re: Equivocation

I've decided to pull this much of the comments from the Equivocation post up onto the main page. Ray asked some good questions about that post and I'm afraid, once again, I didn't make the subtle factors of my thoughts as clear as I should have.

While my emphasis in that post was on Bush taking the blame for a lack of clear objectives in Iraq, I didn't mean to suggest that perpetrators of criminal acts shouldn't be held accountable at all. What I meant to say is that they should share that accountability with the people who put them there with no clear direction in the first place. While the Nuremberg Trials eliminated "just following orders" as a defensefor enlisted troops, they in no way absolved commanders of responsibility.

Let's start with some of the specifics...

Regarding my plea that Bush share some of the responsibility for prisoner abuse, specifically in the case of Army dog handler Sgt. Michael Smith, Ray asked:

"Let me ask you Luth, is this sort of behavior taught in the military? Is it encouraged? Is it even spoken of? Or is military training more about honor and duty. Duty to one's country. From your experience, is there any military training that enforces this kind of inhuman behavior?"

Well, Smith was convicted of using his dog to intimidate a prisoner. Is intimidation taught in the military? Absolutely. Drill sergeants intimidate new troops. The troops themselves intimidate newer troops. From hazing to flat out criminal acts, intimidation, inhumane treatment and abuse are a de facto part of military training. My fellow horsemen and I experienced our share of it during Combat Readiness Training at Ft.Benning and in Kuwait en route to Iraq. I have some rank and 18+ years of experience, and still you run across it. There are aspects of it that make me question the whole "honor and duty" thing regularly. As far as honor and duty go, troops either have that when they join, or they have a 50/50 shot of picking it up as a result of military training. Honor and duty are no more and no less explicit than intimidation and abuse in military training.

As far as duty to one's country goes. Basic trainees are taught that folding underwear correctly is duty to one's country. Marching in step is duty to one's country. Trimming grass with scissors is a duty to one's country. Obedience seems to be the foremost duty to one's country per military training. Doing one's job in the military, from accounting to tagging bodies, is serving one's country. Sgt. Smith probably felt he was doing his job by using his guard dog to get information that would protect America. Ever heard that expression used?

We tap the phones of American citizens without a warrant in order to protect America. We record the history of library books checked out by American citizens to protect America. We look at a million randomly selected Google search histories without a warrant to protect America. We ignore treaties and the Geneva Convention to protect America. We detain civilians, including children, for years without charges, representation, or contact with their families to protect America. We invaded an extremely poor, weak country led by an impotent dictator to protect America. Why would it seem out of the realm of reasonable behavior to use a dog to intimidate a terrorist suspect into giving up information that might protect America? Sgt. Smith shows no remorse because by all accounts, he did the job he was sent to do. Perhaps his judgment was in err, but given the total absence of any clear reason for him being there in the first place, is he alone to blame for that erred judgment?


If the enlisted men and staff officers in Iraq and Gitmo are going to be publicly held accountable for carrying out their CinC's orders, shouldn't the CinC also be held accountable? A pretty historically significant court seemed to think so...

"It's common for plaintiffs in cases like this (war crimes) to lack concrete evidence against top commanders. Like Mafia dons, commanders rarely commit the crimes themselves, and they don't leave much of a paper trail—not since the Nazis' zealous documentation proved so useful to Nuremberg prosecutors. Even at Nuremberg, there wasn't enough evidence of direct control to convict all the defendants who seemed guilty, so the tribunal there developed the doctrine of command responsibility. The idea was that a commander who did little or nothing to stop his troops from committing atrocities was effectively encouraging them and should be held responsible." (Effective Command by Susan Benech http://www.legalaffairs.org/printerfriendly.msp?id=230)

American courts think so too, but that comes later...

Regarding the high school superintendent gone bad scenario: I'm not suggesting that the superintendent's behavior JUSTIFIES the bad behavior of those in his charge, but rather, that they all go down for the resulting bad behavior even if only the teachers get caught. Especially when the teachers keep getting caught doing things that superintendent exemplified or otherwise endorsed or even condoned. Those teachers are a symptom... fully accountable for their own actions to be certain, but we have to treat the cause, not just the symptoms. If in any way that superintendent's behavior, speech, or doctrine influenced the teachers' behavior, or he failed to exercise the control he was hired to exercise, then he is as responsible as they are. Note the distinction: It's not that the teachers should be given impunity, it's that ALL of them should be held accountable.

Civilian contractor interrogators have endorsed, at the very least, rough treatment of prisoners being delivered for interrogation. They have trained military guards on the local operating procedures of the prisons. Commanders who have questioned this, and detailed the abusive practices demonstrated, have been relieved of their command. Their lower ranking charges have been convicted of abuse. The contractors have continued to do their work... their duty to the nation that the Bush administration hired them to do.

Furthermore, the Bush administration has admitted to sending prisoners to countries where abusive interrogation methods are the routine. Sending prisoners in one's charge to a place where one knows they will be abused is an endorsement of the abuse. It's not just allowing it to happen, or failing to prevent it, it's an endorsement of it.

Now for the American court's take on this responsibility:

"The doctrine of 'command responsibility,' the product of an American initiative enshrined in law since the Nuremberg Statutes after World War II, affirms that civilian and military leaders may be held legally accountable for abuses committed by their subordinates -- even when these commanders did not personally order abuses, witness such abuses, have direct knowledge about them or conspire to commit them. This law recognizes the tremendous danger of abuse inherent in war and, in tribute to the awful sacrifices of the Holocaust and those who died in two world wars, it places the moral worth of each and every person at the center of our international order. Rather than permit leaders to turn a blind eye to abuse, it charges both military and civilian authorities with an affirmative duty to prevent crimes, to control their troops, to act when a crime is discovered, and to punish those found guilty of committing the actual crime – no matter how high responsibility may reach in the chain of command." (The Abuse of Power, speech by Terry Karl, http://wais.stanford.edu/General/abuseofpower.htm)

President Bush must answer for his role in the Iraqi situation from the specifics to the general. The only answers he's given so far are catchphrases and faulty intelligence backed hypotheses that have since been proven false. He must answer us since he's spending our money. We would expect no less from any other commander who authorized the rounding up of people and their detention in foreign lands. The person who authorizes that is responsible for the care and treatment of those people. Sgt. Smith did not authorize that.

I'm not blaming the system for what individuals like Smith did, I'm blaming the commander. I'm not blaming him for the acts committed by the individuals like Smith, but for creating a culture that allows or encourages the individuals to think what they did was the right thing. They answer for their actions. Bush answers for his.

And what of CW2 Birt and Maj. Klaus? They exercised field expediency to ready their convoys to meet mission demands. Some of what they were convicted of (not filling out the proper paperwork for cannabalizing vehicle parts) happened while under fire. When another unit refused to do what Klaus's unit did to prepare their equipment, they were charged with failing to perform their mission. How do you decide what the right thing to do is given that information? Right and wrong never seems to be as easy on the ground as conservatives make it sound.

Sorting all of this out is not easy here in my comfy den. Imagine what those troops in Iraq have to process when determining the right thing to do. They may have volunteered to serve, but they didn't choose to go to Iraq. Are they solely to blame for what they're asked to do there in the name of honor and duty, serving their country, and protecting America?