Janis Karpinski in the news:
Last week, Col. Janis Karpinski told a panel of judges at the Commission of Inquiry for Crimes against Humanity Committed by the Bush Administration in New York that several women had died of dehydration because they refused to drink liquids late in the day. They were afraid of being assaulted or even raped by male soldiers if they had to use the women's latrine after dark.
The latrine for female soldiers at Camp Victory wasn't located near their barracks, so they had to go outside if they needed to use the bathroom. "There were no lights near any of their facilities, so women were doubly easy targets in the dark of the night," Karpinski told retired US Army Col. David Hackworth in a September 2004 interview. It was there that male soldiers assaulted and raped women soldiers. So the women took matters into their own hands. They didn't drink in the late afternoon so they wouldn't have to urinate at night. They didn't get raped. But some died of dehydration in the desert heat, Karpinski said.
-Marjorie Cohn/truthout 30.Jan.06
Well yeah - Alienating Iraqis, a lot of.In a June 10, 2004, memorandum obtained by ABC News, a Pentagon intelligence officer complains about the detention of a 28-year-old mother — still nursing her 6-month-old baby. She was held for two days even though the officer had concluded she had "no actionable intelligence leading to the arrest of her husband."
In an exchange of e-mails obtained by The Associated Press, an Army colonel suggests challenging a wanted man whose spouse was being held "to come get his wife."
Former Brig. Gen. Janis Karpinski, the former military police commander at the Abu Ghraib Prison where American troops were accused of torturing prisoners, said detaining wives of suspected terrorists has been a part of the war in Iraq. She was demoted to colonel after the Abu Ghraib scandal became public.
"The incidents I would be familiar with occurred in 2003, and there were at least a dozen — perhaps 15 or 20," she said. "I wouldn't say it was a common practice, but it was a practice for the higher value detainees"
Karpinski said she knew of only one incident where the tactic worked and analysts warn the tactic has potential pitfalls.
"If this doesn't end up actually being something that give you a key terrorist, the risk is you're going to alienate a lot of Iraqis," said ABC News analyst Tony Cordesman.
The military says this sort of thing happens rarely and only when necessary. But the question of female detainees has been highlighted by the kidnapping of American reporter Jill Carroll. Her captors have threatened to kill her unless all Iraqi women being held are freed.
-ABC News 29.Jan.06
That's in the file thing next to exhibiting signs of extraordinary cowardice in pursuit of base and inhuman goals.
Cordesman's argument is centered on the pragmatic - it won't work in the long run.
But of course cowardice will, and treachery - lots of formerly looked-down-upon qualities and behaviors that are now seemingly candidates for virtue have proven themselves over time to be paths to success, of a kind.
One noticed the erstwhile liberal arguments against torture recently - that it doesn't provide useful information. The spooky obverse didn't make the cut.
That if it worked we wouldn't be able to argue against it at all.
Nothing about crossing the absolute line of depravity, nothing about the assumption of inhuman methodologies actually leading to the loss of humanity. Nothing about humanity being something that could be lost.
But that's more of that Strauss and Co. thing - "We're defining what's 'human' now".
So there's one theater of conflict. At the very least I think we should demand they use some other name.
Karpinski gives every indication of being someone the American military should be proud to have promoted.
