Subject:
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Re: Wining Hearts & Minds
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Newsgroups:
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lugnet.off-topic.debate
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Date:
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Tue, 11 May 2004 14:14:04 GMT
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Viewed:
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822 times
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In lugnet.off-topic.debate, Scott Arthur wrote:
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I’m not sure that Scott is calling for restricted press. I have little
doubt that he’d prefer to have all these crimes subjected to the light of
public scrutiny.
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Yep, and I don’t want foot soldiers to carry the can for
institutional
failures either: In a letter home earlier this year, Staff Sergeant Chip
Frederick, one of the soldiers charged, said he had questioned some of the
things that he saw taking place, and was told, “This is how military
intelligence wants it done.” Frederick’s lawyer is preparing to defend his
client at court martial by saying that he is being scapegoated for a greater
failure of leadership. “The intelligence community forced them into this
position,” Gary Myers told the New York Times. This argument of superior
orders would almost certainly not prevent Frederick being held legally
responsible for his actions, but it does suggest that others might share his
guilt.
Scott A
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Mmmmm.
I saw Geoffrey Robertson interviewed on
Lateline and while it
wasn’t the focus of the interview, he got to the nub of what concerns me about
this.
”...because what we’re seeing here is not just the kind of abuse that
happens in most prisons where those in power over others humiliate them.
What it seems to have been happening is that a systemic abuse that was
justified on the basis of softening up, something that was taught as an
interrogation technique - ritual humiliation, use of photographs to show
suspects to try and get information out of them.”
Its not that ugly things
happen, because they do in such circumstances, always have and always will
(people really are like that) and much as we ought to investigate and prosecute,
its rather par for the course. Its the allegation that this is a systematic
expression of the American approach to the problem.
I imagine that the
disciplinary action for these sorts of behaviours in people caught up in the
situation and otherwise of good character is likely to be (probably
appropriately) light, and heavy on shame rather than incarceration.
But what
of the cool and calculating minds that design and propagate this kind of
behaviour, understanding full well the range of implications and consequences,
and not subject to the immediacy of imminent danger and immersion in the
necessary ‘do what you’re told’ culture. Or is it true what John seems to
suggest from time to time, that anything is fair game if it can be argued to be
in defence of ‘freedom’?
The British, in the cases that Geoffrey cites, seem
to have come to the conclusion that regardless of whether its fair or
reasonable, its ultimately futile anyway. One wonders how the Americans could
come to some contrary view.
Maybe this is in the bucket marked ‘things an
organisation must learn for itself’. If so, we wouldn’t have much of an excuse
then to be surprised or appalled if other organisations are doing it too, to our
people.
Richard
Still baldly going...
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Message is in Reply To:
 | | Re: Wining Hearts & Minds
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| (...) Yep, and I don't want foot soldiers to carry the can for (URL) institutional failures> either: In a letter home earlier this year, Staff Sergeant Chip Frederick, one of the soldiers charged, said he had questioned some of the things that he (...) (21 years ago, 5-May-04, to lugnet.off-topic.debate, FTX)
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