have an audience with someone about torture.
anyway, my point is not that tony is right, or that he is wrong, but it is plausible that he is right, and that is pretty much as conclusive as we can get without a lot more evidence. if you want to blame the MSM for being biased, you must seek to be objective yourself. some criticism of tony is justified, but hard conclusions are inappropriate. and bowing to the level of attacking tony personally is totally uncalled for and really drags one down to the level of the MSM and dems personally attacking everyone and everything. tony did not attack anyone personally. accusing a group or individual of crimes is not a personal attack. he didn't say seals or force recon or whoever were arrogant pricks, or pieces of shit or otherwise impune their character. he said they took specific actions, which he understood to be against the law. if you think those actions are justifed, that's a good argument, but it doesn't change the fact that they are illegal. and if you think SOF should be above the law, you can argue that too, but it's a bad idea to put anyone above the law. tony made a mistake by going on TV, but it was just a mistake. he may in fact be a complete piece of crap, but i don't think we have anything dispositive on that.
MI guy,
Yeah, you're right. Just like me passing on secondary-source, hearsay evidence and claiming there were widespread war crimes and atrocities being committed up-and-down the chain-of-command should not have been construed as a "personal attack" or an attempt to "impune their character". Geez, Louise, why should they have been so overly sensitive? After all, I was only giving aid-and-comfort to the enemy and accusing truly noble warriors of being rapists, pillagers, and baby killers. What was the big deal? Really!
"as someone pointed out, it is not solid direct evidence, but it sounds like enough to start an investigation."
It seems we've heard this several times. How do we know that there wasn't an investigation? Didn't Langouranis claim to have spoken to a CID agent. Last I knew, that's what those guys are paid to do -- investigate.
he didn't claim widespread atrocities, rape or baby killing. he made very specific, limited allegations of activities that none of us reasonably belive are outside the realm of possibility. military members have been prosecuted and convicted for assaulting and killing detainees, crimes worse than the ones he alleges. you damage your own credibility by devolving the debate in personal attacks and by politicizing it by analogizing it to kerry.
As a noble activist, so morally outraged by what he saw, and who begins to suspect that his reports are getting squashed, one would think Tony would have begun to keep copies of his reports and any other data/intel to back up his claims.
His failure to produce any such documentation is (to me) rather telling.
As a side note, based on my experience in the Corps, ANYbody that flat refuses promotion TWICE is processed for an admin sep, which results in a "general under honorable conditions" discharge, not Honorable. He may have gotten an "honorable" discharge, but he certainly didn't serve honorably. It would be interesting to see which his was.
Call me pretentious, but a one-tour E-4, bright guy or not, simply doesn't have the context to evaluate a lot of what he sees within the Big Picture. Also, given the length of boot camp, language school, etc., I have to wonder how much "fleet" time this guy has.
This Tony guy sounds like an idealist, probably lefty in his political leanings, but emotionally immature. What he saw and heard didn't mesh with the worldview he had in his head, and so like an well-intentioned but ultimately misguided kid, he tries to do the "right thing" and gets his feelings hurt when no one will listen.
More than anything he sounds like the wrong guy in the wrong job, now doing the wrong thing for what he sees as the right reasons.
MI Guy, it is also plausible that members of the SEALs and Force Recon are racist and drug abusers, but it would be ludicrous to start a running investigation based on a 'reasonable' man's interpretation and someone's charges.
Tony has no direct, and hardly any substantive indirect, evidence for his charges. Regardless whether it is reasonable or not, you send that up the chain of command; you do NOT go UNODIR and take matters into your own hand. Because it is also reasonable that the charges are untrue.
Nor does it matter to invoke the near tautology that somewhere, someone is involved in a crime. That's not good enough. Look at what just happened in Spain, a judge has ordered the arrest of a US tank crew, cleared by a US investigation. Judge, he didn't care, it's the appearance that matters to him. Nothing less than a conviction will resolve the appearance of impropriety for some people. Thanks Tony, for extending that appearance to several major commands, across branches of service, almost, it seems, across theatres.
Hell, it doesn't even matter if Tony gets a hattrick on his charges, if they're all true; like not reading the miranda rights in an arrest, he has acted grossly irresponsibly by going public and literally endangered trigger-pullers, MI guys, and all the rest without knowledge.
Did anyone bother to read the article that "jeremiah" linked to from the Raleigh paper?
"The camp had an open-door policy for the detention facility. Iraqi officials dropped in, as did the Red Cross and Red Crescent. Journalists went so often that public affairs officers stopped bothering to escort them, Nevers said.
"If you've got all these prisoners coming in battered, bruised, with broken bones, it would have been noticed by the stream of visitors," he said."
I'm an old Navy guy. Don't know shit about MI or any of that stuff. But I damn sure know that if the fricking Red Cross, Red Crescent AND journalists could come and go at will, that we wouldn't have needed Tony's "courageous" actions to hear about the abuse.
My bullshit detector just sounded general quarters, all hands on deck.
Tony -- Post your entire military record.
"refused promotion"
I seriously doubt if you were offered/eligible for promotion.
I served for 7 years as a naval officer, never heard of anyone refusing promotion. I did, however, deal with many enlisted sailors who were not eligible for promotion.
I had a Boatswain's Mate chief who had previously worked with the Seals and Delta force - They never discussed their activities with him. And he was the best coxswain Delta force had ever used. (that is a quote from a citation he received from Commander, 6th Fleet)
I'm not going to comment directly on the documentary, Tony or the charges he made, since I am in no position to determine the truth of any of them. My question is, would there ever be a situation in which it would be ok to "rat" on people you served with? Because as a Christian, my relationship to God and his law supersedes EVERY other relationship here on earth, whether that be between myself and man-made laws, or me and other men. If I look the other way when wrong is being done, God isn't going to care if I was being loyal to the brotherhood of those I served with, of if I was trying to bring down some so-called war of imperialism; He is going to care about what I did with the truth. Period.
Jake,
I'm going to use your post as an excuse to leave the conversation. I think I've overstayed my welcome.
If I am ever in Tony's position and want to create an imaginary internet buddy whose got my back, I'm going to try to invent someone less dorky than me. I'll also try for someone who is a little more of a friend than I have been.
The reason I didn't interject while Tony was in the mix was because people were asking specific questions about things I have no knowledge of. I didn't even know what all the acronyms meant.
But ultimately your charge is something against which I cannot defend myself. It is false, but nothing I offer as proof would be different than what the imaginary doppleganger-who-can-simultaneously-flawlessly-
play-a-civilian-and-a-soldier-on-the-internet would say.
Also, I've talked too much. I don't know you; I don't know Froggy, I have no right to hijack his website to stand on a little commentator's soapbox--something I guess I have already done. I can certainly understand why you are angry about this. The main problem with the war is not the soldiers' actions but the lack of civilian support. We civilians owe our comfort and safety in these last four years to you who have been to war. I know that, and I hate taking the position I have taken on this question. Having said everything I think is important, and probably way, way too much of it, I'm going to shut up.
Fascists
Jeremiah,
For what its worth, I know that you and Tony are different posters. At least you have different IP addresses. Your input is welcome if not necessarily agreed with here, but if you must step aside then do as you wish.
Anthony Lagouranis:
I have three questions:
1) Exactly what steps occurred leading you to be interviewed on Frontline? Did Frontline seek you? Or, did you seek Frontline?
2) Were you compensated in any form, including soft compensation (gifts, gratuities, and the like) or hard compensation (cash or contracts leading to cash) to appear on Frontline?
3) Were you prepped by Frontline producers or legal advisors of the questions to be asked before you filmed the Frontline segment? Did you see the final version of the Frontline show before it was aired. Did you agree with it's overall depiction of your case. If so please explain.
"My question is, would there ever be a situation in which it would be ok to "rat" on people you served with? Because as a Christian, my relationship to God and his law supersedes EVERY other relationship here on earth, whether that be between myself and man-made laws, or me and other men."
Even if the "truth" would get innocent people killed? There's a delicate balance here. You don't go shooting off your mouth if it means more death. That's just as much a sin.
What is it they say? "Loose lips sink ships." Or one's head lopped off because some Islamof--khead decided one wasn't worthy of life because of some propangandistic, anti-US crap.
I'd have one more huge question for Tony: if all of this was going on and you were truly reporting this many times up the chain of command, then where are all the copies of these report? Part of the 'grand conspiracy', no doubt.
The torturing with ice water seems pretty bloody outlandish, given where they were. Would not a hot box make a bit more sense??
OK I haven't had time to read all of this..But if you want some peace, serenity for a month or 2 or at least durning the holidays of happy times..just don't watch PBS.. or for that matter CNN..Half of my family works for these people and you are better off not giving anything on these stations this much attention.
Last word for me: Tony took testimony, performed interviews, started an ad hoc investigation, and passed report(s) up the chain of command. WHen he got out he went to the media and spilt whatever he had to spill. Fine.
But Tony isn't CID. He had a job to perform, to get actionable intelligence to save Marines, and SEALs, sailors, soldiers, and airmen. Tony wasn't part of a judicial system, 'Matlock' as Froggy says, so my question is, in all of these interviews, all of those families of 14 brought in, how much time was spent doing your job and how much time was spent on this HardCopy BS? Seems like you are awfully trusting of the Iraqis, maybe your sympathies caused you to miss certain things, huh?
Seems like a reasonable assumption, maybe someone should investigate if Tony wasn't derelict in his duties or turned to the other side. Not fun is it, Tony, being on the other side?
what are the facts?
he said something that he couldnt be sure of except for personal conclusions. on its own ok, but matched up with being used on Frontline it starts to build up against him.
I can totally understand all the ad oms becuase he never addresses that central point of evidentiary rules. He's like a lock they could make a key for.
He found a way to say something but not really say anything and he doesnt seem to notice that that might piss somebody off in a war.
Every thing he said about soldiers having a duty to stop crime was altruistically noble but it still doesnt addressthe question of why he had tosay something wouldnt be proven.
there's a rat right there..
Go ahead and shit on him, he obviously considers himself a victim and is taking it personally. the irony is that what is happening to him is exactly what he did to other people and he can'tfigure out why theyre doing it to him just like we can't figure out why he did it to us.
You can't open your mouth without a case. you just can't and all the altruistic nobility doesnt mean anything, otherwise you just have to take the arrows.
The Armed Services during peacetime and the Armed Services during wartime are totally different. When the action starts they put people into slots they wouldve never dreamed of letting them near during lulls. The guy didnt realize that he was being used and that nomatter what his gut and head tells him he just can't open up to the press without something tangible or he will just get shit on.
Actually, years from now it'll finally dawn on him that what he did in the Army, despite all the violence and sloppyness, was a fucking miracle and freed thousands.
Its sad that people make bad choices even if they don't understand why.
What really pissed me off about the whole thing is that TAXES PAY FOR PBS!!
They walked right in there and went right after the morale of a unit fighting for freedom and knew just what to ask. Why?
I really don't digthe idea of the MSM getting all cozy with E-4's too. Something just isnt right with all that. Seems too set up to me.
"The prisoners might lie, but it is hard to believe they could all tell us the same lie."
Al-Quaeda trains itsm menber to make false charges about prisoner abuse. You have to conisider the possiblity the AQ prisoners are conspiring to raise false charges against US military.
