Onward Christian Soldiers

What truly worries me about the situation in the Air Force Acc. and other such stories is that it makes it more and more likely, I think, that the days are not far off when we’ll have to worry about our generals thinking that the really serve something other than the (civilian) government. No country where people have to worry about what the generals thinks, and if they’ll go along with the civilian government, can be considered a democracy. (Even in non or semi democracies, it’s a dangerous mix- I personally think that a lot of otherwise very strange actions by Putin are best explianed by a fear that the generals won’t to along.) I first became worried about this when Clinton wasn’t able to (or didn’t) stand up to Powell and the other generals about gays in the military. I wish I could say it didn’t scare me.

It probably happened. Stupid, stupid. It likely won’t happen again, which is the only defensible reason to have reported it in the first place.

Assuming it was the truth, truth has consequences: people are dead and the reporters hurt their own country.

A tough philosophical problem—one’s allegiance to the truth does not always result in good. The terms are not synonymous. Unfortunately.

people are dead and the reporters hurt their own country.

It’s so good to see your sense of priorities and proportion are in the right place, Philosodud. It’s obvious to all that reporters, above all, are harming America, not Gitmo interrogators who flushed the Geneva Conventions down the lavvy with the Koran.

Maybe it’s a good time to bring back the Founder’s suspicion of standing armies?

I do not hold the perpetrators blameless. They hurt their country, too.

‘Too?’ As in ‘as well’, ‘in addition’? So we’re in moral equivalence territory now? Please, such lame litotes says all we need to know. Spare us such weasel words.

If only these unpatriotic reporters would stop telling us about what’s going on, we’d be able to have a much more efficiently run war. Why should the American people have any interest in what’s being done in their name? Just stop worrying about it and let the government and the military get on with what’s best. If there are no photos and no press reports about something, then it didn’t happen and no one will ever find out.

Henry, there may indeed be validity in the connection you are seeking to draw, but it strikes me that one could just as readily posit the opposite contention, that rumors of desecration of the Koran were lent credibility by the irreligious nature of American culture in general. It may be that the Muslim rioters heard these rumors and drew a connection to General Boykin and evangelical Christianity, but they may have also drawn connections to South Park and Piss Christ.

I went to a mandatory breakfast at Ft. Hood a while back — years ago — for a recently promoted Colonel. It quickly turned into a mandatory prayer breakfast, ugly smarmy prayer breakfast, where he was given not one but two bibles — one from the officers, one from the enlisted — in an egregiously offensive ass-kissing ceremony. It was pretty clear then that there was no cost to obnoxious evangelical proselytizing in the military. It’s woven into the day-to-day all over the Armed Forces, and it’s a disaster.

Philosodude is absolutely right. Just think how many lives could have been saved – Afghans, Iraqis, and soldiers from Britain, the US and allied countries – if all those damn reporters had just kept quiet about 9/11. Bastard reporters.

Brian, you could be right.

Look, if Seymour Hersh’s intention was to stop the dehumanization going on at Abu Ghraib, it was righteous. If stopping Qur’ans from clogging Gitmo toilets was the intention of the Newsweek reporters, well, maybe.

As to the previous mentions of the Case Against Bill Clinton, I think the GOP put partisanship above the good of this country, and I’m glad they were punished for it in the 1998 elections.

But Whitewater didn’t kill anybody, and neither did the impeachment. I do not know what good the Newsweek report attempted to achieve. But any reasonable person should have known that reporting this minor incident would feed this murderous jihad far more than it would achieve a good.

That is, if they read their own damn magazine.

Newsweek is not the problem here.

The problem is that people in Afghanistan are being shot down while protesting our occupation of their country. I don’t see how this could please anyone.

You can’t see any reasons for wanting to stop the desecration other than concern for plumbing, TVD?

Henry, looks like you’ll have an excuse come August; Park’s A Princess of Roumania will be released then. (I’ll be reviewing it for Halfway down the Danube for the obvious reason.)

Doesn’t the act of “flushing the koran down the toilet” just sound weird? To do that you’d need to cut the book up into little pieces first, or else you’d need a very large toilet.

If I recall correctly, it was one of those tiny little texts. You know, like those little Spanish-English dictionaries.

Oh, and one more thing: I used to think the people around my office were pompous, but now that I’ve read these comments, I have a new perspective.

“Ah, the vulgar utilitarianism of scoundrels.”

“They can’t be reined in because they hold the reins.”

Germans and Japanese soldiers were not subject to the criminal justice system in this country. But because they belonged to organized unitss and subject to military authority they were entitled to the protections of the Geneva Convention. These do not apply to guerrilla fighters because there is no state representing them that is signatory to the Convention. As to party line, that was invented by the left and persists today in that quarter (a fraction steadily falling) of the political spectrum.

So Jerry, if neither U.S. criminal law nor the Geneva conventions govern the detention of these (alleged) guerrillas (remember most of them have had no hearings of any sort to confirm their status), what law does govern their detention? Or do you so-called conservatives now think it’s okay to let the executive deprive people of life and liberty without any legal authority? That seems to be a recipe for unlimited and completely arbitrary executive power, something I would expect conservatives to deplore.

But hey, conservatives apparently forgot about deficit spending too, once Bush started doing it . . .

Hmm, I see RSL says it better than I do.

Answer the question, Jerry. So if US criminal law and international law do not apply, then under _exactly what law_ should these people be detained?

Arbitrary law, perhaps?

Call it the law of the jungle. Or make it prettier and say a jurisprudence is evolving to deal with a new form of transnational lawlessness in the dawning age of suitcase A-bombs and the inmates at Gitmo are on the cutting edge. Maybe they’ll look back in their golden years and be proud they helped make legal history. Got an answer yet on the last balanced budget during time of war?

