So, the linked story from the Wall Street Journal uses that fact to make the following argument:

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The accusations are grave and, if proved, will almost certainly lead to severe sentences. We suspect no parallel process is taking place among Iraqi insurgents for the weekend murders near Yusufiya of U.S. soldiers Thomas L. Tucker and Kristian Menchaca.

That's a distinction worth pondering the next time you hear Iraq war critics carp at the U.S. refusal to apply Geneva Convention privileges to enemy combatants. The Convention extends those privileges to combatants who abide by the laws it sets for war, including the treatment of prisoners.

Combatants who fail to obey those laws--by not wearing distinctive military insignia or targeting civilians--are not entitled to its privileges.

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Originally posted by Frustrated Mess:
Yeah, Iraqi killers bad. US killers good. Me like propaganda easy. Like pizza. Eat with hands.

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Originally posted by jeff house:
You see? We get to torture people because they torture people. The difference is, we're justified.

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Where does the opinion piece excuse torture?

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1940s: German killers bad. USA killers bad. All killers are equally bad. Bad, bad killers.

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Originally posted by Frustrated Mess:

HEHE. In the 1940s we cheered the insurgents when they killed occupation troops. Wot happen?

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Shock and Awe was a war crime. I thought that when I first read about Guernica and I believe it today. Bombing cities is a war crime. Yea I know we did it to Germany at the end of the war and that was a war crime as was the nukes in Japan.

After Shock and Awe is it any surprise large segments of Irqui society maybe even the majority have no time for their "liberators". I view American "liberators" in Iraqui the same way I view the American "liberators" in 1812.

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Originally posted by jeff house:

It justifies exempting the US from the Geneva Accords. The Geneva Accords outlaw torture.

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Originally posted by kropotkin1951:
...some self rightious belief...

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So, the fact that the article attempts to justify an exemption from the Geneva Accords does not necessarily mean that the writer is also justifying torture.

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That is true, I guess. But the Geneva Accords outlaw torture, and the article argues for exempting the US from the Geneva Accords.

Of course, they could be arguing that the US should be exempt from the Geneva Accords, but NOT from other international instruments such as the Torture Convention.

But they don't mention the Torture Convention, so their argument follows the US Administration's line, which is to obfuscate whether or not there are any limits on the rights of the US to question prisoners "agressively".

For context on this, read this:

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WASHINGTON — The Pentagon has decided to omit from new detainee policies a key tenet of the Geneva Convention that explicitly bans "humiliating and degrading treatment," according to knowledgeable military officials, a step that would mark a further, potentially permanent, shift away from strict adherence to international human rights standards.

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Originally posted by Sven:

That's the thing that really grates on you, isn't it?

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Okay. So, we go from “torture” to “humiliating and degrading” treatment.

I don’t know about you, but if we have to use “humiliating and degrading” treatment with insurgent detainees in order to obtain information from them that saves lives, I say, have at it. Hell, locking a person up in a 6 x 8 concrete cell with iron bars like a zoo animal is probably “humiliating and degrading” treatment.

Painfully torturing someone physically (and then beheading them) is a different thing entirely. Take, for example, the two US soldiers that were tortured and physically mutilated so badly that they were no longer even recognizable and had to be identified with DNA tests (and, as was reported this afternoon, may have been beheaded).

There is such a fundamental difference between how the insurgent treat prisoners (basically, if you’re captured, you’re tortured and then killed) and how the US military treats its prisoners. What I object to are posts that try to make the treatment of prisoners morally equivalent.

ETA: From the link you gave us: "Many intelligence soldiers consider questioning the manhood of male prisoners to be an effective and humane technique. Suggesting to a suspected insurgent that he is "not man enough" to have set an improvised explosive device sometimes elicits a full description of how they emplaced the bomb, soldiers say."

[ 22 June 2006: Message edited by: Sven ]

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Originally posted by Sven:
I don’t know about you, but if we have to use “humiliating and degrading” treatment with insurgent detainees in order to obtain information from them that saves lives, I say, have at it. Hell, locking a person up in a 6 x 8 concrete cell with iron bars like a zoo animal is probably “humiliating and degrading” treatment.

