Friday, May 11, 2007

Gen. Petraeus gets it.

From WaPo:

The top U.S. commander in Iraq admonished his troops regarding the results of an Army survey that found that many U.S military personnel there are willing to tolerate some torture of suspects and unwilling to report abuse by comrades.

"This fight depends on securing the population, which must understand that we -- not our enemies -- occupy the moral high ground," Army Gen. David H. Petraeus wrote in an open letter dated May 10 and posted on a military Web site.

Letter From Gen. Petraeus (pdf)

He rejected the argument that torture is sometimes needed to quickly obtain crucial information. "Beyond the basic fact that such actions are illegal, history shows that they also are frequently neither useful nor necessary," he stated.

2 comments:

Leo said...

I'm sure that the troops are frustrated by the inhumanity of the enemy and desire to pay back in kind which is exactly the response that the terrorists desire. I agree that the good General "gets it"

Too bad that the "neocons" such as Cheney, Rumsfeld, Perle, and Wolfie did not "get it" too.

I wonder what a correct stratagem would be to end this horror.

Andrew, Bridget, Walker, and Josie said...

I have asked myself that many times. I do not think staying, or going, are good options. I just don'w know what the third option is.