Fun to watch the interchange with Jerry. Umm, you liberal intellectuals don’t get it. You are trying to apply logic, consistency, reason, and a respect for law and other people’s cultures, to Jerry’s statements. That’s pointless.

The best way to understand Jerry is to understand the basic dictum: “Might Makes Right”. We are the USA, we have the biggest military, the most weapons, the most powerful multinational global corporations, the most wealth, and therefore what we say, goes. Don’t fucking argue. We define what is “good” and what is “bad”, what is “legal” and what is “illegal”. There is no need for further discussion. Trade deficits are good because we are the mightiest nation on earth and everyone should be graterul to service our consumer whims– it gives them “growth”, it builds character. Budget deficits are great because they starve the government, thwarting its silly wimpy redistributionist agenda, thus giving corporations a free hand for neo-feudal dominance (tax cuts + expensive war + “faith-based” pork = goodbye welfare state!). Overweening executive power is good because it is strong and manly and decisive; we don’t want to humiliate our Dear Leader or his military by making him beg for a permission slip! Flushing Korans and holding prisoners indefinitely is good, becuase we are a strong and we are therefore right; everything and everyone else is inferior, and they can just get over it. We do not apologise. We do not admit error. We do not even report error. We are mighty, and therefore our correctness is unassailable, you simpering liberal pussies. We drive the agenda. You can only analyse and whinge about it, because you suck.

Everything is really consistent when filtered through this particular view. America is perfect because it is powerful, not the other way around. Anything that limits or threatens American power is therefore bad: and that is why committing atrocities is always justified, but reporting them is an outrageous and treasonous act– or at least questionable. Loyalty is exalted; the only ethical violation worthy of punishment is disloyalty, and the “blame America first” left is nothing if not disloyal. Anything in service of the greater glory of Our Homeland and its global hegemony is not only justified, but noble and pure. We are civilised Christians, they are savage terrorists, and so they have no “rights”. How can you not understand this? It is so simple. Now go get a goddamned job, you lazy communist leech living off the fat of our hard-working corporate visionaries, and start buying SUV’s like a good boy.

Now, it seems that Jerry is a bit more polite and educated than to be so Freeperishly blunt and direct, so since I’m one of those wimpy liberals I’ll apologise for exaggerating or picking on him or overgeneralising. But I think I’ve accurately described the worldview in which his arguments make perfect sense. So, put that in your crack pipe, smoke it, and you’ll see the futility of arguing with the Jerry’s of the world.

Jerry, last I heard “law of the jungle” isn’t something our Founders wrote into the Constitution. Maybe you have a different version, though? I don’t know, but I kind of agree with Justice Scalia that what the government does should be founded in the law as written . . .

Also, in most cases foreign enemies who fight against the U.S. in fact do receive protection under the Geneva conventions . . .

And by the way, I’m pretty sure that much of the $300 billion or so spent on Iraq and Afghanistan has been funded by supplementals and hasn’t been included in recent deficit projections . . . most of the deficit comes from other government spending (which keeps increasing under the Republicans) and revenue shortfalls . . . And even if the deficit were caused primarily by our actions in Iraq, I’d argue that all that tax money has not been particularly well spent.

Also, while Congress did authorize the use of force in Iraq, no war has been declared. It seems that if, during wartime, the executive branch is going to have arbitrary powers to detain people, then we should at least let Congress decide when war begins and ends so there’s some check on when these extraordinary powers can be executed. I don’t know, but I don’t trust the government as much as you do apparently.

Finally, this “law of the jungle” that apparently applies. Could you post a copy of the wording? Bi and I are quite curious to learn about it. Thanks!

A little sanity is in order here… There’s no danger, at least in my experience, of religious evangelicals taking over the armed forces (at least not my branch, the Marine Corps). With the exception of boot camp, where you had to pick a religion whether you had one or not (mostly so the Drill Instructors could go to the PX while you were at church on Sunday), I can think of no one more readily-mocked in the Marine Corps than the overly-religious zealot (I guess, had you been ex-Army or openly gay… but of all services, USMC is least likely place you’d ever dare that–when Clinton enacted “DADT” the Marines drove down to the first gay bar in Wilmington and tossed all the clientele through the front window).

Any military is a blunt instrument, composed of a lot of fucked up individuals–and a few extraordinarily virtuous ones–trying to do the best they can in shitty circumstances. Once you set ’em loose, you’re going to have atrocities such as My Lai and Abu Ghraib (neither of which, really, compare to the savagery of early wars if we care to remember). A few jackasses may desecrate the Koran, and a few higher-ups may encourage them to do so… making the already-likely into the nearly-certain (which is also true of Abu Ghraib). Meanwhile, a few others may turn to their Bible to get through their pain–but most guys will turn to their rifle, their buddy, their bottle, and their dick (in about that order). I think Eleanor Roosevelt (of all people!) put it best: “The Marines I have seen around the world have the cleanest bodies, the filthiest minds, the highest morale, and the lowest morals of any group of animals I have ever seen. Thank GOD for the United States Marine Corps.”

There are lot of things wrong with our military (mostly having to do with the jackasses in the White House), but too much religion isn’t one of them.

Things change, Joel. And what the military is is more than its manpower. It’s a force. The Marines may still be a bunch of supremely disciplined tough guys, but if they’re Marines they go where they’re sent, and they do what they’re told. Too much religion figures in that, now.
What Henry mentioned is what seems to be a rise in the presence of evangelicals proselytizing the ranks. Not getting laughed at. Change.
The best ways to avoid trouble all start with seeing it coming.
Boykin’s vicious Old Testament yawp signalled a profound change in the chain of command, and that was a little while ago. That he wasn’t seriously reprimanded is further proof. It hasn’t gotten better, or anything but more intensely bizarre, since then.
This is religious war across the board now. Whether you have one or not.