Iacobus,
Naturally you wouldn't just randomly go shooting off your mouth if it means innocent people would die; the question I asked is, is there any situation under which it is commendable to "blow the whistle"?
Yes, it is sad that blowing the whistle on wrongdoing often plays into the media's hands. But another way to deny the media fodder for their anti-American agenda is to not do anything that would be worthy of having a whistle blown against it! I say this out of a desire to see American efforts in Iraq, Afghanistan and the rest of the world prevail, and for America to be known for conducting itself justly.
Jeremiah-
For what it's worth, and even if you are Tony in disguise, you defended him well. You add a personal knowledge of his character, and you speak to your evaluation of his integrity and idealism. That's good, and even if he didn't publicly acknowledge your support, I hope he did so privately.
Your points, despite being well expressed, are probably not enough to change most of our minds that what Tony has done by going to the press with his accusations is wrong--some (not me) may say traitorious i.e., the comparisons to Kerry.
What bothers me has been said more eloquently by others in this thread: taking it to the press will not necessarily result in the resolution he seeks. Instead, it provides ammunition to our enemies, both foreign and domestic, which will ultimately result in more deaths.
He may have the best of intentions, and I applaud that he has the courage to confront what he thinks is a wrong. However, he lacks the proof to convince me, and he made the fatal (literally) mistake of going to the press because he...shall we say, didn't think it through completely.
As we say in the military, good initiative, bad judgement. Good idea, bad execution.
-Jake
Gee. Wonder if this guys comments we blared all over Al-Jazeera's airwaves?
MI guy, and anyone else who feels we've been unfair here to Tony- He has gotten AT LEAST as fair a level of treatment as he gave those he accused. I'd say, with a couple of exceptions, far better. He also had the privilege of contesting points raised against him, and had at least one supporting voice. Not to mention, I'm sure (though I've not looked) that he's being hailed as some kind of hero elsewhere.
If you bring up essentially rumor as evidence of abuse/torture by your 'peers' in the MSM in wartime, you'd damn well better be able to back it up. Period. Even here where he's had specific questions asked, and multiple opportunities to support his 'cause', he has failed miserably, simply continuing to spew vagueries and rumors cloaked as 'fact'. In the meantime, his own words paint a picture of him that is less than flattering, to say the least. There is a damn sight more evidence against him presented in this comment string than he ever presented against those he accused- unless he comes up with some pics or docs to back it up...
Enough with the 'let's go easy on him' routine. This guy may well get/have gotten someone else killed. I say that with no hyperbole intended.
jeremiah: I haven't read through the entire thread, but just have to say this. If you want to know what torture looks like, read "A Man Called Intrepid" which is a factual account of the "spy" world during WW II. Nothing I've read to this point (Tony just got banned) sounds anything like what I read. While the SEALs hypothermia torture sounds like torture, as a Canadian that actually needs to KNOW about hypothermia to get through our winters okay, I can tell you this about hypothermia: You (the subject of said hypothermia) actually feel WARM because your blood quits circulating to your extremities, as a defense against the cold. As a result, you remove more clothing to "cool off" which... speeds the process. When hypothermia truly "hits" you go to sleep.
How is that torture?
Over the last four years the United States of America has freed over 25 Million people from tyranny. We (the U.S.) are at war. It also happens that we are at war with the Main Stream Media and their “Useful Idiots” (liberal, hate America types). The MSM et al. is in a war for the hearts and minds of the U.S. citizen. The MSM is not omnipotent. They are bleeding money like nobody’s business. I believe that the bloggers (like Matt) are our best hope to keeping them on the defense. It saddens me to think what the U.S. would be capable of if the MSM were on our side. We could have freed probably twice that many people from tyranny. Iran would be voting on a president and/or constitution now, and women would be able to vote in Saudi. People in North Korea would get more than a 1000 calories per day, and China and Russia would be rethinking their positions.
Specialist Anthony Lourganis is a soldier that committed a transgression. He broke the faith with his fellow warriors and played right into the hands of the MSM. He cites all kinds of combinations of reasons, procedures and rules for what he did, and he probably believes in his actions. Back in the day, we used to call these guys “shithouse lawyers.” But no matter what conclusion he comes to, he still broke the faith. What can we learn from this? I think we need to get back to basics. We need to get back to instilling duty and honor to each and every one of the lowest ranking Basic Trainees. Let them know that eggs are busted when omlettes are made.
When you go to war, you might see a dead body! You might have to make a couple of humans “uncomfortable” … Hell… you may even have to bust someone’s foot with an ax head. Then show them some training films. You know, the ones that are being circulated on the internet by the islamofascists themselves. Show the troop it’s a ROUGH world out there! You and your buddies will only make it through if you stick together and keep the faith. Jody, the “stay-at-home liberal” will always be there to criticize you. Don’t even give him the time of day. Or, as one Marine General said, (I’m paraphrasing) “Wink at his girlfriend, because you and she both know he’s a pussy.”
I’m pretty sure the “subjects” of these terrorist films didn’t recover. I’m equally sure that our prisoners survived the hypothermia and a smashed foot. We treat our prisoners a Hell of a lot better than they treat theirs. Ask Nick Berg… oh… I guess you can’t. Even with our flaws, we are still a Force of Goodness in the world. Though we have one arm tied behind our back by the MSM and their Useful Idiots, WE WILL PREVAIL!!!
Just a few thoughts:
I believe that morality and the military have long been at odds. While I cringe at the attrocities that the Military inflicts upon good people in Iraq (abu grahib being only one example), I also know that these same tactics, if not used against bad people, would show that we are weak. The results of these tactics I cannot speak to.
Is there abuse? Absolutely. This is just the latest report about it.
Do military personnel get carried away? I think that has been answered and shown in pictures. Mistakes happen.
Is it still happening? You're a fool if you think everything is "peaches and cream" in Iraq. This is a tough place. It's a war zone. It takes tough guys to get the job done.
Taking a moral point of view in the military sometimes bring criticism (see all above comments). Standing for that position in the face of the criticism brings ridicule and scorn.
No one wants to hear about the dark secrets of the military and how normal people make mistakes. It happens. It happens and is typically internally handled (or not as the case may be). Tony certainly talked about it.
Among the good soldiers who no doubtedly serve in Iraq (I love the Michael Yon blog describing the situation in Mosul), there are also those soldiers who are bad. Every society has a mixture of good and bad apples, the military is no different, and Tony has pointed that out.
Is everything that Tony says true? To him it is. He knows his story, we do not.
Should we believe it? You make your own choice about that. The military is a family of sorts and taking potentially damaging information to the press is seen as breaking the family and hurting the "cause". It is not tolerated. While what Tony says may be true, showing this to the media was not a good idea. It doesn't matter if no one acted on the information ... keep it to yourself.
We are fighting a very difficult war in Iraq. Who is the bad guy? He looks just like the good guy. Are all bad guys of the same value to the military? Of course not.
I admire all the men and women who defend our country. Having and expressing different points of view is part of what makes this country great.
One word for Tony, "PUNK"
Froggy,
My television hasn't been on since the beginning of summer. When I read a NYT Review of this program, I briefly considered watching it, but two things occurred to me -
1. I doubted I'd be enlightend with any compelling new information.
2. With a Republican commitee recently proposing cuts to PBS and the NEA, this wouldn't help the cause for those of us who support these institutions.
Seems like I wasn't wrong.
But just to get a perspective on where you stand with Mr. Lagouranis, I'd like to ask how you feel about Joesph Darby.
I agree with MI guy that rank does not mean much in SOME cases. I knew E4's who could fool native speakers. On person in particular picked up languages so quickly it was as if he knew them all his life. He was so good at his interrogation job that he would go off alone into Arabic speaking communities and come back with answers.
But smart young people lack judgement, patience and knowledge of how the world works. They think knowledge substitutes for human relationships and it does not. Most things in this world cannot be figured out by thinking - but by working hard at it.
Bullseye, RR
Keeping them cold? Dunking them in ice water? Denying them sleep Treating them mean?
How did these detainees qualify for SEAL training?
I was a Marine Infantryman for seven years. We had our share of malcontents in my company, many of whom eventually recieved either BCDs or other-than-honorable discharges for various infractions.
I'm sure that upon arrival home, otherwise in disgrace, they invented all manner of stories to explain their early release. I have never heard anybody say, "I got kicked out because I was a shit bag."
Usually it is some variation of "The Corps wouldn't let me go to my mother's funeral so I went UA" or "I beat up my Drill Instructor."
This is to Froggy, and all other active/reserve/IRR troops here.
I have a couple questions, something that is beginning to, not scare, rather bother and annoy me:
How do these people end up joining, or staying in at all?
Tony, I don't care that you were E-4.
I am in DEP; I leave very soon for RTC, and I have I'd say 80% of the people I know have joined either the Army, Navy or Marines as enlisted, or are currently in OCS or ROTC.
Every time, from now on, you open your mouth, you are endangering these very friends I hold dear, many who went to boot before me, and are already in theater, over there and other places.
More to the point, and perhaps more scary, is, I am slated for a MI billet.
So, Froggy, and other MI/"trigger puller" guys here - is this something that I seriously am going to have to worry about? I know there are assholes everywhere in the world, but, with people like this Tony character putting their beliefs and political and career ambitions AHEAD of other servicemembers wellbeing because he "witnessed injustices".
This is bullshit. So if I am part of something that may be so-called politically incorrect, or possibly construted as "torture" (which I still haven't seen ANYTHING ANYONE has been accused of, US forces over there I mean, as TORTURE; it's not).
Your ideals must take a backseat to people's lifes, and the wellbeing of your troops - I HOPE. Does command throw these people out when they start making wild accusations, or...?
I'll make this very clear: If an American, ally, or servicemembers life is in danger or threatened IN ANY WAY, I will deal with the situation with the appropriate force I DEEM NECESSARY. Anything to keep this country safe; up to and INCLDUING torture...
WHICH BY THE WAY, HASN'T YET BEEN COMMITTED, IN MY EYES, IN IRAQ OR AFGHANISTAN YET. Nothing alleged to have happened so far is "torture", not even close.
I did not join the military for college, or the GI bill, or this other bullshit; I joined to serve.
I have been around the military all 20 years of my life, my entire family is past or present military, except my dad, who is federal LE. Everyone else is a smattering of backgrounds: DIA, USAF,USMC, USN Seabees, etc.
This just really worries me as I have literally almost all of my cousins, friends and damn near everyone I know between 17-30 either in boot, leaving for boot soon, or ALREADY in OIF theater, or "other places".
So MI guys; are even ANY of the stuff this Tony guy is alleging true? I was under the following impressions:
1) E4's wouldn't even when the SEALs are even AROUND (I grew up in Coronado; I think I know what I'm talking about)
2)I doubt Army MI is leading front and center on ANYTHING that sensitive; not to be cliche here, but wouldn't CIA, possibly DIA teams be running point on some of the things he claimed he saw/heard/witnessed. I was under the impression CIA DofO was attached to some teams. Whatever.
3) I was a military cadet for 8 years. I don't tell people stuff I've seen AS A KID, at Coronado, 29, or Pendleton...but SEALS shoot the shit with regular Army? Please. My uncle was DIA since it was FOUNDED in '61, STILL won't tell me even what he did. I just barely found out. For the past 15+ years he was "Navy". Yeah right, apparently.
