Dutchy 0 Posted May 19, 2004 Last night I saw on the Dutch tv a American doc. from 1970 about My Lai. A interview with 5 guys that were there. It was a little bit shocking how you can hear about normal soldiers how they killed civilians. It is not good.....but in presure of war, your mates are blew up thru landmines. Something snap in your head and all get blacked out. The doc. was on tv because the jailabuse in Iraq is hot news. I can understand that they do it (think about the Americans the hanged on the bridge and grenates and other stuff that blew up cars etc.etc.), but it is not right. What is the opinion here? Mine meaning is. It is not good, but I can understand it. Salute Dutchy Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
SlickWili 0 Posted May 19, 2004 Hmm. It is difficult to have a rock solid opinion on this without all the facts (unless one is irreversibly biased.) Every article that we read has a different slant. In one, the prisoners were non-combatants, in the next they were informants, in another terrorists. The truth of the matter is that we will never really know the full truth. Having said that, I'll fall back onto generalities.... The Geneva Convention was put in place out of respect for human decency and life. By the looks of things, it appears to be a goal more so than a law because we read and hear about nations skirting it all the time. The premise behind judging and enforcing Geneva does not work and, IMO, needs to be revisited. Stooping to the level of terrorists does not make us better people and is hardly the ideal or model that we want future generations to draw from. :( This should get a few more posts into this thread :D Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
zagnut 0 Posted May 19, 2004 The prisoner abuse is terrible, and breaks the code of the Geneva Convention as well as the Law of Land Warfare. The 'terrorists' answered back with eye for an eye with Nick Berg's head, but going back to the prisoners, the soldiers claimed they never received and Geneva Convetion or LLW training; which is a crock because any Soldier, Sailor, Airman, and Marine gets that training in Basic. I got it twice, once when I was in the Army and later in the Marine Corps. So, as a vet, I find that excuse hard to belive. Later they say that they were ordered to do it by higher authorities. At first, it was direct superiors, then higher up the chain of command. A couple weeks ago, I saw CNN when SecDef Rumsfield was in the hotseat and the council was grilling him on 'how deep this really goes'. His answer "Much deeper". I don't hink that we'll ever really know until someone writes a book on it. I mean it took Dick Clark to get fired then he wrote his book; largely unbiased, just mostly facts. If the U.S. is going to fry the little guys that carried out their 'orders', then they need to fry those who issued them in the first place. Yet, this morning I found that Spc. Jeremy Sivits plead guilty to what he did, and the others a close to the same verdict. Wait a second, weren't people investigating who issued the order in the first place?? When all this came out, EVERYONE has been playing the blame game all the way to the SecDef. Either this does not make sense, or no one has found out the truth. Permission to pass the buck sir! Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
zagnut 0 Posted May 19, 2004 I guess it's a little bit of both.... Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
firehawkordy 34 Posted May 24, 2004 I was disgusted by the actions of a few sadists. I agree with Zagnut, what they did was illeagle, in violation of both the Geneva Convention and the UCMJ. I was taught in boot camp that mistreating a POW was forbidden. I asked my cousin who just got out of the Marines if he had recived training in regard to this, he said he did. It is espcially revolting to him and I as his grandfather, my uncle, was a POW in Japan, and we know how they followed the rules of war. As for "I was following oders", thats not an excuse, it's an indictment. Ask those at Nuremburg how well that excuse played out. Article 93 - Cruelty and maltreatment Article 99--Misbehavior before the enemy Article 113--Misbehavior of sentinel or lookout Article 134--General article Just some of the things they face, here is the website for the full description. http://usmilitary.about.com/library/milinfo/mcm/blmcm.htm Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
