Jim Macdonald offers some excellent advice to military personnel over at Making Light.
Article 3 of the Geneva Conventions is straightforward and clear. Under Article VI of the Constitution, it forms part of the supreme law of the land.
You personally will be held responsible for all of your actions, in all countries, at all times and places, for the rest of your life. “I was only following orders” is not a defense.
What all this is leading to:
If you are ordered to violate Article 3 of the Geneva Conventions, it is your duty to disobey that order. No “clarification,” whether passed by Congress or signed by the president, relieves you of that duty.
If you are ordered to violate Article 3 of the Geneva Conventions, this is what to do:
Request that your superior put the order in writing.
If your superior puts the order in writing, inform your superior that you intend to disobey that order.
Request trial by courtmartial.
You will almost certainly face disciplinary action, harassment of various kinds, loss of pay, loss of liberty, discomfort and indignity. America relies on you and your courage to face those challenges.
We, the people, need you to support and defend the Constitution. I am certain that your honor and patriotism are equal to the task.
I’m just curious—is this information given to soldiers as part of basic training? If not, shouldn’t this be printed out and handed to our troops as they are embarking to Iraq and Afghanistan?
Maybe we should send a copy to GW Bush, too. I don’t think he understands it.
Given his mastery of “The Pet Goat”, interpreting Article III of the Geneva Convention should be no trouble at all for Chimpy. Surely, his time as president of a Yale fraternity makes him an expert on abusive, humiliating behavior. Lucky us.
An excellent piece of advice. I’m a reservist NCO, and that sequence works for a lot more than Geneva Conventions. I’ve always told my soldiers that if at any time, you get ordered to do something that you feel is wrong, ask for a counseling statement stating exactly what they want you to do, and get a copy for yourself. If they do so, and you still feel uncomfortable, take that statement to the next superior. I’ve done it plenty of times, and in my experience, simply asking them to put it in writing will stop any morally or legally ambiguous actions in their tracks. Suddenly, they’re just as responsible for your actions as you are, and they back off. A big hooah for personal responsibility.
If you are ordered to violate Article 3 of the Geneva Conventions, it is your duty to disobey that order. No “clarification,” whether passed by Congress or signed by the president, relieves you of that duty.
This is flatly untrue. The US Supreme Court has made it clear that where treaty obligations clash with domestic law properly enacted “last in time” controls. A so-called clarification passed by Congress and signed by the president is in fact law.
As a matter of domestic law, the obligations of US service personnel are whatever Congress and the President most recently said they are. Foreign nations, could, of course, choose to prosecute them, but that would be true in any case – they can always just make having been a member of the US armed services itself a crime. Had any of them sworn an oath to uphold the laws of any other countries this might actually be relevant to something.
It is my understanding (anyone actually in the military, please correct me if I’m wrong) that there is a standing order for all branches of the military to disobey any order that violates the Geneva conventions or is otherwise illegal. And that the recipient of an illegal order is supposed to say “I can’t do that, sir, it is a violation of standing order XXXX.” After which, no doubt the court marshal, etc would ensue. But in principle, the rank and file are supposed to be protected from having to either commit an atrocity or disobey his/her superior.
So, Hurly, if you were a military officer in the US Armed Forces, you have no qualms whatsoever if you were ordered to interogate a captured enemy by shoving his face into a pen of agitated German Shepherds, or no remorse in handing a kidnapped suspect over to your Uzbekistan counterpart to be interrogated with heated copper wires?
So,Stanton, are you being stupid on purpose or are you just stuck on it?
Dianne, There is an oath military members take which is “to obey all LAWFUL orders” Nothing is said about the Geneva convention.
I know I got plenty of training on the lawful/unlawful order thing and I don’t think there was anything unusual about that. It was always at the squadron level so everyone had to go through it on a regular basis.
There is a subtle undertone at play here though. The truth is that a violation of Genava Article 3 can be in the eyes of the beholder. One of the problems we have, is that as part of the training, we do a lot of stuff to our own soldiers that have become controversial when we do them to detainees.
That’s why we need definitions of what the rules are, because someone is going to interpret Article 3 for all of us. If no one else does it, it’s going to be whoever is in the room with the person being interrogated. I don’t think we want to put that person in that position, and I don’t think we want that person making decisions for all of us that way (the questioner is under enough stress already.)
Now, I went through Basic almost ten years ago, but it was made clear that unlawful orders were not to be obeyed, and, in fact, it was made clear that, in addition to any illegal activities entailed in following the order, the act of obeying an unlawful order was itself a violation of military law.
We weren’t ever actually told what exactly to do if we were given an unlawful order, though. And how much has changed at PI in the last ten years, I can’t say.
