Bush Does Not Get it (4): Discharge Tracy Perkins!

Angela K Brown reports (Washington Post January 9) “An Army platoon sergeant who ordered his soldiers to throw Iraqis into the Tigris River [in January 2004] was sentenced Saturday to six months in military prison, but will not be discharged (..). Prosecutors say Zaidoun Hassoun, 19, drowned (…) Before deliberations began, the prosecutor, Capt. Megan Shaw, said Perkins had jeopardized the U.S. mission because insurgents were using the incidents to spread anti-American propaganda”. Indeed.

Because it would have been the right thing to do as well as setting an example to other troops about the treatment of Iraqis, and because it would have removed a recruiting tool of the ba’athist/islamist resistance Tracy Perkins should have been discharged. Angela K Brown reports that “soldiers said the orders came from Army 1st Lt. Jack Saville, the platoon leader, who is to be tried in March on the same charges as Perkins — as well as a conspiracy charge”.

Ideas and propaganda are more powerful than munitions in this war. The Perkins decision promotes the idea that US soldiers are, more or less, above the law. (AJ)