An American Military Hero

August 16, 2004 11:07 PM

The Conscience of Joe Darby
"Because the irony of all this is that the people in Somerset County who turned their backs on Joe, well, those people would probably feel very different if they knew the rest of the story. That it really wasn't about softening prisoners, gathering intelligence, or trying to win the war. That it wasn't even about losing control in the heat of the moment. It was about getting up in the middle of the night and going somewhere you weren't supposed to go, then beating and raping people there. It was premeditated violent crime."
posted by quonsar (48 comments total)

christ, quonsar-- NEWSFILTER.
posted by LimePi at 11:14 PM on August 16, 2004

And an excellent newsfilter link at that. Thanks, quonsar.
posted by homunculus at 11:33 PM on August 16, 2004

Remember Abu Ghraib?
posted by homunculus at 11:44 PM on August 16, 2004

No marriage is perfect, but Bernadette and Joe were trying. They had married right after high school and moved from the Appalachian Mountains to the D.C. suburbs for a fresh start—until, after a few years, they realized that being close to home was more important than any adolescent notion of escape.

This article sucks.
posted by cohappy at 11:52 PM on August 16, 2004

Forget about the families of Joe's unit. Bernadette knew they would hate her, but there were only so many of them. It was everyone else she was worried about. There were thousands of people in this stretch of valley, and she had lived here for most of her life. She knew some of them wouldn't support Joe. They wouldn't feel any sympathy for the Iraqis in those pictures, and they would consider Joe a traitor for blowing the whistle. Bernadette could see that coming. But the question was, how many were there? And which ones would they be?

I can understand some sympathy for the American troops who perpetrated the abuses. I feel sorry for Mark Hacking, for example -- guilty as sin, but that makes it all the worse for him, as he has to deal with the consequences of taking a life in cold blood, socially, legally, and finally, personally.

But seriously, the people who consider Joe Darby a traitor of some kind ought to be lined up and shot. Their version of loyalty is as morally wholesome as the family loyalty of the mob, or ideological loyalty of al-Qaeda, their patriotism mere picking sides. Joe Darby's loyalty was to what America is supposed to stand for, and people who don't have that are the deepest kind of traitors as far as I'm concerned.
posted by namespan at 11:54 PM on August 16, 2004

You don't hear much of anything about her job, because the truth is, her job was something else entirely. Lynndie England was an administration clerk; not an MP like Joe but the equivalent of a secretary. "She was assigned to an MP unit," says Blake Ellis, a paralegal with England's defense team, "but she wasn't an MP. She did not have any police authority. She was not supposed to be walking tiers or working with inmates."

Ouch.

Then there's Sivits. Guess what? Not an MP, either. No business being in a cellblock, no business interacting with detainees. This is a prison with 300 military police on duty, and they've got a mechanic up at one in the morning taking pictures while they terrorize prisoners.

Wince.

The military needs more men like Joe that have a backbone and understand correct behavior/procedure. Seems Joe read the books/understood his training.
posted by rough ashlar at 12:41 AM on August 17, 2004

Jesus H.
posted by solistrato at 12:48 AM on August 17, 2004

Thanks, Q.
posted by dobbs at 12:50 AM on August 17, 2004

the people who consider Joe Darby a traitor of some kind ought to be lined up and shot

Amen.
posted by bashos_frog at 1:04 AM on August 17, 2004

Wow.
posted by mr.marx at 1:13 AM on August 17, 2004

indeed LimePi, please never let us post 'news' related topics again, we should all agree to stick to post about neat-o websites and flash games, thats so much better.
posted by efalk at 1:26 AM on August 17, 2004

Christ efalk, it's a shitty "news" story that's already been mentioned. Hardly best of the web.
posted by cohappy at 1:47 AM on August 17, 2004

cohappy points to one sentence, declares the article 'shitty'. Others read anyway; disagree.
posted by Space Coyote at 1:59 AM on August 17, 2004

Jesus Q.
posted by Pretty_Generic at 3:17 AM on August 17, 2004

1/3 of the comments thus far have invoked Jesus Christ, in a thread about what loyalty means, and about victims of torture. Fascinating.
posted by eustacescrubb at 4:04 AM on August 17, 2004

