Abu G Trial Sham

"I’m usually really good at pointing out the good news happening in the military, but I have to digress a little.

On Tuesday, The Sun reported on the beginning of a trial for SGT Michael J. Smith. Smith is a former Abu Ghraib prison guard and dog handler. He is accused of ausing his military working dog to bark and growl at deatinees. The accusation is that the purpose was to make them defecate or urinate on themselves. I don’t want to speculate on the guilt or innocence of these people. I do find it shameless that a soldier is on trial because a detainee was barked or growled at. I’ll have to remember this is a criminal offense the next time I’m walking around the neighborhood and someone’s dog I don’t like starts barking at me and I feel “scared”. In all fairness, Smith is also accused of getting so close that the dog actually bit someone. Again, the trial will settle all that.

The fact I’d like to point out that the media seems to be glossing over is a little more disturbing to me. One of the witnesses, a Colonel Thomas M. Pappas, is a witness for the PROSECUTION. Col. Pappas has admitted to approving the use of dogs in a few instances. Here’s the disturbing part of all this and I’m fed up: Col. Pappas has been granted IMMUNITY in exchange for his testimony.

Here is a guy that is guilty of allowing and approving this supposedly illegal technique and he’s testifying AGAINST the very people he allowed to commit the “crime”. In both the Sun article and the Washington [Com]Post articles, there is barely a paragraph about the Colonel’s involvement. At least in the Compost article they mention that the Colonel “accepted an administrative punishment, which included being relieved of command and fined $8000.”

Congratulations, Col. Pappas for turning your back on the very soldiers you were supposed to command and be responsible for. I wonder why SGT Smith wasn’t offered immunity, “administrative punishment”, and “a fine” to testify against Pappas… I wrote about my frustration with the way soldiers are being punished in this war on terror back in May of last year when the Abu Ghraib thing was still a big deal. I remember that the names of all the enlisted people were being slung around the mud while “unnamed officers” were given light punishments."
A Soldier's Perspective

That's an easy one, if you start going UP the chain of command towards all the people that approved of this stuff, you end up at the secretary of defense and the oval office. And we can't have that. So we burn a few underlings, who cares as long as we protect the bosses at all cost. Those underlings should be happy to sacrifice themselves and their careers to protect the reputations of those above.