As an aside (or perhaps asides):
Hurly- the law of treaties (to which the US is party) clearly states that treaty obligations are binding, even if they contradict domestic law (i.e. the Geneva Conventions override any contradictory domestic law, as far as international law is concerned). Now, what force international law has is another bag of pretzels.
Stanton- the question is one of law, not one of moral qualms or remorse. One would still be in violation of the law for following an unlawful order even if they felt no remorse; likewise, one could feel all the remorse in the world and still be guilty of breaking the law if they didn’t follow a lawful order.
I personally look forward to the day a US soldier, CIA agent or official is arrested and tried outside the US. The rest of us have laws too you know.
I realize this is not what they teach on Faux News, and it may sorely chap Hurly’s backside (and Cheney’s), but the fact is the Geneva Convention is the supreme Law of the Land. Perhaps he is unclear on the meaning of the word “supreme”? Hint: it trumps any “signing statements”.
ocmpoma, Thank you, As far as the law goes it is my understanding that the Supreme court has ruled otherwise (Domestic law does take precedence where last enacted)
As ocmpoma and Hurly demonstrate, merely providing this “clarification” law actually is counterproductive to its main purpose. It apparently now takes several lawyers, interpretations of the legitimacy of international law (though, if you’re republican, this one is easy, i.e. “not legitimate”), and detailed knowledge of the law. This does not, despite assertions to the contrary, to be an improvement over “don’t torture” to the average soldier implementing these laws.
But if our troops should be tried as war criminals wouldn’t they be tried under international (Geneva) codes?
What about the Nazi, Serbian and other more recent international cases? I know that genocide is a given, but surely there were other charges. Does anyone know how they were applied and what the defense’s response was?
Where is everyone getting the idea I agree with torture or obeying unlawful orders? I took an oath to obey the lawful orders of my superiors and defend the Constitution. It was my understanding that the Supreme Court ruled that the supreme law of the land was Domestic law where last enacted. So apparently Article 6 was interpreted differently by them than by you. Your beef is with them not me!
I’m afraid a quick Google search shows that Hurly is correct. “In cases of conflict between federal statute and U.S. treaty, that which is later in time [emphasis mine] will normally prevail.”
http://indylaw.indiana.edu/library/Treaties.htm
Maybe we should send a copy to GW Bush, too. I don’t think he understands it.
Do you honestly suppose Bush has ever read the Constitution–which he twice swore to preserve, protect, and defend–let alone the Geneva Conventions?
“I personally look forward to the day a US soldier, CIA agent or official is arrested and tried outside the US. The rest of us have laws too you know.”
I don’t. (Speaking as a UK citizen.)
Almost certainly the first person who is tried will be some poor grunt who just happened to get in the way of a European anti-American crusade. The poor bastard will become a political football and the rights and wrongs of his or her particular case will be ignored.
I look forward to the prosecutions of Bush, Cheney, Rumsfeld and the senior military officers who brought their poor bloody infantry to this position. I doubt I will ever see them but they would be the only trials that matter.
It’s all very well stating that “only obeying orders” is not a defence, but try telling that to a squaddie who has been systematically programmed to to follow each order barked in his ear by a sergeant. Stopping to think about an order is potentially life-threatening and certainly mission-endangering.
The senior officers of the US military (and I include the Commander In Chief) have put their own men in an untenable situation. That is the real crime.
And before anybody asks, I feel the same about the UK troops too. We’ve our own set of scandals.
The senior officers of the US military (and I include the Commander In Chief) have put their own men in an untenable situation. That is the real crime.
On 2nd reading, my post seem pretty calous. I don’t literally look forward to some poor grunt being fried, but I do look forward to the controversy it will engender.
Large nation states must become subject to international law. That means law impinging on individuals, who come quietly when served with a warrant. Absent this arrangment, every breach of the peace with a cross border dimension (Exhibit (A) Russia/Georgia) can result in war. That is simply nuts. The large countries are the problem, small countries would sign up to such arrangements in a heartbeat.
Steve sez:
“I’m afraid a quick Google search shows that Hurly is correct.”
Maybe he can be right without contradicting the opinion PZ posted at the top of the thread. Your reference states:
“In cases of conflict between federal statute and U.S. treaty, that which is later in time will normally [emphasis mine] prevail.”
As my emphasis hints, the key question here is whether it’s a normal legal situation for a federal statute to specifically authorize violation of a properly enacted treaty to which we remain a signatory and which we have not sought to modify through normal mechanisms. That is, is a federal law whose only purpose is to authorize violation of another, still-in-force federal law “normal” or constitutional? Further, is it “normal” or constitutional for a federal law to retrospectively immunize violations of what was clearly the law of the land at the time? (i.e., that seems to be effectively an exercise of the pardon power, and doesn’t the constitution reserve that power for the executive?)
