"A Look at Convictions in Abu Ghraib Cases"

[GreenPartyVoter]

Nine Army reservists have been convicted of abusing detainees at the Abu Ghraib prison in Iraq:

http://apnews1.iwon.com/article/20050926/D8CS5MS08.html

[Robertwf]

1. Yes, and how low in the chain of command were they?

[Erika]

2. Great point. The grunts were made the scapegoats.

This lack of accountability by those supposedly in charge is awful.

[Robertwf]

3. It seems like no matter what

the farther up the chain of command, the more concerted the efforts to isolate from responsibility when things are going to h*ll in a handbasket==but if things are going well, they become beloved heros--

[crikkett]

4. 1 SSGT, 1SGT

they did the kicking etc. so it's easy to convict.

[Robertwf]

5. The Really Interesting Point

is that the people who were charged pretty much universally implicated the PRIVATE, CONTRACTED intelligence (said with some reservation) people who were there working more or less (how much collaboration or line-staff relationship there was I am not clear on) with military intelligence. If you outsource the dirty work thinking and planning and have your front line relatively untrained people carry out the dirty work--giving them some room to embellish on their own--then you can claim very successfully that the higher ups are not at fault.
I checked out some of the out-source companies a number of months ago and there is little doubt that they could not have filled all their positions with the calibre of trained interrogators that they needed. Iraq, after all, was not the only place they needed this type of personnel.
The lessons from Iraq definitely teach us to be very careful about the amount of outsourcing that is going on--whether the military, TSA or any other area.
And tell me--if they are outsourcing tons of kinds of work--from providing meals to office/clerical work to intelligence and specialized interrogation, why in the f*ck would anyone want the military to take over in time of emergency? We would not be getting what we were supposed to--an outsourced quasi-military coup--right.