Is this supposed to be some kind of October surprise? First the Obama camp decides to trump up stories of foreign money coming into Republican coffers….yawn. Now they (oh wait, it was wikileaks, not the Democrats…..yeaaaaah) get the Iraq war back into the news.
My question….what did Obama know and when did he know it?
A frago is a “fragmentary order” which summarises a complex requirement. This one, issued in June 2004, about a year after the invasion of Iraq, orders coalition troops not to investigate any breach of the laws of armed conflict, such as the abuse of detainees, unless it directly involves members of the coalition. Where the alleged abuse is committed by Iraqi on Iraqi, “only an initial report will be made … No further investigation will be required unless directed by HQ”
~~~Numerous logs show individual members of the coalition making genuine attempts to stop the abuse. Since 2006 the coalition has had military transition teams, known as Mitts, working alongside Iraqi military units; and police transition teams, PTTs, embedded with local police. These teams are recorded on multiple occasions making unannounced spot checks at Iraqi security bases and finding torture in progress. “Captain Walker and 1st Lieutenant Ziemba … caught Captain Hassan and Sgt Alaa by surprise … In the office there was what appeared to be a battery with open ended wires … Before entering the office, Capt Walker and 1Lt Siemba heard what sounded like an individual being hit and moaning. The detainee was sitting in the centre of the room sobbing. They stopped the suspected abuse.”
Since June of 2004, the date Iraq became a sovereign nation, the US no longer controlled the security forces so was not obligated to police them. Many news organizations and lefty’s are writing that we looked the other way but the leaked documents show the opposite. Our forces intervened when discovered and reported them.
American soldiers, however, often intervened. During a visit to a police unit in Ramadi, an American soldier entered a cell after hearing screams and found two badly dehydrated detainees with bruises on their bodies. He had them transferred out of Iraqi custody.
In August 2006, an American sergeant in Ramadi heard whipping noises in a military police station and walked in on an Iraqi lieutenant using an electrical cable to slash the bottom of a detainee’s feet. The American stopped him, but later he found the same Iraqi officer whipping a detainee’s back.Read the Document »
One beaten detainee said in 2005 that “when the Marines finally took him, he was treated very well, and he was thankful and happy to see them.”
The same article does note however that the documents are disturbing, not just because of the violence, but because the security forces are central to Obama’s plan to abandon Iraq.
I imagine the decades of Saddam madness helped create this situation in which violence is used routinely by the Iraqi’s but to me this news actually stresses the need for us to remain there, if they allow us to. A violent society cannot be fixed over night, or in a few years. It’s a slow process and we have a duty to help that process along. We rightly took out Saddam and saw the Iraqi’s through to freedom…now let us finish the job.
Allah on the possible outcome:
According to the Guardian, incidents of abuse are recorded in the documents as recently as last December, so the problem can’t be dismissed as some long-solved remnant of Iraq’s darkest days in 2006. Two, and more importantly: If this news breaks big in Iraq, god only knows what it’s going to do to the political situation there. The Sunnis are already disenchanted, and Maliki — who, as PM, presumably presided during most of the abuse incidents described in the documents — is cuddling up to Iran and Sadr. (In fact, as noted at that last link, Sadr reportedly wants control of Iraq’s defense ministry. Just the man we need to get Iraqi troops to clean up their act.) Throw this grenade about government security forces using Saddam tactics into the mix and … what now? Maybe, maybe, it’ll make Maliki so toxic that the Kurds will side with Allawi instead of him to form a government. That would be good for the country insofar as it would isolate the Sadrists and bring the Sunnis into the government as part of a secularist, multi-sectarian coalition. But that’s the best possible outcome. I don’t want to think about the worst one.
I tell you what the worst will be, and it will be the fault of wikileaks. All out chaos and the blood will be on their hands.
“We know terrorist organizations have been mining the leaked Afghan documents for information to use against us and this Iraq leak is more than four times as large. By disclosing such sensitive information, WikiLeaks continues to put at risk the lives of our troops, their coalition partners and those Iraqis and Afghans working with us,” Lapan said in a statement.
~~~He [Pentagon spokesman Geoff Morrel] said much of the material has been well-chronicled in news, books and films so doesn’t provide any new understanding about Iraq, but it does expose troops to future vulnerabilities.
“We know our enemies will mine this information looking for insights into how we operate, cultivate sources, and react in combat situations, even the capability of our equipment. This security breach could very well get our troops and those they are fighting with killed,” Morrell said.
As for this being a October surprise….come on
People are more worried about finding a job and the economy. If Obama and company haven’t figured this out yet they never will.
UPDATE
During the administration of President George W. Bush, critics charged that the White House had exaggerated Iran’s role to deflect criticism of its handling of the war and build support for a tough policy toward Iran, including the possibility of military action.
But the field reports disclosed by WikiLeaks, which were never intended to be made public, underscore the seriousness with which Iran’s role has been seen by the American military.
No sh*t sherlock.
And a big heh from Rusty Shackleford:
And what was the US supposed to do if they investigated claims that the Iraqi government tortured its citizens? Invade? Yeah, I bet Julian Assange, the hysterical Left, and their Islamist allies would love that.
It’s the problem with America haters like Assange, Chomsky, and Osama bin Laden: it’s a worldview where America is always in the wrong, no matter what we do.
When we act, it’s evidence of US Imperialism. When we don’t act, it’s evidence of the US not caring about brown people.
We’re damned if we do, we’re damned if we don’t.
Which makes their underlying theory of cause and effect not a theory at all. First because it’s not falsifiable. Second, because all affects are attributed to the same cause.
America bad mmmmmkay.
Wikileaks is a small cabal of people who, in their own site description, “Publishes and comments on leaked documents alleging government and corporate misconduct.”
In reality, what they are is a like-minded gathering of hardcore Leftists who see their greatest enemies and threats as the American military and intelligence coupled with free market capitalism.
For instance, when they say they expose documents on “government abuse,” what they mean — almost exclusively in practice — is that they fish for folks to send them secret operational documents potentially damaging to the US military and intelligence. They create entire waves of news cycles. The intent is to damage military ops in Iraq, Afghanistan and elsewhere. The reality is that they get people killed. Names of Afghans and Iraqis who have cooperated with us have been exposed publicly — and they have been snuffed out by al-Qaeda and other like-minded enemies. Usually quite gruesomely.
When they say they expose leaked documents on “corporate misconduct,” what they mean is that they do so for documents that are seen to be damaging to the concept of free-market capitalism — the basis of our economy — for the purposes of presenting central governmental control of the economy, redistribution of wealth, and fomenting class warfare. They see themselves in this sense as some modern version of Robin Hood.
Notice that they do not seek or publish secret documents about or from within, say, the Iranian regime’s nuclear weapons program or its slaughter of its own citizens in the streets — especially since last year. No, that’s because the enemy, for them, is America. America and its free market economy is the real enemy — of mankind.
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