Is this what is meant by "martial law"?
I think that's generally a little more organized.
Actually, I think the term most political scientists use for situations like that in Iraq is "total chaos."
No, martial law is where the army is the recognized and sole authority, rather than the only authority that has its shit together enough to function.
Does "martial law" imply that there is one force with a monopoly on violence which is above the law? I guess the US military doesn't have a monopoly on violence over there.
Incidentally, I recently learned the phrase "monopoly on violence", and it's really useful. I think about 2/3 of the people who think things in Iraq are going to get better soon would change their minds if we explained to them that a democratic government is meaningless without a monopoly on violence.
3: How about "failed state" can we declare Iraq a failed state yet?
Yay! Oh, wait, I don't actually feel any better. I'm considering getting that GYWO strip Becks linked as a tatoo.
No, martial law is where the army is the recognized and sole authority, rather than the only authority that has its shit together enough to function.
I think that, if this article shows anything, it shows that the US army definitely does not have its shit together.
5 -- You'll make a good libertarian yet.
What's most disturbing to me about this is that this story is likely the best case scenario for a detainee in Iraq. White guy, veteran, American citizen, speaks English, documented whistleblower, and it still took 97 days for them to sort it out. What are the odds they have that kind of motivation when it's some local Iraqi they've misidentified?
Clearly Donald Vance is a islamofascist cleverly disguised as a U.S. navy veteran and American citizen, he deserves everything that he got and at least we didn't cut off his head like would have happened to him had the islamofascists caught him.
For a non-brief period of time, I was totally buying 13. Don't do that, Ugh.
I reckon the talking points have not yet circulated; I am going to be really interested to see how this one is justified. My prediction: "Well yes, there's no denying they made a mistake here -- but better to err on the side of vigilance than to set in motion the chain of events that will lead ultimately to Mushroom Clouds in Manhattan(tm)."
(Which won't actually be that interesting -- mostly I'm anxious to see if Mr. Tre/vino ends up blaming the victim here.)
11: Actually, check that. What's most disturbing is that his fiancée thought he had died. I'll admit to being overly paranoid, but I have a recurring nightmare where Mr. Cala calls me from the airport in Canada, gets on the plane, and I never here from him again because when he landed at O'Hare they got his name mixed up with someone else.
Vance should be arrested for pretending to be a terrorist!
Right, think of all the military resources he wasted being confined like that.
Good point LB, I mean, that had to keep the lights on 24-hours for him.
So, cruel and stupid. I guess we're on a quest to disprove every stanza of one of the wingers favorite anthems:
And I'm proud to be an American,
where at least I know I'm free.
And I wont forget the men who died,
who gave that right to me.
And I gladly stand up,
next to you and defend her still today.
'Cause there ain't no doubt I love this land,
God bless the USA.
In order: not especially; not anymore; never thought about them in the first place; you have no rights when you're dead; figuratively speaking; from my laptop; I doubt it; we need it.
Does it put me firmly in McManus territory that I read this, and immediately thought that the detainment might be part of a partial cover-up, or some sort of ex-post-facto blackmail? This firm had to be getting it's weapons from somewhere, right?
"Don't attribute to malice, &etc, &etc" notwithstanding.
23 -- I was making that assumption at around the first couple of paragraphs, but let go of it as I got further into the story.
21.---Apparently the electricity is working somewhere in Iraq.
Wow. Someone needs to buy Lt. Fracasso an adverb:
A spokeswoman for the Pentagon's detention operations in Iraq, First Lt. Lea Ann Fracasso, said in written answers to questions that the men had been "treated fair and humanely," and that there was no record of either man complaining about their treatment.
Also, I hope he sues the living crap out of someone. Didn't I muse many months ago that it would take abuse of an innocent American to put a stop to detainee mistreatment?
There's probably no shot at recovering anything; the people who made the decision to lock him up are almost certainly covered by qualified immunity. You can't sue an agent of the government for doing their job.
Didn't I muse many months ago that it would take abuse of an innocent American to put a stop to detainee mistreatment?
You must have meant innocent white American. Innocent brown ones have come in for plenty of abuse already.
But don't you see, just as with those death penalty cases where the innocent guy is freed after a decade or so, this case proves that the system is working!
31. Argh. Please, don't repeat that -- it's one of my favorite arguments in favor of the death penalty. When you use it in this context, you make it sound so, you know, lame.
27 - well, they have to be sure that the important things get done, like the torturing.
There had better be some accountability for this. Someone or several someones had better be fired. What's the best way to show our outrage?
