Soldiers' warnings ignored - "going cowboy"

[TacticalPeek]

Soldiers' warnings ignored

Failures: The blame for what happened at Abu Ghraib goes far beyond the military police, intelligence soldiers say.

By Todd Richissin
Sun Foreign Staff
Originally published May 9, 2004

WIESBADEN, Germany -

snip

Their description of the prison and of the circumstances that helped it get that way indicate that troops stationed at Abu Ghraib were severely undertrained and were pressed into highly sensitive duties for which they had never prepared. Contributing to the problems at the prison, in their view, was the lack of soldiers to keep order and manage prisoners.

"We would see prisoners who had been sitting for months without being interrogated," one of the soldiers said. "We just didn't have anybody who could get to them, to get them out of there."

"There was like a big disconnect at every level," said the other. "Guys were given jobs they had never done, contractors are in there acting like they're in the movies. The whole operation was like a chicken with its head cut off."


snip

"I don't know where they got this from, but the MPs would say it all the time," one of the soldiers said. "MI would drop off a guy who wasn't talking, and the MP would say, 'So looks like I'll be going cowboy on him' or 'Looks like he needs some wild, wild west.'"


more
http://www.baltimoresun.com/news/nationworld/iraq/bal-te.guard09may09,0,2180279.story?coll=bal-home-headlines

(snagged at Eschaton)

[Chico Man]

1. They learned it from watching you

George W. Bush the cowboy actor

[JoFerret]

4. It's a useful phrase

....for breakdown in command, indiscipline and running amok. Needs promoting. Bush the cowboy conboy c in c gets his just desserts in the desert.

[alfredo]

7. Didn't bush mock a texas prisoner just before her execution?

I guess those under him took cues from his behavior.

[Judi Lynn]

14. Sure did! It was Karla Faye Tucker. n/t

[schultzee]

17. Yea, when you tell that to the fundies they don't say much or deny it

happened, but it really did happen. The man is not really a Christian.

[alfredo]

21. Compassionate conservative.

he said no innocent people were executed in Texas, but from what I heard, he wouldn't even consider pleas for clemency.

[TacticalPeek]

13. Shrub is a two-gun, tinhorn drug store cowboy.

My answer is "Bring 'em on!"


REPORTER: Do you want bin Laden dead?
DUBYA: I want justice. There's an old poster out west, as I recall, that said, "Wanted: Dead or Alive."


WALTERS: "Although you had said at one point it might take ten years, but it looks as if we're closing in; and you said you wanted Osama bin Laden dead or alive. Which would you prefer: Dead or alive?"
DUBYA: "I don't care."


There's no need to discuss innocence or guilt.

[pinto]

2. MP's "going cowboy" and private thugs out of control..'bout sums it up. nt

[demoman123]

12. I don't think so.

From The Guardian, 5/8/04:

"The sexual humiliation of Iraqi prisoners at Abu Ghraib prison was not an invention of maverick guards, but part of a system of ill-treatment and degradation used by special forces soldiers that is now being disseminated among ordinary troops and contractors who do not know what they are doing, according to British military sources.
The techniques devised in the system, called R2I - resistance to interrogation - match the crude exploitation and abuse of prisoners at the Abu Ghraib jail in Baghdad."

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=102x539425

[saigon68]

3. Whole operation directed by PENTAGON WAR CRIMINALS

The name NeoCon Myers comes to mind here

[PaDUer]

6. That's right....

he the mouthpiece and order giver...Wonder how stupid he thinks people are!

[nadinbrzezinski]

10. Let's draw the chain here

CiC (whether he knew or not, reminds me of Wansee)

SecDef, we don't obbey them stinking conventions

Undersecretary of Defense Paul Wolfowitz

Under Secretary of Denfense for policy Douglas Feith (got my marching orders now)

JCS Chairman Myers

Chief of Staff of the Army Shoemaker (used to be spec ops)

Centcom Commander John Abizaid (who should have known more than better)

Deputy CO General Smith (Looked like death warmed over during the Friday hearings, at times like a man waiting for the other shoe to drop)

JTS seven CO Lt General Sanches

Head of MI in theater, which I forgot her name, Major General (oh and here we need to add we are a Christian Nation head of MI, not removed yet for saying that, Lt General Boykin)

Brigadier Karpinsky

Colonel in charge of each one of the MP units posted at Abu Ghraib,

Then it rolls down

Problem is, they will try to burn the boys with stripes, not the ones with stars... anybody wants to count the number of stars here?

[saigon68]

16. Good analysis of the problem here

The average sheep is eating his barbecue about now and drinking his 4th beer

[icymist]

5. A good friend, who was in the army, told me...

that they train you for your highest competent level. Once that's determined, they place you in the level just above it. The reasoning is that you'll have too much trouble trying to keep up to figure out what is really going on. When I first heard him tell me this I thought, "hey, that's like where I work!".

[lapfog_1]

8. If we hear about the court martials... we will here the term "Fear Up"

EOM

[wabeewoman]

9. This was the headline in our local paper

about how the soldiers were poorly trained. I wish it was Bush was Responsible. I had read that the prisoners treatment was a pentagon plan but the spin must be to pass it off as the soldiers fault because they were poorly trained? No wonder the parents of the accused are speaking out-not that it excuses it in any way but under orders is a bit different than just weren't trained.

[saigon68]

11. Myer's to troops LOOSEN SOME RAG HEAD TONGUES

They needed to find the Banned Weapons and ANY MEANS WAS USED TO JUSTIFY THE END

[Claire Beth]

15. The treatment was horrific and I personally think...

they were tortured in hopes of gaining information about WMD. The abuse has been happening all along.

[schultzee]

18. Rummy's caustic remark about cameras! We have been doing this

type of sadistic stuff all over the world, its just that these pigs got caught this time. I hope what they have done does not spread to our individual karma.

[jpak]

19. Abu Ghraib = Bush's Hanoi Hilton

When the North Vietnamese broke the bones of US POW's - it was called "torture".

When US personnel break the bones of Iraqi detainees - it's "abuse".

[The_Casual_Observer]

20. Looks more like "frat boy" than "cowboy"

This kind of thing has never been part of the cowboy mythos. However the nuance would of course be missed by those jar headed nit wits.

Pay back will be hell for these sadistic bastards.