Subj : Re: BSG
To   : alt.tv.farscape
From : TNW7Z7Z7Z12345
Date : Wed Sep 28 2005 14:33:14

From Newsgroup: alt.tv.farscape

John Iwaniszek wrote:
> 
> TNW7Z7Z7Z12345 wrote:

> > Yes, all sorts of bad things happen in the chaos of war. But as I said
> > above, the one place where we actually have the power to stop those
> > things from happening is in the controlled atmosphere of a prison.


> My Lai.  504 subdued and unarmed civilians (women and children) gunned
> down systematically over a period of a few hours.  It was a war crime and
> it was a controlled setting.  The soldiers made a choice and they chose
> murder.  Not every American in attendance approved and, like at Abu
> Ghraib, there were some who were shocked by the barbarism and tried to
> stop it.  Good for them.  The ones who did it and the people who covered
> it up and make excuses for it are criminals.


Oh, I agree that My Lai was a war crime, and yes, it was controlled in
that it didn't occur in the chaos of a battle. But that isn't what I
meant when I referred to prisons being a controlled atmosphere.  

The abuse at the prisons happened within confined facilities where many
layers of management were there all the time to monitor what was going
on.  And it happened day after day over a long period of time -- there
was plenty of time for a superior to step in, stop it from continuing,
and then monitor the situation.  But no one did because the superiors
thought the behavior was appropriate.


- TNW

[To e-mail me, remove 12345 from my address.]

.