You know, I literally have no idea at all. Part of what freaks me out about this is that I have no idea what appropriately should be done with criminal suspects in Iraq. There is no criminal justice system that has any sort of sane controls on it. I suppose the answer is ti set one up, but goodness only knows how.
34: Refuse to go shopping this Christmas.
"(which I'm mystified by: I had no idea the FBI had any jurisdiction in Iraq)."
The FBI has had overseas agents since Hoover started putting them in Latin American embassies circa 1940; agents placed in embassies worldwide vastly expanded during the Eighties and Nineties, and yet even more post-2001; I don't know why Iraq would be excluded (although, in fact, from the story it appears the FBI was largely involved by stateside telephone; I don't imagine the FBI functions in Iraq outside the Green Zone any more than most other non-military American functionaries do).
11: "What are the odds they have that kind of motivation when it's some local Iraqi they've misidentified?"
I was thinking in terms of writing letters to congress.
38: Good to know -- it's an area where I simply didn't know a thing about it.
I'm not so keen on the 'imagine what would happen to an ordinary Iraqi in this situation' hypothetical -- I suspect this is exactly what happens to ordinary Iraqis. What we're seeing here is probably an example of a system where, once a person enters, he will never be trusted, no matter how authentic (or absent) his English is. This guy's experience was probably entirely typical -- up until the point where people cared about it after he was let out, of course.
Hey, it's Gary! Hi, Gary.
29: Yeah, I figured. Does that also preclude embarrassing discovery motions and whatnot?
Not my area, so I'm guessing, but I'm thinking any such case would get turfed out of court before anything got interesting.
An odd moment from the article:
One day, Mr. Vance met with a camp psychologist. "He realized I was having difficulties," Mr. Vance said. "He said to turn it into a game. He said: 'I want you to pretend you are a soldier who has been kidnapped, and that you still have a duty to do. Memorize everything you can about everything that happens to you. Make it like you are a spy on the inside.' I think he called it rational emotive behavioral therapy, and I started doing that."
I don't think he had to pretend real hard to imagine he'd been kidnapped.
That said, RET does sound like a good way to survive captivity.
The bit with the shrink was oddly disturbing -- it almost seemed as if it would make it worse to run into someone who wished you well and was giving you helpful advice, but wasn't going to do anything about getting you out.
Also, while it may have helped make the time in captivity more bearable, I would worry about one's captors twigging to the fact that you're acting like you're "memoriz[ing] ... everything that happens to you... like a spy on the inside."
40: "38: Good to know -- it's an area where I simply didn't know a thing about it."
Re FBI overseas: it started before there was a CIA, or even an OSS, and I should stress that it was originally, and for decades, almost purely intelligence/counter-intelligence oriented, although it was also just Hoover trying to build his empire; his only competition at the time were our military attaches, and Naval Intelligence, and some sporadic Army Intelligence and the Military Intelligency Division of the War Department; keeping track of Nazi agents was the primary mission. After OSS was started up, there was real competition (Donovan's brief reign as "Coordinator of Information," aka COI, with a brief on non Western Hemisphere intel/counter-intel was pretty much a fizzle), and the FBI tended to stick to US territory, but still with a hold on Latin American counter-intelligence/Western Hemisphere, per order of FDR, until the demise of OSS and then its brief successor, Central Intelligence Group (CIG), and then the creation of CIA in 1947. While OSS was around, they and the FBI, and leaders Donovan and Hoover, fought like cats and dogs; Hoover eventually won the fight to kill OSS post-war, but lost when CIA was born out of the ashes after the failure of CIG (1947 was when our prior major spasm of intel/national security reorganization, until post-2001; the National Security Act of '47 was huge, in creating the Defense Department out of the War Department, creating CIA, and much else).
The FBI's most famous counter-intel success was the capture (because they were comically inept) of the eight German saboteurs landed by U-Boat on Long Island and in Florida in 1942, who wound up tried by the military tribunals whose undead ghosts re-instantiated post-2001; there were no other cases of actual enemy-directed sabotage found by the FBI in the US throughout all of WWII, but, of course, thousands of cases were alleged and investigated, and that's why tens of thousands of people had to be interned with no evidence! (But do we learn from our history? Nooooo....)
Oh, yes, and the FBI pioneered in rendition back in the Forties, too. Hoover was very innovative, you know. Does this sound familiar?
More on the FBI's pioneering Special Intelligence Service. A standard summary on the topic, but informative if you don't know about the it and are interested.
