COUNTERCOLUMN: All Your Bias Are Belong to Us

But not in a good way.

A National Guardsman from a unit based in West Palm Beach compiled videos from Iraq he called "Ramadi Madness" that appeared to show one soldier kicking a wounded, cuffed prisoner and another striking a detainee with a rifle butt, yet Army investigators found no cause to charge anyone with abuse, according to documents released Friday.

The "Ramadi Madness" video was a compilation of recordings taken of the actions of Bravo Company, 1st Battalion, 124th Infantry Regiment, a unit of the Florida National Guard that was in Iraq in 2003 and early 2004, according to the investigation documents.

I was only vaguely aware of the video, and the investigation. But someone was always investigating something, so I didn't pay it too much heed.

It surprised me that it was B company that was involved in this, because I knew Bravo company well. I practically lived in their back pocket for much of that time.

I know Joe Lyon, its commander well, too. He did not set a climate that was tolerant of abuse of prisoners. I used to transport his prisoners, and I don't remember ever having to explain banged up prisoners from his company. His troops were all pros as far as I'm concerned.

And yes, CPT (Now MAJ) Lyon did take article 15 action against the soldiers implicated. And kudos to him for not hanging the soldiers in the press over it. (Before my phone starts ringing, no, I don't know who the soldiers were, either.)

Yes, some prisoners did get banged up. It's a rough business. And if I have to knock a about a bit to get him to shut up in a tight spot, when I'm trying to communicate with my soldiers, I'd do the same thing, too.

Think about it for a second. The man was gut shot. I remember I was in the aid station when he came in (again, if it's the one I think it was). Now, you can't communicate with him. But if you know he's gut shot, you have to worry about shock, and you have to worry about blood in his respiratory system, and you have to worry about vomiting.

Now, think about it: Does gagging him seem like a good idea?

No.

So I can't say I have a problem, in principle, with a few love taps designed to get him to shut up, stop being disruptive to the op, and eliminate the risk that he's hollering out troop numbers or a warning to someone.

I don't know how vicious the kick was, and that might be something to look at. But that's on tape, and the people who actually viewed the tape seem to consider the matter dealt with.

(What? I didn't get an advance copy? Where's the love, people?)

We should be more worried about what happens when the cameras are turned off, anyway.

Brian DeSantis of Palm Springs said the investigation came as a shock. They used necessary force to pacify unruly, sometimes violent, detainees, he said.

"We would use equal and matching force being used against us," DeSantis said.

That's exactly what he and other 1st Bn soldiers were trained to do. If deadly force was not indicated, to use the minimum force neccessary to defuse the situation, consistent with the safety of noncombatants, the prisoner, and the soldiers around him. Now, actually, you use enough force to immediately communicate the futility of further resistance. Remember, you can't give a verbal warning. You can't say "If you don't do 'y' then we have to do 'x.'

You have to immediately establish that you are the alpha dog. The quicker and more decisively you establish that, the safer everyone is. Including the prisoner.

This isn't "COPS." There ain't no soundtrack going on in the background. The bad guys can show up in force, any second, and do it with RPGs and machine guns.

Speed and violence of execution is everything. That execution has to be professional, and it has to be controlled. But let's keep things in perspective, here. What I want is everyone back on the truck, alive.

Including the prisoner.

So you don't gag gut-shot or sick prisoners.

The prisoner had been shot through the abdomen because he raised a gun toward American soldiers during a raid, investigators said.

Yep. So why do we have to read so far to get to that?

Lyon, the company commander, said the soldier only "nudged" the detainee to stop him from continuing to shout out the soldiers' location, and only after he had ignored a translator telling him to quiet down. The detainee was quickly flown to a hospital, Lyon said.

Joe Lyon isn't a liar. And he doesn't candy coat things. Nor is he casual about human rights, or the law of war. If he saw the video, or witnessed the event, and says the soldier 'nudged' the detainee, I take him at his word. If he had a problem with anything, the Article 15 should have covered it.

More importantly, the commander found that the nudge (or 'kick,' whatever you call it) only happened after other less violent measures had been attempted.

And look, put yourself in the detainee's shoes: He's scared out of his mind. He's just been shot. He's surging with adrenaline. He's not focused. He's a wild animal, in a way, like anyone else would be. He may have his family in the home and may be worried about them. He's enraged. He's crying. He's struggling like mad.

He is not in "listening mode," people.

Anyone who's worked with the mentally ill knows you cannot talk to someone in that space. If he's so out of control he has to be restrained, you may have to hold him down 15 or 20 minutes before he exhausts himself, and only then can you start talking with him.

A platoon on a raid in Indian country doesn't have that kind of time.

And if the interpreter told the raid leader that he WAS trying to shout out the soldier's location, this prisoner is very lucky he's alive.

Another section of the video appeared to show a soldier hitting a cuffed Iraqi in the head with a rifle butt during an interrogation, according to the civilian who first reported it. However, one soldier told interrogators that this was a staged image, and the Iraqi was not actually hit with the rifle. The soldier said the Iraqi, a juvenile, had been detained for throwing rocks at a U.S. military convoy and was later released.

Don't know if I believe it was staged, neccessarily. But it was on the tape, and so it's for those who viewed the tape to decide. It's a finding of fact, not an issue of law. And the investigators who saw the tape found no cause for criminal action.

A third showed one soldier manipulating a dead Iraqi, shot while trying to run a checkpoint in a truck, to make it appear the man waved to the camera. The soldier said he only positioned the body so other U.S. personnel could remove it. He also said there was a missile in the truck.

That's not an issue I'd waste my time worried about. I might snap something about having respect for the dead, and the issue would be over. And then, I might not. These assholes were smuggling a missile. As far as I'm concerned, the issue stops there. Why is the paper worried about this crap?

News flash...soldiers have a dark and morbid sense of humor.

So do reporters. At least the ones actually out there in the field, working the war, and working the crime beat.

Maybe that's something a staff writer in Fort Lauderdale might not understand.

I say this not to make light of prisoner abuse. Real prisoner abuse, like what happened at Abu Ghraib, should not be tolerated at any level of command.

But let's keep things in perspective here.

Splash, out

Jason