I don't know if those pics were part of a psy-ops campaign or not.
One thing is certain, if people think that the rather "frat-boy initiation" antics perpetrated by a bunch of poorly supervised troops is "torture" then they clearly have had their heads up their rears for the last several years.
The other thing to keep in mind is that the people in those Iraqi prisons are not in there because they were singing too loud in church.
American troops in Iraq are treated every day to having their buddies blown up or ambushed, and the treatment of Americans and others at the hands of Iraqi insurgents is enough to build a pretty high level of hate. How soon everyone seems to have forgotten the ambush and slaying of four civilians and their mutilation and display by dancing and cheering Iraqis.
How quickly people have forgotten the slaying of other American civilians, and the execution slaying of Fabrizio Quattrochi.
Folks, unless you've been in a situation like that, it is real hard to understand how one's view of the "enemy" changes.
I am not offering this as an excuse, but as an explanation.
The American troops who engaged in these rather harmless (let's be realistic and keep this in perspective, shall we?) antics were acting in violation of the Geneva Convention and The Laws of Land Warfare. They were also acting no doubt, in violation of standard US Army policy. You will see virtually all of the participants in this overblown farce, court-martialed. There will be a lot of jail time served, and deservedly so.
But again, let's keep this in perspective. We have over 150,000 troops in Iraq, and the US military has bent over backwards to avoid civilian casualties and a lot of Americans have died in their efforts to follow the Hague and Geneva Conventions, and the Laws of Land Warfare.
In every group of people, you are going to have those who, when given power, will abuse it. And when you put that in the context of enemy combatants who may well have just killed fellow soldiers, it is an ugly combination.
You will see the people who participated in these acts be criminally charged under the Uniform Code of Military Justice, and most, if not all will spend the next several years in Leavenworth, Kansas or Mannheim Military Prison in Germany. They will be dishonorably discharged when their tours are up.
Their first line supervisors will be charged as well and unless they have some really special extenuating and mitigating circumstances, they will be convicted as well, and even if not convicted, their careers are essentially over, and given the US military's "Up or Out" policy, they will be booted out within a few years.
Their Junior Officers will be court-martialed. Some will be convicted, but all will will have a taint on their records and I can assure you that these men and women will also be leaving the military under less than honorable conditions.
Their middle-grade officers will be investigated. Many will be court-martialed. Some might serve time in prison. All of their careers are basically dead in the water.
There does come a point though at which you cannot hold a senior commander DIRECTLY responsible for the actions of his or her subordinates. We Americans need to understand that. The notion I see put forth by some that everyone in the chain in the command all the way up to Don Rumsfeld must be cashiered is nothing short of political decimation. It is an unfair demand that goes counter to not just our legal system, but our culture as well.
As long as there are human beings on the "sharp end" of any conflict, there will be those who cannot handle their responsibility and power. No level of supervision and no amount of daily or even hourly reports and no amount of bureaucratic policy will keep every human being at the lowest levels from doing something hateful, stupid or negligent.
Don
