There is a nasty little double standard in Iraq. The headlines are raging about American troops that are accused of murdering civilians and attempting to cover up the situation. Prosecutions on over a half dozen cases are underway. The US servicemen in question are looking at life in a military jail.
Yet today news came out that Iraqi Forces trained by American Troops were found to have murdered some of the same US troops that were training them. Outrageous yes. Headline maker? Not yet.
Maybe you think its a new story and is just taking sometime to be vetted? Don't bet on it. It happened in 2004. The Army stayed silent about the situation, while it conducted an investigation.
Okay, so give the US military the benefit of the doubt. Let's wait until the investigation wraps up before we rush to judgment. Sounds reasonable. The investigation was concluded in September of 2005. The results of the investigation were just released yesterday.
Okay, time to rush to judgment something stinks in Iraq.
Nadia McCaffrey, a mother of one of the killed soldiers just received notification yesterday that her son was not the victim of an insurgent attack, but instead the victim of a murder by Iraqi forces. US forces on the ground knew this information within minutes of the attack and subsequent deaths of Spc. Patrick McCaffrey and 1st Lt. Andre D. Tyson.
Nadia McCaffrey has been an outspoken critic of the war since her son's death on June 22, 2004.
Double Standard
So the US and British Troops in Iraq, when suspected of crimes are tried in court.
If guilty this is fair enough. Murder is Murder, Torture is Torture, a crime is a crime. The administration and leadership all the way up the chain bears responsibility for these acts, especially as they put soldiers in situations that they are not equipped to deal with such as Abu Ghraib and other headline grabbers.
The soldiers are the last line of defense against bad policy, bad strategy and bad tactical decisions. Thus far, only the soldiers have been punished for the crimes that have occurred in Iraq. The leadership responsible for the bad policy, bad strategy and bad tactical decisions have hung their troops out for the vultures.
But don't get confused that is not the double standard. That's just politics mingled with injustice.
The double standard resides in the fact that the US and Iraqi government are looking to offer amnesty to Iraqi insurgents. If an insurgent commits a crime, the amnesty would clear them if they start being good from now on and pictures and video will insure that they swear upon something important and are not allowed to cross their fingers and toes.
The person that is thought to have killed Spc. Patrick McCaffrey is in custody in Iraq today. However, the laws as they are being drafted to do not allow for him to be charged with a crime for his actions. The man is thought to have been a former sniper in Saddam Hussein's Republican Guards and with that training left two bullet holes in Spc McCaffrey's head. Not just some training accident, this is cold calculated, premeditated murder, and there are no laws to charge him for that murder. Even more than that he went on to join the insurgency and make other attacks possibly against Iraqi's and Americans. For these actions, amnesty is the likely outcome.
At least Iraq hasn't gotten so mixed up that it can be legitimately classified as a quagmire reminiscent of Vietnam, some would say. We're liberating Iraq, securing a source of oil, removing an evil dictator, insuring that weapons of mass destruction are not built and used against us, etc. etc.
To the first point, it is a quagmire. To the second point, it is all those things and we have and are achieving all those goals. The problem is not in the purpose or the principle or even the moral high ground of the matter. All are sound. The problem lies in the ineffective execution by the administration. The administration throughout a decades worth of battle planning and strategy related to Iraq to fight a war that would look good on the 24 hour news channel. The administration sacrificed all of the training and planning that would allow the US and our allies to achieve those goals without falling into a quagmire.
The goals have been achieved but much like a Greek tragedy, we've lost our way in achieving those goals. We've let our administration walk us into a dead end for all of the right reasons, only to be sucker punched and mugged in the recesses of the alley.
I urge readers to read the account of the attack in the article below, my commentary is on the situation and problems. Please seek out the facts and come to your own conclusions. These are mine.
Military comes clean to mom / 2 years after son's death, she gets truth, learns suspect is held
Thursday, June 22, 2006
Double Standard: Iraqi Troops kill Americans-No Prosecution-Amnesty Likely
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3 comments:
of course there's a double standard why would you expect terrorists to act like a liberal democracy or for that matter a liberal democracy acting like terrorists?
The amnesty program makes sense and actually did quite well in Vietnam when it was operating.
Brett.
In your usual insightful style you have framed the picture in Iraq with clarity. However, allow this observation.
It's a paradox. Iraq is a growing Democracy. We do not own or control its people or government. We started them on the road to freedom. Now we must accept their decisions as a nation.
In all our military interventions in history we came, we conquered, and we (mostly) left. Remnants of our forces remained in some cases but, mostly, we left. This will happen in Iraq as well.
On both sides there are innocents, there are criminals, and there are combatants. History will judge whether the Bush administration was wrong-headed in taking the War on Terror to the doorstep of our enemy.
Newsman
http://on-line-tribune-front-page.blogspot.com/
Thanks for your comments, I do appreciate the additional perspective.
I intended to bring the double standard into view for more people. There is a lot of focus on fragmented aspects of what is happening in Iraq, and this seemed to be one fragment that had been lost.
To jmnlman,
I expect people to act like people. I don't feel that we should condescend to people that we call terrorists or that call themselves terrorists. They are people and responsible for their own actions, just as the US troops are individually responsible for their own actions. Someone will pay the price for the terrorist actions, I'd prefer that the individual people that committed the acts pay that price.
I do appreciate the value of amnesty, as it creates the potential for a ceasefire and overall decrease of hostilities in concept. The flaw with amnesty is that people in this country (yes its a fledgling democracy, but its also one of the oldest civilizations in the world) are not held accountable for their actions. Amnesty provides the incentive for them to lay down their arms and gives them an opportunity to have hope and start a new life. Unfortunately, it also teaches them that they can take up arms whenever they like, kill innocent people and face no repurcussions.
To Newsman,
I do recognize the paradox and am happy that you clarified its existence. Too many people in the world fail to recognize paradoxes in general, which decreases their ability to comprehend a situation. As I mentioned above, I agree this is a fledgling democracy, but it is growing out of a very old, vey well established civilization and made up of a population of very educated people.
In many cases they are more civilized more educated and more established than the United States was when it was a fledgling democracy. Civil War and over throws are not clean affairs, and the current state of Iraq is probably closer to the phase in US history known as the Civil War period. This period was known for freeing the slaves, but there were many other political reasons why the US almost split in half as factions collided with other factions.
Iraq is moving forward on a faster learning curve. They need to recognize this as the world around them continues to press on making forward progress. As such, again they need to hold themselves to higher standards and continue to raise the bar. They should not aspire to be as good as the United States. They should aspire to be better and hold themselves up to the standards of being better.
Again I thank both of you for your comments.
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