No Direct Order Given

CNN:

Taguba: No direct order given for abuse

'I believe that they did it on their own volition'

I'm afraid that leaves the German media only with dull stuff. They believed in orders given from up high, let's say ... Bush.

Nope.

Next topic, please.

Comments

[Jens Schmidt]

I guess you'll soon see that it's just starting to get challenging. There's still loads of questions to be answered. It'd better be be done by the government as thouroughly as possible without first being embarrased by the media. Your approach of just stepping on to the next topic is not very likely to win the hearts and minds of the ones the US liberated and who are now under the influence of a very agressive arab media campaign. So any question the US government doesn't ask itself, these boys will ask and answer and the answer will not necessaryly be very balanced. Same goes for the German media, but hey, to win their hearts and minds is a useless effort.

[Gabi]

Das sind Fragen, für die sich deutsche Journalisten interessieren:

"Wie stehen Sie zu der Idee, Europa solle eine Gegenmacht zu Amerika bilden?
Köhler: Ich halte das nicht für ein positives Szenario. Europa muß sein eigenes Modell definieren. Und das wird anders sein als das amerikanische Gesellschafts- und Wirtschaftsmodell. Aber unser europäisches Modell als Gegenpol zu den USA zu verstehen wäre angesichts unserer gemeinsamen Geschichte und Werte nicht richtig.
Frage: Gegenmachtbildung auch nicht im Sinne einer weltpolitischen "balance of power", also zur Ausbalancierung der amerikanischen Macht?
Köhler: Das wäre Wunschdenken und auch prinzipiell der falsche Ansatz. Ich wünsche mir, daß die Europäer in der Außen- und Sicherheitspolitik mit einer Stimme sprechen, aber ich wünsche mir nicht, daß sie diese Einigkeit aufbauen gegen Amerika.

http://www.faz.net/s/RubFC06D389EE76479E9E76425072B196C3/Doc~E263F59002B7A40D899DA4234292378BF~ATpl~Ecommon~Scontent.html
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Dazu paßt noch folgendes Thema (auch aus der FAZ):
Mittelmacht Deutschland strebt nach einem Sitz im UN-Sicherheitsrat. F und GB haben schon eine Stimme. Wie wird das eigentlich rechtfertigt, daß Europa drei Stimmen will, während Rußland und China und die USA jeweils nur eine Stimme haben. Ich sehe da ein bißchen Selbstüberhebung.

[Joe]

MUSINGS:

I am finding bits and pieces of how the now famous “torture and abuse” pictures have worked there way into the mainstream media. It will be interesting to see when someone puts all these together. It might be Big Media but somehow I doubt this.

Here is both a combination of what I know and believe. I shall not attempt to separate the two but present them more as a hypothesis of how this occurred.

When the military undertook a formal investigation into the allegations of mistreatment in January, the results of that were the filings of formal charges against a small group of individuals. Military members in the US are allowed to have both military and civilian defense council. The prosecutor is required to hand over copies of all evidence it has to the defense. I am sure that part of this evidence had to be the CD’s that found there way to Big Media.

What is interesting are the cast of characters surrounding one of the defendants who will at some point appear before a General Court Marshall. This case contains many of the same characters who were part of the My Lai massacre who helped turn Americans against the war in Vietnam. They include lawyers who represented Lt Calley, who was convicted for his part in the My Lai. It included Col David Hackworth a most vocal critic of the war and of course both Seymore Heresh and CBS.

[Joe]

@Jens,

I agree with you.

I even agree with you about the hearts and minds as I think they probably are even more important. It is unfortunate America does such a really poor job with this aspect of the war.

It is not helpful that all of the Arab world and most of Europe are critical of whatever is done in Iraq.

[Karl B.]

What still needs to be investigated is the military intelligence unit at Abu Ghraib. Taguba basically stopped at the female general in charge of the MP's. The more interesting figure is the officer (Lt.-General?) Miller who was responsible for interrogations at Guantanamo and who allegedly wanted to "Gitmo-ize" Abu Ghraib. We may still have a real problem on our hands that will take us right back to issues such as the Patriot Act and Guantanamo. If these are systemic problems as opposed to isolated incidents, we will need to change how we treat prisoners in the war on terror (from US citizens to enemy combatants).

I can hardly wait for the Supreme Court decision to come out on Guantanamo etc.