Wednesday, November 01, 2006

 

Summa cum laude

(Via Sideshow) This is a terribly tragic story. It has brought tears to my eyes. This young woman has shown the very highest honor Army specialist Alyssa Peterson was an Arabic speaking interrogator assigned to the prison at the Tal-afar airbase in far northwestern Iraq near the Syrian border. According to the Army's investigation into her death, obtained by a KNAU reporter through the Freedom of Information Act, Peterson objected to the interrogation techniques used on prisoners. She refused to participate after only two nights working in the unit known as the cage. Army spokespersons for her unit have refused to describe the interrogation techniques Alyssa objected to. They say all records of those techniques have now been destroyed. She later committed suicide. We may never know why. But we know she refused to participate in what were almost certainly war crimes. One can win no higher honor.
Comments:
i just saw this story as well. if it is actually what happened, then it truly is an example of 'death before dishonour', but it also occurred to me that her death could very well be a variation on that notorious, time-honoured practice of 'prisoner found dead in his cell, apparently from suicide'.

...if one felt strongly enough about what was going on to kill yourself, i would imagine that bringing light to the situation would be the first thing to come to mind as an effective course of action. of course you would be shunted off somewhere harmless like guard duty until certain people figured out what they were going to do with the liability that you presented...

just some thoughts.
 
Anything is possible, Anon. Peer pressure inside a unit can be ferocious, especially if there's a fear that a unit member may turn against the unit.

But what matters most is how she lived: straight and true.
 
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