I was refering to that paedophilic bowler guy.
posted by Pretty_Generic at 4:22 AM on August 17, 2004

i think for every joe darby there may be 100 people who wouldn't say anything ... the question isn't what's wrong with them ... the question is, what else is being covered up?

and no, i'm not necessarily talking about iraq
posted by pyramid termite at 4:45 AM on August 17, 2004

Joe did the right thing and for the right reasons.
Thus he is despised by the "right."
Go figure.
Compassionate conservatism indeed.
posted by nofundy at 4:48 AM on August 17, 2004

Yikes, nofundy, I'm not sure that these people really typify the American "right." I'm pretty disgusted with the way that the Bush administration and its lackeys have done their best to minimize this (outraged at the outrage indeed), but I think this attitude is much more typical of a knee-jerk, us-against-them thing as well as an overriding desire to ignore anything that doesn't confirm our self-justification than it is an outgrowth of any political ideology.

Wait. I just reallized that that does typify the American right. Carry on.
posted by LittleMissCranky at 5:48 AM on August 17, 2004

Their version of loyalty is as morally wholesome as the family loyalty of the mob, or ideological loyalty of al-Qaeda, their patriotism mere picking sides. Joe Darby's loyalty was to what America is supposed to stand for, and people who don't have that are the deepest kind of traitors as far as I'm concerned.

Absolutely. Stupid is evil.
posted by rushmc at 6:20 AM on August 17, 2004

Wait. I just reallized that that does typify the American right.

Yeah, when the scandal first broke the local paper was full of letters defending the torturers and painting the victims as terrorists who got what they deserved. Many even cited the events of 9-11 as justification for the torture, as if the Iraqui prisoners were somehow responsible for that tragedy. Sometimes I am ashamed of my fellow Americans.

Unfortunately, Darby's treatment is all too typical of what happens to whistleblowers: see this and this and this and so on.
posted by TedW at 6:24 AM on August 17, 2004

Fergle. Blark. Shleng!
posted by stavrosthewonderchicken at 6:36 AM on August 17, 2004

They shut him up. Fast. You never even saw him. No footage of him coming off the plane, no flags or banners waving, no parade in his honor. He came home from Iraq in May, but there wasn't even a formal announcement. In fact, you're not supposed to know he's here.

Sorry to pick on the first paragraph. Thought his wife asked for his protection when he came home. As in hiding him for his protection.
posted by thomcatspike at 7:00 AM on August 17, 2004

For a guy in the Reserves—a young guy from the sticks, without any money or a jump on life, a guy hoping to start a family and wanting a little cushion of cash, a guy struggling to make ends meet as a big-truck mechanic,
The article is gloomy. No one has it easy in life. The USA does not have paved gold streets.

Hope all turns out well for this family. They have had and will have tough times like most folks during their lives. May all this bring some success in their future. And that the time & effort dealing with all this will bring them peace and happiness in their future. Sure hope the reporter realizes his gag order may put the criminals behind bars than him blabbing the story now and the criminals going free because of a loop hole.
posted by thomcatspike at 7:17 AM on August 17, 2004

Thus he is despised by the "right."
Despised by the "wrong". They by every label that includes, "no ethics required to be a normal human in this world."
posted by thomcatspike at 7:25 AM on August 17, 2004

They come by
posted by thomcatspike at 7:26 AM on August 17, 2004

Maybe some of us should write Mr. Darby and let him know how much we appreciate him.
posted by callmejay at 8:28 AM on August 17, 2004

it's a shitty "news" story that's already been mentioned. Hardly best of the web.

cohappy: admittedly, GQ pales in comparison to sports illustrated, cross spot, espn, fox news, indy star and microsoft, but i'm trying.
posted by quonsar at 8:51 AM on August 17, 2004

Thanks for this link quonsar.

The telling thing to me was the series of "no comment" reactions from all those Dem and Repub sentaros and reps who saw the full range of these images.

Here is the thinking: if this story, with all the pictures and vids, leaks fully, our soldiers are totally fucked. No chance for peace, even moderate Iraqis would find the US occupation unacceptable.