This attempt to arbitrarily declare illegal actions legal without actually changing the law that made them illegal in the first place is bizarrely Orwellian, and I can’t believe it would stand up under any fair constitutional challenge. My question is whether any such challenge will come in a timely fashion, and whether it will be heard by anything approaching an independent court.
Dark times, folks… make sure you vote, and all your neighbors do, too: Our very life as a free nation is at stake ~1 month from today.
It’s all very well stating that “only obeying orders” is not a defence, but try telling that to a squaddie who has been systematically programmed to to follow each order barked in his ear by a sergeant. Stopping to think about an order is potentially life-threatening and certainly mission-endangering.
So was it wrong to try people who’d been in the SS or had participated in the running of concentration camps but who were not the decision makers? That is, if “just following orders” works as a defense for “us” then can we claim that it is not a good defense for “them”?
So was it wrong to try people who’d been in the SS or had participated in the running of concentration camps but who were not the decision makers?
We are now getting close to invoking Godwin, so I will tread carefully.
Yes. Many of the trials following on from the concentration camps were unnecessary. They were fuelled by the horror of what had been discovered and were not conducted with cool heads.
(The widespread use of trials for the concentration camp workers is why the trials are so easily dismissed as just “the winners punishing the losers”.)
It took many years of deliberate propaganda to get the German people in a position where they would behave like that; evil like that did not come naturally. This is one of the reasons I am so concerned about the modern media. I see far too many analogies.
You are absolutely right that we need to provide the same level of justice for them as for us. So ask yourself what you would have really done in their situation. Their situation, by the way, involved non-stop civilian propaganda, constant fear of death through enemy action, fear of the irrational acts of their own government, a military basic training programme designed specifically to break them down and build them up in the desired image, and the likelihood that they would be shot if they disobeyed the order.
I have asked myself that question in the past. I didn’t like the answer.
While I find what Bush et. al. have done reprehensible, let’s try to key back the rhetoric. Comments such as
contribute nothing to the discussion, and are an unfair comparison. The typical SS guard was committed to Hitler’s genocidal vision; the typical US soldier is a more or less homegrown American boy or girl unlikely to be comparable, ethically or behaviorally, to a jackbooted thug.
Attack the administration, not the soldiers.
the typical US soldier is a more or less homegrown American boy or girl unlikely to be comparable, ethically or behaviorally, to a jackbooted thug.
Ease back on the self deception their pal. Lets apply some critical thinking.
These “homegrown Americans” are capable of some seriously horrendous shit. Like gang raping 14 year olds, killing their family and burning the body. The US army and the administration have a vested interest in covering that kind of horror up, and they have tried.
These people, all of them accused of committing crimes, need to be tried, ideally by a third party, and sentenced if appropriate. It is sickening and outrageous, that simply by virtue of being on one side and not the other, they practically get a free pass.
I agree of course that Bush and his clique should also be brought to justice, but we are unhappily a long way from that, decades perhaps. We have to start somewhere.
The typical SS guard was committed to Hitler’s genocidal vision; the typical US soldier is a more or less homegrown American boy or girl unlikely to be comparable, ethically or behaviorally, to a jackbooted thug.
First, I apologize for the Godwin nearness, but the Nuremburg trials were the ones that established the rule that “just following orders” is not a defense and therefore I claim relevence to the current discussion. General disclaimer: I am not calling anyone from the newest recruit to Bush and Rumsfeld a Nazi, I do not believe that the Iraq War is equivalent to the Holocaust, etc. But the Nuremberg trials are an important historical precendent.
That out of the way, how do you know that the average SS guard (whoever he may be) was more committed to Hitler’s vision than the average US soldier (whoever he or she may be) is to Bush’s? The military in Nazi Germany was a conscript military, the current US military is volunteer. Doesn’t that argue that the average US soldier is likely to be more committed? (Of course, the SS was, at least initially, a volunteer unit and may have remained so. I don’t know. Anyone more historically literate than me want to comment? But then, were all KZ guards SS? I have the idea, possibly wrong, that at least some of them were regular army…indeed, the dregs of the regular army: the ones who screwed up so badly they couldn’t be trusted on the front…maybe the ones least likely to be intellectually engaged by the system.)
Recruits are taught in basic(boot camp), that they are responsible for their own actions. There is no question in their minds that they cannot use the “I was only following orders” defense.
That being said, you have to keep in mind that soldies are human beings too. It is very common in todays military, and I’m sure this was common to every conflict, to de-humanize the enemy. So whether your carpet bombing civilian targets in Germany, or your torturing a POW in Iraq, it makes it significantly easier to do if you feel that they are sub-human.
As to what would happen if a soldier refused to follow an order that would violate geneva conventions, I belive you are incorrect in your assumptions about what would happen.
