You want to know what is going on with the troops, I have a little secret for you. Ask the troops. Forget the generals, the fobbits, the suits, the public relation officers, and anyone at base camp. Talk to the grunts, and be prepared for the truth:
US Iraq troops 'condone torture'
By Humphrey Hawksley
BBC News, Baghdad
A US survey of battlefield ethics among troops in Iraq has found widespread tolerance for torture in certain circumstances and problems with morale.Read all about it
The survey, by an army mental health advisory team, sampled more than 1,700 soldiers and marines between August and October 2006.
It examined their views towards torture and the Iraqi civilian population.
A Pentagon official said the survey had looked under every rock and what was found was not always easy to look at.
The Pentagon survey found that less than half the troops in Iraq thought Iraqi civilians should be treated with dignity and respect.
More than a third believed that torture was acceptable if it helped save the life of a fellow soldier or if it helped get information about the insurgents.
About 10% of those surveyed said they had actually mistreated Iraqi civilians by hitting or kicking them, or had damaged their property when it was not necessary to do so.
Troops suffering from anxiety, depression or stress were more likely to engage in unethical behaviour, together with those who had had a colleague wounded or killed in their unit.
!!!Kill the Hadji!!!
ReplyDeleteThat still rings out, from time to time, around my house. Marine Corps indoctrination runs deep.
Which wouldn't be so bad, if the Corps stood behind their E3s when they do kill some hadjis.
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ReplyDeleteTroops suffering from anxiety, depression or stress were more likely to engage in unethical behaviour, together with those who had had a colleague wounded or killed in their unit
ReplyDeleteA lady at work has a son in Iraq, I forget how long he's been there, seems like forever. He's lived through two IED explosions. He's getting tired of catching the same local guys over and over again and is starting to threaten them with bodily harm, showing them his piece and saying (half-joking, half-not) "I know where you live. If I see you out here again, I'm going to kill you." Now tours are being upped from 12 to 15 months. Stand by for more Hadithas and Abu Graihbs.
"A key recommendation to emerge was to shorten the tours of duty."
ReplyDeleteIf only. Tours have not only been extended, but recovery time has long since been cut in half for many. Half of the doctrinal norm.
There was a fascinating interview on NPR or WaPo radio with a writer recently returned from a long embed in Iraq. Fascinating because the writer is a Viet Nam combat veteran. He was at pains to express how relatively fortunate he and many others were in Viet Nam, which was not every f'ing square km a war zone, after all. He described, aptly I hear, how mind-numbingly pervasive the violence and threat of assault is. Day in and day out; inside the wire and outside the wire.
When he returned home and the numbness wore off, he couldn't believe he was still alive. And he wanted some of that numbness back. Which a lot of them do.
Who said that it is possibly the cruelest act imaginable to prolong war rather than bring it to swift conclusion? I'd personally like to have a word with every man, woman, and child newly enamored of the war that, had we any sense left, we'd wish on our worst enemies rather than ourselves: counterinsurgency.
And so as not to unfairly pick on Iraq: the Taliban has, in response to us, appeared in a region of Afghanistan where it previously was not: Herat, up against that OTHER border.
ReplyDeleteThe fun never ends.
Caroline Glick at the JPost on the Wingorad Committee's report:
ReplyDelete[...]
"At first glance the report reads like an ideological indictment. The commission wrote that a great portion of the blame for the lack of preparedness of both the government and the IDF was rooted in the belief that "the era of big wars had ended." Yet that belief did not stand on its own. It is rooted in the Left's peace ideology.
"This ideology maintains that even if a country is forced to fight a war, the aim of the war is to remain at the starting gate and give the enemy what it wants, not to defeat it. The belief that the era of wars is over stems directly from the Left's ideological commitment to the belief that everyone is a potential negotiating partner.
"The report demonstrates that from the outset of the war, it was this view that informed the decisions of both the government and the IDF. The report relates a notable exchange between Foreign Minister Tzipi Livni and Halutz during the cabinet meeting on July 12 when the decision to go to war was made. Livni asked Halutz, "What is victory?"
Halutz responded, "There is no victory here….What we need to do is to respond with a sufficiently strong reaction that will call the international forces to get involved and to intervene at the proper intervention points in order to place pressure on the right forces." Livni testified before the commission that the next day the Foreign Ministry began preparing position papers setting out the government's preferred end state: foreign forces on the border separating the IDF from an undefeated Hizbullah."
Well. Whaddya know.
It DID go according to plan, after all.
Just the two Tea ladies posts report enough crimes against our soldiers to call for a new government, were that the system.
ReplyDeleteDownright outrageous and immoral that our troops regularly die for no better reason than political correctness.
The government and the left have conspired to put far too much distance between the military and the people, and of course the GUP and POTUS contribute via their spinelessness for starters.
Highly unsettling, to put it mildly.
Trish: Who said that it is possibly the cruelest act imaginable to prolong war rather than bring it to swift conclusion?
ReplyDeleteThat was Master Sun Tzu. He said:
When you engage in actual fighting, if victory is long in coming, then men's weapons will grow dull and their ardor will be damped...if the campaign is protracted, the resources of the State will not be equal to the strain...though we have heard of stupid haste in war, cleverness has never been seen associated with long delays....there is no instance of a country having benefited from prolonged warfare.
"That was Master Sun Tzu."
ReplyDeleteI knew it was *somebody* smart.
"Highly upsetting." Yeah, Doug. It is. That they take a licking and keep on ticking is probably more than we have any right to expect.
Re: "There is no victory here..." (Glick's rticle.) It was obvious last summer that Israel was, in fact, seeking first and foremost the intervention of foreign forces - that buffer on the border. 1701, which we helped facilitate. A lot more could have been done in the handful of weeks before the withdrawal, but not, as the report indicates, with the military means allowed. And doesn't that sound familiar.