Abu Ghraib head finds vindication in newly released memos

[madmom]

- She said she was a scapegoat. She said she was just following orders. She said she was demoted unfairly.Now, retired Army Col. Janis Karpinski can say: I told you so....



"I will tell you that when I read those memorandums, when they were first released a few days ago, I did -- I did feel this sense of being able to exhale after five years," Karpinski said.

"That is what we have been saying from the very beginning, that, wait a minute, why are you inside pointing the finger at me, why are you pointing the fingers at the soldiers here? There's a bigger story here

http://www.cnn.com/2009/US/04/22/us.torture.karpinski/?iref=mpstoryview

[truedelphi]

1. The careers of honest and duty bound soldiers

Reduced to rubble by Bush/Cheney/Rove.

For their master plan of grabbing the oil and oilpipeline countries.

With the civilain death toll in Iraq at one million, and our own service people who died at around 4400.

[davidthegnome]

2. Honesty is good

Obeying orders is a good quality in a soldier (or so I've heard) - yet so is being able to question them when they so clearly cross the line. I can't say what I would have done if the order came to me to "question the prisoner" in such ways... but I hope I would have at least have objected, if not outright refused or resigned (if an officer).

I'm not trying to cast judgment, rather asking the question... how much responsibility is our own? Does the fact that the orders came from higher up justify or excuse those who followed them? Or are those who followed the orders, guilty to an equal or lesser extent?

Perhaps I analyze it too much. I do think though, that if our people can be so lost to humanity as to obey such orders without objection... I think it is a frightening idea.

[truedelphi]

3. Oh I agree. But I always felt that Karpinski was set up

Much like April Glaspell was set up right before iraq War I.

Wome have to put up with so much to get their own command. So after her long wait, she ends up at Abu gharibb and isheld totally repsonsible for that place.

Again, she did have her own moral choices to make. But fie on these men, her superiors, for doing this to a woman, figuring they couldget away with it.