This is clear evidence the administration has utterly ruined a fine military. You want more torture, more killings of prisoners, more loss of American lives, you got it, right here.
From the LA Times.
WASHINGTON -- Straining to find ground troops to maintain its force levels in Iraq and Afghanistan, the Pentagon has begun deploying thousands of Air Force personnel to combat zones in new jobs as interrogators, prison sentries and gunners on supply trucks.
Air Force personnel? Lemme tell you flip side.
Air force personnel - and I was one for four years - are, with damn few exceptions, techno-wusses. I don't say that with disrespect, but to point out that they joined the Air Force in technical support roles. They are NOT hard cases or tough guys or gals. Most of us joined that particular branch for training, a chance to travel, exercise our brains.
We were specifically not looking for physical confrontation with other folks.
During one recent class, an Army instructor was giving his Air Force pupils an overview of interrogation "approaches" designed to get prisoners to talk. He spent the better part of an hour describing such psychological ploys as "fear up" and "pride and ego down," which are designed to prey on prisoners' anxieties and feelings of inadequacy.
But many students were still struggling with more elementary aspects of the job, such as how to manage the physical space of an interrogation booth.
Yep, struggling to do something they are not psychologically or physically suited to do. And while struggling to manage prisoners in an interrogation booth in Afghanistan or Iraq, they're going to be terrified, and it will show. And from that, people will be hurt badly or killed.
Then the coverups start. And none of the high-ranking officers who made these criminally stupid decisions will be charged. Nope, they'll burn a few Airmen on the front pages and wash their hands of it.
Comments?