[mdlug-discuss] [mdlug] OT - IR jamming

[Aaron Kulkis]

Ingles, Raymond wrote:
>> From: Aaron Kulkis
>> Raymond Ingles wrote:
>>> Aaron has stated
>>> specifically that people nearby when an IED goes off are routinely
>>> picked up on suspicion. But there hasn't been any legal scheme for
>>> handling them until very very recently.
>> That's true, but that doesn't warrant a trip to Gitmo...or anything
>> more than the local Iraqi Police station.
> 
>  What about the legal scheme for handling them? How long has that been in
> place? I read about cases where people get shipped off to Gitmo (or worse,
> to places like Syria - Google Maher Arar) on incredibly flimsy evidence with
> no recourse at all.

It's mostly up to the Iraqi government at this point.
We are merely providing assistance to Baghdad until they
are fully capable of defending their own interests.

At that point, we'll probably keep some bases (like we have
in Germany, Italy and Japan) for some number of decades,
but once the Iraqi government is fully self-sufficient,
our patrolling and combat duties there are done.



> 
>> If someone is video recording an attack, there's a
>> reason for it.
> 
>  Combat is way different from non-combat. The Geneva Convention articles we're
> talking about cover when you're at war but *not* in combat.

If you're an illegal combatant, your status doesn't get elevated
just because you were captured.  You're still a complete piece
of **** as far the GC is concerned.

> 
>>>  But even at that point, torture shouldn't be the default, go-to
>>> tactic.
>> Which source told you that this is the default tactic?
> 
>  I was unclear - "that point" meant "after a tribunal has determined the GC
> doesn't apply".
> 
>> It's been used on THREE people
> 
>  ...that they're willing to admit to. I recall you recently telling someone
> that they were "just not understanding the mindset of bureaucrats and other
> power-hungry maniacs who run for elected office." I don't understand why you're
> suspicious of market regulators but totally willing to take the word of people
> who've demonstrated a willingness to mislead (as well as a goodly helping of
> what I can only see as gross incompetence at times).
> 
>> -- and that's subject to
>> weather scaring someone silly constitutes torture, or if
>> torture requires actual physical abuse and/or prolonged
>> mental-anguish.
> 
>  We prosecuted it as torture after WWII. Works for me.
>

Waterboarding was prosecuted after WWII???

If so, then why haven't the opponents publicized it?

False firing squads are specifically prohibited.

>>>  The treatment of detainees has so far been managed with stupefying
>>> incompetence in many cases. Abu Ghraib,
>> The activities at Abu Ghraib were being investigated FOR PROSECUTION
>> for several weeks already by the time one of the TV networks put
>> out the information.  I know of NO military personnel who defended
>> what happened at Abu Ghraib.
> 
>  The problem is that all the other stories I see indicate to me a systemic
> problem. It's happening too often, and these are just the stories that we
> end up hearing about.

If it's "systemic" then why is the same system harshly
prosecuting both those who engage in actual torture, and
the NCO's and officers in charge of the bad actors?

> 
>>> Without clear limits people in guard positions will do brutal
>>> things.
>> Yes, the military is aware of the Milgram experiment.
> 
>  That's not the Stanford experiment - Milgram's was about people willing
> to inflict fatal harm on people in response to orders. Frankly, given
> what I've heard about Abu Ghraib - where the soldiers were encouraged to
> help break the prisoners - your reference is ironically appropriate.
>

And again, everybody involved was prosecuted for it.

You seem to forget that the initial reports were by
other soldiers in the same unit, and that evidence
was being amassed by an Inspector General with the
cooperation of other soldiers in the unit.


>> Abu Ghraib was a leadership failure all the way up
>> through three or four levels of command.  Personally,
>> I was appalled at what happened there -- because the
>> treatment was committed against detainees without
>> regard for who was a member of a Geneva Convention
>> protected group, and who was not.
> 
>  That's what bothered me about it, too. I *agree* that terrorists don't
> deserve any better, but we need to be *sure* that the people we're doing
> that stuff to *are* terrorists.

Exactly.

I really don't care how much a terrorist suffers.
They can be skinned alive then drawn and quartered
for all I care.

However, roughing up anyone who is NOT a participant
in these sorts of activities has negative effects.
This can make the subject withdraw future cooperation
in the future (phoning in tips, etc.), or even motivate
them to join a radical group in retaliation.

This is stressed throughout mobilization training,
and also in further, in-theater training at the
staging areas in Kuwait before moving on to a unit's
actual area of operations.

> 
>>  >         This is human nature - look up the Stanford prison 
>> experiment.
>>
>> I'm well aware of it... shut down after only 1 week of what
>> was supposed to be a 2-week experiment (and the 2nd half,
>> to be conducted in Germany, was never performed.  The
>> experiment was to investigate whether German citizens were
>> more likely to obey illegal orders than American citizens.
> 
>  That is the first I've heard of such a "German component". Can you
> point out some links to more information about that?

I came across it recently.
Apparently it's rarely mentioned because the experiment
broke down so early [the American test subjects behaving
even worse than they expected of German subjects].

> 
>> I don't think you really have any clear idea of the kind
>> of enemy which we are fighting.
> 
>  I sure do. The problem is that the people who we're trying to win over
> don't, and we need to make it very clear to them that we are different.
> Torture may help occasionally and tactically in some cases, but I'm
> arguing that it's a major *strategic* error.

Right now in Iraq, the average citizen trusts American troops
more than anyone from the Iraqi (local) Police ("IP"), the
Iraqi National Police ("NP") or Iraqi Army ("IA").

One of the more difficult problems to solve right now is to
get some clamp down on the culture of corruption and bribery
which is commonplace throughout much of the world (even
western Europe! -- as the Oil for Food scandal at the U.N.,
and a similar culture of corruption at the World Bank
demonstrate... almost all of the worst offenders are from
supposedly civilized western European countries.)