Ridiculous Restrictions on Military Interrogations in Combat Have Gone Nuts

by Andy O’Meara,retired U.S. Army colonel

When President Obama dispatched another 17,000 troops to Afghanistan, he didn’t know that one of the biggest risks they face comes from the U.S. military’s own lawyers. An out-of-control, politically correct legal code means U.S. soldiers could be brought up on charges just for discharging their duty. Take the case of Capt. Roger Hill.

Capt. Hill commanded D Company in the U.S. Army’s 101st Air Assault Division,1st Battalion, 506th Infantry Regiment, in a lonely outpost in Wardak Province, Afghanistan, an area the size of Connecticut with many Taliban lurking amid among its half a million people.

The men in Capt. Hill’s unit learned that some of their Afghan interpreters were double agents - passing information to the Taliban about planned troop movements. Ambushes followed. As many as 30 Americans were injured and two were killed.

Capt. Hill detained about a dozen suspects and asked that they be evacuated from the outpost to headquarters for interrogation. His request was denied.

Detainees can be held only 96 hours without charges. Given this constraint and the lack of support from his superiors, Capt. Hill and his officers interrogated the detainees. Worried about the safety of his men, Capt. Hill reportedly made verbal threats, allowed his first sergeant to sit on the prisoners’ chests demanding answers, and is even said to have fired his pistol near the blindfolded heads of prisoners to trick them into thinking one of their comrades had been killed. Capt. Hill was soon brought up on charges for using these methods to learn about future ambushes. The prisoners were not physically hurt by Capt. Hill.

For not meeting standards in the field comparable to those imposed on police investigating a domestic disturbance or a drug ring, Capt. Hill was called before the equivalent of a grand jury, and criminal charges were pursued.

Capt. Hill’s defense attorney was advised that if he pleaded guilty to the charges no court-martial would be conducted. He did so. He was fined by his commander and ordered “discharged” from the Army under other than honorable conditions - an excessive sentence for a fine professional officer operating under duress in a harsh environment. This is a miscarriage of justice that will undermine the war effort. When forced to choose between the safety of our troops and the comfort of the enemy, why is it that the enemy can never be inconvenienced?

The secretary of the Army should authorize an honorable discharge for Capt. Hill or allow him to return to service as a commanding officer. This is not too much to ask since the Army prosecutors decided to downgrade everything to an Article 15 and allowed him to resign his commission (a way to subtly oust him from the Army).

After four years at West Point and nine years of honorable service, including two wars, and having been awarded the Bronze Star for valor, he also deserves his hard-earned veterans benefits.

Our rules of engagement punish servicemembers for nonlethal acts, such as threatening captured enemy agents. In this bitter war, the armed forces have imposed strict rules of engagement upon our forces while our enemy beheads and tortures noncombatants. Strict enforcement against our forces wins us no mercy from the terrorists. Just ask Daniel Pearl.

Meanwhile, we are asking a lot from our people. They must fight the enemy with great restraint. Even the appearance of transgression of the rules of engagement is punished severely by military courts. It is time for a public debate regarding the double standards that bind our hands in battle but impose no restraint on the enemy.

Our soldiers are fighting under the most difficult conditions and are being second-guessed by military lawyers and bureaucrats in snug offices in safe, rear areas. We need to remember that life is a lot messier at the front.

And the public must demand reform. Capt. Hill’s honorable status should be restored and his case should be the last in a string of prosecutorial overzealousness that began in the Bush years.

If President Obama is serious about righting the wrongs of the Bush years and winning the war against terrorists, here is a good place to start.

Andy O’Meara is as retired U.S. Army colonel. Thomas McInerney is a retired Air Force lieutenant general. Paul Vallely is a retired Army major general.

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Mexico – Closing in on Chaos The Threat to the United States

By Paul E. Vallely, MG US Army (Ret)

A U.S. Department of Justice report by the National Drug Intelligence Center (NDIC) says that Mexican drug gangs pose the biggest organized crime threat to the United States. The report, the annual National Drug Threat Assessment 2009, evaluates the threat posed by illegal drugs by examining availability, production and cultivation, transportation, distribution, and demand. The study estimates that Mexican and Colombian drug trafficking organizations make and launder between $18 billion and $39 billion in wholesale drug profits annually. Mexican drug smugglers control most of the U.S. drug markets, smuggling most of the cocaine available in the U.S. across the U.S./Mexico border.
Mexican drug trafficking organizations control most of the U.S. drug market and have varied transportation routes, advanced communication capabilities, and strong affiliations within the U.S. State and local law enforcement agencies shared information for this report through personal interviews with the National Drug Intelligence Center.
Mexican drug trafficking organizations represent the greatest organized crime threat to the United States. Mexican drug trafficking organizations control drug distribution in most U.S. cities, and they are gaining strength in markets that they do not yet control.
Prevention Threat Recognition: Enhancing border control and increased awareness of drug trafficking organizations may help to control the U.S. drug market.
Prevention Threat Recognition: Is drug trafficking a problem in your area? Do you have gangs in your area that may be affiliated?
Mexico shares a 2,000 mile border with the United States. Mexico ranks now behind Iran as the second largest security threat to United States. Why the growing concern over what is happening south of the U.S. border?
Well, we have vicious and widening violence pitting drug cartels against each other and against the Mexican state that have left more than 6,000 Mexicans dead in 2008 - double the number from 2007. That should set off an alarm right away. Oh yes, then there are over 70 Americans that have been kidnapped and are missing. Mexico is in a tailspin as a result of fighting between the federal government and drug cartels - and among the narco-gangs themselves. Have you visited Tijuana, Juarez or any of the border towns/cities lately? Our borders are flooded with gangs, drug cartel operations, illegal immigrant flow (back and forth), murders, human trafficking and kidnappings. A Threat of major, epic economic and security proportions.
Here is some of the more recent news:
• Authorities arrested a man accused of dissolving as many as 300 bodies in bubbling vats of acid for a Tijuana-based drug lord ( "El Pozolero," named after a local stew)
• Prosecutors reported three heads found in an ice box and a headless body was a discovered in a canal in Ciudad Juarez, a town known as Mexico's deadliest - just over the border from El Paso, Texas. Who are the headless victims? Yes, policemen.

