We, the people, trusted them to do the right thing, and they didn't, so now we'll have to change things, take away some of the autonomy and freedom we gave the military and the intelligence community
The problem may not be the autonomy and freedom of the military. In the Washington Post article,
washingtonpost.com it appears that the military were uncomfortable with and pushed into more aggressive techniques by the civilians at the Pentagon.
"We wanted to outline under what circumstances we could make them feel uncomfortable, a little distressed," another lawyer involved said. During the discussions, "the political people [at the Pentagon] were inclined toward aggressive techniques," the official said. Military lawyers, in contrast, were more conservative in their approach, mindful of how they would want U.S. military personnel held as prisoners to be treated by foreign powers, the official said.
There seems to be a mindset at the civilian level that the Geneva Conventions are to be circumvented as much as possible. For example, direct torture of prisoners is sub-contracted to other nations so that the U.S. can appear to have clean hands. |
