media in a long time. Take a look at the headline and then the first paragraph:
Newly released documents regarding crimes committed by U.S. troops against civilians in Iraq and Afghanistan detail a pattern of troops failing to understand and follow the rules that govern interrogations and deadly actions.
"a pattern of troops failing to understand and follow the rules.." That sounds like a lot, if not most troops in my book. But it's not the case:
The documents, released Tuesday by the American Civil Liberties Union ahead of a lawsuit, total nearly 10,000 pages of courts-martial summaries, transcripts and military investigative reports about 22 incidents. They show repeated examples of troops believing they were within the law when they killed local citizens.
22 incidents. Out of the 4+ years we've been there, there have been 22 incidents involving almost 160,000 US troops. That's not even 1/10th of 1% of all troops there, but if you read a headline and first paragraph of an article like that, you'd think that we were slaughtering Iraqi civilians and not following the rules en mass.
If that were true, there wouldn't be an Iraq left. We'd wipe the floor with these people. But simply put, we aren't. Yes, there have been crimes committed by troops, and those troops were court martialed for it.
Nasrina Bargzie, an attorney with the ACLU's National Security Project, said the documents also show that there is information being withheld from public scrutiny.
"The government has gone out of its way to hide the human cost of this war," Bargzie said. Releasing the documents now "paints at least a part of that picture so people at least know what's going on," she said.
How are these being hidden from the public? If you can get these documents through the FOIA (Freedom of Information Act), then the government isn't hiding anything. They simply are dealing with other issues that are more important than publicly outing soldiers who've committed crimes more then is already known.
Do you honestly believe that the government would hide something then turn around and hand over documents because of FOIA?
The simple fact is that in all wars, war crimes to occur. When those facts come to light, those who are responsible are punished for it. Our military has shown great restraint and concern for civilian life that any other nation on Earth wouldn't. Yet 22 incidents out of 160,000 troops seems to be a "pattern" to the guy who wrote this article.
Travis
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