So they say nothing. They clam up. They go along, for the good of the US and our soldiers.

Because the war can't be stopped nor questioned.

Because they have no real power any more.

Well. I'd just say that one real patriot can inspire a nation of patriots. Thanks Mr. Darby.

You are a real American hero.
posted by mooncrow at 8:51 AM on August 17, 2004

This article sucks.

It is stuffed and overwrought in the worst tradition of men's magazine journalism (or for that matter, Victorian popular fiction). Who cares that Joe Darby doesn't get the glory he deserves for blowing the whistle? Big damned deal. The real scandal that people need to know about is saved for last couple of paragraphs -- which is that the full and monsterous extent of the torture and abuse at Abu Gharib is far worse than 90 percent of Americans seem to know, and that the American media has given it all the energy and attention it gives to a bus plunging off a cliff in Peru. It is way too early in the news cycle of prison atrocities to spare any tears for Joe Darby. More tears for the prisoners, please, and more accountability from those in charge.
posted by Faze at 9:05 AM on August 17, 2004

" Who cares that Joe Darby doesn't get the glory he deserves for blowing the whistle?"

I may be going out on a limb here, but I think there's a big difference between not getting any glory and having to live in protective custody.
posted by mr_crash_davis at 9:33 AM on August 17, 2004

you work on that quonsar...
posted by cohappy at 9:35 AM on August 17, 2004

It is way too early in the news cycle of prison atrocities to spare any tears for Joe Darby. More tears for the prisoners, please, and more accountability from those in charge.

How about screaming for Joe Darby, then? Empowering whistleblowers and refusing to let them be silenced or shamed is part of the process of creating a culture of accountability. This is an important story.
posted by stonerose at 9:45 AM on August 17, 2004

So it's tough to know exactly how old the kids in Abu Ghraib really are and how many of them are in there, just like it's tough to know how they're being treated. Seymour Hersh, the man who uncovered the Abu Ghraib scandal in The New Yorker, claims that video exists of young Iraqi boys being sodomized. But Hersh hasn't come forward with the video, and neither has anybody else. Even if he's not right, there's no question that other prisoners were sodomized by U.S. soldiers. There are pictures of at least one Iraqi man being raped with a light stick. You didn't see those pictures on the news though, didn't hear Rumsfeld talk about that. Just like nobody except Janis Karpinski is talking about the three military-intelligence officers who were sent home in January after the sexual assault of two female prisoners. That case is confidential, just like the roughly 5,950 pages of Major General Antonio Taguba's 6,000-page investigation of the Abu Ghraib scandal are "confidential." Just like all the pornography coming out of Abu Ghraib is being kept from you, the videos of Lynndie England fellating an unidentified man, the pictures of soldiers having sex. The members of the United States Congress apparently couldn't tell who the man was when they watched the highlight reel on a loop in a dark room on Capitol Hill one afternoon in May, an event that one Congressman calls "Bizarro World," with representatives coming and going while hundreds of pictures and videos rolled by, people like Nancy Pelosi sitting in front of a screen of depravity, with a military minder occasionally interjecting, "This one's from Tier 1A."

That wasn't on 60 Minutes II, either.

Just try calling your senator and asking him about that. Ask him what he saw. Any children? Pornography? Sexual abuse? Richard Durbin: No comment. Lindsey Graham: Can neither confirm nor deny. Joseph Lieberman: No response. Sam Brownback: No response. Carl Levin: No comment. Joseph Biden: No comment. Ron Wyden: Can neither confirm nor deny. Tim Johnson: Can neither confirm nor deny. Jon Corzine: No comment. Chuck Schumer: No response. Barbara Boxer: No comment. John Warner: No comment. Lincoln Chafee: No comment. Dianne Feinstein: No comment.

It's an election year, by the way.
posted by xammerboy at 9:45 AM on August 17, 2004

Well done xammerboy, I do believe you've got it, but just to go through it one more time: Ctrl C, Ctrl V. Genius.
posted by biffa at 9:59 AM on August 17, 2004

So Darby has had to be put in protective custody while Sivits gets a hero's welcome from his neighbours.