I'm really hoping that MI has their eye on the ball and on the task(s) at hand, because since I'm entering this field, this is....disheartening, to say the least. I or other servicemembers might die or be POW's because some dumbfuck thinks puching someone in the chest, or holding their head underwater, or anyhting else that happens in major-city bars on a daily basis is torture.
Hopefully the Navy MI program I'm contracted to doesn't have assholes like Tony. Yes, you attained E-4 and yes you served overseas, and I haven't..yet. But I know 8 year olds with more honor than this...this is disgusting...
I'm done.
15NOV-
Thank God we have kids like you in this country. Believe me when I say I would be very proud if my son grew up to have the wisdom, commitment, and patriotism you show here. Knowing you and your friends are the majority of the kind of young people we are getting in the military today, I am optimistic, and proud.
Thank you.
Perhaps the reason some have so unfavorably compared Anthony Lagouranis to John Kerry is because it is perceived by so many that they seem to have so much in common.
First, apologists for Messrs. Lagouranis and Kerry claim that both were motivated by so-called "good intentions". Well, as we have seen repeatedly throughout history, good intentions, when not accompanied by maturity, experience, good judgment, knowledge of the big picture, and acknowledgement of the law of unintended consequences, can lead to disastrous practical results.
Second, both seem to give off the vibe that they believe they are smarter than everyone else, despite empirical evidence to the contrary indicating that neither are probably the sharpest knife in the drawer.
Third, both seem to give more credibility, integrity, and honor to both "the enemy without", aka the Islamofascists, and "the enemy within", aka the old leftstream media (OLM) and their liberal and Leftist co-horts, than they do to their so-called "fellow" warriors. This tacit aid-and-comfort is proffered despite the glaringly obvious fact that the Islamofascists, the OLM, and their DUMO minions are doing everything they possibly can to undermine the United States' GWOT via deliberate disinformation, misinformation, under-reporting of the "good", and over-emphasis of the "bad".
Fourth, since both are supposedly "so smart", they had to know that their intentionally-made-public, but secondarily-sourced, i.e., non-eye-witnessed, claims, would lead their so-called "fellow" warriors to be put in even more danger than they already faced day-in and day-out. In other words, they chose to demonstrate more concern for those attempting to DENY tens of millions life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness than for those so nobly fighting to SECURE life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness so selflessly on behalf of basically total strangers.
Fifth, neither of them seems capable of presenting documented evidence to bolster their claims. Instead, they seem to rely primarily on their belief that if My Lai, Calley, Abu Ghraib, and Englund could have happened, then anything else they might have heard about certainly must have occurred.
While the analogy comparing Laguoranis to Kerry may certainly not be "perfect", what may be especially infuriating, and the source of much perhaps-hyperbolic invective, is that Laguouranis had the benefit of knowing how the Abu Ghraib and Gitmo Koran stories needlessly inflamed the Islamofascist world and put his so-called "fellow" warriors, already in harm's way, in even greater potential danger.
Just think. Abu Ghraib was already being handled "in-house", with investigations ongoing, before the OLM decided to ignore the DoD's request to not publish the prison photos. Englund, Graner, et al were already going to be held accountable. What possible benefit was there to the OLM in releasing the photos? Ratings? Undermining the Administration and our Armed Forces? Despicably, probably both.
In any event, I, personally, doubt the so-called "good intentions" of either Kerry or Lagouranis, and the fact remains that both have done irreparable harm to both the warriors and country they have proclaimed to love. To summarize, with friends like this, who needs enemies? Certainly, one should be able to comprehend the open hostility toward, and outright contempt for, both of these, IMHO, modern-day Benedict Arnolds ... especially given all the above-related observations and history?
.
PBS=Pogue Broadcasting Svc.
The LLL will stop wringing their hands over the poor misunderstood poverty stricken Islamonazis on the day AFTER an Islamic attack on a Moron.org rally.
It pains me to think that there are Americans-for whatever reason- that wish to see our country laid low.
Shame on them and Thank You to those who stand ready.
There are more of us who are FOR you than there are against.
9/11/01 -NEVER FORGET-
I just spoke to my daughter who is currently attending the Defense Language Institute, studying Arabic. She said that the Arabic course is 16 months long , followed by further specialized training. Graduating from the DLI carries an automatic promotion to E4. She is not aware of anybody attending DLI courses who has enlisted for any less than 6 years. The service invests two years of training in you and then gets four years of work out of you. It is not unusual to be an E6 at the end of those six years (and looking at E7 promotion boards if you reenlist).
What does this tell me about Specialist Lagouranis? That he didn't get pronmoted for 4 years. Yes, four years. Either he nobly demurred to honor his ideals, or he was considered to be a ragbag who could only be trusted to carry out the scut work of his MOS.
DJ Chapman
One would also assume then, that if in that position, he would be kept in the dark about pretty much everything by pretty much everyone who actually knew anything. Tony, care to sign off a form 180 for us? We know the PBS folks didn't bother with that, did they?
DJ, Douglas and others in the know,
Ahh the truth about Tony is beginning to come out right here on this very sight. One of the reasons this is the best around. It does seem odd that he would remain in a lower rank for any length of time from what has been described here. I had the misfortune of seeing a part of the program mentioned here and saw Tony and some of his comments. What an embarassment to our armed forces he is.
As I have said here before - doesn't the word treason mean anything anymore?
Rich
OMG what an awesome read!!!
Froggy > Tony
"Graduating from the DLI carries an automatic promotion to E4."
Yes, indeed 
"She is not aware of anybody attending DLI courses who has enlisted for any less than 6 years."
Me included
"The service invests two years of training in you and then gets four years of work out of you. It is not unusual to be an E6 at the end of those six years (and looking at E7 promotion boards if you reenlist)."
Hopefully, I will attain my goal of Warrant Officer. Lot's of work ahead, good training can't wait for it to begin.
Unlike others, apparently, who can't wait for it to end
I am just curious where the hell the SEALS got all that ice? When I was in Baghdad we could only get 2 bags per day.
Yeah, I was wondering that too. I can't even get more than one cube in a drink when I go to Europe...
oh, and Rich- I am "in the know" about nothing, but I can read what people write or say, and dissect it.
After reading these comments for the last couple of days, I forced myself to watch the rerun of Frontline on PBS. Maybe I'm just jaded but I didn't see or hear any evidence of torture. There were allegations, hearsay and lots of supposition, but that was about it.
I guess that the ominous voice of the narrator and the stark photos of the prison with the gate swinging slowly in the background were suppose to give the impression that dreadful things were happening within those walls. It didn't succeed. Frankly, parts of the program were almost laughable and were an insult to the intelligence of the viewer.
There is more information and in depth analysis on this excellent thread than there was in that entire program. And to think we actually have to pay for PBS!
This thread > Frontline
NavyMI - awesome comments! Thank you for your service, best of luck to you, and GET THE BAD GUYS! (I don't care how you do it.) Thank God we live in a country that can produce such as you.
Matt, you and your site are the best debunkers of the anti-military agenda of the MSM, bar none.
This is a great thread!!! You guys all had great comments. I didn't happen to see the Frontline show but I think I can see what happened here. I got suspicious when he didn't accept being promoted. Usually when people don't want that it is because they'd rather not have the increased responsibility for one reason or another.
Hey, this is slightly OT but I wondered what any of you think about the book Jarhead? I am reading it and it seems pretty good but it would be better to know what military people think of it.
15NOV,
Thanks so much for serving our Country! Best of luck to you and stay in touch.
To dellbabe68: Jarhead is a good book. It drags in places, but in others it says things that should be said. I've seen Tony Swofford get attacked by lots of military guys -- Marines, mostly -- but I'm not sure how many of them have actually read his book. It's not a rosy picture, for sure, but it is what it is.
To the Frogosphere: Many of you are being dicks to Tony. You're questioning his integrity and he deserves better than that. You're doing to him what you claim he did to you, it's bullshit, and you should stop.
To Tony: You should have limited yourself to stuff you had seen, first hand. Putting that stuff out on PBS was the wrong forum for it.
To PBS: Why are my tax dollars paying for you?
f
Fred, I don't know if you mean me or not, but especially given your note to Tony, If what he did was a bad decision, then it seems quite justifiable to question his motives. His was not a spur of the moment decision- he had time to think about it and its repercussions, and time to gather solid evidence and present it, yet did neither. Please see my earlier posting @ 10.22.05 - 3:23 am defending our treatment of Tony here.
I believe your comment re: the frogosphere is unfair, if applied generally. If you meant it in a more restricted way, then please be more specific.
For the record, I do not take attacking someone who served in uniform, and particularly in theatre lightly; particularly given that I've done neither.
I write as a civilian who stumbled upon this thread. I am in the complicated position of having supported the Iraq War at the outset because I believed the stories about WMD, and then having changed my mind when those stories were shown to have been lies.
Nevertheless, I don't blame the U.S. soldiers who are there. In fact, I send them stuff through AnySoldier.com and I genuinely wish for "success" In Iraq, although I don't know what that is any more. I don't know what the hell should be done. Part of me says we should get the hell outta there ASAP and another part of me says that would be a disaster.
So now I've just marked myself as a non-purist in this discussion, and as a civilian who doesn't know anything. All I do is pay the bills for it.
I saw the Frontline show and thought it was excellent. Difficult to watch because of the subject matter, but it struck me as well-researched and very much in line with what I have read elsewhere. I've been interested in the torture issue, so I've actually gone to the ACLU's website and read through the documents there that consist of government files. They make for interesting, and highly disturbing, reading.
This site's treatment of Tony Lagouranis is obnoxious. Your argument seems to be that the Frontline show was untrue because Tony was, what, too smart for the Army and therefore bitter and lying? Then, when he comes here to defend himself the webmaster bans him -- at which point more allegations are made to which he cannot respond.
If I were to form my opinions based on impressions of the fairness of the actors in this thread, I'd be hands-down in favor of Frontline and Lagouranis just on general principles. I'd further state that those who are attacking him seem like the bitter ones here. Ad hominems are the last refuge of people without facts; beyond that, you're pretty much ignoring the larger question of torture in this war.
I think it's impossible to conclude anything other than that U.S. troops have been torturing enemy combatants and civilians, and that they've done it as a consequence of official policy that enouraged and in fact ordered it to be done. Many people here don't want to deal with that truth because it is too uncomfortable.
Torture is not only wrong, but it's what losers do. Torture is an act of frustration that very rarely accomplishes its ostensible goal of obtaining useful information. In Iraq, its use has been especially unwise given that the conflict has such immediate political dimensions. And we haven't even gotten to the discussion of what this will do to the future security of American P.O.W.s.
I'm sure this comment will get me banned here. So I guess I should say that I'm not Tony. Don't know him. I'm not John Kerry or Jane Fonda or Al Sharpton or Jesse Jackson, either. If any of you got a 50-pound care package in a 14x14x14 box when you were there, I might be the guy who sent it. To those who served and are back, thank you for your service. To those who are still there, I hope you'll be back safe and sound and soon.
One more comment: If military members are concerned that civilian support for the war is dropping, let me say that those concerns are well-founded. A signficant majority of Americans now oppose the Iraq War. If you think that denying the truth and abusing people who tell the truth is going to shore up support, you're about as wrong as you can be.
So keep talking among yourselves. Keep shooting the messengers. And keep watching your support on the home front slowly but surely slip away.
