re: US Marine captain writes stinging op-ed: 'We lost the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan'

We didn't lose the war in Iraq. We fricked up the occupation.

Are you active duty? Do you feel an obligation to ignore orders that are illegal?

Iraq and Afghanistan were massive failures, anyone who says otherwise is a blind partisan

Fair enough. And I appreciate your service. in the past you have claimed bush (and maybe trump?) are war criminals. Is it your opinion the servicemen that participated in the wars are also war criminals? If the orders were illegal, and there is a duty to not obey illegal orders, that would make all of them criminals, right?

Ok. And?

quote:

---

Fair enough. And I appreciate your service. in the past you have claimed bush (and maybe trump?) are war criminals. Is it your opinion the servicemen that participated in the wars are also war criminals? If the orders were illegal, and there is a duty to not obey illegal orders, that would make all of them criminals, right?

---

That is a very good question. When the national command authority says “We are invading Iraq today, boys!”, it is not really on the lance corporals to say that is an unlawful order.

I do recall one of the examples back in our class exercises at Quantico. Say you are the leader of a section of Cobra attack helicopters. Th FAC (forward air controller) on the ground wants you to strafe a village. You overfly the ville, you see no hostile action in the village, no fire coming from it and in fact you see only women and children. What do you do?

1. Strafe the village
2. Declare low fuel state and depart for the carrier
3. Decline as there is no military target visible

The answer of course is 3. From that we devolved onto – do you report that FAC? Did he want to commit acts not allowed by the Geneva Conventions or the UCMJ? Maybe the infantry leader he was supporting did? That is a mess.

We had ROE for use of deadly force. In what was called Interior Guard.

1. Self defense
2. Protect government property vital to national security. Nuclear Weapons
3. Protect government property not vital to national security but inherently dangerous to others - weapons and ammo.
4. To prevent serious crimes against others such as rape, murder, or arson
5. In connection with apprehension and escape of someone you reasonably believe has been involved in a serious crime like rape, murder or arson.
6. Lawful order

The kicker is lawful order. If you are a lance corporal and a lieutenant runs up and says, “Shoot that guy!” What do you do?

quote:

---

Ya, because a fricking O-3 has the experience and visibility at the strategic level to be an authority on whether we won the war or not. GTFO of here. And I say that as an O-3.

---

He has less to lose. He can start a second career. He's not locked into the up-or-out, get along go along mindset yet, so he can speak the truth as he sees it. Do you think an O-6 would be as likely to write the same article, knowing it could make or break his chance to pin on a star?

Maybe this guy is full of shite. If he is, someone should write an article refuting him. It's the kind of debates we should be having and that the careerist mindset is killing.

quote:

---

Not particularly familiar with Abu Ghraib but I'm always open to learn

---

Abu Ghraib torture and prisoner abuse


This image of a prisoner, Ali Shallal al-Qaisi, being tortured has become internationally famous, eventually making it onto the cover of The Economist (see "Media Coverage" below)




During the war in Iraq that began in March 2003, personnel of the United States Army and the Central Intelligence Agency committed a series of human rights violations against detainees in the Abu Ghraib prison in Iraq.[1] These violations included physical and sexual abuse, torture, rape, sodomy, and murder.[2][3][4][5] The abuses came to widespread public attention with the publication of photographs of the abuse by CBS News in April 2004. The incidents received widespread condemnation both within the United States and abroad, although the soldiers received support from some conservative media within the United States.[6][7]

The administration of George W. Bush attempted to portray the abuses as isolated incidents, not indicative of general U.S. policy.[8][9] This was contradicted by humanitarian organizations such as the Red Cross, Amnesty International, and Human Rights Watch. After multiple investigations, these organizations stated that the abuses at Abu Ghraib were not isolated incidents, but were part of a wider pattern of torture and brutal treatment at American overseas detention centers, including those in Iraq, Afghanistan, and Guantanamo Bay.[9] Several scholars stated that the abuses constituted state-sanctioned crimes.[8][9] There was evidence that authorization for the torture had come from high up in the military hierarchy, with allegations being made that Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld had authorized some of the actions.[9]

The United States Department of Defense removed seventeen soldiers and officers from duty, and eleven soldiers were charged with dereliction of duty, maltreatment, aggravated assault and battery. Between May 2004 and March 2006, these soldiers were convicted in courts-martial, sentenced to military prison, and dishonorably discharged from service. Two soldiers, Specialist Charles Graner and PFC Lynndie England, were sentenced to ten and three years in prison, respectively. Brigadier General Janis Karpinski, the commanding officer of all detention facilities in Iraq, was reprimanded and demoted to the rank of colonel. Several more military personnel who were accused of perpetrating or authorizing the measures, including many of higher rank, were not prosecuted.

Documents popularly known as the Torture Memos came to light a few years later. These documents, prepared shortly before the 2003 invasion of Iraq by the United States Department of Justice, authorized certain enhanced interrogation techniques, generally held to involve torture of foreign detainees. The memoranda also argued that international humanitarian laws, such as the Geneva Conventions, did not apply to American interrogators overseas. Several subsequent U.S. Supreme Court decisions, including Hamdan v. Rumsfeld (2006), have overturned Bush administration policy, and ruled that Geneva Conventions apply.

Many of the torture techniques used were developed at Guantánamo detention centre, including prolonged isolation; the frequent flier program, a sleep deprivation program whereby people were moved from cell to cell every few hours so they couldn’t sleep for days, weeks, even months, short-shackling in painful positions; nudity; extreme use of heat and cold; the use of loud music and noise and preying on phobias.[10]

LINK

You have my attention. I like how you're licking that popsicle. What else ya got?