[i]The best way to understand Jerry is to understand the basic dictum: “Might Makes Right”. We are the USA, we have the biggest military, the most weapons, the most powerful multinational global corporations, the most wealth, and therefore what we say, goes. Don’t fucking argue. We define what is “good” and what is “bad”, what is “legal” and what is “illegal”. There is no need for further discussion. Trade deficits are good because we are the mightiest nation on earth and everyone should be graterul to service our consumer whims—it gives them “growth”, it builds character. [/i]

Well said – and the reason that my better half and I moved to Australia from the US 2 years ago. The world will soon have enough of the US bullying the schoolyard, and they will simply stop supporting our crack habit known as deficit financing.

When the oil and the money stop flowing in, the US crumbles. Too much debt, too little production, and too many whiny, self-absorbed service sector Christofacists just waiting for their comeuppance.

Maybe not this year, maybe not next… but I wouldn’t want to be there when the music stops.

Religious war across the board… I hope not. I’m as sceptical of all the current-day Elmer Gantry’s running around right now as anyone, and as worried that we’re headed for some 30s/60s-style social ugliness. Still, I find it hard to believe that the Marines will be at the head of some Evangelical war–nothing in my experience counts for it (and, given history of characters like Smedley Butler, David Shoup, and David Ellsworth–along with a tradition on the whole of uncommon crankiness–a whole lot counts against it).

Eb – absolutely, I didn’t mean to “reassure” by that remark–only to make a clumsy parallelism: Marines have as much disdain for religious zealots in the ranks (or, even more, their officers) as they do for gays. While I share the former, I certainly don’t share the latter — my daugher’s godfather is gay — and it seemed like a more powerful analogy in haste than it does on reflection. Sorry if I offended by any apparent approval.

>

You obviously haven’t listened to or read the delirious rantings of Ann Coulter et al. Force conversion of the arabs to Christianity plays to the same crowd as pissing on the Koran – that Islam is a false religion and that it’s followers are misguided at best and subhuman at worst (and thus anything we do to them really isn’t that bad). I believe this is the same line of thinking that led to the mass manufacture of the Gypsy/Jew Easy-Bake oven line in Germany during the 1930s/40s…

abb1 — not sure what the scope of your claim that “left-wing extremism could’ve been a huge problem too–if it existed” is supposed to be, but surely you can’t be claiming that it’s never existed, here or elsewhere?

Just watched Siegel and Green’s fascinating The Weather Underground again the other night, and man, if Pontecorvo’s The Battle of Algiers was our pre-war cautionary tale, let’s hope we’re not going to ignore this one. Of course, one of the long aftershocks of war is veterans, several of whom are destined to go dangerously wrong at home — even my relatively brief war produced Timothy McVeigh and John Muhammad…

But to say that extreme/reactionary left has never been dangerous is to ignore a hell of a lot of history. My bedside read the past couple days has been Orwell’s Homage — a testament to fucked-up leftism if there’s ever been one (well… there’s always Darkness at Noon and Gulag Archipelago, but let’s not quibble).

“Certainly, I can’t imagine that interrogators in the US military would ever have flushed a Bible down the toilet to shock a Christian prisoner into cooperation, regardless of whether this was likely to have worked or not.”

Why can’t you imagine that? Efficacy over all. (As to whether it would be, I dunno. Different question altogether.)

moni: I don’t think that’s what Russkie meant. Anyway, I would’ve thought that law and discipline are precisely the things that sharpen a military, not blunt it.

Foreign enemies who wage war on a society are not entitled to its protections.

Americans fighting in Iraq are considered foreign enemies by those shooting at them. Again, your sorry excuse for logic just ran into a ditch. But anyway, you’re just a Freeper Cliche Generator with no intelligent input.

My bedside read the past couple days has been Orwell’s Homage—a testament to fucked-up leftism if there’s ever been one

Curiously, I read Homage as a cautionary tale for the liberal hawk community, most of all Christopher Hitchens. And, of course, there’s the whole unstated shadow of Fascism thing. You do derive such odd lessons, Mr Turnipseed.

With the exception of boot camp, where you had to pick a religion whether you had one or not

Joel, is this really the case? There’s no provision for someone to claim to be an atheist or agnostic…and you have to attend religious services every week? Just wondering.

As for the rather virulent homophobia within the USMC…for what it’s worth, I’ve heard more than one gay man insist when referring to Marines that “anyone that butch has got to be hiding something…” 8^)

Isn’t there a more basic problem here?

What happens if some American teenager goes to NYC’s Central Park and starts desecrating the Koran on a live webcam?

If he is permitted to continue, the fact that he isn’t a US serviceman is not likely to make many Muslims any less offended.

Getting back to Henry’s original point, I think we need to question whether today’s all-volunteer army is a good idea. Increasingly, the army seems to be less and less a civilian military and more of a professional army, isolated from ordinary civilian life. This scares me a bit, particularly when the military is closely aligned with the executive branch and subject to less and less oversight from the other branches of the government. Combine that close association with the executive branch with religious fervor and we have a very dangerous mix that could lead us down the path toward military dictatorship. I think we should abolish the volunteer army (except for a core force necessary to protect us in emergencies) and reinstitute the draft for those times we need to raise armies for war. Mandatory service (two years or so in the military or peace corps or Americorps) might also be a way to keep our force strength up without having to have professional standing armies. We need to get back to the Founders’ vision of a truly civilian service. When arms and the army are in the hands of the people, mililtary dictators cannot succeed. Our Founders understood this. We seem to have forgotten.

Many of those released from Gitmo resumed the war when they got back and have been killed or recaptured.

Can you prove this?

Joel,

If you’re referring to Wilmington, NC, as I suspect you are, I was living there at the time and recall no such incident.

It sounds manifestly implausible for a variety of reasons. If you meant that some marines started a fight in a bar, that’s less so.

