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Thursday, April 23, 2009
A FEW PAY THE PRICE FOR THE WRONGS OF THE BUSH ADMINISTRATION
The former commander in charge of Abu Grhaib, Brigadier General Janis Karpinski, US Army (Ret.) spoke with Keith Olbermann about the trickle down effect that the illegal torture had on service personal, two of which are now serving prison sentences for following orders.
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I'm sorry, but I haven't got much sympathy for people who don't have the cajones to tell their commanding officer to shove it when given an illegal order. Or at the very least blow the whistle on them. You're supposed to follow the last legal order, and they had to know good and well that what they were being told to do was illegal and contrary to the Geneva Convention. Hmm, it's probably a good thing I didn't take my father's advice and join the military... they'd have had me court-martialed for sure.
I've seen the pictures, the officers just standing there as if they were having a normal day, talking about the weather, or laughing while people were being treated worse than animals. Indeed if someone treated animals like that, the SPCA would come after them.
And we convicted the Nazi officers who tried the defense that they were just following orders, and which in their case, they were actually following a legal order. Legal to them that is. There's a difference between legal and moral.
I think it's a travesty that there appears to be certain people who are above the law, i.e. Rumsfeld, Cheney and company. Those bastards need to be tried too. No one is above the law.
Don't get me wrong, I don't agree with what those who are already in prison did. Far from it. My point was that they shouldn't be the only ones there. They shouldn't have been made the "fall guys" for this whole illegal debacle. There are a lot of others, both Dems and Repubs that should have a room right there with them.
A friend of mine had a daughter who served in Iraq. When she returned, she told her father that the military were constantly fed drugs to keep them high so that they wouldn't question orders.
Brigadier General Janis Karpinski displayed her justified anger. The soldiers at Abu Grhaib that were punished were used as scapegoats for Cheney and Rumsfeld's crimes.
It'd be "just" for Dick Cheney to switch places with Charles Granier...
p.s.
permit me to request that folks who have NOT subjected her or his life to the mortal, ofren fatal caprice of the State refrain from predicting what they would have dared or done under the circumstances...
Thank you very much for your kind attention to this matter...
Cats - Do you know if your friend's daughter has proof that they were fed drugs for that purpose? This is some serious shit here that needs to be brought out in the open.
Woody - I'm all for switching Cheney for Granier. The sooner the better!
Fuck ex-Brigadier General Janis Karpinski! She should have been court martialed.
Every single person involved in torture from those who wrote the "legal" justifications to allow the acts and those who gave the orders to do it to the ones who physically do the deed should be prosecuted.
jeg43 - Please don't take me wrong here. Karpinski was forced into retirement because of what happened at Abu Grhaib. I agree with you that what she did herself was wrong and deserves to be punished more than just forced retirement. Everyone from Bush all the way down, including a lot of Democrats, need to be punished for the wrongs committed.
The point of this was that there needs to be more done to higher ranking personnel, both military and public, not just two soldiers who were "following orders."
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