Torture, schmorture

Question: why is coming back to work after a long weekend even suckier? Oh, yeah - it's because I have a sucky job. I forgot. But my job doesn't even compare in suckitude to being a soldier or, goddess forbid, a prisoner, at the 82nd Airborne. They're the ones getting all that coverage from the Time expose published last Friday. Turns out, to the surprise of exactly no one who's been paying attention, that Abu Ghraib was just the tip of the proverbial iceberg. Several soldiers from the 82nd Airborne division (a captain and two sergeants) are speaking out about the regular abuses of Iraqi prisoners that took place in 2003 and 2004:

Prisoners were designated as PUCs (pronounced "pucks")—or "persons under control." A regular pastime at Camp Mercury, the report says, involved off-duty soldiers gathering at PUC tents, where prisoners were held, and working off their frustrations in activities known as "F____a PUC" (beating the prisoner) and "Smoke a PUC" (forced physical exertion, sometimes to the point of collapse). Broken limbs and similar painful injuries would be treated with analgesics, the soldiers claim, as medical staff would fill out paperwork stating the injuries occurred during capture. Support for some of the allegations of abuse come from a sergeant of the 82nd Airborne who served in both Iraq and Afghanistan. Human Rights Watch quotes him as saying that, "To 'F____ a PUC' means to beat him up. We would give them blows to the head, chest, legs, and stomach, pull them down, kick dirt on them. This happened every day. To 'smoke' someone is to put them in stress positions until they get muscle fatigue and pass out. That happened every day. Some days we would just get bored so we would have everyone sit in a corner and then make them get in a pyramid. This was before Abu Ghraib but just like it. We did that for amusement.

The Fixer puts this in context for those of us who haven't seen combat:

When human beings are put in a combat situation, a sort of devolution takes place. I know, I've seen it in myself. When put in a kill or be killed situation, a human returns to his baser instincts. There is a rush there, close to the high of cocaine, but far more intense. A euphoric feeling of being an apex predator, as a lion or a wolf stalking its prey, the heating of the blood, the roar of it in your ears, the ultimate rush. Yes, I've been there. Don't look down your nose at me; if you've never been there, you will never understand. It is not surprising to me these horrible acts took place.

The antidote is good leadership; by the senior NCOs, by the officer corps, by the civilians in command. The abuses occurring in Iraq and Afghanistan are directly attributable to a failure of leadership. A systemic breakdown in the system.

This breakdown is directly attributable to the fact very few of the civilian leaders have had military experience. None understand the changes a soldier goes through when forced to be in that situation for any length of time. Yes, the troops are at fault, but were the leadership worth a damn, the violence and abuse would have been stopped after the first few incidents.

It all comes down to leadership, and we're plumb out of that, it seems. What will it take to repair the damage this administration has done? Is it even reparable?