"Your argument seems to be that the Frontline show was untrue because Tony was, what, too smart for the Army and therefore bitter and lying? Then, when he comes here to defend himself the webmaster bans him -- at which point more allegations are made to which he cannot respond.
"-Old Goat
No. Did you actually read through the thread?
Tony has been accused of THINKING he's too smart for the Army, and a great deal of his own words have been DIRECTLY examined and used against him. Also, He can respond, but he would have to email Froggy, and run it through him. Or, he could post his own site, or on other sites, some of which would love his comments, I'm sure.
I won't even bother with the other things you said, rather non-specifically at that; except to say that I'm very happy that you've taken the time and trouble to send care packages to the troops. That, at least, is highly commendable. It does not however make anything you say correct. If you have specific criticisms about comments on this thread, level them at us- otherwise, it's just blather.
My comment may have gotten lost on this thread, so I'll ask again...
Just to get a perspective on where you stand with Mr. Lagouranis, I'd like to ask how you feel about Joesph Darby?
I think my criticisms were pretty specific, but I guess I need to boil it down. Therefore:
1. Most of the commentary about Lagouranis has consisted of ad hominem attacks.
2. Mr. Lagouranis had the stones to come to this site and take the heat, and for that he was banned. Once he was banned, the accusations kept coming except that now he can't directly respond.
I think that's an unfair, dishonest and, quite frankly, cowardly way to do business.
Oh, and as for whether he has been accused of "being" too smart for the Army or "thinking" he's too smart for the Army, I have two comments.
1. In the context of what has passed for a discussion here, I regard that as a distiction without a relevant difference.
2. In point of fact, I think the original posting did in fact accuse him of being too smart for the Army and becoming bitter because of it. To wit:
"In order to get an assignment like that, a soldier has to be a very intelligent person who was able to score high marks on his ASVAB and subsequent language examinations. It is no secret that not everybody in the Army is a rocket scientist, and this situation makes life somewhat difficult for those people who start to get the feeling that they are smarter than everybody they work with. The Army doesn’t promote or reward you for being the smartest guy in the unit, it promotes and rewards people who demonstrate that they are good soldiers and cheerfully do there jobs with a minimum of complaining. Conforming to this system is often a frustrating experience for people like Lagouranis, and it was clear to me in his interview that he was getting some payback. Payback for the Army that never promoted him past E-4 despite the fact that he was a very intelligent Arabic linguist and all around brilliant individual. Payback for seeing SEALs, Force Recon Marines, and fellow soldiers receiving respect and admiration from his peers for being a bunch of knuckle draggers while he was derided for being a whiner and complainer."
The original posting called Lagouranis too smart for the Army and hypothesized that it made him bitter. Among other things, I might ask Froggy exactly when he became a mind reader, and if he has that talent why he is not using it as an interrogator. It would save everyone a lot of pain and discomfort, wouldn't you say?
OG says:"1. Most of the commentary about Lagouranis has consisted of ad hominem attacks."
Quotes please.
OG:"2. Mr. Lagouranis had the stones to come to this site and take the heat, and for that he was banned. Once he was banned, the accusations kept coming except that now he can't directly respond."
He also 'had the stones' to go on Frontline with hearsay and questionable information, backed by nothing. So what? As for his status on this site, I'll leave that for Froggy.
OG again:"I think that's an unfair, dishonest and, quite frankly, cowardly way to do business."
Would you care to explain haw Tony's accusations are any less ad hominem?
Yet again, OG:"2. In point of fact, I think the original posting did in fact accuse him of being too smart for the Army and becoming bitter because of it."
No, it did not- read it again. It said that he WAS smart (unequivocally), but that he had problems because he thought he was 'TOO smart FOR THE ARMY'. Next time, try posting quotes which support your claims.
If you don't believe that you can figure people out from their own actions and words, then why are you presuming to have all of us figured out by our words?
Good luck explaining that one.
Old Goat,
The guy here with out facts is Tony. Where is his proof? He leveled accusations stemming from hearsay at his comrades in arms. Alot of the guys you criticized for responding to Tony have worn a uniform to protect our freedom of speech. They have as much right as Tony to speak out. Why criticize them for expressing their views about Tony's accusations. Our government has held soldiers accountable for their actions and have sent some to jail. I'm not sure the Geneva Convention applies to the terrorists and the definition of torture is still under debate (Daniel Pearl's family can tell what torture is). Intelligence has determined bin laden told his guys to claim they were torture when captured.
WMD-just because we haven't found alot of it doesn't mean it doesn't exist. We were told by the UN, Clinton Administration, Hillary, John Kerry etc that Saddam had it for a decade. Intelligent reports suspect those 18 wheelers leaving Iraq for Syria prior to the invasion may have exported it to Syria.
Saddam ran the Salmon Pak terrorist training camp 50 miles from Baghdad and harbored Al Zarqawi after he was injured fighting our troops in Afghanistan, etc. Have you noticed the elections taking place recently in Iraq?
You are entitled to your opinion just like everyone else here. Tony doesn't have any proof.
Good for you for the anysoldier.com packages. I use them as well.
OG: "One more comment: If military members are concerned that civilian support for the war is dropping, let me say that those concerns are well-founded."
Ya think? Think it might have a little something to do with the topic of this thread? I.E. Our society receiving one sided reporting that only shows the negative no matter how un-founded and un-proven the report or the person passing the information.
Tony's own rebuttal was a little like "I heard it from a friend who heard it from a fish monger in Tibet" Solid un-deniable proof and he might not have had his Pee pee spanked by the very people he might have endangered to have his 15min of fame.
Doug,
Listen, I support what we're doing in Iraq and in Afghanistan. I also think there's a place for different interrogation techniques at the squad and platoon level, such as the ones Frog was talking about earlier. My criticism of what happened at Abu Ghraib is that it wasn't professional or effective in achieving its goals, and my criticism of those SEALs who got in trouble some months ago is that they provided photographic evidence to those who would blow theit techniques out of all proportion in the media.
Having said that, Frog's post about Tony was pretty dick-ish, and so are a lot of the things I'm seeing in these comments. Tony said what he saw, and what he was told, and he made it clear that his information was second or third hand. He probably now knows that he shouldn't have passed it along to any journalists, and maybe he even regrets his mistake, and perhaps he felt like his charges weren't investigated fully by his chain of command. But that's not the real problem.
The real problem is that PBS is using shitty journalistic techniques.
It has never been hard to find anyone with these second and third-hand stories in the military, in an organization the size of the Army, maybe even someon who believes them. Yeah, Tony screwed up. But if it wasn't Tony, it would have been some other soldier or sailor, pissed off and angry about painting rocks and scrubbing toilets with toothbrushes. The question is: Why did PBS choose to make this into a Frontline piece?
What we're seeing here is a whistleblower in action. We're also seeing the backlash against the whistleblower. History tells us that some whistleblowers are full of shit, and that others are just doing the right thing. Not all of them are liars.
I also blame the officers in charge, who may not have done all they could have to spin this properly. I've read snippets from Al Quaeda training manuals that tell the terrorists, in the event of capture, to make up stories of abuse. Was that in the Frontline piece? I dunno. But it should have been. Either that's a failure of the military PAO's or it's a failure by PBS to be fair to the PAO's.
Bleah. This shit is tiresome and more than a little depressing.
f
I'm not going to debate the war here, and I'm not going to go line by line through all the postings in this thread. If you don't think that Lagouranis has been the target of mainly ad homimem attacks in this thread, there's nothing I can say that would convince you otherwise. I might as well try to convince you that the sun rises in the East.
As for the use of torture and "one-sided reporting," there is a mountain of evidence that the U.S. military has been torturing people and that they've been doing it as the result of a policy that impelled them to do so. Fred S., if you think the Abu Ghraib pics would be taken "out of context," then there should be no objection to releasing the rest of them for the purpose of providing the proper context.
In any case, to ban Lagouranis from the comments section here speaks volumes about how this website and most of its commenters operate. I mean, to read what people have written you'd think that someone's words would be the last thing you'd fear.
And douglas, the original posting never accused Lagouranis of thinking he was too smart for the army. I think it is you, not me, who needs to do his research. Facts: They're what's for dinner.
OG,
I'm definitely not debating with you that there has been some truly heinous crap that has been done since the beginning of the war. What a lot of people are trying to point out though is the "Big Picture". Should he have reported it? Absolutely not with the proof he has NOT provided. Defaming the guy next to you with out proof? On hearsay? BLUE FALCON!
But he did report it. Fine. Do it the right way. Up through the chain as is supposed to happen. Ah, but you say the chain dropped the ball. ARE YOU SURE? It’s not the higher ups reo to reply back and tell you everything that’s going on. Think OPSEC and INFOSEC. If you’re investigating things it’s going to take time and you don’t want everyone knowing there is an ongoing investigation. Tony’s own words were that CID was present.
Was Tony duped by Front line? Most likely. Stating how intelligent you are and you’re Officers were less intelligent than you, opens the door that he SHOULD have known and he is STILL accountable for his actions! What we need to focus on is holding big media to unbiased reporting so you, as a citizen, get the whole truth and can form your opinion from there. Support is down because of trumped up "Special Reports" that have not been proven or disproved.
I also think it set people off because while Tony is at home, all safe and sound, some of us are still in harms way forced to deal with the hornet’s nest he quite possibly stirred up.
Might try and convince me the sun sets in the west, too. LOL
Old Goat,
You're an idiot. Tony said that he was smarter than many above him, or did you miss that part?
Why don't you go piss up a rope, if you don't like the discussion here? You really don't add much to it anyway (unless you count trolling).
Old Goat -
1. As you have noticed, Froggy has not removed your original post or any others that I know of which you posted here.
2. As stated above, Froggy gave Tony the opportunity to post facts here to defend his actions. He did not do so.
3. In the several months which I have viewed and posted on this blog, I have only seen Froggy remove one persons ignorant comments. In fact that was just recently and the comments from the poster were of a sexist nature and demeaning to women. Clearly that had no place here and thus Froggy removed them. In other words - if one places an intelligent comment here, despite whether Froggy doesn't agree with it, he is more than fair in giving everyone their equal time. Having said that though I add this. This site is Froggy's site. Many people that participate here fall into one of the following categories - A. those who have previously served in the armed forces. B. those who are currently serving. C. those of us who have family or friends currently serving. In that regard, did you really think that Tony would get much sympathy here? His actions could potentialy harm those currently serving. It should be no surprise that he would not get hugs and kisses here.
When will the reality of the following facts sink into people?
We are at war.
War is not a picnic.
Terrorists are not our friends and should not be treated as such.
If a terrorist beheads someone - guess what - that is far worse than any alleged torture.
Soldiers who put their comrades at risk are helping the terrorists.
If torture has occured, facts are required to investigate.
Facts are facts and heresay is heresay. They are two very different things.
I respect the fact that you have donated care packages as many of us have and will assuredly continue to do. However, there is more to supporting our troops than that. Defending a disgruntled soldier who gets on National TV and puts his comrades at further risk is not supportive. It is destructive.
As for the media and the ACLU - I will not waste much time commenting on them as others here have done so eloquently and in length. Suffice it to say however, neither are entities I would consider as being suppotive of our troops.
If you feel that commnenters here have been unfair, well then so be it. It is your right to feel that way if you desire to. Please realize however that the same commenters want facts, not heresay or fiction. Further, the same commenters have a clear concern for those soldiers currently serving and those who will serve in the future. Tony's actions put those soldiers at risk and there is NO excuse for that.