Oh, and from this FBI timeline:
May 30, 1945But after December 7th, 1941:
Between January 1940 and May 1945, the Bureau investigated 19,299 alleged cases of sabotage. Sabotage in some form was found in 2,282 incidences, primarily acts of spite, carelessness, malicious mischief, and the like. During World War II, not a single act of enemy-directed sabotage was discovered in the United States.
Within 72 hours, the FBI was working on a twenty-four hour a day basis and had taken 3,846 enemy aliens into custody.Better safe than sorry! (And then there's the whole oh-who-cares-if-they-were-citizens roundup, but I'm sure everyone knows a fair amount about that.)
More reading if anyone wants to go to the library.
More on the immediate postwar intel organization setup, but likely far more than anyone is interested in. For some reason intel history was one of the subjects I became fascinated by as a kid, and have never quit reading about.
41: "I'm not so keen on the 'imagine what would happen to an ordinary Iraqi in this situation' hypothetical -- I suspect this is exactly what happens to ordinary Iraqis."
I'm entirely sure that -- as has been much documented -- Iraqis aren't remotely treated as luxuriously and kindly and fairly as these two guys; mostly they just disappear into the system for a couple of years, and either eventually get kicked out, or are still there; they don't get private cells, either. Again, for just one article from the other day (similar to many other such articles), see the one I linked here.
Again, for just one article from the other day (similar to many other such articles), see the one I linked here.
Good to see you around again, and I say this only because it's funny: You mean the article I linked in this post?
Goddamn those German saboteurs. It's hard not to wish they'd just drowned before making landfall.
gary--great to see you.
hope you are well.
Are you sure the average Iraqi 'security detainee' is put in a group cell? It seems completely contrary to everything else I've read about the subject.
"...I say this only because it's funny: You mean the article I linked in this post?"
Well, no, actually, I linked to that one here. The one about Iraqi "justice" was yesterday. Here we learn (again) about Iraqis, not Americans, and what happens to people with names like Abdulla Sultan Khalaf in Iraqi, not American, hearings in the "Central Criminal Court of Iraq," etc. (There are links in the article to 3 prior pieces from May on the Iraqi police.)
"hope you are well."
Boring to discuss, but had a passing few minutes of not-so-badness, at least; well-wishes and greetings appreciated.
"Goddamn those German saboteurs. It's hard not to wish they'd just drowned before making landfall."
Would have saved everyone, then and later, a great deal of trouble. Operation Pastorius. These guys would have found Sgt. Schultz from Hogan's Heros (if any of you kids remember that) a hyper-competent and slick professional.
I mean, we found out about the plot because 2 of the 8 just got depressed and surrendered and confessed, spontaneously. And that was after a Coast Guardsman spotted the 4 coming ashore on Long Island, one of them tried to bribe him, and he reported them. Not exactly a genius-level coup by the FBI required.
Of course, Admiral Canaris, the man in charge of the Abwehr, the German foreign intelligence agency, wound up dealing with the Allies for the last half of the war (until Hitler had him, um, strangled), made sure that all but one of his main aides wasn't a Nazi, and pretty consistently worked to oppose Hitler through many plots, including"The Black Orchestra," aka "Die Schwarze Kapelle", the plot in 1943 to kill Hitler and surrender to the Allies; Roosevelt refused to negotiate, though Churchill wanted to, and the conspirators famously tried to blow up Hitler anyway on July 20, 1944, but only wounded him. Canaris had already been fired by Hitler in '43, and the Abwehr dissolved and absorbed into Himmler's Reich Security Main Office. Read more here, if you like, about Canaris's secret war against Hitler -- it's pretty interesting stuff, if it's the sort of stuff you're interested in; my point was that he may have deliberately picked complete incompetents for Operation Pastorius, although I don't think there's any evidence for this; it simply would be consistent with his general pattern [he even helped save some Jews!]; he was trying to talk to the British before the war about overthrowing Hitler, but the British didn't want to interfere in Germany's internal affairs [and here we could go into the Nazi sympathies Halifax and other high British officials had, but another time].)
She linked to both in the post, I think, Gary. (the link to the second one is where it says "the Iraqi legal system is barely functioning.")
"Are you sure the average Iraqi 'security detainee' is put in a group cell? It seems completely contrary to everything else I've read about the subject."
Quite sure. Numerous articles over several years now have been very specific about the group stockades, riots, and conditions. To lazily just quote from the article I linked to:
[...] By the time the Abu Ghraib abuse scandal was disclosed in the spring of 2004, the Americans were holding about 7,500 people.
