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Thursday, May 27, 2004
I told you so
My words from March 2003:
Every one of our men and women in uniform has promised to obey the lawful orders of his or her superiors. I took that oath myself, and I worry that a young and undereducated father will face execution because in the heat of battle he was unable to recognize that an issued order was unlawful.
Al Gore's comments, now that I've turned out to be right:
The soldiers who are accused of committing these atrocities are, of course, responsible for their own actions and if found guilty, must be severely and appropriately punished. But they are not the ones primarily responsible for the disgrace that has been brought upon the United States of America.
Private Lynndie England did not make the decision that the United States would not observe the Geneva Convention. Specialist Charles Graner was not the one who approved a policy of establishing an American Gulag of dark rooms with naked prisoners to be "stressed" and even - we must use the word - tortured - to force them to say things that legal procedures might not induce them to say.
These policies were designed and insisted upon by the Bush White House. Indeed, the President's own legal counsel advised him specifically on the subject. His secretary of defense and his assistants pushed these cruel departures from historic American standards over the objections of the uniformed military, just as the Judge Advocates General within the Defense Department were so upset and opposed that they took the unprecedented step of seeking help from a private lawyer in this city who specializes in human rights and said to him, "There is a calculated effort to create an atmosphere of legal ambiguity" where the mistreatment of prisoners is concerned."
Emphasis is mine. Yeah, maybe they didn't "face execution" for this, but I'd bet the UCMJ would allow it: They got off light, which itself is another indicator of our official indifference.
We used to be the good guys.
Posted 05/27/2004 07:12 by Fritz
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