This is right up there with the utter non-sense that Jerry Falwell spewed shortly after 9/11 when he blamed liberals, gays, etc. for the attacks.....

Basically, it's MTV's fault for the Irqai prison mess....

Makes me think of that Robert DeNiro film "Guilty by Suspicion" when he says repeatdly to a panel "Have you no shame" when he's being grilled during the Hollywood witch hunts of the 1950's.....

Sen. Joe McCarthy's Commie witch hunt 50 years ago when he asked: "At long last, sir, have you no shame?"

Love Bobby D. but give credit where credit is due.

It seems somewhat hard to deny that the lowering of morals in this country has effected the moral capacity of the military.

Secular Humanism is taught in every government school in the country.  And a huge aspect of Secular Humanism is a lack of a moral "plumb-line"!  Only two or more different ways of looking at things, not a right way and a wrong way.  It does not teach moral absolutes, it teaches muddy water.  I believe that a strong argument can be made that this teaching has played a large part in what we have seen in regards to treatment of Iraqi detainee's.

That one soldier would commit sodomy on a teenage boy is disgusting, but that several more stood by and watched in amusement is much more troubling.  We have always produced sadists, as has the entire world, but as a whole, they have been either discharged or kept their deviant natures private in the military.  This type of moral breakdown must have been born somewhere, it wasn't existent in WWII or Vietnam.  Sure there were and always will be exceptions, but not widely accepted by our society or soldiers as a whole.

Like I posted previously, ALL soldiers, in ALL branches of the military service are schooled in the Geneva Convention.  In that schooling you are told that A SOLDIER CAN AND IS HONOR BOUND to IGNORE and REPORT any orders coming down the chain of command that would breach the Geneva Convention.  Not only did they not ignore the orders, they appear to be enjoying themselves on the tape.

So Moose, how do you explain that behavior?  Chuck Colson gave his opinion, you call it wacky, let us hear what your explanation is!

Nor were they trained in the tenets of the Geneva convention.  So when their superior officers gave them orders to abuse these prisoners, they didn't know what they were supposed to do, and they obviously made some wrong decisions.  Of course, they are culpable for these acts, but less culpable, to my mind, than their superiors who gave the immoral/illegal orders.

Is that the Soldiers who were guarding the detainee's were a Unit of Military Police from a National Guard unit.

There training has NOT been questioned.

The schooling of the Geneva Convention is given to all Military inductee's, without exception.  It is clear and a test is given.

What we do not know:

Is that orders for mistreatment of detainee's came from the military hierarchy.  I think that your hatred has warped your thinking.  That an order would come down the channels to sodomize a teenage boy with a nightstick is incredulous and gives proof of your inane bias.

Furthermore, you failed to offer any useful information as to how these young Soldiers could commit such acts and seemingly find gratification in their acts!  Base morals would of had them refusing such orders if they indeed were following orders.

I'll be quite honest - I have no idea what actually happened here.  But it is quite clear that the Administration has sought to scapegoat a handful of low level soldiers, who undoubtedly DID commit several brutal and unacceptable acts, while at the same time, covering up the findings of their own internal investigations into this situation.  And these soldiers that were charged ALL have claimed that they never were trained in the restrictions of the Geneva Convention.  Were they?  I admit I don't know, I wasn't there.  But YOU should not assume that training YOU got 30 years ago is still happenning today.   And if YOU believe that this episode is isolated to a handful of Seargents, Privates and Corporals, and was not, at some level condoned or encouraged within at least the local command structure, and possibly far higher up in the command structure, you are a naive fool.  Everything about how this administration handled this speaks to A) their stupidity and incompetence about how damaging this could be,  and B) once they finally figured that out, to cover their own tracks.

-- Modified on 5/28/2004 6:00:53 PM

I would suspect a few things.

First, they were probably not well trained in the aspects of the Geneva convention.

Then, they were probably given the impression that these were not enemy combatants who were subject to the Geneva convention. They were probably lead to believe these were criminals and thugs, not soldiers (and they probably were cirminal elements, but my understanding is that they might still have been classified as combatants).

I would also suspect that there was an "implication" that these "prisoners" needed to be broken for intelligence purposes.

I don't think specific instructions were given on exactly what actions were to be taken, and these soldiers-not experienced in psychological warfare and iterrogation-wnet too far, thinking they were performing their duties.

