RustyHammer
Member
Here is one most of us missed:
http://www.tcpalm.com/tcp/the_news_ed_columnists/article/0,1651,TCP_1133_2410749,00.html
Joe Crankshaw: Instead of medal he richly deserves, Lt. Col. West will get a court martial -- By Joe Crankshaw -- columnist
November 8, 2003
You may never have heard of Lt. Col. Allen B. West, a battalion commander in the Fourth Infantry Division in Iraq, but he desperately needs your help. He faces an untimely end to his military career, and time in jail for saving the lives of his men. Specifically, he is charged with assault for firing his pistol into the air to intimidate an Iraqi prisoner who was concealing plans for an ambush of American troops.
The ploy worked, and U.S. troops ambushed the would be ambushers. Col. West should be receiving a medal, not a court martial.
An Army Judge Advocate General officer — a lawyer for the Army in plain English — assigned to the Fourth Infantry, leveled the charges and is making them stick. It is certainly an example of legal technicalities that ignore both recent history in Iraq and the true nature of war.
If this lawyer wants to prosecute someone for mistreating prisoners of war, let him hunt down the men who mistreated the members of the Ordinance unit, including Jessica Lynch, who were captured, tortured and murdered by the Iraqis. Evidence shows Lynch was raped in the process. Or, let him look for the people who beat and mistreated our pilots during the first Gulf War. That should give him plenty of legitimate targets.
Col. West and his men were stationed at a place called "Saba al Boor," when they captured an Iraqi guerrilla, and began interrogating him. Military questioning on the frontlines is normally conducted by an intelligence officer or noncommissioned officer, assisted by a translator if they don't speak the enemy's language. The process is not unlike what happens in a police precinct station, except that the pressure of time and the fact that American lives hang in the balance, adds an unpleasant dimension.
During the interrogation, the intelligence people came to realize they had something more than your ordinary guerilla grunt. This one had knowledge of upcoming actions, which he was not coming forward with, but which needed to be known. In every war we have fought, when our men were taken under similar circumstances and tried to conceal information, the treatment they received was often brutal and sometimes fatal.
Col. West is dedicated to his men, and he knew he had to get the information in real time or see some of them die. I guess the JAG officer would rather have seen the men die. The colonel had many options, if he was determined to get the information. He could have ordered the prisoner beaten into submission; he could have ordered torture; he could have done many things, but he did none of them. He just scared the information out of the prisoner. He stood behind him, drew his pistol, slid back the slide so the prisoner could hear it, and fired twice in the air. The prisoner, apparently, was not ready to go to paradise, and spilled the beans.
The Iraqi should be glad he was not a prisoner of the South or North Koreans, whose favorite interrogation technique is to truss up the prisoner, tying wrists to ankles, suspending him in the air, then beating him with long, thin bamboo poles for a few hours before they start questioning.
In South Vietnam, ARVIN questioners took prisoners up in helicopters in groups of two or three. At a high altitude, they would pick up one of the prisoners and heave him out the door sans parachute, then start questioning the others. It was effective, but I am sure the JAG officer would not approve.
Germans, Japanese, Russians, all have used brutal tactics far exceeding Col. West's, and everyone just accepts it.
I am not a fan of the Bush War in Iraq. I think we should and could have handled the matter differently. But I support our troops in what they are trying to do under dreadful conditions. I don't think a man's career should be trashed in the name of some theoretical, legal nicety, when he was saving American lives. The end does not always justify the means, but in this case, I think his means are justified by the end. As I have often written, I don't think there is one square inch of foreign soil worth one American life. I also uphold Gen. George Patton's speech to his troops in which he told them the idea that they were supposed to die for their country was crap. "Your job," he said, "is to make the other poor bastard die for his."
Write, e-mail, call, button-hole your congressman and sink the White House under a blizzard of mail. Demand a medal, not a court martial, for Lt. Col. Allen B. West.
