JACK ARMY, scanning my sector!
We shouldn't attack the soldiers at all. Noone can convince me that these grunts from Idaho, oops I mean outstanding heroic men and women, figured out for themselves how to most effectively humiliate Muslim men with implements like (fake) menstruation blood, dogs at their naked bodies etc. We should just put the people who deviced the strategy and gave the orders on trial, and we should do it pretty damn fast.
First of all, "grunt" is an acceptable and honorable term. There's nothing derogatory about it. It actually comes from the sound infantry soldiers make when they pick up their packs.
That said, you're mixing stories (no surprise.) The legitimate interrogation tactics used at Guantanamo Bay are completely separate from the deranged acts of a few out of control, poorly lead and supervised guards (and one incredibly stupid "in love" clerk).
What happened at the Abu Ghraib prison were things like a naked human pyramid and forced masturbation. Things that are not part of any sort of Pentagon policy. Things that were done by people so poorly supervised and lead that they conceived a child while deployed (among many other breaches of discipline).
What has happened, and continues to happen, at Guantanmo Bay are things like the use of women's underwear to humiliate detainees and the (alleged) use of fake menstrual blood. These are the things that have been approved by the Pentagon as acceptable interrogation techniques.
Take issue with either set of circumstances, but please don't confuse them. Muddying the waters by smearing the Pentagon's leadership for what happened at Abu Ghraib gets nothing accomplished.
And anyone who thinks that fake menstral blood or being wrapped in an Israeli flag is torture has so abused the term that it no longer has any objective meaning.
It may be why this is so little moral outrage at women and children in mass graves and the known and verified torture and murder policies of men like Saddam... and lord knows he wasn't the only one. It's just too unreal. How can that kind of evil even be comprehended?
Red ink and flags are something that our imaginations can handle.
Anyone can see that the basic interrogation tactics at Abu Ghraib and Guantanamo are exactly the same (and based on the same rather ambitious and well-researched report regarding Muslim male psychology, as you probably heard). The difference is that too much has leaked from Abu Ghraib for the Pentagon to stand by it, while this isn't quite the case for Guantanamo. Yet.
I didn't use 'grunt' in any derogatory sense, but rather as a way to see these pretty ordinary guys and gals in the Army for what they are. If you believe that they arranged naked pyramids, performed the equivalence of mock executions, and engaged in complicated sexual abuse of prisoners for their own high pleasure, I must say you have a much bleaker vision of the men and women in service than I ever had.
Check out the latest Blackfive / Bill Roggio etc. project : http://www.MediaSlander.com .
Blackfive posted on it today...
What bleak view? What is bleaker than the idea that those things were policy and those wonderful young men and women who would never ever think of such a thing themselves still went along with it? The assumption, of course, that they would continue to do so if they never got caught.
How in god's name does that reflect better on the troops than individual cases of sadism?
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