I started this new book
I started this new book and haven’t had much time to spend with it, so I decided to take the METRO this morning and catch up. On the way from my house to the commuter lot, I was thinking about the recent news stories surrounding the alleged torturing of prisoners in Iraq by American soldiers. I'm really puzzled by this, so I'm writing instead of reading this morning. I was in the military for eight years. I spent most of those years away from home. I've done two overseas deployments and although never had enemy bullets zinging past my head directly, I've been in combat zones during the NATO operation in Kosovo and several times in various parts of the Middle East via the Persian Gulf. I guess my whole point is not to defend the actions of those poor souls if they really did do those atrocities, but to convey that I understand how the military works. The military at the people level is not an individual or an autonomous unit... it's a team. Where I'm going with this is that either these allegations are fictional and the photos are fabricated in a similar fashion to the quite convincing one of Kerry and Fonda floating around the net or that we will be mortified to find out that this is happening on a larger scale. I'm not saying that certain things can't happen in the military as an independent action by a small group of individuals however, it's unlikely that the torture of prisoners in the fashion depicted went unseen by at least someone that would have prevented it. Maybe it's just that I don't want to believe that it happened. It's too unsettling to think that American soldiers would act like immoral criminals in this day and age. It's no different than an infantryman in the jungle of Viet Nam raping a native girl just because he can. We're better than that... aren't we? I wasn't too put off by the description of the prisoners being naked or verbally demeaned. It war, right? They could have weapons stashed in clothes, right? Sticks and stones, right? When it got to urinating in their faces or the reports of things like sodomy... well, I'm speechless. It goes beyond my comfort level. This is a issue of basic morality. This is an example of right and wrong and situational interpretation that is completely misguided. So, if the photos are legit, I pray that this is a single isolated incident (however improbably it may be in a tight nit military) that doesn't go unchecked. This should serve as a wake up call to the structure and protocol by which our men and women in uniform live. Look around. I pray that this (however probable it definitely is) doesn't further ruin the already damaged image Americans have in the world. Of course, I find anyone that takes the actions of the few (or the one), the perceptions conveyed by Hollywood, or the media and paints the 290 million of the rest of us with the same brush to be a little bent. I hope open-mindedness prevails and the world hears the unequivocal truth in our voice when we say that this type of thing is crossing the line and wrong in it's truest sense. The soldiers that did these acts should face justice. I just don't want to believe it's true. I don't see the logistics in how it could happen. Was there not a Christian in the lot? (or any religion for that matter that embraces morality) Where there no senior ranking officers or NCO's that knew the implications regardless or their personal beliefs? WTF? It just makes no sense. I tend to lean more toward the conspiracy theorists camp in that the photos were altered and this is a big scandal. Maybe it's just because I don't want it to be true.
Further troubling, a poll at Aljazeera's English site shows 62% believe that this type of torture is routine practice.
I think you, like me, are disheartened because you know many, many men and women that serve honorably and this smears their good names and works all to hell.
The military is indeed a microcosm of society, and if this set of incidents are wholly true, then it just reflects the abhorrent breakdown of what once were tried-and-true American Values: compassion, honesty, decency. In a word: Honor.
A certain degree of psychological warfare is necessary and present in ANY conflict, and we would kid ourselves to think otherwise. HOWEVER, if we’ve become no better than those we would hope to defeat, we might as well pack our shit up and go home to tend to our own business.
So very saddening.
I think there is definitely a western culture of the sorts of behaviour that we saw in those photos and sadly, I believe that they were genuine (I think the British ones were not, but I have no doubt that they reflect real events - I just think the paper involved saw a chance to sell rather a lot more papers and that, too is a sad indictment of our society).
What I saw was very similar to the “hazing” and bullying that you see in university fraternities and sororities every day. It’s horrible and it’s wrong, but there are always people in any society that feel the need to exert their power over those who they perceive to be weaker. I can’t see the military as being in any way exempt from these sorts of people (as Jett said). And just like at university, things inevitably go too far and people are injured and die.
Again, I wouldn’t defend the soldiers involved, but I also expect that they have absolutely no understanding of cultural differences and what they see as a jolly jape is, to their victims, a mortal sin and an unforgivable insult. Sadly, and again, like Jett says, we have to blame our culture. Not by becoming outraged at the sight of a bare breast, but in a deeper and more meaningful way.
Oh - except the sodomy - although it’s possibly that a bit of broomsticking actually goes on in the fraternities as well. It certainly does in British public schools, I’m told.
My two cents: Yes Clayton and I may have been in the military, but a big strong, comfy Navy ship offers a lot of protection. So I don’t think either of us are really qualified to speak on the experience of being shot at. All the time. And watching your friends die. Yes it is most unfortunate that these men did this- it certainly doesn’t help our world image. But I can’t help thinking we somehow failed them. Morale over there is low. I’m really not that surprised that combat stress manifested itself this way (psychologically). And certainly the military attracts the type of redneck personality who doesn’t see or care about the bigger picture, and just wants to shoot things. yeehaw. But I agree with Clayton that someone in the chain of command had to understand that the eyes of the world are always on them over there. But I’m sure he would also agree that when we were in, we got away with a lot of shit that the bosses never knew about-
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