Poorly Trained Troops Have No Clue How To Behave
Documents Show Troops Disregarding Rules
by Ryan Lenz
New documents released Tuesday regarding crimes committed by U.S. soldiers against civilians in Iraq and Afghanistan detail a troubling pattern of troops failing to understand and follow the rules that govern interrogations and deadly actions.
“The simple fact of the matter is interrogation is supposed to be stressful or you will get no information,” Welshofer wrote in a letter to the court asking for clemency. “To put it another way, an interrogation without stress is not an interrogation - it is a conversation.”
Welshofer said in the same letter that he was “within the appropriate constraints that both the rules of law, and just as importantly - duty, imposed on me.”
The documents, released by the American Civil Liberties Union ahead of a lawsuit, total nearly 10,000 pages of courts-martial summaries, transcripts and military investigative reports about 22 incidents. They show repeated examples of soldiers believing they were within the law when they killed local citizens.
Considered against recent cases, including soldiers from the 101st Airborne Division convicted of killing detainees in Samarra, Iraq, last year and the ongoing courts-martial of Marines accused of killing 24 civilians in Haditha, these new examples shed light on the frequency soldiers and Marines may disregard the rules of war.
Nasrina Bargzie, an attorney with the ACLU’s National Security Project, said the documents also show that theres an abundance of information being withheld from public scrutiny.
“The government has gone out of its way to hide the human cost of this war,” Bargzie said. Releasing the documents now “paints at least a part of that picture so people at least know what’s going on,” she said.
What the hell are we paying for? The military skimps on training so they can buy high tech toys from their buddy contractors. These guys will retire to cushy positions and forget about the collateral damage they perpetrated through negligence. Taxpayer dollars entrusted to the government are being wasted or pocketed at alarming rates. We have paid for well trained troops. What do we get? A bunch of kids recruited out of urban gangs or wannabe tough guys who want to brag they killed somebody, anybody, hey friendly fire is just fine … Who was in charge of the class that educated our troops the difference between a definite threat and suspected threat? Who teaches these “rules” that make a civilized soldier instead of a murdering maniac? Anyone who ‘happens to be in the way’ or a ‘target of convenience’ is not OK to kill! These guys are not taught to distinguish - I’ve heard enough of “it’s war, people get killed” you ninny! They’re all enemies!
OK, using that logic, who the hell were supposed to be liberating, anyway?
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