They are at it again

HAROLD HONGJU KOH: Well, the U.S. and its allies, the Coalition Provisional Authority, are functioning as an occupying power and they have obligations under the Geneva Conventions. But I wouldn't get carried away with how complicated this is going to be. There are two big points that can't be ignored. One is that war crimes law changed after World War II, so you can't simply point fingers and get away with it. Before Nuremberg, people who committed the crimes, actually physically did the acts, would say "I was just following orders," and people who ordered them would say "we didn't know what was going on." What Nuremberg made clear was everybody is responsible -- the people who did it and the people who ordered it. And so you can't simply point the finger at someone else and escape liability.

The second point is that whatever we know about Private Jeremy Sivits, he is not the person who created the culture of condoning these kind of acts which made this possible. None of the American soldiers in the picture seem to be afraid or to be embarrassed about what they were doing. They were clearly operating in an environment in which what they were doing was not just permitted but actually encouraged, and that means that somebody higher up created that environment. And those are the people who we really need to know who they were, what kinds of orders were given which made our ordinary foot soldier so contemptuous of the basic human rights of these detainees.

CBS to Air U.S. Soldier's Video Diary of Iraq Abuse

WASHINGTON - An American soldier's video diary showing her disdain for Iraqi detainees who died in her charge is to be broadcast by a U.S. network on Wednesday, May 12, in a further escalation of the prisoner abuse scandal that has shaken the Bush administration and provoked world outrage.

CBS, which two weeks ago broadcast the first pictures of Iraqi prisoners being abused in Abu Ghraib prison near Baghdad, said on Tuesday its "60 Minutes II" program would show video footage depicting conditions there and at another U.S.-run prison in southern Iraq called Camp Bucca.

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CBS said the home video did not show scenes of abuse but included comments by the soldier, whose name was not revealed to protect her identity, that make clear her dislike for the camp and the prisoners under her control.

"I hate it here," she said on the tape. "I want to come home. I want to be a civilian again. We actually shot two prisoners today. One got shot in the chest for swinging a pole against our people on the feed team. One got shot in the arm. We don't know if the one we shot in the chest is dead yet."

In her video, the soldier described the hazards of Camp Bucca. "This is a sand viper," she said. "One bite will kill you in six hours. We've already had two prisoners die of it, but who cares? That's two less for me to worry about." The soldier also said about three prisoners broke out of the camp every week, but they did not try to escape when she was on duty.

"It's 'cause they are scared of me," she said. "I actually got in trouble the other day because I was throwing rocks at them."

It is obvious now that we were not and it is time we turned the mess we have created over to someone more responsible. Like the UN.

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It is obvious now that we were not and it is time we turned the mess we have created over to someone more responsible. Like the UN.

Would this be the same UN that most likely skimmed billions of dollars off the "Food for Oil" program that was supposed to help the Iraqi people?

Ridiculous rejoinder. If true, how many individuals were involved? The false implication you make is that such would be systemic. If not, your argument is meaningless, other than as generalized and uncareful smear.

blatham writes

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Ridiculous rejoinder. If true, how many individuals were involved? The false implication you make is that such would be systemic. If not, your argument is meaningless, other than as generalized and uncareful smear.

That's funny. I feel exactly the same way about your consistent attempts to blame the Abu Ghraib mess on George Bush.

with all due respect to many nice and smart Americans I don't think anyone in the world outside of USA is actually surprised.

Given that the US never had any honourable intentions towards Iraq, given that the US can do what it will because no power on earth can stop it, and given that international law, the ICC and Geneva Conventions are just so much garbage as far as the US is concerned, WHY is anyone surprised that the US tortures people to extract useful information in a guerilla war?

Is this something the Iraqis will appreciate?

While I have no idea how many bases the US plans to build in Iraq, I do know that we plan to build the biggest embassy we have anywhere in the world. That's the current plan.

I find that curious. Why the biggest? Couldn't it just be one of the biggest, if that's considered so important. But no, the biggest. Is this something the Iraqis will appreciate?