Jerry: But the courts, military and civil, will lay down a body of law to deal with transnational terrorism. Just be patient, you ardent souls.

I hope I’m not too far of the mark in assuming that if your hypothetical child was detained by a foreign power and tortured for years, you’d be patient about it, and sure that everything would get figured out.

Joel,
…surely you can’t be claiming that it’s never existed, here or elsewhere?

No, I’m not claiming that it’s never existed, of course it has; I’m only saying that left-wing radicalism and nihilism aren’t something we have to worry about in 2005 US of A and especially in the US military.

He doesn’t represent the West, he represents jihadists/crusaders of the world.

Jonathan – Google to the rescue. So, I guess the rumor mill was as strong then as my willingness to believe the worst about the Marines. Of course, there may have been another incident, but with the references to the TV appearances, etc, I’m sure this is the one I recalled. Doesn’t say whether the gay man was defenestrated or not, but it doesn’t look like it.

Kvetch – Yes, you have to attend religious services, at least in my platoon you did. I have no idea what the formal policy on atheism is. But I should make clear that my drill instructors were certainly not Gunny Hartmann: had I said I was Buddhist they probably would have laughed, made me Buddhist lay private, then told me to go to Protestant service since it sure as hell wasn’t Catholic, Jewish, or LDS–I don’t recall there being a Muslim service.

As to the “all-volunteer” army — yes, I think this is something of a social problem (especially as we consolidate bases to West and Southeast). But whether a draft is the solution, I don’t know… it’s certainly tempting. A national service plan for all youths would be better than a straightforward military draft (with lottery for non-pacifists to enter military service), but there’re big problems (union opposition, funding) with that, too. The operational problem is, for a lot of MOSs, it can take almost two years just to train people (General Gray for a while had extended USMC boot camp from 13 to 17 weeks–and I spent almost a year at Camp Lejeune afterwards in Advanced Diesel Mechanics school; some MOSs have considerably longer training still: Helicopter and Jet mechanics, some programmers, etc.)… not to mention, morale is much lower with conscripts–so, you do get a less effective fighting force (and, even now, with volunteer military, something like 50% of all Marines entering boot camp are kicked out/gone UA/tossed in jail within two years–and less than 20% of those are washed out in boot camp).

In general, however, I think we suffer from a lack of educated people within the ranks and who’ve graduated from the ranks. The few people that I’m still in contact with are now very senior enlisted (or even recently retired) and I can throw verbal fireballs about the War in Iraq at them in a way that they would never tolerate from someone else (and have even gotten a few to come ’round). Though this isn’t fail-proof (the Swift Boat Veterans for Down-and-out-Lies are a case in point–and there’s a great scene in Larry Heinemann’s new memoir in which he and Jim Webb snort at each other at a Vietnam Writers’ Association meeting in Hanoi), but I think the broader understanding of “hey, we’ve been in this together–don’t bullshit me” is of non-trivial benefit to the larger social discussions around the military and society.

Why the quotes around the West, Moni? You don’t accept the concept? And if you hate “the West” so much, it seems reasonable to wonder why you don’t establish residence elsewhere. Canada is on record as being willing to receive our misfits and malcontents. As for Nick, those Americans who are enemies to foreign societies in which they live have no right to expect its protections either. Why is this so hard to understand? And be good enough to explain what Freeperville is. Return to the playground, Bi. You’ve got a shot at winning some arguments there.

“Foreign enemies who wage war on a society are not entitled to its protections.”

Oh yeah, the “war.” Our cities are in ruin.

““Foreign enemies who wage war on a society are not entitled to its protections.””

“Oh yeah, the “war.” Our cities are in ruin.”

Your point fifi? A war is not just unless we are loosing it?

Back on topic – it seems that the newsweek story which got people killed and damaged our efforts at establishing democracy in Afganistan has been retracted. Some asshole apparently made it up. And people died. Does the phrase “loose lips sink ships” come to anyone’s mind?

Some asshole apparently made it up. And people died. Does the phrase “loose lips sink ships” come to anyone’s mind?

Quite. Although by ‘asshole’ you mean ‘senior US government official’. Why does the US government hate America?

Ace sums it up nicely:

“The media does in fact have an impressive fact-checking system.

If a quote or purported fact portrays Republicans, the military, or America generally in a positive light, they check it to death to make sure they’re not spreading propaganda.

But… if the quote or purpoted fact portrays those in a negative light, it pretty much gets into print with only the most cursory once-over by the editors. If it agrees with their basic world-view — if it feels “right” in their gut — then in runs.

Fact-checking comes later… after a couple of newly-minted corpses.”

*** Update: Newsweek is now saying that it erred in its report ***

erred with malice
ohhhhh wellllll at least we know those xristians are the ones to blame and not Newsweek which is an important discovry from academics herein

also I have attempted sevral times to comment in another link you have
this one here
but the comments arent’ working
I told jq about this but he’s ignored it
my last try

Belmont club also is mentionng this Newsweek fiasco

ps blemont is an excellent blog

I’m troubled by the conservative direction this blog’s postings are taking. I only dropped by to get the liberals stirred up. Their impotent fury lies just below the surface and it takes only a little to make them blow up. You need a raincoat for the spit.

Newsweek lied, people died…

I read the corporate media like the Soviets read Pravda, the denial serves only confirms the story. And I think we can safely assume our “knowledgeable government source” wishes he had crossed the mafia instead.

This correspondent wrote his opinion early in this thread that reporting a desecration of the Qur’an at Gitmo might have been irresponsible because it led to a loss of human life.

I note the right-wing blogosphere is in gotcha mode because the report is likely to be proven false. They are not unjustified in crowing that more human beings have now died from this than at Abu Ghraib.