Painfully torturing someone physically (and then beheading them) is a different thing entirely. Take, for example, the two US soldiers that were tortured and physically mutilated so badly that they were no longer even recognizable and had to be identified with DNA tests (and, as was reported this afternoon, may have been beheaded).

There is such a fundamental difference between how the insurgent treat prisoners (basically, if you’re captured, you’re tortured and then killed) and how the US military treats its prisoners. What I object to are posts that try to make the treatment of prisoners morally equivalent.[ 22 June 2006: Message edited by: Sven ]

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So at least we now know that you support torture you just don't define it very well.

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Originally posted by kropotkin1951:
This post shows your real views. Torture is all right as long as it is the torture that the US carries out.

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I’m not advocating physical torture but I think that if one can get valuable information by “humiliating” a captured insurgent, we should do it. It sounds like you consider “humiliating” someone as being “torture”. How would you get information from an insurgent? I’m just curious. Withholding their tea and crumpets?

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Originally posted by kropotkin1951:
Yes keeping someone "caged up" in a small pen is torture.

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So, I’m assuming that you are in favor of releasing all prisoners in the USA and Canada from their tiny little concrete and steel prison cells, too?

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Originally posted by kropotkin1951:
Humiliating and degrading unconvicted people so that maybe some American lives can be saved highlights the underlying belief that American civilians lives are more important then Iraqi civilians.

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Originally posted by Sven:

Extracting information from captured insurgents about future attacks will save both American and Iraqi lives. Hells bells, the Iraqi civilians, police and soldiers are the biggest targets of the insurgents, not the Americans.

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As soon as they leave the green zone they are going to be attacked.

The American troops have killed far more innocent civilians than Saddam ever did and he was a brutal dictator with no regard for live. What does that make the USA?

In America all citizens have the right to remain silent and that is one of the supposedly precious rights that you are fighting on the other side of the world to protect. Again it only shows that to you there are rights for Americans but those same rights are irrelevant for other citizens of the world.

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Originally posted by Sven:
I’m not advocating physical torture but I think that if one can get valuable information by “humiliating” a captured insurgent, we should do it.

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I’m not advocating physical torture but I think that if one can get valuable information by “humiliating” a captured insurgent, we should do it. It sounds like you consider “humiliating” someone as being “torture”. How would you get information from an insurgent? I’m just curious. Withholding their tea and crumpets?

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There is no absolute right to obtaining information from an insurgent. Prisoners of war have, for many years, been entitled to provide "name, rank, and serial number" to their captors, and nothing else.

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Originally posted by Sven:
A contrast in justice.

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So far the conviction rate is about 4, but there are literally thousands upon thousands of photographs of beaten, tortured Iraqis - none of whom have been convicted of anything.

Sven - please stop pretending you haven't seen or heard of these photos, or the other information. The sheer volume of them makes it clear that it isn't a 'few bad apples'. This is a systemic, brutal system that accepts torture as perfectly legitimate.

Charging the odd low-level trooper with brutality as a way of covering up the systemic brutality is a time honored practice in most of these cases.

Does anyone really think it was Lyndie England who instigated all of that stuff? And why is there more of it appearing all the time, now that she and her boyfriend are in prison?

But the brown people are being mean! Spare me the relativism. The US are either the good guys or they are just another gang of thugs in a very thug-ridden country. They aren't worse than their opponents, but they aren't any better either. And they don't belong there, as opposed to the insurgents (nevermind the tiny percentage of foreign loonies).

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WSJ:
For some, all this is just more evidence of inveterate U.S. barbarity or the criminal abuses made possible by Dick Cheney and Alberto Gonzales. In fact, it testifies to a U.S. military and executive branch willing to investigate, disclose and prosecute errant military behavior, whatever the military or political price. That's something Mr. Murtha and his fellow-travelers in Congress and the media might not recognize. But a majority of Iraqis do, which is why, in the battle against the killers of Privates Tucker and Menchaca, they line up to fight on our side.

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Except that:

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SF Chronicle:
(06-21) 15:35 PDT WASHINGTON, D.C. -- U.S. Sen. Barbara Boxer released documents today that appear to show that the Army completed its investigation in September 2005 into the deaths two years ago of two California National Guard soldiers in Iraq, but waited nearly nine months to inform the family of its conclusion that the two Americans had been killed by Iraqi forces during a joint patrol.