Rich
Playin' in Sand, the big picture is that the senior civilian leadership ordered the military to commit torture, and the military complied with those orders. For a whole variety of reasons it never should have been done, and now it's coming back to haunt everyone involved. That is the big picture.
Lagouranis is a piece of the jigsaw puzzle, one of many people who have said essentially the same thing. This site and those who are heaping scorn on Lagouranis are playing a classic shoot-the-messenger game. As for the chain of command, if the orders to torture people were coming down that chain then what use is there reporting back up the chain the abuses are occurring?
Even so, Lagouranis apparently did so. He's not the only one, and there's no shortage of evidence. In most cases, the chain of command ignored the reports of torture. In a few cases the reports were not ignored, and as a result a handful of very low-ranking people got punished. Higher ranks got wrist slaps at worst.
Lagouranis didn't stir up any hornet's nest. He told the truth as he sees it. I wasn't there and wouldn't begin to vouch for his version other than to say that it sure sounded consistent with things I have read in a variety of other official reports.
It's very understandable to me that those who are in the field would be angry. But I think the anger should be directed at the appropriate target: The leaders who ordered the U.S. military to incorporate torture into the treatment of enemy combatants and civilians. There have always been acts of torture during wartime, but when the U.S. used torture as a policy it crossed the Rubicon.
Future soldiers will be paying the consequences of that tragic mistake in judgment. So will the rest this country, because the American use of torture has badly undermined our image throughout the world and has earned us the scorn and hatred of untold millions of people. That's not Tony Lagouranis's fault, it's the fault of George W. Bush, Donald Rumsfeld and those generals who didn't have the integrity and courage to refuse to order their soldiers to commit war crimes.
And let me say one more thing: I don't accuse anywhere close to all American soldiers of doing these things. But the use of torture has, in my opinion, fatally undermined the mission. Deny the reality of torture to your heart's content, but it happened and it was part of a policy. That's the facts, and societies that don't face facts lose wars.
----------------
thebronze, I just went to the PBS website and read the transcript of the interview with Lagouranis. He never said that he "was smarter than many above him." Please post a link to the section of his interview where he made that statement. Or are you just going to attack me like others have been attacking Lagouranis?
And, like I've written before, for a website to attack someone and then forbid him to answer his attackers is unfair, dishonest and, frankly, corwardly.
Somehow I really don't feel too bad about not giving Tony a venue to peddle his third party sea stories. This thread was started as a discussion of Tony's completely unchallenged contentions made on a nationally televised broadcast that offered absolutely nothing in the way of opposing opinion or even skepticism of Tony's charges. I gave Tony (as far as I know it's him) ample opportunity to describe that actions he PERSONALLY WITNESSED and all he did was repeat stories that he heard about Navy SEALs and Force Recon Marines from captured terrorists.
During the height of the insurgency when Tony was in Iraq, Army infantry units would pick up huge numbers of people in sweeps to find out that maybe 10% of them were actually bad guys. Tony made one very generalized claim about some of these detainees getting mistreated, but offered no names, units, dates, locations or anything other than rumors.
During this same time period, the SEAL platoons were working hand in glove with the CIA reacting to intel from CIA informants sometimes withing 90 minutes. To conduct a direct action mission with 90 minutes notice means that you generally have ZERO intel on the target except that Abdul so and such is there. No surveillance, no enemy order of battle, just charging into EXTREMELY DANGEROUS NEIGHBORHOODS at 0300 and snatching terrorists from a residence that you have never had "eyes on". Let me let you in on a little secret, the SEAL platoons doing these ultra high risk operations didn't invite Tony Fucking Lagouranis Super Specialist Interrogator to go with them on these ops. In fact, as opposed to the Army units capturing 10% bad guys, these missions resulted in 90% "conviction rate" meaning 9 out of 10 people snatched were hardcore terrorist and subsequently convicted by Iraqi authorities of such. These detainees ALWAYS fiercely resisted capture and frankly under the ROEs could have been shot dead but were not in order to preserve their intel value. Army MI did not conduct the interrogations of these detainees, the CIA did. Tony wouldn't get his hands on these guys until the CIA was done with them. The CIA has its own interrogators and doesn't need Army E-4s like Big Tony to do their heavy lifting for them. The people that the SEALs were getting were all AQ resistance trained operators that were instructed to lie to schmoes like Tony to get their sympathy and hopefully break them. Chances are that Tony got played like a punk that he is by professional terrorists who successfully convinced an American to betray his country and provide AQ with another media victory.
I know for a fact that little punks like Tony never got behind the door with a SEAL or Force Recon Platoon and that he never saw any of the "torture techniques" that he had attributed to SOF units.
So goatboy, if you don't like the way I run things over here, then start your own blog, figure out a way to get people to read it, and you can provide a forum for Tony to continue to slander his fellow servicemembers.
Old Goat,
Did you not read my last post? Incidents happened at Abu. I'll repeat myself on this. There is NO PROOF that THESE incidents that Tony SUGJEST, with second and third hand speculation, I might add, happened. Once again, had he shown proof he would not have been slapped down.
Unless it is PROVEN, BEYOND A SHADOW OF A DOUBT, it should not see the light of day because it is then used as propaganda that sways American support and influences Anti-American Islamo-fascists like a friggin' recruiting commercial. I.E. "Look what the evil Americans are doing, come you should blow yourself up in a market place filled with CIVILIANS to get them back"
Each black eye, deserved or undeserved, hurts the mission.
You're right, to an extent! Abu has seriously tarnished the American image. So, would you make shit worse by printing and publicizing things that, ONCE AGAIN, HAVE NOT BEEN PROVEN OR DISPROVED in this case?!?!?
As I said, I didn't watch the program, however I do have an opinion about the torture.
OG makes mention of higher up civilians commissioning these actions.
Of course, there is no evidence of this.
But it is known, by the administration's own admission, that the Secretary of Defense, Donald Rumsfeld, knew about the actions at Abu Ghriab, and did nothing. To some of us, looking the other way is just as bad as ordering it. Froggy has previously mentioned that these few National Guard soldiers were without leadership. He never said who he thought was responsible for providing it. In my mind, if the guy at the top knew about, it was him that should have taken action. It is understandable why some believe he actually ordered it.
When Joseph Darby went to his superiors to expose what a few of his fellow soldiers were doing. He was thus commended by the President, and Mr. Rumsfeld. He also received threats by those who thought he put the soldiers at risk, and has since gone into protective custody. It’s clear to me where the honor lies.
http://www.beliefnet.com/story/
1...ry_15721_1.html
It seems to me that if Rumsfeld had actually done his job competently, he would have nipped this in the bud before those photos had gotten to the press and the senate (who saw more photos, including the abuses of minors), and the McCain bill would have never reached the Senate floor. Because people really don’t give a shit about what goes on until it stares them in the face.
I have no sympathy for terrorist, or for Hussein being shown in his skivvies. Makes no difference to me. But the prisoners there were civilians taken in on a general sweep. How does anyone keep all the administration’s different definitions of the enemy straight?
O.G.: "...the big picture is that the senior civilian leadership ordered the military to commit torture, and the military complied with those orders."
There was no evidence presented to support that allegation, only inferences and supposition. As stated in prior posts, unsupported allegations and hearsay are not facts.
Lagouranis presented himself fairly well in the program with the help of the Frontline moderator. But again, he offered no substantive evidence to support his allegations. In fact, if you listen to or read his comments carefully, he goes from first person statements to third person hearsay to supposition in the same paragraph. Here's an example quoted in Froggy's original post: "The worst stuff I saw was from the detaining units who would torture people in their homes. They were using things like … burns. They would smash people's feet with the back of an axe-head. They would break bones, ribs, you know. That was serious stuff."
Read carefully, you can only conclude that he didn't "see" anything, but he did assume a great deal. For those statements to be taken seriously, they would have to be corroborated by "evidence" showing such injuries AND testimony from reliable persons on the scene as to how those injuries occurred. That was not provided.
We're supposed to take Lagouranis' word as evidence. Under such circumstances, it is only appropriate that his motivation and character be examined as has been done in this thread. From the questions raised about him and the absence of corroborative evidence, I have to conclude that Lagouranis' allegations have no weight.
By the way, I used to be a professional interrogator for U.S. Customs and DHS. I would estimate that I was able to break my targets (drug smugglers) probably 60% of the time after having them sign a miranda warning. My targets spoke Spanish probably 80% of the time (I do not) and I had to interrogate them using an interpreter (that was not a trained interrogator usually). So I am not impressed by the idea of interrogations as some black art and that all interrogators are like the guy from Steven Seagal movies with a black bag of torture tools. That's the problem with this country, you people without military experience often have nothing to go on but the movie bullshit that Hollywood spoon feeds you.
My content is a result of real world experience or reports from other real world operators, not Ludlum novels and Jerry Bruckheimer films. If I put something out on this site, it is because I believe it to be true with a high level of certainty. When I have been wrong, I have admitted it and retracted immediately. My name is on this site, and with it my reputation. Punks that come on here with a handle and bs email that want to postulate with no basis for their experience should be taken with a grain of salt.
Old Piece O'Crap Goat,
I don't consider my service in Iraq for nothing. I was in Iraq during the same time period that Tony Bologna was and while I wasn't MI, thank god, I did on more than one occasion have to process detainees that we had brought in off of patrol. SOP for turning in detainees, at least at BIAP, began with a full examination by medical personnel to ensure if anything untoward occurred while detained it would be identified and that if the detainee was injured during the apprehension, it was also noted along with sworn statements corroborating what had occurred and by whom.
For a period of time during the rotation of 1st Cav out and 256th in my unit was tasked with providing QRF and guards for HVD'S. Can't say who they were but, if anyone was to be "tortured" for Intel these would have been the candidates. Again, during the time we were there I can unequivocally state that no abuse occurred.
As to our time in Iraq being for nothing, if I ever questioned what good we were doing, it was put to rest on January 30th when the Iraqis voted freely for the first time. I had grown Iraqi men (Sunni, Shi'a or Christian, it didn't matter) hugging me and my soldiers, thanking us and blessing America.
As for WMD, Saddam was a WMD and the world is safer place with his ass on trail for all to see.
Old Goat, this has been said but I'll add my two cents. Seems Lagouranis did not offer any first hand accounts of anything he saw. He presented what other people told him on Frontline and Froggy called him on it. He responded and still had nothing new to add (I do give him credit for coming to this site).
Imagine if everything ever uttered was passed on to someone as newsworthy... how do you distinguish what is real or what should be included in a show like the one Frontline did? You need a first person account. So, when you do not have one, you are left to figure out the reasons why someone goes on a program about torture, not having seen anything themselves, and talks, especially when there are elements in our society that work tirelessly to undermine the war and anything the US stands for. Don't you think it's fair people get to examine his motives? I think if he had seen something himself and talked about that, people here would have then looked for proof that he saw it. They would have tested the veracity of what he said. If what he said existed, there would have been a discussion over what constitutes real torture and whether it has a role in a war against terrorism. The focus would not have been on Lagouranis per se. Sadly, this didn't happen because people didn't get past first base with the messenger.
