Thursday, December 1, 2005

Deeply Held Moral Values. Very interesting interchange between Rumsfeld and General Pace: "It is absolutely the responsibility of every U.S. service member, if they see inhumane treatment being conducted, to intervene to stop it," General Pace told reporters at a Pentagon news briefing. He made his remarks after published reports of kidnappings and executions of Sunnis by men in Iraqi police uniforms. In describing the duty of American soldiers to stop prisoner abuse, General Pace went further than Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld, who told reporters at the same event that troops were required to "report" abuse. "Any instance of inhumane behavior is obviously worrisome and harmful," Mr. Rumsfeld said. "But I don't think you mean they have an obligation to physically stop it; it's to report it." But General Pace responded, "Sir, they have an obligation to try to stop it." [John Robb's Weblog] Good for the General (who will probably be resigning to spend more time with his family in the near future), but it's not good enough. When American soldiers claim that they didn't know it was wrong to torture people because they hadn't received any training saying so, we probably expect them to recognize inhumane behavior. comment () trackback ()  9:09:19 AM

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