Link to article

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It seems some of them lining up to fight on our side don't mind taking out the odd US soldier now again as the opportunity arises.

Want to bet that they are lining up for the money more than anything else?

As for Col. Murtha, this is typical Swiftboating by the WSJ author, just like the rent-a-vets did to Kerry and other decorated combat veterans who opposed the idiocies of the Chickenhawk's military policies. It is the level they go to when their case won't stand on its own merits.

As for the original topic, whether the Marines in question committed a crime or not is still up in the air as long as the principle of innocent until proven guilty has any meaning.

If they are guilty nothing excuses that act. The argument that the Iraqis are brutal ergo the Americans are justified in being brutal is pure BS. There is no acceptable justification for killing or brutalizing anyone you have under control.

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Originally posted by kropotkin1951:

You don't have to "humiliate anyone to find out about attacks on American troops in Iraqi. I will tell you all the information you need to know without your having to lock me into a pen and handcuff me in uncomfotable postitions for hours or days or keep me from sleeping for days on end or other humilating and degrading treatment.

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Originally posted by M. Spector:
On the principle of "turnabout is fair play" as advocated by the Wall Street Journal, then I suppose you don't have a problem with Iraqi "insurgents" applying degrading and humiliating treatment to captured US soldiers?

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I suspect that the two soldiers recently captured, tortured and (possibly) beheaded would gladly have traded their treatment at the hands of the insurgents for humiliation.

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In 3 years of unrelenting bloodshed, the Bush administration has never pursued a political solution. No dialogue, no diplomacy, no negotiations. There’s still the naïve belief that violence alone can achieve their objectives and that America will prevail in any conflict. The administration’s arrogance has set them up for a crushing defeat.

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http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article13721.htm

Led by the stupid to carry out atrocities they pretend are less atrocious than the "other's".

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National Public Radio foreign correspondent Loren Jenkins, serving in NPR's Baghdad bureau, met earlier this month with a senior Shiite cleric, a man who was described in the NPR report as "a moderate" and as a person trying to lead his Shiite followers into practicing peace and reconciliation. He had been jailed by Saddam Hussein and forced into exile. Jenkins asked him: "What would you think if you had to go back to Saddam Hussein?" The cleric replied that he'd "rather see Iraq under Saddam Hussein than the way it is now."[1]

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Originally posted by Jerry West:
The argument that the Iraqis are brutal ergo the Americans are justified in being brutal is pure BS. There is no acceptable justification for killing or brutalizing anyone you have under control.

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Edited to add: yes, I am aware that Iraqi children were tortured as well by Americans at Abu Graib. the thin claim that America has to moral superiority in this case is that such torture was not officially sanctioned by authorities, and efforts (perhaps illusory) are being made to punish the American perpetrators and stop this practice.

[ 22 June 2006: Message edited by: Brett Mann ]

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Originally posted by Brett Mann:
Listen to the screams of the twelve year old children who were tortured by drills by the insurgents before they were murdered. Yes the American war is illegal, atrocious, indefensible, a crime. But if we wish to remain helpful observers and thinkers about this inconceivable bloodbath of atrocities, we must face facts. As evil as America is, al Qaeda has shown itself to be more evil. This is not a question of one evil excusing another. This is an issue of facing reality squarely so that we can effectively confront and name these evils. To put it another way, some folks may be so angry at the US that they refuse to admit that the enemies of the US might be even worse. Such denial does not help us challenge American evil.

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Well we came close to that kind of torture in Vietnam. Ask grunts who know what the 'Bell Telephone Hour' was and how many VC 'fell' out of helicopters during interrogation.

Dead is dead. You might inflict more or less pain getting there, but dead is dead.

You see, as an American, the thing that really grates is we have always been told that WE'RE BETTER THAN THAT. That we DON'T stoop to the level of our enemies because we supposedly uphold the dignity of the individual.

Right.

I was listening to an author on The Current a few months ago about how the US is instituting torture as policy by inserting language in applicable laws governing its use. Jeff may remember the guest - he had a book out where he was dealing with this issue and I can't remember it right now.

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Originally posted by Brett Mann:
To put it another way, some folks may be so angry at the US that they refuse to admit that the enemies of the US might be even worse. Such denial does not help us challenge American evil.