I'm glad Froggy banned his comments because without any backing of what he's saying, he allowed himself to a) potentially harm comrades (his message probably is all over the Muslim world) and 2) allowed himself to be used, as some would say here, as a tool. Too bad it wasn't for anything good! The folks at Frontline must've believed that having a guy on who didn't actually see anything himself was good enough. That sometimes happens in an echo chamber; your standard of proof goes down and it's only important if someone says all the right words. That's not enough here. And it's not cowardly; it's a contrast to the garbage that passes for news in the MSM.
baghdadsoapy,
Apparently liberating a people that have been oppressed and have had to suffer genocide from a ruthless dictator isn't a good enough reason for us to be here for some. As you stated Saddam was a friggin' WMD
I refused promotion because I didn't want to convey orders that I disgreed with to soldiers.
Gents, this does not pass the smell test, entirely. It sounds like a rationalization. Tony, your friend with the many names (and what's up with that, secret squirrel) says you're honest, and I don't know you, so I'll assume you are.
Is it just possible that you did not accept a promotion because it would have extended your enlistment? Or that that was a factor in your thinking?
My own experience includes DLI (distinguished honor grad of Czech in 1980, with 3-3 in Czech and German; in those days you could not get higher than 3-3 unless you had lived in the country, and my German wasn't that good), and all in all 26 years of mixed active/guard/reserve service, about evenly split. Most of that was in SF with one period in a non special ops INSCOM assignment. I have extensive experience with MI soldiers.
The extremes break down into two categories: civilians in uniform, who are at odds with Army culture, and combat wannabees, who seek a more authentic version. Matt, Tony may be a civilian in uniform, but the country and the services need those guys too.
I'm sure he doesn't see himself as a Blue Falcon. For one thing, he never saw the Marines and SEALs as his buddies. I'm sure he feels much more comfortable with the folks from Frontline.
Note that two of the most whiny "memoirs" of the war -- this abortive thing of Tony's and that immature one by the guy at Kandahar -- were from interrogators. Lots of these people are just hostile to military culture and military values.
The last thing to understand about interrogators is that most of them can barely speak their target language, and they are extremely poor at detecting deception, which is in part a consequence of their general youth and spoiled, privileged backgrounds (there are no street kids at DLI). You'd do better replacing them with a bunch of Newark cops and some decent interpreters.
Cary,
I can't fault Darby to the extent that he reported things that he had actually witnessed, and had pictures of. I did not see anywhere that Tony mentioned those goings on at his duty station. He didn't want to talk about the sadistic and pointless hazing that Graner and Englund were engaged. In fact he went out of his way to say that, “Well, I never saw too much with the interrogators who were actually professional interrogators that they were doing much more than what I described to you: the dogs, the stress positions, the hypothermia. Which ended up not really causing severe bodily harm, anyway, to the prisoner. The worst stuff I saw was from the detaining units who would torture people in their homes. They were using things like … burns. They would smash people's feet with the back of an axe-head. They would break bones, ribs, you know. That was serious stuff.” So what Tony is doing here is covering his own ass, and many asses that were subsequently convicted of offenses at Abu Ghraib, and heaping scorn on "detaining units" that he was not a part of and relating stories of "torture" that occurred in homes that he was not in.
Goatboy,
You have added nothing to this thread aside from DU talking points and ad hominem attacks on the sites purveyor, yours truly. Neither you or Frontline offered any connection or proof of a connection that indicate that Rumsfeld ordered torture to happen anywhere. That was the intent of the program, but they were unable to acheive that goal. If they did have anything, the NYT, Wapo, LAT, BG, and everyone else in the MSM would be lapping it up and going wall to wall with it. They know what good editing, a serious sounding narrator, and a low ranking dupe can do. Make idiots believe that there's a big ole conspiracy in the govt. and that there are evil forces at work behind the scenes to foment an arab genocide blah, blah, blah. There is no substance to the charges, and if PBS had any documents, they would have put them out to the NYT and everyone else to pimp without end.
You are a real profile in courage calling me a coward from your anonymous position somewhere on the web. I am going to assume that you are just some washed up old POS whose children never call you anymore because your a nutjob. Take your conspiracy theories elsewhere, and try not to break your hip in the process.
Old Goat:
So you're absolutely positive there were no WMD's because they haven't found anything in Iraq? I'm sure you've read both of these stories at large in the MSM right?
Several MiG-25 and Su-25 found buried in the desert, including a Mig-25 foxbat with advanced systems believed to have been sold to Iraq during the 90's in violation of the U.N sanctions:
http://www.truthorfiction.com/ru...rs/f/
foxbat.htm
Iraqi mobile labs found in Mosul, claimed to be mobile bio-pesticide labs although painted in Military colors and having been made in 2002 and not reported to the U.N in violation of the security council resolutions:
http://www.globalsecurity.org/
wm...ia28may2003.htm
I'm sure you think Salman Pak was just a training ground for Iraqi special forces / anti-terrorism teams too?
Thanks for explaining, Froggy. I just wanted confirm my belief that you were not advocating looking the other way. Sounds like what you are saying is that if allegations are to be made against our men at arms, you want unequivocal proof. Totally understandable, considering what they are up against.
The only thing "new" I can add to the discussion is Mr. Tony's apparent constant need to tell people how much smarter he is than they are.
That is one of the biggest problems with socialist utopians -- as if socialism in and of itself is a secondary goal, merely a stage or venue to grandstand for your ego, e.g., to show how much smarter you are than others.
How often do you hear non-socialists called "dumb" or have some lefty reply to your thoughts on politics "I thought you were more intelligent than that!"
SO...perhaps an effective interrogation technique for Mr. Tony would be for us to bend our knees in gushing recognition of his apparently vastly superior intellect -- over and over and over again (sort of like "not the comfy pillows!") for days, weeks, months on end -- however long it takes -- until his ego is physically glowing and his smile and smugness muscles are strained or torn.
At that point, we could probably get him to agree to anything...
MWA-HA!!!
Sounds to me like DLI needs to start offering classes in Urban Legend Detection. That icewater thing is right up there with Bubble Yum being made out of spider eggs.
I just read the entire post and commments in one sitting. Fascinating reading, thanks.
I should state out front: I support what we're *trying* to do in Iraq. I don't support the way it's been done most of the time. A ton of missteps and bad calls at every turn, it seems.
As for this discussion, I agree with OldGoat: most of the posters here went for ad hominem attacks on Tony -- and they come across sounding weak and desperately antagonistic. Some, such as "Douglas", don't seem to even understand what "ad hominem" means. I can't believe anyone needs a line by line quote of the posts to recognize the obvious ad hominem nature of the thread, generally. Sheesh.
I thought Tony L's comments were generally well put, and he was gutsy to respond so calmly in the face of so much personal vitriol. To ban Tony from posting seems lame to me, too, if only because dozens of other posters (with just as much crap and hot air) are allowed to go on (and on and on). I read your explanation, Froggy, for why Tony L. was banned from further posts... but I think your rationale is weak and unjustified. Cutting Tony out makes for a much less interesting thread, too.
If America is seeing decreasing civilian support for the presence of U.S. forces in Iraq, the tone of the attacks here on Tony (and also on Oldgoat) are part of it of the equation. A few of you may make good points here and there, but the ad hominem nature of the overall 'case' against Tony (including the juvenile name-calling) just makes me reconsider who's got the better side of the argument. Tony may not have a good case relating to the torture question, but by God, he sounds 100 times more reasonable than his detractors here.
Same goes for Old Goat. He said reasonable things, I thought. What came back at OG was full of that same antagonistic, histrionic "go piss on a rope" and "goatboy" stuff. Way to lose an argument (and probably a war).
Americans are, thankfully, reasonable folk. You start being unreasonable, even when you're right, and the nation will walk the other way.
OG- "I'm not going to go line by line through all the postings in this thread. If you don't think that Lagouranis has been the target of mainly ad homimem attacks in this thread, there's nothing I can say that would convince you otherwise. I might as well try to convince you that the sun rises in the East."
Okay, you're wrong AND lazy. Do you even know what ad hominem means? You do a better job of discrediting yourself than I can- But I'll continue anyway.
OG to me- "And douglas, the original posting never accused Lagouranis of thinking he was too smart for the army. I think it is you, not me, who needs to do his research. Facts: They're what's for dinner."
Open up and say aaahh, OG, dinner is served:
First Froggy from the original post: "...Lagouranis said he joined the Army to learn Arabic and that they decided to make him an interrogator first, then send him to DLI in Monterey for language training. In order to get an assignment like that, a soldier has to be a very intelligent person who was able to score high marks on his ASVAB and subsequent language examinations. It is no secret that not everybody in the Army is a rocket scientist, and this situation makes life somewhat difficult for those people who start to get the feeling that they are smarter than everybody they work with. The Army doesn’t promote or reward you for being the smartest guy in the unit, it promotes and rewards people who demonstrate that they are good soldiers and cheerfully do there jobs with a minimum of complaining. Conforming to this system is often a frustrating experience for people like Lagouranis, and it was clear to me in his interview that he was getting some payback."
If that doesn't say that he thought he was too smart for the army, I don't know what does. BTW, single quotes mean a paraphrase, not a direct quote.
OG to thebronze-"I just went to the PBS website and read the transcript of the interview with Lagouranis. He never said that he "was smarter than many above him." Please post a link to the section of his interview where he made that statement. Or are you just going to attack me like others have been attacking Lagouranis?"
Perhaps this post you didn’t read will clarify things for you:
“In the interests of full disclosure, I have banned Tony from the comments because I felt that he was using them to slander people and had failed to present anything approaching "evidence" of war crimes or torture. I felt that I had given him a fair opportunity to present his side of the matter and that he was ultimately unconvincing and frankly disingenuous toward the people he was accusing. If he wants to email me to appeal this decision, then I will reconsider it. He has already emailed other commenters and here is a sample from one of those emails, "By the way, I am smarter than many of my former leaders. You know that is true. You can't be in the military for 22 years without realizing that idiots rise up in the ranks." 10.21.05 – 2:28pm from Froggy.
Bon Apetit, OG.
OG- "I'm not going to go line by line through all the postings in this thread. If you don't think that Lagouranis has been the target of mainly ad homimem attacks in this thread, there's nothing I can say that would convince you otherwise. I might as well try to convince you that the sun rises in the East."
Okay, you're wrong AND lazy. Do you even know what ad hominem means? You do a better job of discrediting yourself than I can- But I'll continue anyway.
OG to me- "And douglas, the original posting never accused Lagouranis of thinking he was too smart for the army. I think it is you, not me, who needs to do his research. Facts: They're what's for dinner."
Open up and say aaahh, OG, dinner is served:
First Froggy from the original post: "...Lagouranis said he joined the Army to learn Arabic and that they decided to make him an interrogator first, then send him to DLI in Monterey for language training. In order to get an assignment like that, a soldier has to be a very intelligent person who was able to score high marks on his ASVAB and subsequent language examinations. It is no secret that not everybody in the Army is a rocket scientist, and this situation makes life somewhat difficult for those people who start to get the feeling that they are smarter than everybody they work with. The Army doesn’t promote or reward you for being the smartest guy in the unit, it promotes and rewards people who demonstrate that they are good soldiers and cheerfully do there jobs with a minimum of complaining. Conforming to this system is often a frustrating experience for people like Lagouranis, and it was clear to me in his interview that he was getting some payback."
If that doesn't say that he thought he was too smart for the army, I don't know what does. BTW, single quotes mean a paraphrase, not a direct quote.
