The furor over the treatment of prisoners held by the United States military concerns me, disappoints me and infuriates me.
It concerns me that the kind of abuse - torture, if you will - is going on, not as an isolated aberration, but as a method of interrogation sanctioned at high levels. I have no doubts about the validity of the claims.
It disappoints me that GIs, renowned in song, fable and film for adopting stray dogs and giving kids chewing gum, would participate in the kind of sadistic orgy of excess we have seen documented by photographs. Our esteemed Commander in Chief has said this activity does not reflect the spirit of Americans. I want to agree with him, but it certainly seems to reflect the spirit of those Americans.
It infuriates me that the people who approved the policies that led to these abuses - whether by winks, nods or orders - made this kind of abuse possible have brought disgrace upon the United States Army, my United States Army, in the eyes of the world.
I near appoplexy when I think of Donald Rumsfeld, secretary of defense, telling Congress that he accepts responsibility, and then acting as though he is looking for a scapegoat. When people accept responsibility for criminal acts isn't something supposed to happen? Aren't they supposed to suffer some consequences?
My view of this may be a bit different from other people. I am a veteran of the United States Army in Vietnam where I served for a year with Special Forces. Before that I was trained at the United States Army Intelligence School to be an interrogator.
Interrogation training was interesting, thorough and useful. Without going into it at length, let me say that one of the items they impressed upon us from the very beginning was that they would not teach us to put our subjects under physical duress. That, they told us, is against the Geneva conventions. You may not hit interrogation subjects, they told us - not once, but often. Hitting prisoners is illegal, is what they told us, and that we could and should refuse any order calling on us to physically abuse our prisoners.
I did not act as an interrogator in Vietnam, but while I was there a scandal erupted because two interrogators flew out over the South China Sea in a helicopter with three interrogation subjects but only returned with one. Not only were the interrogators arrested and imprisoned, it went up the chain of command all the way to the commanding officer of the 5th Special Forces Group, a full-bird colonel, who was arrested and imprisoned, even though the word in 5th Group was that he had nothing to do with it and no knowledge of it. I thought at the time (I was very young then) that the colonel's treatment was unfair. I have since changed my mind.
It is those at the top who set the culture and context of the organization. It is more than just words when we say it is the officer in charge who is responsible for everything that happens under his or her command.
I left the army immediately after I returned from Vietnam. The army life was not for me, and I was then opposed to the war. It is not a contradiction when I say I was not opposed to the army. I thought then, as I do now, that the United States Army is the finest, most powerful military force in the world. Now, because of the photographs and reports and claims of prisoner abuse, in the eyes of the world, the United States Army is seen as little better than the wild, ragtag troops of the most vicious African warlord. As a veteran, I feel the shame. As a citizen, I am infuriated.
Freelance writer Korte Brueckmann lives on Capitol Hill.
[[In-content Ad]]
