Ian Fishback, Man of the Year

I noticed Time chose Ian Fishback as “one of the 100 most influential people on the planet.”

Fishback is the Army captain who tried for 17 months to get answers about detainee treatment, and then in Sept. went outside the chain of command by writing a letter to John McCain. He said he “would rather die fighting than give up even the smallest part of the idea that is ‘America’.”

Thoughts?

 

I bought a copy of Time the other day for the first time in years. I read about half of it and then threw it in the trash. I remember when it was actually a quality publication.

 

The whiney bitch makes a good point. Give the troops a standard of conduct that is specific. That is was most troops/sailors ask for. Tell them what you want as the standard and the overwhelming majority will strive to maintain that standard of conduct. Keep the CIA, FBI and Secret Service out of the military operations.

 

Agree except for the 'whiney bitch' label and keeping certain agencies out of military operations (which are....? excluding....what?)

 

I havent served in the military so excuse this dumb question. Do we not teach/instruct our military personnel of a 'code of conduct'?

Is that what Ian is getting at or that we're violating/not enforcing them?

 

What do you mean, which are and excluding?

I'll give you the whiney bitch party. I was just being mean with that since I'm Navy and all.

 

Yes there is a "Code of Conduct"

Code of Conduct

 

I'm not sure about the Army or the difference between officers and enlisted but I don't recall every being taught anything about the subject at hand(ie, details of how to treat detainees). I would assume that if I were in a military job that had the chance of needing that type of training I would have gotten it.

One thing that the military is very consistant on is teaching you what you NEED to know to do YOUR job. They rarely teach you much about other jobs. On a submarine you learn a lot about every job on the boat but that is a very unique situation in the military. I would say that air crews probably learn a lot about the whole plane too but most jobs you learn very little about other jobs. MPs probably have some training in dealing with detainees but it's probably more in lines with the UCMJ and American prisoners.

As you move up in rank you broaden that for obvious reasons. My guess is that officers receive a bit more of that type of conduct training and of course the Judge Advocates(aka lawyers) have to know it in much greater detail.

My guess is that it's more of the officers' responsibility to keep the troops in line but hard for me to say since I was never a ground pounder. Apparently the officers aren't getting enough of that training before being sent to places like Gitmo.

I was the un-official ship's interrogator on the submarine... I had NO training. They just thought I was the best on the boat at being an ass.

 

Kind of. We had the Geneva Convention until this administration. That was the guide for how the military conducts operations to some degree. But when we rejected the Geneva Convention we apparently didn't replace that with any new guidelines. It is kind of a wonder that this couldn't be handled internally or at the very least by the Joint Chiefs.

 

How much training did you actually get on the Geneva Convention?

 

About as much as you did from the sounds of it. I think you made a good point that the people in a position to carry out those orders probably did either through direct training or included in their orders.

 

I would bet that the academies teach it but I'm not sure. I will check with my boss. He's a USNA grad and a retired Navy Commander.

I think that as high tech as the military has become and the skill level of troops nowadays, everyone(combat type guys) should be taught a bit more about how things are to be done when handling these types of situations.

I don't see much need in the vast majority of the Navy getting this training but I would think it beneficial for SEALS and all the other combat types. Maybe pilots and crews.

Of course us submariners fashioned ourselves as combat badasses and we would just ignore the damn Geneva Convention anyway and just kick the shit out of the Ruskies until they told us what temperature and pressure their reactors were at and what type of calculators they used to keep their logs accurate.

 

Well, what do you consider 'military operations'? Full-scale type actions?
How about limited engagements? Offical U.S. military doctrine is now shifting
to 'preventive' type actions, so...would you accept CIA covert action utilized
to prevent a larger scale involvement, for example? The Pentagon, despite
Rumsfield's efforts, still does not like covert ops, would rather not get involved
this way...

Whiney bitch, huh? You sound like the kinda squid who would expell someone
with great force out of a forward torpedo tube and then laugh about it.

 

That's a good point. It might be best to use the CIA for some of that type of stuff but it seems to me that most major fuckups with regards to mistreatment of enemy combatants, etc has been at least in part due to the CIA involvement. Seems they are always the common denominator.

And hell yeah that would be funny to send someone out of the torpedo tube. I would cut the impulse air pressure down some... I'm not a total ass.

 

I knew I could count on you for mercy when jammed into the tube. Tell me,
would being 'forced' out basically render one unconscious?

 

To be honest I'm not exactly sure. Under normal impulse air I would think so but I'm not sure because I'm not exactly sure what force the torpedo comes out at.

I'm actually not even sure exactly what the impulse air does since the torpedo does have it's own propulsion. Maybe it's sort of like the missiles and their own propulsion doesn't kick in until out of the boat. I can't remember. Damn I'm getting old and forgetting a lot of shit.

 

Forgetting, huh? A few rounds of 'waterboarding' and it will all come back to you!

 

When you've showered as a sailor there's no such thing as scaring us with water.

 

crap..okay, then, we'll use one of your own tricks against you: keelhauling!
Now- go ahead and tell me you ain't scared!

 

I thought what happened on the sub, stayed on the sub.