1. The superior giving the order would never put it in writing. They know what they are asking is wrong and they know why the subordinate is asking for it in writing. They’re not stupid.
2. There will be no court martial, for the same reason as above.
3. The soldier who refused the order will in all likelyhood be punished, but not formally. In the military, there’s all kinds of informal punishment. Anything from pushups, to being dropped to the bottom of the list to go home on R&R leave.
In case your wondering who the hell I am, here’s some background on me. I just got off active duty. I spent four years in the Army, two of those years I spent in Iraq. After not being allowed to return home from Iraq for two weeks of leave to see my son being born, I decided that fours years in the Army was enough. I am now out of the Army, keeping my fingers crossed that I won’t be called back in the next four years. I am 22 years old.
Mike, if I believed in prayer I would be praying that you don’t get called up and sent back. Hats off to you and thank you for serving.
“The typical SS guard was committed to Hitler’s genocidal vision; the typical US soldier is a more or less homegrown American boy or girl unlikely to be comparable, ethically or behaviorally, to a jackbooted thug.”
If you would like to see what is happening I invite you to read “The unending torture of Omasr Khadr” link:
http://www.rollingstone.com/politics/story/11128331/follow_omar_khadr_from_an_al_qaeda_childhood_to_a_gitmo_cell
On the good side, he was not sexually raped, only threatened with it.
Wrong, Hurly.
You may want to check out the discussion of legal issues at Making Light.
Mike: It sounds like the soldiers are left in a double bind situation: If they follow an illegal order then they can be prosecuted while the highers ups hide behind the “just a few bad apples” defense (sort of the converse of the “just following orders” defense.) If they don’t they can be punished in any number of ways…some of which, I’m guessing, could get them killed. Especially if their squadmates don’t agree with their refusal. Ick. Not sure what to do with that, but thank you for the insight into what it is like on the ground. Best of luck to you.
Backatcha.
You then go on to cite one extreme aberration which is made singular precisely by its rarity. Sick people exist everywhere. Indicting all American soldiers because of the actions of a deranged few is unfair.
Until you can point to an institutional policy that (for example) supports rape of teenaged girls, I submit it is you who are self-deceptive.
Pal.
On the face of it this seems a sensible question, until you look at the loyalty oaths sworn by the SS, who were committed to protecting the person of Hitler and following through on his policies at any price — compared to the oath a US soldier swears, which is to defend and uphold the constitution.
History and current military rules tend to support my assertion.
Behaviorally, of course, we have the way the SS operated; they were generally the executors of Hitler’s will, perpetrating vile acts institutionally and deliberately, which is clearly not how American soldiers are behaving, regardless of what sort of spin one might wish to put on it.
I say again: Attack the administration, not the soldiers.
“So was it wrong to try people who’d been in the SS or had participated in the running of concentration camps but who were not the decision makers? ”
No, not wrong, but potentially sad. We absolutely must hold individuals responsible for their actions; no other course can possibly support the rule of law. That said, it takes extraordinary courage to do the right thing when it means you might be killed in combat or executed as a traitor. Unavoidably, many of the people sent into war are young and inexperienced, and it’s unrealistic to assume that they will all possess extraodinary courage and judgment. Garrison Keillor notwithstanding, it’s impossible for “all the children [to be] above average.”
Here’s the true tragedy of war: Sending young people into an environment of fear and chaos will inevitably produce breakdowns in moral judgment, such that even the most justifiable war, at the overall level, is likely to generate local atrocities. When we send our young men and women into combat, we are not only putting their bodies at risk, but their souls as well (OK, I know that’s a troublesome word on an atheist blog, but I don’t mean it in a religious sense… I only mean whatever aspect of personality it is that houses moral judgment and responsibility). This makes it all the more horrible that we should expose our fellow citizens to this grave risk unnecessarily or on false pretenses.
Yes, we must prosecute individual soldiers when they commit atrocities… but that doesn’t change the fact that sometimes the root cause is not an atrocious nature, but just the same fear and weakness that all of us are occasionally subject to. Sending someone off to life in prison or the executioner when we know that “there but for the grace of the FSM go I” should give us pause. And it should make us all the more determined to punish the leaders as well as the followers.
You then go on to cite one extreme aberration which is made singular precisely by its rarity
Not so singular or even rare.
Until you can point to an institutional policy that (for example) supports rape of teenaged girls, I submit it is you who are self-deceptive.
I’m surprised we are arguing about something as self evident as rule of law. The number of people breaking a law, or the support structure in place to facilitate them breaking the law is hardly the issue.
People should answer for their actions, and as things stand, a tiny minority of americans, are guilty of some dreadful crimes. Can we agree that this is a fairly uncontroversial statement of fact?