OG to thebronze-"I just went to the PBS website and read the transcript of the interview with Lagouranis. He never said that he "was smarter than many above him." Please post a link to the section of his interview where he made that statement. Or are you just going to attack me like others have been attacking Lagouranis?"
Perhaps this post you didn’t read will clarify things for you:
“In the interests of full disclosure, I have banned Tony from the comments because I felt that he was using them to slander people and had failed to present anything approaching "evidence" of war crimes or torture. I felt that I had given him a fair opportunity to present his side of the matter and that he was ultimately unconvincing and frankly disingenuous toward the people he was accusing. If he wants to email me to appeal this decision, then I will reconsider it. He has already emailed other commenters and here is a sample from one of those emails, "By the way, I AM SMARTER than many of my former leaders. You know that is true. You can't be in the military for 22 years without realizing that idiots rise up in the ranks." 10.21.05 – 2:28pm from Froggy.
Bon Apetit, OG.
Patrick: ad hominem:ad hom•i•nem ( P ) Pronunciation Key (hm-nm, -nm)
adj.
Appealing to personal considerations rather than to logic or reason.
So, in your opinion there was no reason or logical argument in the whole thread against Tony? Seriously? Just because there were a handful of postings that included name calling does not make it all ad hominem. There were many posts deconstructing Tony’s own words, and meshing it with real world observations to point out that his testimonial was questionable, at best. Perhaps it is you who do not understand the meaning of the term ad hominem. Old Goat calling Froggy cowardly was ad hominem, was it not?- but you don’t bother criticizing him, do you? Stand by your opinion, but back it up- don’t fall back on the ‘oh, you’re all just full of ad hominem attacks’ routine. Besides, ad hominem doesn’t mean anything said was incorrect, does it? Look, people on this thread realize that stunts like Tony’s ENDANGER LIVES. People who trusted their brothers in arms may die because one of them may have acted unwisely. I think that’s valid reason to be pissed off, don’t you?
I saw the Frontline show two nights ago. I'm amazed at how many quotes they strung along to create commentary. I found myself wondering about the sentences before and after. At at least one point I caught, they used a voice as narration while a picture (ominous, of course) was being shown without giving credit to the name. It wasn't the main narrater, but a voice like in an interview. This was clearly a piece that saw what it wanted to.
Also, I was wrong about Tony L's use of dogs; they used them, and he said they were muzzled.
A few observations:
1. If Anthony Lagouranis wished to continue posting on Froggy Ruminations, he could have e-mailed Froggy with empirical evidence supporting his claims. After visiting this site for awhile, I'm quite sure Froggy would have "unbanned" him if he would have provided anything other than his Frontline-like second- and/or third-hand aka hearsay aka unverified aka rumor aka not-admissible-in-court aka gossip aka C-R-A-P.
2. Chastising members of the Frogosphere for engaging in so-called "ad hominem" attacks against Anthony Lagouranis is especially disingenuous and duplicitous. Considering Anthony Lagouranis has been engaging in malicious and treasonous slander, defamation, and libel against members of our Armed Forces, why would anyone expect, let alone demand, some sort of special, benefit-of-the-doubt, kid glove treatment? In fact, I believe it's quite clear that it's Anthony Lagouranis, himself, that has been truly guilty of "ad hominem" attacks, i.e., "appealing to personal considerations rather than to logic or reason [or facts or first-hand, eye-witnessed, and non-hearsay evidence]". There have been many more facts supplied, logically- and reasonably-applied, in building a case against Anthony Lagouranis, and his demonstrable lack-of-character, treachery, and Blue Falconry, than Anthony Lagouranis has ever bothered to supply while in the process of unfairly and unjustly smearing-and-sliming the SEALS et al.
3. While contributing via "Any Soldier" (formerly at www.anysoldier.org, but now at www.anysoldier.com) is commendable, doing this, while also doing many other things to undermine the GWOT by giving de facto aid-and-comfort to the enemy, is not. This type of bi-polar attitude and Stuart Smalley-like "stinkin' thinkin'" reminds one too much of Cindy Sheehan, John Kerry, Jane Fonda, Ramsey Clark, Jimmy Carter, and other members of the DUMO, i.e., Democratic Underground / Move On "Axis of Weasels". In fact, it has the smell, although one might not be able to "prove" it, of "trolling" or "seminar calling".
4. No one I know in the military has been defending Lynndie Englund, Charles Graner, or Janis Karpinski and their actions or lack thereof. To the contrary, many have criticized them for not doing their duty and helping to inflame Islamofascists already not needing an excuse to chop off innocent folks' heads or burn them and hang them from a bridge by their testicles. As a friendly reminder, there was an active investigation ongoing, re: Abu Ghraib abuse allegations, when it was decided by the MSM that they would insert themselves into the matter, by ignoring a DOD request to not run the pictures and, instead, let the investigation and adjudication run their respective courses. If one honestly believes that Donald Rumsfeld, Condoleezza Rice, and/or George W. Bush signed off on Englund and Graner copulating and building naked pyramids, then I have some land I'd like to sell you in the 9th Ward of New Orleans.
5. People defending Anthony Lagouranis by including references to "there were no WMDs" expose themselves for the frauds they are. Read the extant historical record. Read how Congress, during the Clinton Administration, passed the "Iraq Liberation Act of 1998 (Public Law 105-33
" and how the Congress, during the Bush Administration, passed H. Con. Res. 104 (found at http://www.c-span.org/resources/.../
hconres104.pdf if one is interested). Add to this the fact the French, Germans, Russians, Israelis, United Nations, et cetera, ad nauseum, ALL believed Iraq possessed WMD, and enough is enough already. In my opinion, it's folks spouting this sort of nonsense that are truly "unfair, dishonest, and, quite frankly, cowardly". It's also "bleah, quite tiresome, a little more than depressing, and [coming from those, in my opinion, with rather 'd*ckish' outlooks]".
One more thing, in some cases, they literally used one sentence from one person and then went to another person! It's like they had a point to make and were out to make it, patching together what they all said. I couldn't believe it.
Correction:
"Iraq Liberation Act of 1998" is Public Law 105-338.
I didn't realize putting an "eight" and a "closed parenthesis" together would automatically pop up a "smiley face with sunglasses".
Now I know. Sorry. LOL.
Richard, your post was outstanding.
"One more thing, in some cases, they literally used one sentence from one person and then went to another person! It's like they had a point to make and were out to make it, patching together what they all said. I couldn't believe it."
Michael Moore is everywhere...
Richard,
Perfectly said - Thank You.
Rich
I think one point to consider is this, with all of hoopla that has been spilled in the MSM and Washington since this war began about torture, insensitivity toward culture, etc, etc don't you think we have become somewhat immune to the whole torture issue? Hypothetically speaking, suppose what Tony alleges is true and there were Force Recon guys beating up suspects (not that I believe any of this hogwash) and Tony had followed a due course of action and filed his complaints in an honest attempt to set things right, ensure this action was stopped, and the perpetrators faced the justice they so rightly deserved. A major problem is that we are so freaking busy investigating reports of fake menstrual blood, women’s panties on heads, and the possibility that someone may have inadvertently touched a Koran, that even if these allegations are true, who gives a f&*& anymore. The MSM and certain unnamed political hacks have screamed “TORTURE” so many times about incidents that do not qualify that Tony’s allegations, even if he had the proof, seem just like another cry of “WOLF” by a disenfranchised liberal. Claims of abuse and torture are serious allegations that should never be taken lightly. More importantly, the act of making the claim should never be taken lightly. My comment way at the top of this section was a half-hearted attempt at humor to get this point across.
My compliments Froggy. As always your comments are spot on and I was so engrossed by the comments here that I read the entire thread in one sitting during the World Series!
I can't believe the irony and ignorance of Old Goat trying to describe your actions as being in any way "cowardly". I know that when Jackasses spew out comments like "...the big picture is that the senior civilian leadership ordered the military to commit torture...", and claim there were never any WMD's in Iraq that I shouldn't let my blood boil but it still does.
I just want to know is he that big of a moron to believe the crap he's selling, or is the Goat just trying to lead a few uninformed sheep astray?
exsubnuke,
I think it is wise to use stress techniques on only the most likely suspects. Otherwise you make enemies.
Hearts and minds (self government) is the key to winning the war.
BTW I'm an ex-skimmer nuke. On the worlds only (and former) Nuclear Powered Frigate. FWIW my bunk was forward (great during typhoons - I loved the ride). I never had the privledge of sleeping with ordinance. The closest I came was the de-gaussing coil which was at the level of my bunk. LOL. And airconditioned working quarters in the engine room. Woo hoo.
Peg C. and Rich:
Thank you for the kind words.
They are much appreciated.
Froggy,
Wow...that was a marathon read!
There were some MI guys assigned to SOF units who were out there in the stack (literally) and helping them with their detainees, but Tony was not one of them. And there is very little interrogation going on at the objective. We don't spend time on the objective to fuck around with hajji because it is too dangerous. You clear the house, sort out who needs to go, grab them and their shit, and get the hell out of dodge. Tony made it sound like the teams were having a picnic in there and getting their jollies off. That is blatant bullshit.
Definitely, badguys get hurt on the objective. Badguys accidently step close to the door when the breach goes off and catch a front full of door chips. Maybe that is how that detainee got burned or bruised. Or the door blows in and hajj decides to get in the way, he is either going to be dead or go down hard...that is just the way it is. Or they resist when an operator is trying to secure them...what is the operator going to do, say "please"? Hell no, he is going to have to control him with force, otherwise goodguys get hurt. Hoever,there is no torture involved...it's just simply the way it is: WAR IS HARSH. WAR IS DANGEROUS.
So when some young Specialist sees detainees come in and they are crying about getting fucked up on the objective (and I'm sure they didn't say that it was because they were trying to flee across the rooftops with a bag of mortars in their hand) he is going to feel sorry for them. After all, the Specialist didn't just have to travel to the objective through Ali Baba and the 40 Muj trying to get him, or enter a house where committed badguys are trying to kill him, or see his buddy get shot,etc. etc. So the Specialist can "feel bad" about the detainees wounds and blame the bad ole SOF guys for being sooooo bad. And of course he is going to believe all the rumors and bullshit...because he is clueless.
And if there was no "actionable intelligence" coming out of interrogations, then how the hell are we planning raid after raid and coming up with tons of weapons and the terrorists who owned them? Sure, not everyone on the objective is a shooter...but I am sure the folks in the house have to know there is a stack of bombs and rpgs in their brother's bedroom. In America, that is called an accessory to the crime. Not innocent...wake the fuck up.
Tony, you are not only a jackass for spreading unsubstantiated rumors and lies, but like Froggy said, a Blue Falcon of biblical proportions. Even if it was all true...you are still a piece of shit. Fuck you.
I knew this kid. Bottom line: complete pussy. He got to the unit acting like your average straight-outta-DLI-with-a-college-education jackass. Thought he was better than the world and the army. To repeat previously expressed sentiments, fuck-him.
Not only was this PBS documentary yet another left wing progandist piece of bullshit, but Tony's baseless bullshit leads me to wonder if he isn't a shill for the terrorists he claims were "Tortured".