Not exactly human nature's finest hour.
posted by orange swan at 11:29 AM on August 17, 2004

Not exactly American humanity's finest hour.

The commentors who call this "shitty" are simply afraid of seeing things that make them uncomfortable with their world view. Like discovering the Goatse guy is Dick Cheney.

On the positive side, he IS in protective custody, which means somebody in the military has decided against leaving him out in the open to be lynched. (Real fascists like to let angry mobs do some of the dirty work for them)
posted by wendell at 11:57 AM on August 17, 2004

one more thing: NOT NewsFilter, UnpleasantTruthFilter.
posted by wendell at 11:58 AM on August 17, 2004

It was better with Saddam.
posted by Civil_Disobedient at 12:11 PM on August 17, 2004

Civil_D, my worst fear is that you are right, that the cost of removing Saddam has been too great, and that someone worse is simply going to seize power.

But I still do see some room for hope that you are wrong.
posted by orange swan at 12:30 PM on August 17, 2004

Like discovering the Goatse guy is Dick Cheney.

Oy, wendell...that's more like StomachTurningHauntingNightmareFilter.
posted by RakDaddy at 1:33 PM on August 17, 2004

Great post, quonsar.

But how disheartening that so much of this torture and evil could have been predicted by anyone with any familiarity whatsoever with the history of the banal chickenshit that invariably accompanies "military operations".

posted by fold_and_mutilate at 2:15 PM on August 17, 2004

I was in the 10th grade when most of the US troops were pulled out. There was a girl in one of my classes who's stepdad had recently returned. Apparently after the Iraqi's had hightailed out of Kuwait and were subsequently obliterated by Allied airpower, the boys had some downtime to snap a few photos before packing up. Well. . .

She brought the bundle of photographs to school. I'm not making this up. In them were dead Iraqis which *certain* US Marines had propped up, put cigarettes in their dried mouths and placed each others arms and hands in atrocious positions. Not to mention the neat-O closeups of severed hands, heads, arms etc, this these *certain* Marines were kind enough to include in their send-off photo essay...

Why, thank you, f&m--I have been trying to recall who made that comment for the longest time.
It was crasspastor.
posted by y2karl at 2:48 PM on August 17, 2004

One key element missing from America these days is honour.

The Abu Ghraib events are dishonourable. The lies of the administration are dishonourable. The general public's broad ignorance is dishonourable. The reduction of freedoms and invasions of privacy are dishonourable. The behaviour of many corporations is dishonourable.

Without honour, how can there be pride?

Without pride, how can the American public feel good about themselves?

This is why we have people like limePi, cohappy, and the lynch mobs in Appalachia are unable to wholly comprehend these stories: to do so is to lose face, to destroy one's pride, to acknowledge the loss of honour.

It's especially tough when you've been brought up to believe your country is the best country on earth, a country of gracious and benevolant power.

How will America restore its honour and regain its pride?
posted by five fresh fish at 5:17 PM on August 17, 2004

It's interesting how obsessed the press is with the human angle-- getting interviews from the whistle-blowers family, and how apathetic they are about getting real information about the scandal.

Aside from imagining the horror inflicted on kids and mostly innocent Iraqis, I am haunted by one thought-- Lyndie England as a mother. What a bunch of monsters.

Thanks, Quonsar. I look at GQ for the pretty pictures. I didn't notice they had articles. ;->
posted by gesamtkunstwerk at 6:21 PM on August 17, 2004

Thanks Quonsar. You guys can debate whether this is NewsFilter or not, but I don't give a shit. The writing may not be all that great, but the story is important. And it's implications.

I hope those chickenhawks get the hell out of office soon.
posted by geekhorde at 7:05 PM on August 17, 2004

It's usually best to tell the truth but often horrible to be out front in the process, ahead of mass societal denial.

I'd call Darby's action - in the best sense of the term - Christian.
posted by troutfishing at 10:34 PM on August 17, 2004

Quite unlike, say, the actions of a bunch of self-professed "Christians" in South Carolina who are harassing the Wiccan who wants city council to quit using prayer in their public meetings. Here I thought we were well past the need for Salem witch trials.
posted by five fresh fish at 9:59 AM on August 18, 2004