Subj : Re: BSG
To   : alt.tv.farscape
From : Ken McElhaney
Date : Wed Sep 28 2005 12:55:53

From Newsgroup: alt.tv.farscape


TNW7Z7Z7Z12345 wrote:
> 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.

The prison was in a war zone and may not have had the "many layers of
manegment" that you might think it had.  Again, this was not a prison
like one you'd find in America.  That doesn't excuse what happened, but
to imply a comparison is simply wrong.

> 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.

So, you're saying that the general in charge of the facility (a female
general if I remember correctly) who was relieved of command KNEW that
these abuses were going on in Abu Ghraib and ordered them to continue?


Again, I'm not trying to excuse any soldier for committing crimes, but
that this was a widespread practice (as in, ordered from the Pentagon)
has yet to be shown.  And when it is, I'll certainly agree.  But the
incidents described in the NYTimes article do not show any direct
connection (again, as in ordered from higher up).  It seems more like a
series of brutal acts committed by disgusted soldiers who had little
patience for those they felt were either terrorists or collaborators.

Ken

.