I don’t think speaking the truth is self deceptive. You appear to have blundered onto the wrong blog if this is the way you think.
I’m guessing you are here, because you are all gung ho to have a laugh at the expense of the “crazy religious folks”, but ironically incapable of ripping off your own nationalist blinders. A meme almost as noxious and malignant as the religious one. Yeah, well posting in a place like this is going to get you hurt. Metaphorically. Peace:-)
And it should make us all the more determined to punish the leaders as well as the followers.
Posted by: Bill Dauphin | October 2, 2006 01:57 PM
Nice post, and Amen to that:-)
the Supreme Court ruled that the supreme law of the land was Domestic law where last enacted.
So, we obviously need a weekly update of the Geneva convention then in order to make the US comply.
Week #1: No torture
Week #2: addendum: No really, wee mean it, no torture.
Week #3: Are you just not paying attention dumbass? NO TORTURE.
Week #4: Again, we’ve said it before, what’s so hard to understand about this? Is your school system really so poor you can’t understand that when we say no torture it means NO TORTURE
ad infinitum until the usa-ians get a grip and get rid of the taleban from their govt.
Dianne, I see a lot of listings of FOIA requests regarding torture; but no indication of how many events are alleged to have occurred, and in any case none of those requests support the implication that the rape of a teenaged girl is anything but singular and rare.
Brian:
It most certainly is when a comparison is made between SS troopers and American soldiers. Circumstances, number of events and institutional support of events are paramount issues if anyone is going to make the assertion that parallels can be drawn between the Nazi war machine and the actions of the US in Iraq or anywhere else.
Don’t misunderstand. I’m not defending Bush. He’s an idiot and damned dangerous, as is his cadre of vile little yes-men and -women. However I find it unconscionable that anyone can seriously suggest that US soldiers are effectively the same as SS troops. That is an indefensible statement intellectually and ethically, and it deserves to be challenged as the load of BS that it is.
I’m concerned. Some people seem to think that there is an attack here on all soldiers, not the tiny minority who commit atrocities (or illegal acts of anykind). I thought the gist of the comments was that the soldiers who commit atrocities and the superiors who gave the order are at fault, and that one should refuse an order to commit an illegal act. That is not attacking all soldiers. No one has attacked all soldiers.
As for the oath of the American soldiers, exactly how is invading Iraq defending the Constitution. And how can an American soldier take orders handed down by a man who has blatantly violated the Constitution in favor of his own personal political agenda?
I’m an American and I’d like to see some of our officials brought up on war crimes charges. It would be nice to see Bush prosecuted for waging an illegal war or condoning the violation of the US Constitution.
However I find it unconscionable that anyone can seriously suggest that US soldiers are effectively the same as SS troops. That is an indefensible statement intellectually and ethically, and it deserves to be challenged as the load of BS that it is.
Posted by: Warren | October 2, 2006 02:55 PM
That I can go along with. Certainly how the US military generally conducts itself is light years ahead of the Nazis. That said, there is a top down systemic problem that blurs the lines of what is and isn’t acceptable, and it’s not accidental. No, it’s not Hitlers Wehrmacht, agreed. However, there are a group of people all the way up to Bush that should have to answer to someone
Given that I don’t believe that God is going to punish them, some earthly authority needs to step up to the plate. The Spanish and Italians have arrest warrants out for a number of CIA agents. If they ever got their hands on those guys wouldn’t it be interesting?
The current global system is a tragic farce, it needs to be challenged and this is a clear cut obvious way to do it.
Global Democracy is something of an embarrasing personal obsession:-)
“However I find it unconscionable that anyone can seriously suggest that US soldiers are effectively the same as SS troops.”
As far as I can see, nobody has suggested that U.S. soldiers are, in the aggregate, the same as SS troops. The point of bringing up Nuremburg was not to equate Gitmo/Abu Ghraib with the Holocaust or to call Bush Hitler, but rather to point out the legal precedent, established at Nuremburg, that “just following orders” is no defense if the orders are illegal. That precedent applies to any soldier in any conflict, and invoking it in no way implies that any given soldier is evil.
That said… while it might seem easy to assert, from the “30,000 ft view,” that the Holocaust represents vastly greater evil than anything done in the so-called war on terror, I’m not sure that’s any comfort to the guy with the electrodes attached to his testicles. Do you suppose he’s thinking to himself, “well, at least I’m better off than those poor bastards the Nazis tortured”? There’s a certain surreal character to the whole enterprise of debating which atrocities are more atrocious, IMHO.
