The editor:
I am writing in regard to the furor over President Obama’s release of information regarding the Bush administration’s policies on methods of interrogation of detainees. I feel that this issue is being unduly politicized, as if how someone feels about it is a matter of being Republican or a Democrat; in fact, it is a matter of how you view America and what you think our values should be. I believe George Bush, Dick Cheney, and many others who were high up in that administration are using the excuse of national security in an attempt to protect themselves from possible prosecution for what were crimes under international law.
My biggest reason for writing this letter is that there are still U.S. servicemen in prison who, in my opinion, simply followed the orders of their superiors. When the photos from Abu Ghraib came out, there was a public outcry, and the low-level enlisted service members who were involved were charged with crimes and in some cases sentenced to prison terms. Now that the truth has come out, it is obvious to me that these people were following orders from the highest reaches of the U.S. government that influenced how they treated those detainees. When they were on trial, nobody from the government stepped up and told the truth—and I don’t believe it is right for them to be locked up and have their lives ruined, while Bush and Cheney and others are out there on the lecture circuit, making millions of dollars while giving speeches defending themselves in the court of public opinion.
When you are an enlisted soldier serving during a time of war, your main focus is on survival. And from boot camp on, you are taught that survival means doing what you are told, being a part of the unit, basically following orders without questioning why you are doing something. I believed when I left boot camp that if I refused to do what I was ordered to do, I would be shot on the spot. While this may not have really been true, it certainly is the attitude that the military wants their soldiers to have. I spent four years in the U.S. Navy during the Vietnam era; I went through SERE training, which was designed to let soldiers know what might happen if they were captured. I was in fact “waterboarded” during this training; it was not pleasant for me, but since I knew I was not a POW, there was no psychological fear about what was happening, just physical discomfort. Under Bush, that training became a model for the way we treated enemy prisoners. And I believe those soldiers who took part in the mistreatment of enemy prisoners did so based on their belief that this was what they were ordered to do. They supposedly had the right to refuse to obey those orders if they were illegal, but this is not something most soldiers will ever consider doing.
Those soldiers who volunteered to fight for America, who followed orders, and who are now in prison, need to know that the American people know the truth about why they did what they did. And if you are one of those who have a sticker on your vehicle that says “Support Our Troops”, you should think about whether this means letting them take the fall for the guys at the top who told them to do what they did. Let the people who gave those orders stop hiding behind “national security” and answer for their actions. If they honestly believe they were correct, let them defend themselves openly, and let America and the world decide if they are truly guilty. And then let’s really “Support Our Troops”.
Mike Rayburn
Morehead