Largely unnoticed, the flood of detainees has only increased since then. But neither the Americans troops, who were fighting an insurgency for which they were not prepared, nor the newly reconstituted Iraqi police, had a comprehensive plan for handling them.
Untold numbers of detainees have also been captured and questioned by American soldiers, then turned over to Iraqi security forces who often hold prisoners in miserable conditions.
Early last year, a United States Army unit in Baquba found 450 people, including a few women and children, living in hot, fetid cells built for 150. The Iraqis seemed to have little idea where the detainees had come from and had no means to adjudicate their cases. Lt. Col. Robert Risberg, an officer in the unit, said they discovered that roughly a third of the prisoners had originally been captured by the Americans.
"A majority were people lost in this bureaucratic mess, and it took a while to straighten it out," he said.There have been various other articles on Iraqi prison conditions, American dealings in them, and so on, and every single one of them has gone on about the massess crowded into stockades and over-crowded cells.
Five-second google: here's a piece on Camp Bucca from 2004. Google away on "Camp Bucca," as you like.
Sample start of first piece:
CAMP BUCCA, Iraq -- The sand blows across this isolated patch of desert, flecks of moving rock and dust. When the heat grows unbearable, as it often does, the men hover inside white tents, the canvas sides partially rolled and tied off. When day settles into evening, and the air is more forgiving, the young men come out to play soccer and volleyball under the red desert moon. The old ones gather in groups and pray.
Sometimes both young and old move toward the shiny new chain-link fence that surrounds the tents. They clutch the wires with their dark hands and look out.Read more about the compounds as you like. Check out the pictures. View video.
The Taguba Report is pretty long, but a relevant quote:
[...] 23. (U) The Abu Ghraib and Camp Bucca detention facilities are significantly over their intended maximum capacity while the guard force is undermanned and under resourced. This imbalance has contributed to the poor living conditions, escapes, and accountability lapses at the various facilities. The overcrowding of the facilities also limits the ability to identify and segregate leaders in the detainee population who may be organizing escapes and riots within the facility. (ANNEXES 6, 22, and 92)
[...]
d. (U) 13 June 03- Escape and recapture of detainee # 8968 and the shooting of eight detainees at Abu Ghraib (BCCF) (320th MP Battalion). Several detainees allegedly attempted to escape at about 1400 hours from the Camp Vigilant Compound, Abu Ghraib (BCCF). A 15-6 investigation by CPT Wyks (400th MP Battalion, S-1) concluded that the detainee allegedly escaped by sliding under the wire while the tower guard was turned in the other direction. This detainee was subsequently apprehended by the QRF. At
about 1600 the same day, 30-40 detainees rioted and pelted three interior MP guards with rocks. One guard was injured and the tower guards fired lethal
rounds at the rioters injuring 7 and killing 1 detainee. (ANNEX 7)
[...]
08 November 03- Escape of detainees # 115089, # 151623, # 151624, # 116734, # 116735, and # 116738 from Abu Ghraib (320th MP Battalion).
Several detainees allegedly escaped at 2022 from Compound 8 of the Ganci encampment, Abu Ghraib. An SIR was initiated by MAJ DiNenna (320th MP
Battalion, S-3). The SIR indicated that 5-6 prisoners escaped from the North end of the compound, but there is no method of escape listed in the SIR.
[...]
Several detainees allegedly began to riot at about 1300 in all of the compounds at the Ganci encampment. This resulted in the shooting deaths of 3 detainees, 9 wounded detainees, and 9 injured US Soldiers. A 15-6 investigation by COL Bruce Falcone (220th MP Brigade, Deputy Commander) concluded that the detainees rioted in protest of their living conditions, that the riot turned violent, the use of non-lethal force was ineffective, and, after the 320th MP Battalion CDR executed "Golden Spike," the emergency containment plan, the use of deadly force was authorized. Contributing factors were lack ofAnd so on and so on. Compounds and tents aren't individual cells. The many riots over the years, and shootings of prisoners in riots, happen in compounds, of necessity.
comprehensive training of guards, poor or non-existent SOPs, no formal guard-mount conducted prior to shift, no rehearsals or ongoing training, the mix of less than lethal rounds with lethal rounds in weapons, no AARs being conducted after incidents, ROE not posted and not understood, overcrowding, uniforms not standardized, and poor communication between the command and Soldiers. (ANNEX 8)
Yeah, I'm pretty sure.
I expect you've been misled by the treatment of a small number of high-level detainees, who have been isolated; that's a couple of hundred out of tens of thousands.
"Second link in my post, Gary."
Ah. Sorry.
Why does it seem to me so often that whenever I make a couple of comments on a thread, anywhere, it dies?
