reluctantly

[pecunium]

I got a comment, which was immediately deleted. I'm not prone to calling that sort of thing out. Usually I unerstand the desire to make a private point.

This wasn't that. I won't post the user's name, but there are things which need adressing.

Subject: Half-dozen of your posts.

Bullshit. We're fixing this thing in house. I can't speak for the entire
Army or even for the Division that was in charge when last I was there,
but I can speak for the 800 or so men in my Task Force. And we weren't a
part of any of the stuff you talk about [in your blog]. In fact a large
part of our mission was capture and reconciliation.

Got it: some bad shit has been done. I also hope it all comes out and
that people are brought to punishment for their crimes. What you're doing
is painting a bad picture of Defense and the Army as a whole. You should
know better than that.

The short answer is... Bullshit.

One, this sort of thing was going on at Gitmo, until we don't know when.

Have I ever said it was done in the army at large? No. I defy anyone to go back through my posts and find me saying this is an endemic problem (though I have said it is systemic, there is an important difference).

Is the army being damaged? Yes. If nothing else (and it's a pretty big nothing else) perception of what is going on is changing. That changes the recruit base. I am not the only mid-level NCO (SSG/SFC) whom I know to have left/be leaving. One of the guys I was in Iraq with hung it up as soon as he got back. He had 17 years in. Wasn't worth it to stay.

That hurts. The backbone of the army is being weakened.

I can see where someone might think I was bashing the army as a whole. It's a false reading, but there are lots of sensitised people who take any criticism as attack. There is also the perception that the sheer quantity of posts shows a blanket condemnation, rahter than a close examination.

Then again, this is stuff which was, fundamentally, shifted to the CIA, so saying this is all about the Army is also a bit off the mark.

But if you think I'm being a fathead, doing more harm than good, etc., feel free to be public with it. It won't hurt my feelings.

Comments

[wolodymyr.livejournal.com]

I saw this kind of thing when I was looking at various stories about rBST; the story would mention the observed and documented harm to cows treated with the hormone. Then in the comments there'd be some irate (more like, howling) self-described farmer saying that THEIR cows were FINE.

Aside from other issues (how do I know you're a farmer, and not the canonical dog? or, some dude paid by Monsanto to spam-comment on the Internets?), what they never seemed to address was how their specific case, true or false (whose definition of "FINE"?), did nothing to disprove or eradicate the other documented cases.

Socrates is a man, therefore all men are Socrates. Etc.

Edited to add: These are institutional behaviors, and actions performed by people under the cover of institutional affiliation. The dilution of personal responsibility that comes from that should reasonably be counterbalanced by something, and open discussion seems to me one of the more obvious and, really, least toothed, counterbalancers.

I've appreciated all of these posts a good deal. Betrayers are in the lowest circle of Dante's hell, it's true, but 1300s Florence wasn't a democracy, and I'll take now.

[pecunium.livejournal.com]

This is not that. I know who said this. I believe them. We disagree on some fundamentals (one of those is that, absent open trials/courts martial, this isn't fixed. Changing the way things are done now doesn't redress what was done; and evils were done, even if they've been stopped).

[wolodymyr.livejournal.com]

Fair enough. I know little enough about this.

For my language-obsessed part, I look at a sentence like "I also hope it all comes out and that people are brought to punishment for their crimes" juxtaposed against, well, the very next sentence, "what you're doing is painting a bad picture of Defense and the Army as a whole," and for me, the impact of the first sentence disappears. It's a social gesture ("I like you but") more than content. Because how is the upshot not, "we have people specially designated to talk about this, and no-one else can"?

Picture painting, bad pictures or good, does have its impact on people. As can be seen from all the colloquial language on this theme. The unvarnished truth vs having smoke blown up one's ___. The colloquial stuff seems to favor the truth actually, warts and all. If your buzz is getting harshed, weren't you a lotus-eater? (I'll stop! This is worse than punning, the crime for which the real last circle is certainly reserved.)

But: when I see "I also hope it all comes out and that people are brought to punishment for their crimes" presented as a social gesture, even if only partially as a social gesture, to me it's almost totally falsified. "Oh yes, we want all the hungry children to be fed and the sun to shine every day, but ____." In those constructions, it's only the ____ that counts. The more other stuff gets put in front of the ____, the less that stuff comes to matter in practice. In what I've seen.

[annafdd.livejournal.com]

Dante would have squarely put the whole torture-enabling government deep in the circle of betrayers. He never was one for blind obedience - after all, he did spent large part of his life in exile.

[sinboy.livejournal.com]

To whomever it was - We're fixing this thing in house.

You don't get to do that any more than the police should have been allowed to "fix" the Abner Louima (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Abner_Louima) case. Public servants answer to the public without exceptions.

I don't buy that it's being fixed until the entire damn country gets to see proof. Right now, all I see is that the Army leadership was shamed after this was made public, threw some convenient prison guards under a bus, and made like there was no real problem.

That's not fixing things, that's making sure you don't get caught at it so easily.

[cakmpls.livejournal.com]

I can't imagine that this person has been reading all you've written. Your devotion and dedication to the Army and the U.S. shines through. I'm pretty sure I am not the only leftover-'60s antiwar person who thinks MORE highly of our military because of having read your posts.

[sunfell.livejournal.com]

I've been reading you for several years, and the clarity of your voice has not wavered. It's folks like you that the military needs to keep.

[lwj2.livejournal.com]

I've been reading your stuff for quite some time, Terry. IIRC, I started when I ran across you on another LJ -- also from a service member.

I've found you to be consistent. Concise. And that you address things that need to be addressed.

Numerous mid-level NCOs leaving the services because they feel it's not worth it anymore is more than disturbing, it points out vividly that something is wrong and needs to be fixed.

It desperately needs to be fixed, because, as you pointed out, E-6s and E-7s are the backbone of our services.

And in case I haven't said it before, thanks.

[evilrooster.livejournal.com]

In Britain they say that justice must not only be done, but must also be seen to be done.

And if it's done, and seen to be done, then the US military will be the kind of place that honorable people will want to join, because it's clearly an honorable and brave institution. This is a test, not a failure.