What about those innocent men and women who have beenkidnapped,raped, tortured,and beheaded by the very scum you seem to feel we should treat with kid gloves under the misguided belief that if we are nice to them they will 1) Be nice to us 2) stop killing innocent civilians including children 3) Stop blowing up subways and busses 4) Stop flying planes into buildings 5) Stop targetting malls, movie theatres, and sports arenas, 6)stop planting IED's and fight like real men instead of the cowards they are 7)Decide to foster democracy and freedom around the world instead of their misguided theocracy Stop planning and working towards the complete destruction of Isreal.
The alleged "elected" Iranian President marched in the streets of Tehran on Friday alongside tens of thousands of people supporting his call for the destruction of Israel.
I should introduce you to the men in the Mossad that I ve been privileged to meet. Maybe you should observe what the Mossad does in order to ENSURE the survival of the State of Isreal.Trust me..what you allegedly heard about and witnessed in Iraq will seem like a day at Disneyland!
No wonder the Iraqi Army that we have trained prefers to capture these demonic terrorists rather than having our army do so. THEY understand what must be done in order to send a message to those who insist on committing these mass murders.
There comes a time in fighting evil when we have to make hard choices to ensure the protection of democracy and freedom.
All this talk of 2m men that have died in Iraq by the left as a means of spewing their bullshit vitriol sickens me - what about the 2000 PLUS that died on 9/11. Oh wait..lets blame "foreign policy" for that! Yeah that rights lets blame the foriegn policy implemented by Pres Carter when he betrayed the Shah of Iran. Or Pres. Clinton who was so busy getting his dick sucked by his mistresses,that proved impotent when it came to taking decisive action against Saddam, and Osama Bin Laden, not to mention saying "no thanx" to the Sudanese when they offered to hand over Bin Laden.
I am sick of men like you pretending to be so damn righteous and moral when it comes to this war. Im sick of knowing that OUR TROUPS are unable to fight this war AS IT SHOULD BE FOUGHT because they have to appease asshats like you, Michael Moore, the Media,ANSWER, Code Pink(O) and the rest of thecandy assed left wing liberals,dumocrats, and backstabbing European countries like Germany and France.
I was at Ground Zero after 9/11 helping feed firefighters as they bore the most pained look Ive seen in a men eyes. I watched smoke burn endlessly, as men uncovered bodies after body parts, while the stench of burning rotting flesh permeated the air. If we had to have tortured someone to have prevented that event from happening, Im sure no one would have lost any sleep, and over 2000 lives would not have been shattered on a beautiful Tuesday morning. Im sure if we had extracted information by using aggressive interrogation methods that would have have prevented multiple attacks on subway and busses in London, no one would have lost any sleep.
So stop hiding behind a bogus wall of rightiousness... of doing the "right thing"....it's a fucking lie and it makes you no different that the enemy we fight daily.
not sure where the smiley face came from...but trust me...I wasn't smiling as I wrote the above.
Well said, Huntress! I love it when someone calls a spade a spade!
BTW, I notice the Islamofascist apologists haven't been back for a while. Maybe they went back to their under-bridge holes and returned to spouting their disingenuous nonsense on sites like Democratic Underground?
While I welcome fact-based, intelligent, reasonable, duly-diligent, and good-faith debate, I have absolutely no patience for duplicitous trolls.
I don't understand people like Tony. Why would you go interview with "Frontline" knowing full well you would be in the hands of leftist, one-sided reporting? Is it because you want your "face" to be known to the world? What is wrong with that type of person? How could you go in front of the American Public with "heresay" and turn your back on those men and women who risk their lives with "I heard it from someone"? My gosh boy, grow up! The biggest mistake Tony boy made was going to the media. Fine, if you felt something was wrong, then why did'nt you write down and keep notes of these "so-called" tortures and keep a diary of this? What evidence then "heresay"? Look back on the past to find out what torture really is: Vietnam, Korea...WW11 American POW's in Japanese controlled areas...
I have to say that if anyone knows his shit, it is froggy and the experts who posted comments. They know the real insides of special military units, and are not on the outside looking in. I am former Air Force, and the military is your family, no holds bar. You protect them like your children and you make sure that the truth is told without harming the family. You stand by them, and you make sure that "outsiders" don't use them for gain. And if someone strays, you get the facts, and you make sure they are the "truth".
We live in a society today that takes freedom and democracy for granted. And we have the Media, and these lefists groups who prey upon the military for their own person agenda. And they twist, contort, and down right lie to bring you down.
That is why we have web blogs such as these and Mudville Gazette, Blackfive, and many others who tell it like it is and want to tell the regular MSM to "stick it". I do not get my news from the MSM, I go to these sites to know the truth. People like Tony need to be reminded of "brother and sisterhood" and stop being used by the media and others who want bring about their own agenda.
Thanks froggy and others who posted here, I want to first thank you for your service to this country. Oh and Tony; grow up and by the way, we are a hell of a lot smarter then you "kid"
Thanx Rebecca....Well said Rita!
Everytime another asshat liberal/dumocrat whines endlessly about how the claim of WMDS was a lie contrived by the Bush Admin. I am continue to remind them of what they have strangely failed to remember:
The Boston Globe( The Voice Of Democrats from the land of Kerry and Kennedy) defined Bill Clintons Biggest Failure in this way:
"Saddam Hussein's continuing defiance of United Nations resolutions mandating inspection and dismantling of his weapons of mass destruction represents the most flagrant and protracted failure of President Clinton's foreign policy"
"Saddam has rebuilt facilities for his biological and chemical weapons programs as well as missile sites. Specialists suspect he has renewed production of anthrax, botulinum toxin and aflatoxin, and the organism that produces plague. Weapons inspectors and intelligence officials also have reason to fear that Iraq is working on even more sophisticated programs to develop viral agents for use as biological weapons."
"In seven years, Clinton has tried to ignore, obscure, and misrepresent the threat from Saddam. Clinton's so-called containment policy has done nothing more than deter Saddam from invading his neighbors again.But that policy has not obliged the Iraqi despot to honor the UN's disarmament resolutions,has not protected the Iraqi people from the dictator's killers and tortures, and has not defended Americans against terrorists who may be acting with the veiled and deniable support of a vengeful Saddam."
All the candy assed whining lying hypocrit moonbat liberal/dumocrats:
its rather obvious that the ONLY President that misrepresented the threat Saddam posed was the democrats favored son, Bill Clinton!
And by the way, Old Goat, and Patrick,
Had Tony been testifying in an American Court of Law and if we use what Tony said on Frontline as his "tesimony" in any investigation of wrongdoing... his testimony would have been deemed irrelevant and unreliable because it was based on hearsay.
He was NOT an eye witness to any of the allegations he has made, so lets call his appearance on a "crockumentary" that has a leftist agenda, on a network that harbours open hatred for republicans and the Bush Administration, for what it really was: His 15 minutes of fame!
They are up!
But sadly,the echos of the bullshit he put forth will resonate for much longer than 15 minutes in the already brain dead psyche's of the American left and with the terrorists for whom he is a shill.
Huntress,
Well said, yet again, but why let facts, logic, and the cold, hard truth get in the way of the liberal Left's duplicity, disingenuousness, treachery, and treason?!
Maybe Old Goat, Patrick, and/or their fellow DUMO trolls can tell us why, because I sure as h*ll can't?!
Current news story:
http://www.foxnews.com/story/
0,2...,173944,00.html
Two americans charged with abuse of detainees. For punching them. PUNCHING them!
But we were supposed to believe Tony, that he couldn't get anyone to investigate or take seriously allegations of abuse? Yeah, obviously true, eh? You're just the lonely voice of truth Tony? Yeah, right...
Sorry- Anon was me that time.
sorry,at best Tony's reporting sounds like a piece of cardboard hit with a 12 ga.at 5 yds...at worst it smells like piss on a hot rock... maybe he just joined hoping the Army could pull him out of the liberal closet he's been trapped in..and it didnt work.
Or maybe everything he says is True.
Fact: Hypothermic States are in fact a way to render someone vulnerable to interrogation. This is not something you pull out of your ass
Subfact: Every SEAL who has completed training has experienced hypothermia first hand as laying for hours in 40-50 deg water is part of endurance training.
Fact: Us Military Forces have murdered detainees in their care:
this is the Story of 60 year old Iraqi General Beaten to death by Army Interrogators and their Iraqi Thugs:
At Blacksmith, according to military sources, there was a tiered system of interrogations. Army interrogators were the first level.
When Army efforts produced nothing useful, detainees would be handed over to members of Operational Detachment Alpha 531, soldiers with the 5th Special Forces Group, the CIA or a combination of the three. "The personnel were dressed in civilian clothes and wore balaclavas to hide their identity," according to a Jan. 18, 2004, report for the commander of the 82nd Airborne Division.
If they did not get what they wanted, the interrogators would deliver the detainees to a small team of the CIA-sponsored Iraqi paramilitary squads, code-named Scorpions, according to a military source familiar with the operation."
and then just for the record there are these < ahref=http://ignoranting.blogspot.com/2005/03/armys-court-martial-rules-no-camera-no.html> These Prisoner deaths at the hands of special Forces and the strange reluctance of Army investigators to bring charges.
and Oh yeah how about This story about a CIA torture chamber in Afghanistan called the "salt pit" and its Body count.
Instead of attacking a fellow soldier for standing up and speaking out; how about showing even one Shred of the "Honor" you and yours claim to hold so dear and actually do something honorable like: find out whether people like this guy and Ian Fishbeck are actually telling the Truth, before attacking them
Magorn, the rightwingnuts like "Froggy" aren't even remotely interesting in finding out the truth.
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All the arguments raised in the original post to disprove the 60 Minutes story don't ring true to me. They sound like objections raised by someone who isn't looking at the evidence objectively. They don't prove to me that these soldiers aren't telling the truth.
I can't believe how the people on this forum have attacked Anthony Lagouranis and dragged his name through the mud. It is really frightening if this is the mentality of people in the US military. According to Amnesty International, there have been 400 reported cases of torture, yet many of the people on this forum have accused Tony and the other people who appeared on 60 minutes of lying. We know that Alberto Gonzalez signed memos authorizing torture. All the evidence indicates that the torture was widespread and systematic and came from orders on high. The people who did their patriotic duty by reporting the torture should be praised, not accused of being liars. They are the true Americans who are living up to the ideals of our country.
I want to add one final point. Tony says:
"I was writing reports about this, abuse reports and sending it up through the Marine chain of command. And I know that nobody ever investigated these things because I had taken pictures of the wounds. I had organized the medical reports that the Corpsmen had put down, and taken sworn statements from the prisoners."
If Tony is lying, it would be very easy for the government to prove that he is lying. Pull out those reports and look at the photos and the sworn statements that Tony said he filed. Since the government has made no attempt to disprove Tony's story, I think it highly probable that he is telling the truth.
Just curious: Assuming the paper trail that Lagouranis aludes to can be produced (like the paper trail authorizing torture coming from the Pentagon) would you be more likely to believe his claims? I think you are trying to set up a straw man here and ignore the big picture. But it seems that you are shameless and will defend anything done by the military regardless of how many people or documents say it happened, saw it happen, or had it happen to them. What, in your mind, would be taking things too far in your opinion? Is there any limit to what U.S. soldiers should be doing anywhere? anytime? to anyone? Do you support the summary roundup of Americans for torture? Where do you draw the line and under what circumstances would it finally be beholden for a true patriot to blow the whistle when his national institutions have overstepped and trampled the fundamentals of the nation?
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