I also understand that most of this crap occurred during one night.

It was wrong, they should have known better, since obviously one of them did know better and reported it. The commanding officer at the prison was responsible, just as the captain of a ship is responsible for the actions of his crew and vessel.

There may well be procedural issues that need correction-how do you walk that fine line between extracting information and guarding prisoners? I don't consider all the actions to be "torture", I do accept the fact that the humiliation tactics are a form of abuse.

I returned from a trip & saw your post...

I think why the soliders did what they did relates to power & control....IMHO, this is also why bullying in school exists, it's not because of MTV, rap music, violent movies, etc...Well, same holds true for these soliders...Perhaps doing what they did gave them power & control...Now, as to WHY power & control are important, that's another issue......I mean, people who know right from wrong, I don't think will be influenced by music videos & Hollywood productions etc., the culture won't affect them....

Another thing sort of on the issue...I was born in early 70's, so I wasn't around...But many people say the 50's, & up until time JFK was assassinated was such a time of innocence...But do you think that's true??...I mean, being a woman, jew, black or other minority at that time was a major struggle.....IMHO, those really didn't seem like such innocent times when minorities had to go thru what they did.......Do you think perhaps that this moral decline were talking about started long ago, even before WWII?....If people were of such moral character, then why did so many people have to deal with racism & bigotry, to an extent far worse than it is now......

I grew up in the 50's & 60's.  I lived and live in Southern California, just for reference.  During that era women's rights were not really an issue.  Many women, my mother for example worked in factories during WWII and wanted to return to homemaking, not all, but by far the great majority of them.  When women's rights became an issue, the country adapted.

The public elementary schools I attended were integrated, whites, Asians, Latino's, Blacks and some Indians.  We all played together, race wasn't an issue.  My dad worked in the aerospace industry which was equally integrated.  At our table on any given Sunday you would find people of all races.  When racial discrimination became an issue the country adapted.

When I was 9 years old, 1959, my grandfather, a white, Irish, Roman Catholic had a cross burned in his front yard in Anaheim, California.  The community erupted, with the help of the "Baptist Church" the culprits, members of the local KKK were arrested and spent a year in the county jail for it.  The Baptist Church is where the wacko's of the KKK were born, but it wasn't the "norm" or even "remotely acceptable" behavior for Baptists, just an anomaly.

I point these things out because much of what you have been lead to believe was NOT UNIVERSAL!  Although I don't pretend to say that racism and glass ceilings didn't exist, it didn't seem too rampant or tolerated in my community.

I have an uncle who lives in Sneads, Florida (12 miles from Georgia and 13 miles from Alabama), pretty much the deep south.  He' s 80 and has lived there my whole life.  His two next door neighbors have been the same black families for the last 50 years, they care deeply for each other and always have.  When we vacationed there, I played with their children, we are still friends today, and they consider my Uncle and Aunt as family.  

Maybe it has to do with my parents being first generation Americans from Irish parents, but bigotry was never allowed in our home.  

I think that it might be a good exercise for you to look at the newsreels from that era of racial strife and look at how many WHITE faces you see in the demonstrations.  When the injustice was put before the American people, they stood for righteousness.  Those who stood to block the progress were the Democrats in Congress and the Senate, check it out!

One last thing, laws can't change the human heart, where there is racism, laws can only somewhat control it.  I think that the majority of Americans were not racist, only went along with the status quo (wrongly), but when faced with their own errors, they acted according to their core beliefs.  The result of that change is the LEAST racist, MOST open society in the history of mankind.

I would just like to add that your feeling that racism was not ``too rampant'' in your neighborhood comes from a White kids perspective - I'm not questioning its validity.

And I believe you are entirely correct about how many of the American people eventually stand for righteousness - Is it fair to say that the Native Americans might have been a victim of genocide had it not been for the decent Whites ?  I think so.

I'm not sure about your assertion about who tried to block the progress of the Civil Rights Movement, but as a Mexican-American from Northern CA, I can tell you that the Republicans are widely viewed as ``not a friend of the minority'' (by Blacks there as well).  For example, Pete Wilson is my one of my favorite Guys, and of course in TER land we have our resident sharp shooter James86 who advocates shooting Mexicans trying to (illegaly) cross the border (and I bet good ole funtime69 would be right by his side - or perhaps even closer ????).