They'll just let anyone into the service these days...

[thatcrazycajun]

Your humble correspondent reads this and is deeply and thoroughly saddened and ashamed for what the peoples of the world must think of the men and women who wear his country's uniform (the more so since his older brother wore it for six years and his late paternal uncle for three). I realize the Army is stretched mighty thin these days, but that is abso-frelling-lutely no excuse for laxing up on the intake psych profiles and background checks to the extent that subhuman scum like these guys slip through. Dammit to fucking hell, we're supposed to be better than this!

Comments

[shelleybear.livejournal.com]

Castro sent those who he considered "mental defectives" to the U.S.
We send them to Iraq and give them death-dealing weapons.
At least Castro didn't arm them.

[patoadam]

I wanted to throw up after reading the second-to-last sentence of that article.

[filkerdave.livejournal.com]

The headline alone wasn't enough?

[patoadam]

Over time, I become somewhat inured to headlines like that. How else could I read the news and stay sane?

[zsero.livejournal.com]

Bear in mind that this is still at the stage of an Article 32 hearing - not only hasn't it been established that they're guilty, it's not even been established yet that they have a case to answer. The allegations are certainly serious, but we don't yet know how much credence to put in them.

Second, no matter how strict the background checks and psych profiles, you will never get a military in which nobody ever commits a crime. And if the checks are too strict they will reject too many people who can and should make good soldiers, soldiers that we need. If we end up with fewer people than we need, because the checks were too strict, what good is that? And in war time, the enlistment criteria are always more relaxed than they are in peace time, because the have to be. That's why the military's ban on homosexuals has always been enforced in peace time, but quietly ignored in war time. Even the most homophobic brass realise that at such a time they can't afford to throw away valuable talent over a stupid prejudice. They also can't afford to throw away valuable talent just in case one in a thousand turns out to be a criminal.

Re: zsero's response

[thatcrazycajun.livejournal.com]

Zev, I know full well no army can ever hope to completely eliminate the bad apples. But we seem to be growing a bumper crop of them since our incursion into Iraq. First Abu Ghraib, then Haditha and now this. Not since Vietnam War times has there been such a farrago of abuses and allegations of abuses of enemy combatants as well as noncombatants among the U.S. armed forces. And besides, Americans are (or should be) held to a higher standard than the rest of the world, as representatives of the world's sole remaining superpower and as a people whose founding documents profess high ideals of freedom and decency.

Re: zsero's response

[zsero.livejournal.com]

We're growing a bumper crop of allegations, not of actual abuses. I don't believe the current armed forces are any worse than those of the '70s or '80s. (It is possible that when the numbers were sharply curtailed in the '90s, the percentage of criminals went down, but I know of no reason to suppose that it actually was so.)

One reason for the increase in allegations is that we are facing an enemy that is known to use such allegations as a weapon. Another reason is that we have news media who openly describe themselves as neutral between the USA and our enemies, and in fact show themselves by their behaviour to be actively hostile to our forces; they see their job as treating any such allegations as presumptively true, and trumpeting them as loud as they can.

I think it is the job of every loyal citizen to give his country's forces the benefit of the doubt, and not to believe allegations against them unless and until they are proven to some reasonable standard. The abuse at Abu Ghraib was proven, and those guilty were punished. At the moment I don't believe that any crime happened at Haditha, and won't unless and until the alleged evidence has been tested and found genuine. (Prosecutors, of course, must take allegations seriously, or at least behave as if they did, so that they can be properly investigated; even if 99% end up dismissed, it's important to catch the one that's genuine. But you and I are not prosecutors, and nor are the news media.)

[baggette.livejournal.com]

If and when the allegations are proven to be true, Then what happens?
IMHO, nothing short of dealing them the same fate is even close to justice.
I favor handing them over to the Iraqi authorities, but that will never happen.
The abuses that have and will occur are in-excusable. Our "War on Terror" and Operation Iraqui Freedom, are supposed to be the tools to erradicate these kinds of horrors from the Iraqi peoples' experience.

Who the blazes are WE to call THEM terrorists?