To go back to the original issue, here’s a link to a post by a law professor who explains that in every meaningful sense, the conduct here remains illegal. It just can’t be enforced. http://balkin.blogspot.com/2006/09/hate-to-rain-on-torture-parade.html
More words of wisdom from Dumbya and Company.
http://livedigital.com/content/173817
http://www.peacecandy.com/gwbush/remindus/
Good for election time.
However I find it unconscionable that anyone can seriously suggest that US soldiers are effectively the same as SS troops.
Who said that? I specifically said that I don’t think that the behavior of US soldiers in Iraq is in any way equivalent to the behavior of SS troops. And Bush isn’t Hitler or if he is he hasn’t displayed that level of corruption and abuse of government yet. However, the Nuremberg trials are the trials that established the precendent that “just following orders” was not a defense. Therefore, if we say that US troops can get off by saying that they were only following orders, then we must either say that the low level German troops–including any concentration camp guards and SS troops who were drafted or coerced into their positions–are also allowed to use that defense or admit that we are hypocrites only interested in protecting our own interests. Regardless of the relative level of atrocity committed by each. Either “I was only following orders” is a defense or it isn’t. Either ruling can be justified, but it must be consistent.
I see a lot of listings of FOIA requests regarding torture; but no indication of how many events are alleged to have occurred,
The data given is generally inadequate, true, but a few things are clear from what is available if you take the trouble to read them:
1. Investigations of allegations of torture are vastly inadquate and often closed without resolution for various poorly defined reasons
2. Medical care given at Guantanamo and other sites is extremely inadequate. “Malpractice” hardly seems to cover it. To give one example, it was claimed that a prisoner collapsed without warning, apparently from heart disease. Medical personnel came on the scene 10 minutes later (according to the report…actually looking at the time stamps, it looks like it was much longer) and performed CPR for 10 minutes before declaring the patient dead. 10 minutes of CPR is an inadquate recessitation attempt by any standards. In another case, the patient had apparent peritonitis. First off, peritonitis doesn’t just happen. He probably had peritonitis because of torture that led to intestinal perforation. Second, he was “treated” by placement of an NG tube. No antibiotics, no exploratory surgery, no pain meds, just place and NG tube and shove in the corner. Naturally, he died.
3. Look at the dates and locations. These documents cover a lot of separate incidents.
4. Physical exams and interviews of people claiming ill treatment are clearly inadequate. For example, I’ve yet to see a neuro or psych exam on a claimant. Or any supporting tests such as x-rays that might reveal evidence of past abuse after the bruising is gone. I also notice that the examinations never seem to take place in a timely manner. Almost as if they were waiting for soft tissue damage to heal before conducing the exam.
and in any case none of those requests support the implication that the rape of a teenaged girl is anything but singular and rare.
You’ll find that several prisoners have reported that they were forced to sit on a metal rod until it entered their rectum or were sexually penetrated with similar objects. Admittedly, most (all as far as I know) of the prisoners at Guantanamo are male, so rape of teenage girls is not frequently reported there.
As far as the incident referenced, do you really believe that that was a single incident? Given the way the higher ups attempted to cover it up?
Bush is Hitler. Only for the moment he is Hitler from 1933 to 1939. Look up Hitler’s “Enabling Act” and compare it to “The Patriot Act”. In fact Bill Moyers has already done it.
Hitler didn’t become the monster Hitler overnight. But Bush and coherts have a headstart on Hitler et al.
Dianne at. al., while I agree that “just following orders” is not a defense, invoking the spectre of the SS in contrast with the actions of the US military is perilously close to emotionally exploitative.
There is no such thing as an accidental comparison between Nazis and anything; it’s a rhetorical tactic intended to elicit an emotional response of revulsion in an attempt to bolster one’s own arguments. Such behavior is on par with suggesting that, given the actions of US congressman Mark Foley, it’s a good idea to make sure congressmen are not homosexuals.
While it’s easy to claim that no direct comparison is drawn, the suggestion that one was not intended is disingenuous.
As to the possibility of my being blinded by my own nationalism: If anything, the opposite is likely to be true. It might be a good idea to look over my own commentary on US actions on my blog before anyone decides whether I’m a right-wing American fascist. (Or even an atheist who’s been corrupted by a streak of nationalistic zealotry.)
I’m a UK subject, but I have great faith in the US legal system eventually sorting out the legality of the Iraq War/Gitmo/torture/atrocity activities. It may be too late for the average Joe/ Al Joe, and the ringleaders may escape prosecution, but these matters will be resolved. Personally I think that Bush and his chums (including our Tony Blair) have failed to hold to the standard required of a civilized community. It is easy to justify just a *little* bit of torture… and before you know it you are running secret death camps.
For what its worth I believe that one good reason for sticking with the Geneva Convention is that you can expect that the convention will protect your own people in turn. Even when the terms of the convention are (inevitably) breached you will have the moral high ground and the justification to take corrective action.