Contact Joe Crankshaw by telephone at (772) 221-4181, or e-mail: [email protected]. His columns are archived on the News'website, TCPalm.com.
http://www.tcpalm.com/tcp/the_news_ed_columnists/article/0,1651,TCP_1133_2410749,00.html
Joe Crankshaw: Instead of medal he richly deserves, Lt. Col. West will get a court martial -- By Joe Crankshaw -- columnist
November 8, 2003
You may never have heard of Lt. Col. Allen B. West, a battalion commander in the Fourth Infantry Division in Iraq, but he desperately needs your help. He faces an untimely end to his military career, and time in jail for saving the lives of his men. Specifically, he is charged with assault for firing his pistol into the air to intimidate an Iraqi prisoner who was concealing plans for an ambush of American troops.
The ploy worked, and U.S. troops ambushed the would be ambushers. Col. West should be receiving a medal, not a court martial.
An Army Judge Advocate General officer — a lawyer for the Army in plain English — assigned to the Fourth Infantry, leveled the charges and is making them stick. It is certainly an example of legal technicalities that ignore both recent history in Iraq and the true nature of war.
If this lawyer wants to prosecute someone for mistreating prisoners of war, let him hunt down the men who mistreated the members of the Ordinance unit, including Jessica Lynch, who were captured, tortured and murdered by the Iraqis. Evidence shows Lynch was raped in the process. Or, let him look for the people who beat and mistreated our pilots during the first Gulf War. That should give him plenty of legitimate targets.
Col. West and his men were stationed at a place called "Saba al Boor," when they captured an Iraqi guerrilla, and began interrogating him. Military questioning on the frontlines is normally conducted by an intelligence officer or noncommissioned officer, assisted by a translator if they don't speak the enemy's language. The process is not unlike what happens in a police precinct station, except that the pressure of time and the fact that American lives hang in the balance, adds an unpleasant dimension.
During the interrogation, the intelligence people came to realize they had something more than your ordinary guerilla grunt. This one had knowledge of upcoming actions, which he was not coming forward with, but which needed to be known. In every war we have fought, when our men were taken under similar circumstances and tried to conceal information, the treatment they received was often brutal and sometimes fatal.
Col. West is dedicated to his men, and he knew he had to get the information in real time or see some of them die. I guess the JAG officer would rather have seen the men die. The colonel had many options, if he was determined to get the information. He could have ordered the prisoner beaten into submission; he could have ordered torture; he could have done many things, but he did none of them. He just scared the information out of the prisoner. He stood behind him, drew his pistol, slid back the slide so the prisoner could hear it, and fired twice in the air. The prisoner, apparently, was not ready to go to paradise, and spilled the beans.
The Iraqi should be glad he was not a prisoner of the South or North Koreans, whose favorite interrogation technique is to truss up the prisoner, tying wrists to ankles, suspending him in the air, then beating him with long, thin bamboo poles for a few hours before they start questioning.
In South Vietnam, ARVIN questioners took prisoners up in helicopters in groups of two or three. At a high altitude, they would pick up one of the prisoners and heave him out the door sans parachute, then start questioning the others. It was effective, but I am sure the JAG officer would not approve.
Germans, Japanese, Russians, all have used brutal tactics far exceeding Col. West's, and everyone just accepts it.
I am not a fan of the Bush War in Iraq. I think we should and could have handled the matter differently. But I support our troops in what they are trying to do under dreadful conditions. I don't think a man's career should be trashed in the name of some theoretical, legal nicety, when he was saving American lives. The end does not always justify the means, but in this case, I think his means are justified by the end. As I have often written, I don't think there is one square inch of foreign soil worth one American life. I also uphold Gen. George Patton's speech to his troops in which he told them the idea that they were supposed to die for their country was crap. "Your job," he said, "is to make the other poor bastard die for his."
Write, e-mail, call, button-hole your congressman and sink the White House under a blizzard of mail. Demand a medal, not a court martial, for Lt. Col. Allen B. West.
Contact Joe Crankshaw by telephone at (772) 221-4181, or e-mail: [email protected]. His columns are archived on the News'website, TCPalm.com.