But forget that. Even if it had been true, which was in the realm of probability, any intelligent or moral person could reasonably expect that the report could be expected to do more harm than good.

It’s not as if the reporters were any more morally outraged at the prospect than they would be at the burning of a Bible or an American flag. Even my most benevolent imagination cannot derive what greater good they could have been seeking.

Sacha Baron Cohen sez, check yerself before you wreck yerself. Likewise, check yerself before you wreck us all.

[quote]ven my most benevolent imagination cannot derive what greater good they could have been seeking.[/quote]

shine a light on the cockroaches at gitmo masquerading as honorable US soldiers and there’s a public service right there. If other soldiers are killed as a result, the blame rests on the US leadership, not on the reporter.

Someone wrote: “If a quote or purported fact portrays Republicans, the military, or America generally in a positive light, they check it to death to make sure they’re not spreading propaganda.”

I mean, is there anyone who can say this with a straight face? After the American media credulously repeated every single pre-war WMD claim by the Bush administration, a record of 100% failure to filter out propaganda by the Republicans?

Joel Turnipseed:

FWIW, one more small anecdote: When I was in SA for the Persian Gulf War, reading (among other things) LawrenceÂ’s Seven Pillars, I asked out chaplain for a copy of the Koran. Chaplain was sceptical, but next day I got one.

As someone who studies Islam academically I’m very curious to know which translation you were given. If you can’t recall the name of the translator the exact title would be almost as helpful (e.g. The Noble Koran, The Holy Qur’an, The Glorious Qur’an, The Koran Interpreted, etc.,)

BTW, I’ve enjoyed your contributions to this thread.

So, now the Republicans control the intelligence services of France, the UK and all others who believed Saddam was working on WMDs? Wow, that Karl Rove really is a Sith Lord!

Scott Free, I admire your ability to concoct willfully point-missing and subject-changing retorts, as well as your tin ear for attempted sarcastic humor. Sith Lord – that’s a topical reference, isn’t it? Oh, my sides ache.

Anarch — well, to put it simply: “No, the officer corps is not going to rope enlisted soldiers and Marines into an evangelical war.”

While there are certainly militant believers within the military–an old Marine buddy of mine is passionately fond of John Eldredge (who is a scary freak)–the bottom line is that most of the discussion on this thread misunderstands the nature of military command: it cannot be ordered–it must be earned.

While I’m sure General Boykins has his admirers, I’m equally sure he is regarded with deep suspicion by many in both the officer corps and in the enlisted ranks. There have always been crazies like him around (and, really, compared to a guy like George Van Horn Moseley, Boykins is a pussycat), but by-and-large they do not have sufficient support of their troops to make effective military leaders (beyond their immediate circle of worship–even Patton and MacArthur had more than their share of troubles from displeasure expressed beneath and above them).

Of course, that’s not to say that firebreathers don’t like their challenges, and that they don’t have the weak and the psychotic in their pull–just that you need to know that there’s a much more complicated dynamic going on and it always makes my skin itch when people make blanket statements like “Marines follow” or “The command made them do it” or what have you. On the one hand, it’s wrong because you have to be willing to follow to be led, and on the other–there a lot of people who, when they see bullshit going on in war, call it out, or even put a stop to it. It’s both morally unfair and socially dangerous to cover every one in uniform with the same dubious brush-strokes (ahem, “cockroaches?”).

The most important person in the Marine Corps chain of command is not the Major or Colonel or General, but the Corporal and Sergeant. To a lesser extent, this is also true in the Army. If some piss-ant first lieutenant–or worse, self-righteous colonel–tells his men they are “fighting for God,” his men are going to take a deep breath and start thinking about how to keep the joker in line and themselves out of his trouble. It’s just that simple, and I thought Evan Wright did a great job of presenting just that dynamic in his Generation Kill, (and wasn’t surprised in the least when several of the NCOs portrayed in that book took UCMJ punishment rather than back down from their negative portrayal of fucked-up, gung-ho asshole commanders). Which is to say: when you’re thinking of war, think of the honest accounts (mine, Jarhead, The Ice Beneath You, Aardvark Goes to War, Generation Kill, are all excellent contemporary or near-contemporary accounts of real, actual men at war and how they think and talk and feel) before you trip over any old stereo-type you like.

Disclaimer: This is a backward looking statement, etc, and should in now way imply support for the war in Iraq, the Bush Administration, religious zealots, psycho killers, or any other undesirable elements of our military, our government, or our culture at large. Note that while it’s true that those who do not know history are doomed to repeat it, it’s equally true that those who know too much history are likely to miss what’s going on in front of their damned nose. Before using these statements for trolling, flames, derogatory or smart-ass remarks, or epistemically-grounded fact, please consult your intelligence and/or seek a second opinion.

One thing intrigues me: these riots in Afghanistan. Do all Afghanis have subscriptions to Newsweek and the New York Times? Or, if they don’t, is it possible that they might have been rioting because they heard it from somewhere else?

Incidentally, if they heard it from Newsweek and the New York Times, since when have Afghanis had such absolute faith in the Western, Christian media?

Just askin’.

Correction – Arab obviously doesn’t refer to Afghanistan, but point is, the story made into the media (tv, papers) across the Arab and Muslim world, including Pakistan, Afghanistan, etc.

So, silly question really.

So all this bloviating was about an event that never happened. Another reminder of why the intellectual has no respect beyond the academy — and little enough there.

Jerry’s trying to imply this story is like the tale of Saddam’s WMD. But hold the phone:

“But Newsweek said the source later told the magazine he could not be certain he had seen an account of the Koran incident in the military report and that it might have been in other investigative documents or drafts.”

So if it wasn’t in the military report it was in other investigative documents or drafts? OK, that changes everything.