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I think you're missing the point. Most of us have no time for either side, and don't want to hear mealy-mouthed justifications from either side.

Dropping a bomb into a busy neighbourhood isn't much different than blowing up a car bomb there. Intent is irrelevant - knowing the likely outcome is the key moral problem. In both cases, the perpetrators know that many innocents will be killed.

Having a plane to deliver your slaughter does not provide moral superiority. Being from the US does not, on its own, provide moral superiority any more than being from Iraq does.

But if you are going to occupy a country, you had better be the good guys, because otherwise you are just another self-justifying pack of brutes. We have seen extremely few examples of occupations where the occupiers were the 'good' side.

The US commits atrocities daily, as do the insurgents. The screams of tortured children are much the same no matter who is doing it. The screams of innocents killed by bombs are much the same, no matter who delivered the bomb or what their intent might have been.

And let's not pretend that the US is seriously pursuing charges of war crimes against its troops. As I said above, a few low-level sacrifices to cover up systemic brutality are not proof of accountability.

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As evil as America is, al Qaeda has shown itself to be more evil.

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Originally posted by Frustrated Mess:

Ignoring that "al Qaeda" is an American invention, how so?

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Well, now it's happening, and the critics were right.

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Originally posted by M. Spector:
Ever since the USA decided to ignore the Third Geneva Convention and assert its right to humiliate, brutalize, and torture detainees at will, its critics have been warning that such policies not only make it more likely that captured US personnel will be similarly abused, but also remove any possibility of claiming the moral "high ground" when that happens.

Well, now it's happening, and the critics were right.

The USians might as well get used to it, because it's going to keep happening for the duration of the war on Terra - i.e. forever.

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Originally posted by Sven:

I wasn't asking how interrogators might get information out of you. I was asking you how you would suggest getting valuable information from a captured insurrgent who was unwilling to talk.

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In both Canada and the US we have just had young misguided and angry Moslems charged with serious crimes. Are they too to be denied their right to remain silent or should we humilate and degrade them as well. You either beleive that all humans have rights such as the right to remain silent and to be innocent until proven guilty or you don't. To me its like pregnancy. You can't be a littel pregnant you either are or your not. You either believe in rights or you don't because unless the most vilified of groups (currently that would be Moslems who oppose the US) get those rights they are meaningless.

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The U.S. official said at least four soldiers were being investigated. Two other U.S. officials said Friday that five were under investigation but one already had been discharged for unspecified charges unrelated to the killings and was believed to be in the United States.

The U.S. command has said only that Maj. Gen. James D. Thurman, commander of U.S. forces in the Baghdad area, had ordered a criminal investigation into the alleged slaying of a family of four.

Those troops under investigation are from the same platoon as two soldiers kidnapped and killed south of Baghdad this month, another official said Friday. Their mutilated bodies were found June 19, three days after they were abducted by insurgents near Youssifiyah, southwest of Baghdad.

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So were the two GI's beheaded by the Iraqi insurgents killed for their war crimes, specifically?

GI;s planned rape and slayings

[ 01 July 2006: Message edited by: Cueball ]

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Originally posted by Cueball:
It turns out that their justice may not be so far from our Justice:

So were the two GI's beheaded by the Iraqi insurgents killed for their war crimes, specifically?

GI;s planned rape and slayings

[ 01 July 2006: Message edited by: Cueball ]

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I was reading this earlier today and have been thinking about it all since. It certainly seems, does it not, that there was pay back going on. And after all, who is to fault the insurrgents?

Its is like the response above that likens beliefs in Rights, and I would say Freedoms too, to being pregnant. You truly can't believe in a little bit of Rights or be a litle bit pregnant.

In these cases could it be; the right to defend from future such actions against Iraqi civilans, like those of the American soldiers, or the Right to exact punishment to those soldiers by whatever means possible or at their, the Iraqi insurrgents, current disposable, or both? Or something other?

At any rate, for me, considering this news it is hard to feel for those soldiers who where kidnapped and murdered and who had participated in the murderous sick actions against Iraqi civilians.

[ 01 July 2006: Message edited by: Cueball ]

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Originally posted by Cueball:
What really makes me shudder is the thought that if the "insurgents" are capable of metting our specific punishements to members of specific platoons, it speaks of great ability and precision of action, as well as intelligence. It makes one wonder at what the latent abilities of the resistance are, and wonder at the possibility that the full force of the reistance has not yet been felt.

