WP: Witness to (Abu Ghraib) Abuse Trying to Be Heard

[DeepModem Mom]

Witness to Abuse Trying to Be Heard
Interrogators Responsible, Ex-Soldier Says

By Elizabeth Williamson
Washington Post Staff Writer
Friday, August 20, 2004; Page A12

HAGERSTOWN, Md. -- In his 33 years, Ken Davis has had two big chances to change history. The first was 10 years ago in the District, when a man standing next to him started shooting at the White House. The second was last year in Iraq, when he saw naked Iraqi prisoners on the floor, screaming.

Subduing the gunman was easy compared with what the former reservist for the 372nd Military Police Company is trying to do now: persuade the Army that it was military intelligence and other intelligence operatives, not the seven soldiers charged, directing the abuse in Abu Ghraib prison.

He's gone to Army superiors, three members of Congress and two reporters with his story. No one from military intelligence has been charged -- just the seven from the 372nd....

***

Eating lunch in a favorite shopping mall restaurant one recent afternoon, Davis remembered the prisoners and tried not to cry. The naked ones, crawling, an Army boot pushing them to the floor. The one who died in a riot at Camp Ganci, a tent compound in the Abu Ghraib complex, shot with live ammunition because the rubber bullets had run out. And the dead stare of another detainee, the back of his head sheared off by a roadside bomb meant for Davis's convoy. "It's not what I went over there for," he said.

His real reason for speaking out, he said, goes like this: "I think that once I die, I would really like my life to have meant something."...


http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A17135-2004Aug19.html

[Rose Siding]

1. Darby's in protective custody

This guy is doing the right thing.

The newest report implicated MI, but not the brass. I still think it's a good thing and could lead up the chain. MI sounds like the right direction to go- the one that will eventually lead upward. And this snip is exactly why it should:

On Nov. 8, the day photos were taken showing Graner standing over a pyramid of naked Iraqis, Davis's convoy hit a roadside bomb....

"I shut down," he said. "I hated everything. It became real to me that they're trying to kill me."

In that state of mind, he acknowledged, if he'd had the opportunity to abuse prisoners, "I cannot guarantee what I would have done."

Leadership knows, *KNOWS* how nutso the ranks can get and are obligated to provide a structure that takes that into account. Instead, it seems they capitalized on it! This is not to say that each isn't responsible for their own actions, but aggressive enabling by leadership occured. As with everything else in Iraq, NO care was taken. NOTHING was thought through.

Hersh noted a captain, in one of his pieces, that he spoke with in Baghdad. He told Hersh that MI came to him and asked that he have his troops keep some prisoners awake for them. The captain told them no- he said he knew his people would get "creative" because they hadn't been trained for anything like that. He just thought it *through* to the logical conclusion, considered the bond of a war zone, the desire on their parts to do what he asked of them, their ages,- all the things that would PREVENT abuse- he did.

In that instance, MI pushed hard enough that it was taken to a superior, but the captain prevailed. Leadership has the responsibility to have at least that much common sense. But they should have even more. How long has the DoD been studying soldiers' reactions? Maybe the "systemic" problem with leadership is that they don't think like people anymore, in the higher-life-form sense, but rather in terms of destruction. They think like killers.

[Mizmoon]

2. Whistleblowers always get screwed

it's sad