There’s an article today on Antiwar.com noting several previous foreign and US reports of Koran desecration at Guantanamo:

http://www.antiwar.com/news/?articleid=5959

This stuff was just buried on back pages until Newsweek moved it forward. Given the large number of independent prior reports, the most plausible hypothesis is that the Pentagon just strongarmed Newsweek into their retraction.

Maybe its just that the killing fields got more publicity, but up until now I was completely ignorant of Pol Pot’s strong opposition both to detention without trial and to the desecration of religious artifacts as a way of intinidating said detainees. You really do learn something new every day.

Scott Free: You’re missing the point. You claimed that the media always treats Republican news sources with skepticism. I have demonstrated that to be false. In the lead up to the war, Republican administration officials made claim after claim about WMDs. The media went ahead and credulously printed the claims. They all turned out to be false. Therefore the media did not treat them with sufficient skepticism, and your statement was false.

Given the level of disrespect shown to human bodies in Abu Ghraib, the allegations of disrespect for a book are very credible.

“Did General Millán Astray send intellectuals into the fields to dig potatoes?”

Those he could catch and did not torture to death, yes. Or whatever the winners of the Spanish civil war thought convenient, like “El Valle de los Caídos”. Many had to flee the country to the gain of those countries where they settled.

DSW

“it’s truly incredible that people are defending the idea of people rioting and calling for holy war based on the idea of disrespect for the book.”

I must have missed that. Do you really find it incredible that people will riot when they think their religion has been insulted? (Are Christians above that sort of thing? Given the siege mentality that they’ve managed to construct for themselves in the US, of all places, I can only imagine how they’d react to the real thing)

The Enlightenment was A Good Thing. Every culture should go through one.

Involuntary irony alert…

Washington Post editorial

December 23, 2004

War Crimes

THANKS TO a lawsuit by the American Civil Liberties Union and other human rights groups, thousands of pages of government documents released this month have confirmed some of the painful truths about the abuse of foreign detainees by the U.S. military and the CIA — truths the Bush administration implacably has refused to acknowledge. Since the publication of photographs of abuse at Iraq’s Abu Ghraib prison in the spring the administration’s whitewashers — led by Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld — have contended that the crimes were carried out by a few low-ranking reservists, that they were limited to the night shift during a few chaotic months at Abu Ghraib in 2003, that they were unrelated to the interrogation of prisoners and that no torture occurred at the Guantanamo Bay prison where hundreds of terrorism suspects are held. The new documents establish beyond any doubt that every part of this cover story is false.

Though they represent only part of the record that lies in government files, the documents show that the abuse of prisoners was already occurring at Guantanamo in 2002 and continued in Iraq even after the outcry over the Abu Ghraib photographs. FBI agents reported in internal e-mails and memos about systematic abuses by military interrogators at the base in Cuba, including beatings, chokings, prolonged sleep deprivation and humiliations such as being wrapped in an Israeli flag. “On a couple of occasions I entered interview rooms to find a detainee chained hand and foot in a fetal position to the floor, with no chair, food or water,” an unidentified FBI agent wrote on Aug. 2, 2004. “Most times they had urinated or defecated on themselves, and had been left there for 18 to 24 hours or more.” Two defense intelligence officials reported seeing prisoners severely beaten in Baghdad by members of a special operations unit, Task Force 6-26, in June. When they protested they were threatened and pictures they took were confiscated.

FULL TEXT

[Amoung the documents referred to in the Washington Post “War Crimes” editorial, above, were FBI reports on Guantanamo. The following article is based on such a report. T.D.]

LETTER BLASTS GUANTANAMO TECHNIQUES IN 2002
FBI COMPLAINTS LODGED A YEAR BEFORE ABU GHRAIB SCANDAL

The Associated Press, Dec. 7, 2004

SAN JUAN, Puerto Rico – FBI agents witnessed “highly aggressive” interrogations and mistreatment of terror suspects at the U.S. prison camp in Cuba starting in 2002 — more than a year before the prison abuse scandal broke in Iraq — according to a letter a senior Justice Department official sent to the Army’s top criminal investigator.

In the letter…dated July 14, 2004….obtained by The Associated Press, the FBI official suggested that the Defense Department did not act on FBI complaints about the incidents, including instances in which a female interrogator grabbed a detainee’s genitals and bent back his thumbs, a prisoner was gagged with duct tape and a dog was used to intimidate a detainee who was later thrown into isolation and showed signs of “extreme psychological trauma.”

A Marine told an FBI observer that some interrogations led to prisoners’ “curling into a fetal position on the floor and crying in pain,” according to the letter…

According to the letter, in late 2002 an FBI agent observed an interrogation where Sgt. Lacey whispered in the ear of a handcuffed and shackled detainee, caressed him and applied lotion to his arms. This occurred during Ramadan, Islam’s holy month, when contact with females is considered particularly offensive to a Muslim man.

Later, the detainee appeared to grimace in pain, and the FBI agent asked a Marine who was present why. “The Marine said [the interrogator] had grabbed the detainee’s thumbs and bent them backward and indicated that she also grabbed his genitals.

The Marine also implied that her treatment of that detainee was less harsh than her treatment of others by indicating that he had seen her treatment of other detainees result in detainees curling into a fetal position on the floor and crying in pain,” Harrington wrote.

In September or October 2002 , FBI agents saw a dog used “in an aggressive manner to intimidate a detainee,” the letter said. About a month later, agents saw the same detainee “after he had been subjected to intense isolation for over three months … totally isolated in a cell that was always flooded with light. By late November, the detainee was evidencing behavior consistent with extreme psychological trauma … talking to nonexistent people, reported hearing voices [and] crouching in a corner of the cell covered with a sheet,” the letter said.

