Originally posted by zgendron: I think the soliders involved are going to be hung out to dry. I truly believe that the MPs and soldiers involved were improperly trained and ill-prepared for handling prisoners and the situation at hand. This is a fundemental command failure. I hope that judgement does not stop with the court marshals, but the root of the problem is identified, and correctly.
With that said, these soldiers ABSOLUTELY knew that what they were doing is wrong. You don't need the Geneva Convention to tell you that.
Hiding behind their lack of training is BS. Plain and simple. It doesn't take the Geneva Conventions to tell someone how they should take care of prisoners. It's damn common sense that you don't make em get naked and lay in a huge pile. You don't lead them around with dog leashes.
Sandman's mailing address is to an MP Co, he's a reservist, just like the soldiers currently accused of abusing the prisoners. I imagine their military training was pretty similar. But, we don't see him or his unit on the news for abusing Iraqis. Why is that? Because the ones that did it are damn idiots.
I saw a lawyer representing one of the soldiers on the news the other day.. The lawyer was saying how she was ordered to abuse the prisoners and had no choice but to obey the order. More BS. If the order is unlawful she didn't have to obey it. The UMCJ explicitly states that a soldier must follow lawful orders, and therefore that a soldier not obey unlawful orders. The lawyer really didn't help his client by saying what he did on national television, all he did was point out that his client didn't perform her duty not to obey unlawful orders.
It doesn't take weeks of training to figure that out, it just takes a little common sense.
I think one reason we didn't hear a major outcry under Sadam was because people feared for their lives. If someone ran to CNN and complained that their loved one was missing / dead, that person would be missing / dead very soon thereafter.