Self-centered, I know, but still depressing. I keep looking for the conversation.
Everybody's distracted with sex talk.
I was interested to see that Rumsfeld listed Abu Ghraib as what he most regretted, or his worst moment, or something.
I think it possible that in 50 years it's what school kids will learn first about these years, that it will define our period.
And of course, what we did about it, collectively and individually.
I think it possible that in 50 years it's what school kids will learn first about these years, that it will define our period.
I'd bet the Twin Towers falling will be more remembered and "iconic" of this period, but I surely hope that Abu Ghraib isn't forgotten.
"Everybody's distracted with sex talk."
Goodness knows, I'd be, but I was forbidden to speak about the subject by Ogged. Jeez. Pointedly. Emphatically.
I kinda overfilled the blog.
That everyone else was allowed to prattle on, since, seemed a bit unfair to me, but that's the story of my life, after all.
I do something, I get yelled at, everyone else has fun with it anyway, and, well, I guess the point was that I did it really badly.
My head kinda reels: I'm forbidden to talk about sex, everyone else is talking about sex, I'm slow, I'm fast, I'm always doing a bad job.
Same old, same old, really, since when Ogged was asking in e-mail how one does this blogging stuff.
Someday I'll get it right.
Just pick a president's name and go to town, dude. Van Buren hasn't been taken yet.
"taken yet" s/b "taken from behind yet"
Now this is becoming a sex thread? You guys are incorrigible.
Gary, I thought I killed threads for a while...I have a general policy of assuming I'm being paranoid about stuff like that.
Gary I, for one, am glad to see you back. Things are new. Ogged told me to tell you that it's ok to talk about sex now.
Here's the latest article in the series:
http://www.nytimes.com/2006/12/19/washington/19detain.html
(no permalink yet)
See Katherine, we're not completely incorrigible.
Some lies are like lying; some lies are like truthing, and they hold water like truth holds water, with minimal leaking. Gary should talk about sex.
Gary should talk about sex
...with minimal leaking.
With NYTimes articles now, if you look beneath the "single page" and "print" options, you'll see "share," which you can expand to find the permalink.
In other words, text, you're saying you haven't experienced the previous threads where Farber talked about sex, right?
Thanks, o-timbot. Here it is:
http://www.nytimes.com/2006/12/19/washington/19detain.html?ex=157680000&en=e04ceb53058a36dc&ei=5124&partner=permalink&exprod=permalink
Do you have a blog, text? Can we just have Farber talk about sex over there?
I've got one, but it's only linked through standpipe's blog.
Did some guy or other named Homer write a book about Troy?
not him. another fellow by the same name.
oh, awful, I am. How far back do the Gary sex threads go? I am inclined to look down the hoohole for those.
text, start here and continue until "strangle".
oh joy. how did I miss that?
Also, Michael, all sex is stupid.
"In other words, text, you're saying you haven't experienced the previous threads where Farber talked about sex, right?"
Bonk.
I used to be about far more than the bonk, but I still can't say. Probably for the best.
"How far back do the Gary sex threads go?"
Y'know, I'm still fairly embarassed by the memories. I was in deep mourning for my sweetie, then, and just babbled on. It was honest, but pretty much too honest. And I'm pretty much a dumbshit for even mentioning it.
I should probably just talk about good tv shows, or politics, or whatever.
I'm inconsistent. Anyone in Colorado want to have tea, or lunch, or something, instead?
I'd have tea with you, Gary, if you were to visit textville.
Crap, see, I shouldn't have mentioned the topic, knowing someone, whether standpipe or whomever, would have linked.
That was then, and talking about before, but this is now, and I'm sure that anyone sensible understands the distinctions.
Anyway, um, oh, look, how pretty the sky is out tonight.
"if you were to visit textville."
I have no travel money, but feel free to mention where that is.
textville is just one of those things that pop up when you least expect them, like the utility bill, or a goiter. You might try looking underneath the sink.
One day, Mr. Vance met with a camp psychologist.
Well, at least that would have done something to cheer him up. "Donald! My God! You look awful! Is this a new look for you? Because I should tell you, it isn't working. In fact it's nasty."
More seriously, the "apparently sympathetic figure who doesn't actually give you much real help" is a common interrogation ploy. I wonder if this psychologist was real?
Note: he went to the FBI whilst he was on leave in the States. I take it he chose the FBI over the US Military Police because he thought they might do something and the matter involved civilians, and over the Iraqi police because he didn't want to get kidnapped (ironically..), shaken down for bribes, etc.