Your Humble Blogger had completely forgotten Colin Powell’s role in My Lai. Well, that’s poorly phrased; Colin Powell had no role in the slaughter itself, but, if my recollection, Lexis-Nexis and Google have given me the correct picture, he was involved in the investigation afterwards. Or rather, he was asked to investigate allegations of American troops committing atrocities, and didn’t so much investigate as, well ... whitewash is an ugly word. Actually ‘whitewash’ is quite a lovely word. Whitewash. It’s got a nifty sound. Coverup has a nice sound, too, and looks good on the page, although ‘complete balls leading to massive international scandal when the story gets out’ both sounds and looks dreadful.
In fairness, I have no actual idea what happened, except that the memo he wrote did not recommend further investigation, and is widely quoted as containing this line: “In direct refutation of this portrayal is the fact that relations between American soldiers and the Vietnamese people are excellent.”
How are relations between American soldiers and the Iraqi people these days, Secretary Powell?
,
-Vardibidian.
Ok, so not Colin Powell. How about those nice earnest actors on JAG? Or it could be a whole new Law & Order franchise — Law & Order: War Crimes might do well on Monday nights. Although some cross between Survivor and Fear Factor seems to better describe the Iraqi prison system we’re running. Surely the prisoners wouldn’t mind the abuse and torture if they know they could walk away with FIFTY THOUSAND DOLLARS! or ONE MILLION DOLLARS!
I can’t wait to see how well we run the schools in Iraq. Not that I’m bitter about this…
For the purpose of seeking the truth, it needs to be someone unconnected with our military and our government. But where do you find a truly neutral body? An awful lot of people have an axe to grind about some aspect of our invasion and occupation of Iraq.
The International Committee of the Red Cross examines the situation in prisons like the ones we’re running, and they write reports about conditions in the prisons. In order to maintain their access, they only provide those reports to the group running the prison. I would like to see the US set a higher standard by asking the ICRC to provide those reports on our Iraqi prisons to the United Nations as well for immediate publication. Let’s restore some credibility.
It will not happen, because we would have a hard time explaining why we do not do that as a universal policy, and our government wants to retain the right to abuse and torture prisoners. And the ICRC probably would not go along with it, because it would open them up to allegations of bias and might interfere with their access to prisons elsewhere if the authorities there know they might be pressured to make public the ICRC reports.
Perhaps the international war crimes tribunal that we’re so afraid of? They are not likely to be as neutral as the ICRC, but surely they would be the appropriate investigative agency.