In October 2002 , another FBI agent saw a detainee “gagged with duct tape that covered much of his head” because he would not stop chanting from the Quran…

FIRST DETAILS FROM CUBA
No detailed incidents of abuse from 2002 have publicly surfaced until this FBI letter….Still, at least 10 incidents of abuse have been substantiated at Guantanamo, all but one from 2003 or this year. They range from a guard’s hitting a detainee to a female interrogator’s climbing on a prisoner’s lap.

COMPLAINTS APPARENTLY DISREGARDED
Thomas Harrington, an FBI counterterrorism expert who led a team of investigators at Guantanamo Bay, wrote the letter to Maj. Gen. Donald J. Ryder, the Army’s chief law enforcement officer…Harrington said that FBI officials complained about the pattern of abusive techniques to top Defense Department attorneys in January 2003 and that it appeared that nothing was done….”I have no record that our specific concerns regarding these three situations were communicated to the Department of Defense for appropriate action,” Harrington wrote[,]…saying the three cases demonstrated the “highly aggressive interrogation techniques being used against detainees in Guantanamo…I refer them to you for appropriate action.”…
…
Lt. Col. Gerard Healy, a spokesman for the Army, confirmed the authenticity of the FBI letter, as did the FBI.

Healy said the female interrogator — identified only as Sgt. Lacey in the letter — was being investigated, but the Army would not comment further or fully identify her….Brig. Gen. Jay Hood, the current commander of …Guantanamo, said allegations of mistreatment and abuse were taken seriously and investigated. “The appropriate actions were taken. Some allegations are still under investigation,” Hood told the AP. “Once investigations are completed, we report them immediately.”

At Guantanamo…The United States has imprisoned 550 men,… some ….held without charge and without access to attorneys since the camp opened in January 2002…The U.S. military says prisoners are treated in accordance with the Geneva Conventions, which prohibit violence, torture and humiliating treatment of combatants.

FULL TEXT

FULL TEXT

Pohl: “Anyway, what’s your argument? That the media was right to print administration claims because they were similar to claims from other sources?”

Having more than one source is one of the most basic safeguards in any form or research or journalism.

“By that argument, you would have to accept that Newsweek was right to print the story since it was similar to other stories that had appeared.”

Nonsense. They had one “anonymous source” who, as I understand, did not even claim to have witnessed the incident firsthand. “Similar to other stories” is another way of saying hearsay. There are plenty of “similar other stories” about Jews using the blood of children in rituals, but no one with any sense will call those stories reliable sources that coroborate the “Protocalls of the Elders of Zion.”

“(Ripping up the Koran is a much weaker charge than torture.)”

It is to us in the West, but to Muslims? I am unaware of any prohibition to torture in the Koran or in Muslim traditions (any scholars out there care to enlighten me?), but I do know that desecration of the Koran is punishable by death.

PS that shouldn’t even be necessary – the ‘Englightenment’ is that little thingy from which modern law emerged that led to laws such as those banning torture. Forgot that?

Also forgot that you can choose to go to an art exhibition or a Marilyn Manson show and leave at any moment where you feel offended, or not even go there in the first place, but you cannot choose to leave Guantanamo or not even go there in the first place?

The disturbing revelation in Newsweek regarding the desecration of the Koran by U.S. interrogators at Guantanamo Bay has gotten more disturbing still. Newsweek now concedes that its single-source story may not be credible and has issued an apology to readers for the violence that claimed 15 lives in Afghanistan and produced fury around the Islamic world.

Given the impact of its Periscope story, Newsweek’s ethical breach if true is a serious one and, as the Pentagon charges, shockingly irresponsible. But the reaction and rhetoric of the Bush administration shows the sheer hypocrisy – and massive cajones – of a White House characterized by a morally casual attitude towards the truth…

For the full story, see:

“White House Irony Watch: Newsweek Edition”

SF: Must you evade the point? I made the analogy exact. The New York Times printed stories about Iraqi WMDs based on a single source, an Iraqi defector supplied by the Bush administration. The stories were not collaborated by almighty French intelligence or anyone else. These stories were helpful to the Bush administration in making the case for war. It is exactly the same as the Newsweek situation.

You are missing the point completely, moni, because you are projecting your own values on the issue. _You_ are outraged by the Guantanamo detainments in general, and by the alleged use of Koran desecration as _torture_.

The muslim rioters object are rioting because of the (alleged) _desecration_ itself. Look at the sign held up by a protester on Yahoo top stories; it demands an apology for the desecration of the Qran – no mention of torture, and this is typical of accounts from the middle east. Sadly, I think that many Muslims in the middle east are so innured to torture (as it is so common in that region) that it really does not outrage it as much as it does Westerners. But mess with their religion, and they scream for blood. Remember what happened to Salman Rushide and Theo Van Gogh.

147 – if you try it in New York City, you’ll get an NEA grant.

Or put one in a jar of piss in an art exhibit.

Jerry,

nice way to dodge the point. Do it in private but make sure all the rednecks know about it and tell me that you won’t get your windows shot out, your tires slashed, and maybe a little bodily harm from the friendly enlightened locals.

Or did you forget all the white pointy hats that live down in the Good Old south?

148 – spot on.

Corbetti, before anyone else bothers to answer you … are you about 15-16 years old?

Nicholas Weininger [122.]wrote

“There’s an article today on Antiwar.com noting several previous foreign and US reports of Koran desecration at Guantanamo…This stuff was just buried on back pages until Newsweek moved it forward. Given the large number of independent prior reports, the most plausible hypothesis is that the Pentagon just strongarmed Newsweek into their retraction.”

At least as far back as march, 2003, references to US troops putting the Koran in toilets, or otherwise defiling Islam’s sacred text, presumably to psychologically torment detainees, have appeared in news articles in and outside the US. In October of 2004, a court ordered the US to turn over detainee-mistreatment related documents to a group of human rights organizations that was suing the USG based on its treatment of detainees. Thousands of documents were released, and the organizations began making them public in December. The content of the publicized documents was such that the Washington Post ran its “War Crimes” editorial.

