Abu Ghraib question #2

[Hannah Baran (Louisa HS)]

Name one factor that allowed the abuses at both My Lai and Abu Ghraib
to happen. Then, elaborate on the point; describe what you know about
Vietnam (from the video and TTTC), suggest how this issue could be
corrected in the future, etc.

I completely forgot to post these questions; therefore, you may have
until the end of the day Saturday to answer one of the three. To get
full credit, you must quote from the article and/or the videos.

[Rosemary]

That's an interesting question, Mrs. Baran. I would agree with the men
in the article and video who state that it was a failure in leadership
that allowed the abuses at My Lai and Abu Ghraib to occur. While the
men and women actually carried out violent acts, the leaders were the
people who had the most power to stop them but didn't. The leaders at
My Lai followed their orders and commanded their men to kill innocent
people; if they had stopped the order before it got to the men, then
they could have prevented My Lai. Not only the men need to listen to
their conscience before they carry out an order, but the leaders as
well. “Torture at Abu Ghraib” stated that “Karpinski was rarely seen
at the prisons she was supposed to be running” (Hersh). It did not
mention anyone of higher authority observing or evaluating the prison
guards. The leaders should be more concerned about the well being of
prisoners and check on their treatment so no abuses are committed
against them like they were at Abu Ghraib. The leaders need to use
clearer judgement to make the right decisions.

On Feb 3, 6:22 pm, "Hannah Baran (Louisa HS)" <hannah.ka...@gmail.com>
wrote:

[Jason Guy]

I agree with Rosemary. The abuse of the prisoners at Abu Ghraib
occurred mainly because of poor leadership. "The problems inside the
Army prison system in Iraq were not hidden from senior
commanders" (Hersh, 5), meaning the leaders saw the torturing and
allowed it to happen. Since i have never been to war, i cannot truly
understand the amount of stress that the soldiers were feeling. Many
of the military police, who were assigned to the jail, had seen many
of their comrade’s die by the hands of an invisible enemy. So when
they finally encountered some of the enemy soldiers face to face in
the jail, all they could think about was revenge for their fallen
comrades, leading them to abuse all the prisoners for the slightest of
reasons. It is likely that the leaders of the prisons felt the same
way as the regular foot soldiers and therefore did nothing about the
mistreatment of the prisoners, and it’s possible that they also
participated in the abuse.

> > full credit, you must quote from the article and/or the videos.- Hide quoted text -
>
> - Show quoted text -

[Ralph Recto]

That's a good point, Jason.

The unquestioning obedience of the soldiers in both My Lai and Abu
Ghraib to their superiors was, in my view, the main cause of both
incidents. Hierarchial authority and the strict adherence to it is one
if not the core theme of military culture in any modern army. Soldiers
are trained to unfailingly follow their leaders' commands from day one
of basic training, and this lesson is only reinforced further the
longer a soldier serves. I try to think of myself as an optimist, one
who sees good in every person, but the counterpart to this is the
chilling idea that there is also bad in every person. Normal,
productive members of society keep this bad part locked away in a
dungeon of the mind never to be opened, while others (cue Hitler, Pol
Pot, Stalin) are unhinged, so to say, from early on in life. Take the
soldiers of Charlie company, who for the most part before Vietnam were
regular American youth. It would be ridiculous to assume that they
were all sociopathic, yet given the loss of their comrades and the
interminable anxiety of dying, they were unable to perceive the evil
of the order to exterminate the villagers at My Lai. The same goes for
the soldiers, only a few years removed from the memory of 9/11, who
were merely ordered to "soften up" detained Iraquis at Abu Ghraib and
ended up commiting vile acts of humiliation for their own sadistic
entertainment. We can suppress the evil within us given the
expectations that society has for us, but when we are told that it is
alright to commit evil, to be atrocious, we sometimes relent. When we
realize the ramifications of our actions, we point the finger back to
those who told us it was alright. The defense that Sgt. Chip
Frederick, one of the officers indicted for the Abu Ghraib incident,
conjured was that "he was carrying out the orders of his
superiors" (Hersh). Frederick's lawyer, Gary Myers, incredulously
remarked, "Did you really think that a group of kids from rural
Virginia decided to do this on their own?" (Hersh) One of the terrible
consequences of the war is not that these group of kids decided to do
it on their own - they didn't - but that they did it in the first
place, and without question. All it took was someone to tell them that
it was okay. The most sobering lesson that can be taken Abu Ghraib and
My Lai is that anyone of us could be in that group of kids from rural
Virginia in the future. I believe that way to prevent such events from
occuring ever again is to be conscious of them, for as the old adage
says, those do not learn from the mistakes of history are doomed to
repeat them.

[Logan Torgerson]

I agree with Rosemary and Jason.
I believe that lack of leadership, or rather leaders not paying any
attention to what the soldiers were doing, was the main problem when
it came to the immoral abuses at My Lai and Abu Ghraib. Sergeant
Davis stated: "Because I assumed that if they were doing things out of
the ordinary or outside the guidelines, someone would have said
something." (Hersh 4). Obviously there are going to be soldiers who
aren't going to play along to the rules, so prominent men in the
military should have checked on and investigated to make sure everyone
was doing the right thing. It was evident that the soldiers were
abused, and even though generals could see that, most didn't say
anything about it because they did not see a problem with it or they
were afraid of ratting out American soldiers. The incidents would
have never happened if someone with dominating leadership had stepped
up and let the soldiers know they were doing wrong.

> > > - Show quoted text -- Hide quoted text -

[Scott Cast]

Although I feel Jason and Rosemary made a good point, I feel it is not
the main point. It seems to me that these soldiers where treated and
respected as adults when they have the mentality of children, moms not
in the room so lets do whatever we want. Why is it on the commanders
to baby sit full grown men, I feel the true problem is one sick mind
(Charles Graner) and a few week ones that where influenced by him.
These “men” didn’t need leadership they needed a mental hospital. I do
agree maybe with a more experienced leader this wouldn’t have gone so
far, but I also believe that everyman is responsible and account able
for their actions. After it’s all said and done in my eyes there is
only one main reason for the atrocities at Abu Ghraib and that is the
failure to be vetted properly (screening process), the system failed
not the people running it.

On Feb 3, 6:22 pm, "Hannah Baran (Louisa HS)" <hannah.ka...@gmail.com>
wrote:

[Kelly Candeto]

Good question, Mrs. Baran! I believe a factor that contributed to the
incidents of Abu Ghraib and My Lai was the pack mentality among the
soldiers. At war, they are separated from society, where basic moral
principles are always in place and it's usually not difficult to
distinguish right from wrong. When they are taken out of normal
society, put through weeks of training, and then given orders, they
are to follow these orders, despite whether or not they go against the
soldier's personal moral code. They are all together, and even if what
they are doing or told to do seems wrong, their rationale is that many
of their fellow soldiers are doing it, so it must not be that bad. A
soldier's number one duty is to follow the instructions of their
commanding officer. Even if they get in trouble for what they're
doing, the responsibility would go to the person in charge of them. In
this way, they also tried to prove themselves innocent in the minds;
they were just being good soldiers and carrying out orders. "I
questioned some of the things I saw...such things as leaving inmates
in their cell with no clothes or in female underpants, handcuffing
them to the door of their cell -- and the answer I got was 'This is
how military intelligence wants it done'" (Hersh 3). As a person of
lower rank, it wasn't your job to question what you were doing; you
weren't there for your brain. You were there to be effective. All
their minds were set in the mentality of "just do your job and get
out." They saw each other doing it, and their commanding officers was
telling them to do it, so it had to be the right thing to do, in their
minds.