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What makes me shudder, is the expression of insurgent capability.

This article also, makes the assertion that some soldiers may have come forward due to their guilty conscience, spurred on by the executions of thier platoon buddies. On the other hand it makes just as much sense that those who came forward are trying to distance themselves from the events, because the insirgents have shown that they know at least generally whom was involved.

In other words they were not feeling guilty, they were scared.

[ 01 July 2006: Message edited by: Cueball ]

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Originally posted by Cueball:
This article also, makes the assertion that some soldiers may have come forward due to their guilty conscience, spurred on by the executions of thier platoon buddies. On the other hand it makes just as much sense that those who came forward are trying to distance themselves from the events, because the insirgents have shown that they know at least generally whom was involved.

In other words they were not feeling guilty, they were scared.

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Originally posted by Cueball:
Yes, a combination of guilt and fear spurred on by an impossible situation: specifically targetted for elimnation by the insurgents and threatened by their comrades. I'd want a name change myself.

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The military is keenly aware that if it is to maintain discipline it must preserve the morale of its soldiers, and not being able to protect them, or having GI's taking matters of intra-unit discipline into their own hands could seriously hamper its internal authority structure.

[ 01 July 2006: Message edited by: Cueball ]

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Originally posted by Cueball:
That is Bush. The US military has a certain amount of say in the matter, and they, at least on the issues of internal policy, are not entirely at the beck and call of Bush.

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It seems to me as this war in Iraq continues that people are having a hard time seeing who the real “enemy” is. Seven Marines and a Navy corpsman are back in the States charged with premeditated murder, kidnapping, conspiracy and related offenses concerning the death of an Iraqi man April 26. This is one of a growing number of such incidents now being investigated.

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Originally posted by Michelle:

Keith Gottschalk

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Excellent this says much, from the end of the article:

When will Americans come to realize what is happening to this generation we sent to war? Certainly with almost no video footage coming from inside Iraq, we have been spared the “Vietnam in our living room” syndrome from the 1960s. That is as many wanted it, but we pay a price in our ignorance of the conditions these soldiers have been placed in — and then we act surprised when some crack.

What is it about our national stubbornness that makes us continue to support these wars? Is it that in war we feel we can be united while at peace we have to look at our society, warts and all? Do we just love being at war? Do we care more about being seen as “cutting and running” than butchering not only our treasury but countless thousands of lives, both military and civilian?

Was there a better way to combat terrorism than this? Or would it have not been so noble, so heroic, so star-spangled, button-popping proud wonderful as a war?

Or is it the darker spectre of anti-Islamic bigotry that is playing into this particular fight?

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Listen to the screams of the twelve year old children who were tortured by drills by the insurgents before they were murdered. Yes the American war is illegal, atrocious, indefensible, a crime. But if we wish to remain helpful observers and thinkers about this inconceivable bloodbath of atrocities, we must face facts.

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One fact is that it wasn't the insurgents who used the drills, it was the new Iraqi police.

The BBC Reports:

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'Drilling torture'

This particular technique of torture and killing is a new one to add to an already long list of other forms of torture of which the new Iraqi police force stands accused.

The return to torture and killing by the security forces is another embarrassment for the American and British governments.

The list compiled by Human Rights Watch includes beating detainees with cables, hanging them from their wrists for long periods and giving electric shocks to sensitive parts of the body.

From a video given to the BBC by the Association of Muslim Scholars (a Sunni Muslim organisation), it seems another particularly brutal form of torture can also be added - drilling into the knees, elbows and shoulders of victims.

The video shows the body of a Sunni Muslim preacher being washed for burial.

His supporters say he had been picked up by police commandos for allegedly being linked to the insurgency.

The camera focuses on marks all over his body including what appear to be drill holes.

According to Salman al-Faraji, a human rights activist and lawyer, the use of drills is common.

"Most cases are quite similar, the same methods are used," he said.

"They torture them, breaking hands and legs. They use electric drills to pierce their bodies and then the killing is carried out at close range."

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Originally posted by jeff house:
One fact is that it wasn't the insurgents who used the drills, it was the new Iraqi police.

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