What kind of human are you if you torture Iraqis at Abu Ghraib and just blame the people who gave you "orders"

Question

It seems to me that the low-ranking soldiers court martialed for crimes at Abu Grahaib, don't think they did anything wrong, except take the pictures that eventually got them in trouble. They say that they were ordered to do those things...SO WHAT? If someone tells you to jump in front of a train are you going to do it? Are they that weak? Do they not have morals or a backbone? I'm in the military, and if someone who was higher in rank or my "boss" told me to do those things, I would tell them to go F*** themselves! AND, I would expose what was going on!!! Alot of those Iraqi men were innocent and had NO information! Even if they were terrorists, how do you cross that line morally to torture another human? That's what we have the court system for..to say what the punishment should be, not for you to take it in your own hands to just torture them. You have got to be one sick person to torture another human being! Why stoop to the level of a terrorist..that's what those guards have done!

Answer 1

these ppl are the lowest...not only to commit atrocities but then to not own up to it...
they are weak, they are sad...they are terrorists...

Answer 2

This is a very good question. This same question was posed after World War 2 after many German soldier claimed that they were following orders when working at the extermination camps.

A group of psycologists initated a test to see how vialbe that excuse was. They had a people sit in a room in front of an switchboard and ask a person in the next room to repeat a series of words. If the person in the other room (who was an actor) stated the list incorrectly, the person was to administer an electric shock via the switchboard. With each succesive incorrect attempt, the voltage was raised until it reached a lethal dose. When the experiment was started it was thought that less than 1% would continue up the lethal dose; the actual number was closer to 70%. I have posted a link to small article I found on the topic. It is not as detailed as it could be. For instance it does not go into the fact that the number could be expected to be higher within the military since people are subjected to an indoctrination which re-enforces obediance to superior officers.

That said, the sad answer to your question of what kind of human could do such a thing is this: A normal kind of human.

It is somewhat good to see that at least in this case, the worst thing the whistle blower can expect is a destoryed career and reputation. There have been, and still are, governments which would reward such action by making the person dissapear. Not having to fear that kind of retrabution makes the choice for the minority to try to stop what is going somewhat easier.

Answer 3

for sure they're (or, a minimum of, they were). The sentence surpassed down at present should be basically the starting up. i have self assurance that the habit at Abu Ghraib replaced into sanctioned, or maybe ordered, from a a lot more beneficial aspect. "basically following orders" isn't an proper excuse, yet whoever gave the orders should be prosecuted.

Answer 4

An interesting theoretical question.

Why do you speak of the torts and courts system being applicable for US troops and NOT for Al Qauida and others?

It's a situation akin to entering the proverbial boxing ring with one hand tied behind your back. America is a signator to the Geneva Convention and our troops are instructed into its precepts and they're embodied in the soldier's Code of Conduct. The other side is not! They function at will - without any sort of moral constraint. It's a very, very uneven field of battle.

That which wrongfuly happened at Abu Ghraib should, in no way, be causally linked to the real atrocities committed by the other side - witness the truly violent torture, the filmed-for-fun videos of Americans having their heads hacked off, of American civilian contractors' beaten, battered and burned bodies being hung up on a public bridge and filmed for all the world to see. At what seat of justice would you have these real perps of terror be adjudged? It, surely cannot be before their God, for these real atrocities were, sadly, done in His Name - Mohammed.

I appreciate your frustration but, simply, ask you to calm down and to try to place those things going on in Iraq into PERSPECTIVE. Two wrongs don't make a right. Try to be a bit more objective and less judgemental and condemming of your comrades under arms. Try not to "paint the whole military with the bad boy broad brush" as I read you to be doing. Ignorant, sick, subserviant - whatever - there isn't a shed of happening to even remotely permit you to compare the happenings at Abu Ghraib with that which happened to Andrew Pearlman.

It's great, that, in America we have the freedom to post such missives and agree or disagree with one another. You'll not find this freedom in Iran, Syria, Saudi Arabia, Russia et cetera.

Answer 5

I am having problems believing you are a military man. Reason being insubordination will get you a room at Ft Leavenworth with hard labor included and a cell no where's near a nice as the Gitmo Hilton. College hazings are about all the "torture" these enemies of a free will society to choose or not choose your own religion. I mean ,come on, womens panties on your head, being lead around like a puppy dog with a leash on your neck by a woman.How is this stooping to their level. Where is your compassion for the detainees whose heads are sawed off on video while they gurgle and scream? Where is your compassion for innocent men,women,and children blown up by car bombs or kidnapped and shot right in front of their family. And you call this being on the same level of a college hazing. The court system is in the USA not Iraq, not Afhanistan,not in Gitmo. In war if your NCO says jump out at a hot LZ and you say what you said you would he would fire one warning shot over your head and the next one would be in your A--- for not following orders Why, cause there is no room for cowards who can't follow orders and cause fellow soldiers who need your support wimp out . You have never seen your best friends heads blown off or cut in two cause someone froze at shooting at the enemy. If you are a soldier ,you make the rest of us count you as "ONE OF THEM" and not worthy of the title "SOLDIER!!!!!!!!

Answer 6

Your very question shows how little you know about the entire situation. The majority of insurgents are Saudi, Syrian, Iranian and everything else but Iraqi. Did you also know that when Mohammed confessed Senator Levin (D) and Senator Lindsey Graham (R) were present and ovserved the entire process? Get a grip .......................

Answer 7

The Nuremberg tribunal threw that out. "I was only following Orders" will get you hanged. Not that those giving the orders won't get hanged too.

The Military, CIA and FBI all need to make Judgement at Nuremberg mandatory viewing or better yet they could read the book.

Answer 8

We had a term in Vietnam that we used after we were sick and tired of seeing our buddies systematically picked off one by one by booby traps, mines, and ambushes that arguably were either known or assisted by the local populace. It was called Payback.

We used to say "payback is a medevac." The ultimate "payback" was the My Lai masscre ordered by Lt. Calley.

Although we are the best, sometimes the best crack under prolonged exposure to the horrors of combat. We claim Ongoing Traumatic Stress Disorder. Gomenasai.

Answer 9

I guess that these soldiers think that just because they aren't in America and they don't have rights there that means that they can treat Iraqi's differently, like crap.

While i was watching abu ghraib i was freaking disgusted. They say that Iraqis are the freaks and the killers who kill people for fun.

Answer 10

Conspirator is the term for a soldier who tortures Iraqis contending that they just follow orders. Under the law, a person need not follow illegal orders of a superior.

Answer 11

Yes I wonder who the scapegoats will be after the war for the human right abuses at Guantanamo Bay.