A handful of our soldiers going off script and committing atrocities is bad, but not what we should expect from past performance, or tolerate. We try (some of) our bad guys- the Nazi’s had trials imposed upon them.
You forgot to go all caps and say “WAKE UP, SHEEPLE!!!”
If Bush is still president in 2009, I’ll go along with you. Otherwise, he’s just a crappy president who got us into an expensive, shithole war that will likely have all sorts of ambiguous results. He’s still president because the opposition couldn’t come up with anything inspiring (because the opposition goofs are generally hard to tell apart from the ruling goofs).
I thought we were supposed to be arguing facts, not basing our conclusions in conjecture.
If you look over the discussion, you’ll see that the rape of a fourteen-year-old girl was posted as “evidence” that US soldiers’ behavior is on par with the atrocities performed by the SS. As I pointed out, this was — and remains — a singular event.
Trying to drag Abu Ghraib into the discussion as a means of suggesting that it’s normal or conventional for US soldiers to rape 14-year-old girls is another attempt at strengthening your argument by emotional appeal; it’s an attempt to bolster your position by making it look as though I am callous to torture, and is a sign of (1) weak argument; and/or (2) poor rhetorical strategy. Tossing in conjectures about things you can’t confirm is unsound.
If on the one hand you want to say you’re arguing facts, you cannot on the other hand engage in speculation or emotional manipulation.
As to institutional torture: Abu Ghraib and the events that took place there are detestable. No sane human being can argue otherwise. How it happened in the first place is something I’d like to find out — I suspect the trail leads to Rumsfeld, possibly Cheney/Bush.
I have a hunch (which I cannot verify) that the reason Bush wanted the torture redefinition passed is to keep his butt out of impeachment in 2007 when the opposition congress opens its session. And if in fact investigations are made, and we learn there was an institutional doctrine in support of torture, it is my sincere hope that all those responsible, from the lowliest grunt to the highest dictator, be punished to the fullest extent of the law.
I am not, however, willing to accept the implication that the taint of inhumanity can or should be applied to the US armed forces as a whole, and anyone who does make such a suggestion should certainly be in full possession of all the facts necessary to support the argument; and should avoid specious emotional appealing and speculation entirely, because for such an argument to be convincing a tremendous amount of credibility will be required.
“Bush is Hitler.”
That may, indeed, be the judgment of history… but saying so is inflammatory and contributes nothing to the very essential work of defeating his program. If those of us who oppose the administration’s agenda hope to regain control of our nation (while it still exists), it behooves us not to use arguments that make us look, to our moderate fellow citizens, like radical loonies.
Look, all I know about courtroom procedure comes from watching Law & Order, but I gather that some evidence is considered too inflammatory to be admissable, even if it’s true. The “Bush is Hitler” trope is like that: Even if you believe it, it does the cause more harm than good to push the point.
…on the other hand, invoking the legal precedents established at Nuremburg — which are directly on point in this discussion — is not equivalent to shouting “Bush is Hitler,” nor does it amount to calling U.S. troops Nazis. If someone can suggest to me how we can discuss the legal theories arising from Nuremburg without ever mentioning Nazis, I’ll be happy to listen; in the meantime, Nuremburg is the central historical moment in the conversation about what soldiers must and must not do with regard to illegal orders in wartime. And that, lest we forget, was what this thread is all about
Thanks, Bill, for the balance — you’re right. A discussion of soldiers’ responsibility in the field to not follow orders must necessarily include some reference to precedent. Perhaps I read too much inference into Dianne’s post; contrarily, there seems to be quite a lot of willingness in others to condemn the entire US military for the actions of some of its constituents.
What you pointed out earlier is worth noting as well. Are soldiers actively told and reminded regularly that they occasionally may have reason to go against officers’ orders? Are they encouraged to do so? (The question is laughable, which makes the whole situation even more tragic. Lynndie England was not behaving well, but she did not deserve to take the full brunt of reaction for Abu Ghraib.)
However I find it unconscionable that anyone can seriously suggest that US soldiers are effectively the same as SS troops.
Of course not.
They are an enabling tool by which a powerful nation state can launch wars of aggression, intimidate other countries and generally get its own way via force.
They are effectively the new Wehrmacht.
SS or not, I have little respect for soldiers. Anybody who abdicates their personal right to decide who the enemy is needs to have their head examined. It is strikingly similiar to the idea that an ancient book has more authority to comment on morality than you do personally. I realize the numbers suggest I must be some space alien or something but I cannot get my head around why someone would let someone else tell them who to kill accept that it is obviously a moral cop out.
Why thank Mike for serving? We should be thanking him for ceasing to serve in the US military.
Thank you, Mike.