It was bad enough in the sixties when I visited Juarez for the first time. In fact, by all accounts the federal government, politicos, the military and police are under the gun - literally and figuratively - by criminal gangs dealing in meth, cocaine, marijuana and heroin. The public is ruthlessly intimidated. And yes it has poured across the border into Los Angeles, El Paso, and Phoenix and across the entire border and into the mid-west.

Despite this, our government (State and Federal) fails to develop a national strategy as part of the overall National Security Plan to take the necessary action to protect us (and oh, yes, a fence will not do the trick!). We continue to fund military and other aid packages to the Mexican government to help that country's stability. How is that working? Not well, by all accounts. This is a most serious threat……. and this article addresses the threat and a subsequent article will discuss the options we have to protect our soft underbelly and a concluding article on what we must do …..America.

The drug cartels are well-armed with assault weapons, RPGs and land mines and plenty of aircraft, SUVs and trucks to move wherever they want. They are high-tech too, using encrypted communications, wearing night-vision goggles, moving by helicopters and transporting drugs by mini-subs.

President Felipe Calderon is attempting change but he's up against rampant corruption that reaches deep into his government, anti-drug police and Armed Forces (Mexico's former top organized-crime cop was arrested last fall on narcotics-related corruption charges).

Despite reforms, the judicial system is plagued by payoffs, lack of investigative resources and overloaded courts. The police are poorly paid, equipped and trained, leaving them in dire straits battling the narcotraficantes. Some of the cartels' foot soldiers are former military commandos (ZETAs) that we trained at Fort Benning, Georgia. Unfortunately, we're entangled in Mexico's lurch into chaos. Mexican gangs obtain their weapons from international arms merchants, who traffic them illegally on this side of the border.

And continued American demand for drugs (cartel gangs "feed" an estimated 200 US cities) doesn't help, either. As a result, popular support for Calderon's fight against the cartels has waned. The widespread violence leaves many Mexicans ready to throw in the towel, saying drugs are an American problem. But that clearly wouldn't be good for either of us. Mexico is a country of 110 million people and it has become a narco-controlled state The impact on the United States and the Western Hemisphere - is almost incalculable. The US is by far the largest consumer of illicit drugs in the world and therefore provides a huge market for the Cartels to supply. Nixon coined the phrase “the war on drugs” in response to the then heroin epidemic and that was the first administration to direct significant federal funding into the federal anti-drug initiative. We have been fighting this “war” for nearly 50 years and we have made little progress toward eradication of drug demand and the organized crime related to it.
Narco-business is the source of countless troubles: broken families, violence, money laundering, trafficking in guns and people and even terrorist financing. Like Colombia before it, Mexico is now a frontline state in fighting these problems. Programs such as the Merida Law Enforcement Initiative - a US-assisted, Mexican counter-drug program - are vital to opposing the narcotraficantes. But Merida's funding is up for renewal - and Congress and the White House may go wobbly on it. Much more than just drugs are at stake. Mexico is the world's 12th largest economy; it's a major US trading partner and it provides a third of our imported oil and it is now a “failed State”.

Mexico faces a collapsing economy with no turn-around in sight. All that impacts Mexico impacts its northern neighbor. We are now witnessing a possible collapse of the Mexican federal government and this cannot be ignored or kept from the American public. My experience over the last several decades suggests that Government action is generally in reaction to any given situation. Rarely does our government along the borders take proactive action. One needs to look no further than our current economic crisis to witness this characteristic of government.

Prohibition offered the genesis for organized criminal distribution networks in this country. New York and Chicago La Cosa Nostra families saw this opportunity and ceased it. Thus it all began. From there, the 50’s and 60’s saw marijuana as all the rage and the Hell’s Angels and other motorcycle gangs were glad to distribute it around the country. Vietnam and the hippy generation ushered in heroin in the 60’s and 70’s. In the late 70’s and early 80’s heroin was replaced by cocaine as the drug of choice. During the 80’s and 90’s, we witnessed incredible violence in Columbia and here in this Country as drug organizations fought for cocaine distribution networks and territories. For years the Columbian Cartels (Medellin, Cali) were the dominant factors in cocaine production and distribution into the US. Florida was their entry of choice and the intracoastal waterways of southern Florida became cocaine highways. US Route 95 from the Florida Keys to Boston was well known as the eastern cocaine corridor route. In the late 90’s we witnessed a dramatic rise in methamphetamine use replacing cocaine as the primary drug of choice. Mexico has been, and remains, the largest supplier of meth to this country.
Let’s remove the “snooze” button America and let us protect America by protecting our borders.
Sources:
Mexico drug gangs ‘top US threat’
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/americas/7785334.stm
National Drug Threat Assessment 2009
http://www.marketwatch.com/news/story/National-Drug-Threat-Assessment-20...
National Drug Intelligence Center
http://www.usdoj.gov/ndic/

Paul E. Vallely, MG, US Army (Ret) is Chairman of Stand Up America, USA. His latest book is “Operation Sucker Punch – Blood for Our Future”. He is the co-author of “Endgame- A blueprint for Victory in the War on Terror”. See www.standupamericausa.com.