POLL: Were the Abu Ghraib convictions severe enough?

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Excerpted from Wikipedia:

Something that was brought up in another thread got me thinking about this. It's early, yet, to see what the convictions will be with the rapes that recently happened in Iraq (our legal system often moves like molasses), but the convictions are mostly in for the Abu Ghraib Soldiers. I'd like to see what everyone thinks about them.

Poll Information
This poll contains 3 question(s). 17 user(s) have voted.
You may not view the results of this poll without voting.

Poll Results: Were the Abu Ghraib convictions severe enough? (17 votes.)

Were the Abu Ghraib convictions severe enough? (Choose 1)
* Yes - 29% (5)
* No - 47% (8)
* They were actually too harsh - 6% (1)
* Unsure/Not enough information - 18% (3)

Were they too lenient with the soldiers who agreed to testify? (Choose 1)
* Yes - 53% (9)
* No - 24% (4)
* They were actually too harsh - 0% (0)
* Unsure/Not enough information - 24% (4)

Are you alarmed that the women almost uniformly recieved lighter sentences? (Choose 1)
* Yes - 88% (15)
* No, Drew, you are the only one who finds this alarming - 6% (1)
* I don't think the sentences were light enough - 0% (0)
* Unsure/Not enough information - 6% (1)

 

Difficult to say, but for most the sentences seem fair enough. I do think it was a little too lenient on the soldiers that testified. And yup, women receiving uniformly lighter sentences? That's definitely alarming.

So "yes" to all three.

 

I would have preferred more severity across the board, myself. Then again, I'm the only other voter, so I'm pretty sure you knew that.

 

No, unsure and yes in that order.

 

I voted yes, unsure, and yes, in that order. I think for the most part the sentences were appropriate, because I think most of those people were acting under orders. The fact that no one at the top ever took a fall for this doesn't mean that no one knew. I think a lot of what happened at Abu Ghraid was allowed to happen, and in some cases, it might even have been encouraged. It was the people that allowed and/or encouraged that should get the stiffest sentences, and since they never even made it to trial, in that regards the sentences were too light.

As I have no idea what information those who plead guilty were able to give prosecuters, I simply don't have enough information to say whether or not their testimony merited the reduction of sentence.

Finally, I don't think that it's right that women got lighter sentences IF AND ONLY IF their crimes were very similar to what the men did. The article gives the specific acts that the men committed - making detainees masterbate, punching in the chest, etc. For the women, they simply tell you what they were convicted of, but in most of those cases I have no idea what they actually did. For example:

I have no freakin' clue what Ms. Harman did. Something as vague as "bad conduct" can include everything from the most heinous acts that made the news to something much less severe. Maybe she got off easy because her actions didn't seem as bad as what others did. If that's the case, then a lighter sentence is justified. However, it is also possible that her actions were as bad as the men, in which case the sentence is

 

I agree with what Aldeth said. It was merely a sacrifice of pawns. Justice wasnt served. Under these circumstances, while their convictions were sort of meaningless... I guess they were severe enough anyway. Or something. What does it matter really.

 

I believe in taking responsibiliby for ones own actions. If someone told me to beat up an unarmed prisoner, I would not do it. Some prisoners have been reported to be sodimized - I would be physically incapable of such an act.

 

Yes, no, and no. First, I don't buy the 'I was just obeying orders' BS. I am not certain any such orders existed (except in the case where the CIA guys came in for ONE interrogation -- and the soldiers were under NO obligation to follow the orders of anyone in the CIA). A little known area of military law is that soldiers are required to disobey orders which are obviously illegal -- an illegal order is called an unlawful order and both the person giving the order and the person who follows through on such an order are criminally liable.

The punishments are probably more severe than would be given to a non-military prison guard (who would most likely just be terminated for the majority of offences cited) -- and that is appropriate given the international character of the case. This is especially true for the women who were very junior, and obviously not the ring-leaders here. The women justifiably received lesser punishments because they were simply tools to embarrass the prisoners -- it was wrong, but not as wrong as the physical abuse by the male guards.

I do not believe the military 'covered up' any existing orders from officers -- I think the Army would have loved to crucify the officers in charge of these men and women, but the evidence just did not exist to do so. Contrary to what many on the boards seem to believe, the officer corps in the various militaries are extremely judgemental of their own (especially at the junior ranks -- Major and below). Had such order been issued we would have seen courts martials for officers AND the enlisted. That no evidence existed only prevented the legal action against the officers. AFAIR all of the officers involved were force into retirement, asked to resign, or passed over for promotion (and basically being fired). That's what the military does to supremely inept officers (officers who are merely inept and can hide that fact well get promoted -- but don't get me started on that one).

 

I haven't got enough information about what happened in Abu Ghraib, or what's going on in the U.S. military to pass any judgement, but I will say this:

They've been specifically trained to obey orders without questioning. Military training in general, in any country, consists of learning to kill the enemy in combat without hesitation. The easiest way of achieving this is to de-sensitize the people undergoing military training, which they do. It should be expectable, but not acceptable, that these soldiers should act this way under hostile situations.

They've been conditioned by their training to be unempathic ***holes against their enemies, and they come from lower-classes of the society. The system that makes them do these kinds of things should be put under questioning, but of course they are responsible for what they've done. In this case the blame falls to those who do, and those that make it possible.

 

The "gurads" in the Abu Ghraib were elite soldiers, they had training to kill without thinkinhg add to that the fact that you in times of war get very inhuman view of you oposition.

Those soldiers would never do that without orders to do so. So if they had refused they would have been punished anyway.

I blame genaral Miller for the horrors of Abu Ghraib. He exported the interegation methods used in Abu Gharib from the base Guntanamo Bay.

How can you punish soldiers that follow thier orders and on top of that don't beak the law?

Actually those interegation methods are legal as the US calls terrorists for "unlawful combatants" insted of soldiers and thencforth claim thet they don't ahve to follow the geneva convention. o it's not illegal so why do people get punished fr it?
- Because it looks good.

Thank god that the supreme court of America stated some mounths ago that the US goverment can't stand above the geneve convetion and because of that serious blunder they chose to limit the power of the President of the US.

Edit: I din't vote because in my oppinion they soldiers should not be given a sentence for following orders that don't break the US law!