Right on, Caledonian. Way to go, Mike. And if they tell you to come back, you tell them to get stuffed.
-JJR
We thank Mike for serving because, while the current administration is a criminal abomination hell-bent on destroying everything that made this country great (or at least decent), he still sacrificed four years of his life — and, but for the grace of FSM, could have sacrificed his life itself — to the service of his countrymen. That he and the other young men who selflessly volunteered for military service are being abused as they are is a reflection not on them but on their leadership.
Giving yourself over to service, giving up your ability to make your own decisions and control your own behavior, is only as laudable as the system you serve. Sacrifice is not in and of itself virtuous. Given that the system in question strikes me as utterly corrupt, I have to regard Mike’s decision to serve it as rather a poor one. I’m not here to beat up on Mike, however, but to congratulate him for making what I consider to be the correct choice: refusing to serve that system.
We really have to get over our myths about “service”.
“SS or not, I have little respect for soldiers. Anybody who abdicates their personal right to decide who the enemy is needs to have their head examined.”
Are you an anarchist? As long as we have organized human societies, I’m afraid we’re going to need armies to defend them, and an army without some sense of command discipline (i.e., one where each soldier insists on his/her “personal right to decide who the enemy is”) is just a dangerous mob of trained killers.
The way to have an army of soldiers who respect command without requiring a “moral cop out” is to rigorously maintain the rule of law, and hew to the concept that there’s such a thing as an unlawful order, and that every soldier has a duty to reject unlawful orders.
Caledonian, not every service member joined after ample evidence was available to show that YOU, THE VOTER, had lost your goddamned minds and decided to hire a pack of belligerent assholes to be our bosses.
Most of us didn’t join to serve “the system,” but the people of this nation, who are supposed to watch over that system and be its final authority.
Many of those who join are still young and foolish (sarcasm) enough to think that those of you at home, who are pretty much NEVER faced with the choice between obeying an order or execution, will stand the hell up yourselves and do something about the “broken system,” instead of expecting us to fight your wars when you think its a good idea, and destroy our livelihoods and become fugitives en masse when you realize you fucked up.
Grr, things like this make me so angry, I want to strangle a manatee in the nude (50 pts for identifying this–possibly parahrased–reference).
Great thread. I have had many conversations on this subject, and this is a vast improvement on the “USA, USA” chanting these discussions frequently become.
Dawkins Zeitgeist gives us the lead here. The US army is not remotely like the Wehrmacht when compared with the actual Wehrmacht, most especially not as regards … um … per capita atrocity for example. However, for our time they are the Wehrmacht, with knobs on. A vastly superior army, with no apparent equal, invading countries, bombing cities from the air and emboldening allies with almost complete impunity.
It is a polite fiction that we have genuine international law. We simply have those who can ignore it, and those who can’t, very much like the feudal system of the middle ages, but on a planetary scale. This is not to say that internally, many nation states have vastly improved, and deeply democratic governance, when compared to the middle ages or even more enlightned times. Progress has been made, vast areas have agreggated into democratic nation states, or even supra-national semi-democratic regions like the EU.
However on a planetary scale, it’s still a feudal system, just below the surface. The US simply represents the most powerful Duchy on the map, and the US army is this Duchy’s gang of enforcers.
Does that make all US soldiers amoral monsters? No, but war erodes ones humanity, and those with only a light patina of same, can very quickly do some awful things. We need a fair system that punishes that behaviour.
Bernarda: Bush most certainly is not Hitler.
Hitler was democratically elected. :P
That’s nice. I didn’t talk about every service member. Mike joined four years ago, it seems, and that’s within Bush’s term of office. Last I checked, our armed forces were still a volunteer force. Ergo, he chose to be there.
What matters is that he chose not to be there any longer, and we should honor him for that choice.
askyroth, that is a nice distinction except that Hitler was not democratically elected. He was named chancellor by the German president. Then he had his opponents arrested and brought in laws annulling political rights. Finally he organized another “election” when there was no opposition left.
Hmm, I don’t know about that. A modern nation needs an army of some sort, and I’d certainly rather have an army of people like Mike than of people like Rumsfeld.
To say that a soldier shouldn’t shoot unless ordered to is not the same as to say that he should shoot every time he is ordered to. Soldiers need the discipline not to be a mob, and the conscience not to be the Wehrmacht.
Law is necessary, but insufficient. Laws say whatever the lawmakers want them to say. Without people who have the conscience to say that torture is wrong even when it is legal, you have legalized torturers.
I apologize, Cal, I managed to turn yours and Vitis’ comments into the comments of one person. I disagree with his statements, referring to “anyone” who serves, and that was what I was primarily addressing, my 50/50 on choosing the more applicable of two screen-names did not go well. Nothing you said seems particularly objectionable.