Reading this thread, I get the impression that many are not familiar with these developments. In my opinion, they are extremely relevant to the subjects under discussion here. I would humbly suggest anyone who is interested in this subject to read the WaPo editorial and the other article that I posted at #136 above. The article discusses FBI reports of religious harassment of detainees that to me (I’m not a Muslim) seemed more disgraceful than the Koran desecration.

Also, below are excerpts from articles that have appeared in the past that specifically refer to US troops putting the Koran in the toilet.

SOURCE:

Flushing Newsweek by corrente via REASON – Hit and Run (Comment by Susan at May 17, 2005 01:54 AM) via Antiwar.com (Matthew Barganier)

March 26, 2003
The Washington Post | Final Edition | SECTION: A SECTION; Pg. A12 HEADLINE: Returning Afghans Talk of Guantanamo; Out of Legal Limbo, Some Tell of Mistreatment | BYLINE: Marc Kaufman and April Witt, Washington Post Staff Writers

The men, the largest single group of Afghans to be released after months of detainment at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, gave varying accounts of how American forces treated them during interrogation and detainment. Some displayed medical records showing extensive care by American military doctors, while others complained that American soldiers insulted Islam by sitting on the Koran or dumping their sacred text into a toilet to taunt them.

[…]

Ehsannullah, 29, said American soldiers who initially questioned him in Kandahar before shipping him to Guantanamo hit him and taunted him by dumping the Koran in a toilet.

June 28, 2004
Financial Times Information | Global News Wire – Asia Africa Intelligence Wire | InfoProd | Reprinted with the permission of Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty

One of the men, Timur Ishmuratov of Tatarstan, told ORT on 24 June — prior to the release — that he had been captured by Northern Alliance forces shortly after the beginning of the U.S. military action in Afghanistan and “sold” to the Americans for $ 3,000-$ 5,000. Former prisoner Airat Vakhitov told ORT about alleged mistreatment while he was at Guantanamo. “They tore the Koran to pieces in front of us, threw it into the toilet,” Vakhitov said. “When people were praying, they forced their way in and put their feet on people’s heads and beat them.”

August 4, 2004
CNN.com | SECTION: LAW | HEADLINE: British men report abuse from Guantanamo BYLINE: By Jonathan Wald CNN
DATELINE: NEW YORK

U.S. soldiers “would kick the Koran, throw it into the toilet, and generally disrespect it,” Iqbal said.

August 5, 2004
1. The Independent (London)

In the report, released in New York, Asif Iqbal, Rhuhel Ahmed and Shafiq Rasul – the so-called Tipton Three – said one inmate was threatened after being shown a video in which hooded inmates were forced to sodomise each other. Guards allegedly threw prisoners’ Korans into toilets, while others were injected with drugs, it was claimed.

August 5, 2004
Daily News (New York) | Byline: By James Gordon Meek and Derek Rose.

They say that rats and scorpions had free run of their sweltering cages, loud rock music was used to drown out the sound of prayers, and sleep deprivation was common.

“They would kick the Koran, throw it into the toilet and generally disrespect it,” Asif Iqbal wrote.

[…]

Pentagon spokesman Michael Shavers said the military “operates a professional detention facility at Guantanamo” and does not condone abuse of detainees.

January 9, 2005
Sunday | FINAL EDITION | HEADLINE: Nightmare of Guantanamo…. U.S. prison camp in Cuba has become legal black hole, reporter says BYLINE: John Freeman Special to The Denver Post

“They pepper sprayed me in the face, and I started vomiting; in all I must have brought up five cupfuls. They pinned me down and attacked me, poking their fingers in my eyes, and forced my head into the toilet pan and flushed. They tied me up like a beast and then they were kneeling on me, kicking and punching. Finally they dragged me out of my cell in chains … and shaved my beard, my hair, my eyebrows.”

[…]

And earlier this year, that process finally began. In March, the government released five British men from Guantanamo after nearly three years. They had been captured in Afghanistan, where they had gone to offer humanitarian aid. Rose interviewed them that same month, two months before the allegations of Abu Ghraib first surfaced, and yet they described a period of captivity eerily similar to that of the Iraqis in Abu Ghraib.
In August Mr Ahmed, Mr Rasul and Mr Iqbal issued a 115-page dossier accusing the US of abuse, including allegations that they were beaten and had their Korans thrown into toilets.*

As I’ve said before, the real culprit here is a lawless system of detention, cloaked in secrecy, and subject to no public oversight or ordinary checks and balances. In such an environment, the press has no choice but to rely on anonymous sources to get information. The press should be as careful as possible when using these anonymous sources, but they must not be intimidated by the possibility of an occasional mistake. If the press becomes intimidated by the administration (and it’s right-wing echo chamber) our democracy will be even more severely compromised. We don’t have “goverment of the people, by the people, for the people” when the administration does whatever it wants with no accountability to the public. We need to give the press as much leeway as possible to force that accountability against administrations who make every effort to avoid it.

Not necessarily fundamentalists, although I suppose most probably are. But deliberate humiliation often produces violent reaction even without fundamentalism.

Try this: approach a random (Christian, Jewish or atheist) guy and spit into his face. See how he reacts. Hey, it’s just a little bit of saliva, couldn’t he just wash it off? Was this really a reason to act like a madman? What’s the big deal?

Corbetti: You usually get around to mentioning you’re an atheist. Why drop that? Can it be that it has dawned on you that nobody cares?

You all might find this interesting:

What is lost in this Newsweek non-retraction story — and the week of cable-news segments and endless blog posts on the subject — is that U.S. forces reportedly gunned down protesters in Afghanistan, and that widespread anti-U.S. protests actually began three weeks ago, after U.S. airstrikes killed Afghan civilians in late April.