US soldiers having Iraq prisoners tortured [Archive]

View Full Version : US soldiers having Iraq prisoners tortured

Cosmo_ac

05-05-2004, 01:42 PM

Well, who saw this one coming?

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/4855930/

Haltickling

05-05-2004, 03:09 PM

That's why it's so important to have neutral observers (like the Red Cross) examining prisons. And exactly that is denied to the Guantanamo prisoners. Anybody got the same ideas?

Besides, sleep deprivation and complete disorientation are applied by most secret services of the world, as a "necessary preliminary" to interrogations. Although these "techniques" are considered torture by practically all Human Rights organizations.

MrMacphisto

05-05-2004, 07:27 PM

Considering that many of our soldiers have had their dead bodies dragged through the streets of certain Iraqi cities during the tenuous revolts that have been going on over there, I'd say sleep deprivation and demeaning photos pale in comparison to what these people would do to us as captives....

venray

05-05-2004, 07:36 PM

True indeed Mac, but we as Americans cannot hold ourselves up as examples if we cannot follow the rules ourselves. What was done was horrible and ALL reponsible should face the consequences of their actions.

We cannot expect respect from others if we cannot act respectful ourselves, no matter what the circumstances.

Ray

Haltickling

05-05-2004, 08:08 PM

BOFH666

05-05-2004, 08:26 PM

Originally posted by MrMacphisto
Considering that many of our soldiers have had their dead bodies dragged through the streets of certain Iraqi cities during the tenuous revolts that have been going on over there, I'd say sleep deprivation and demeaning photos pale in comparison to what these people would do to us as captives....

'Demeaning photos' that show, amongst other things, prisoners being sexually humiliated (a very serious business in the Arab world I believe?) and prisoners being subjected to mental torture (example: wires attached to their hands, made to stand on top of a box with their heads bagged and told if they fell off they'd be electrocuted.).

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/americas/3684825.stm

A report into allegations of abuse of prisoners by US forces in Iraq's Abu Ghraib prison has uncovered "numerous incidents of sadistic, blatant, and wanton criminal abuses".

After pictures apparently showing the abuse and sexual humiliation of Iraqi prisoners were published in the US media, it emerged the report was commissioned back in January.

The investigation by Maj Gen Antonio Taguba was completed on 3 March, the Pentagon said, but as of 4 May Defence Secretary Donald Rumsfeld had still not read it fully.

Gen Taguba's report says detainees were forced to commit sexual acts, were threatened with torture, rape or attack by dogs, and were hidden from Red Cross visits, "in violation of international law".

Readers should be aware that his report, detailed below, includes graphic and disturbing descriptions of abuse.

Gen Taguba stated:

"Between October and December 2003, at the Abu Ghraib Confinement Facility, numerous incidents of sadistic, blatant, and wanton criminal abuses were inflicted on several detainees.

"This systemic and illegal abuse of detainees was intentionally perpetrated by several members of the military police guard force (372nd Military Police Company, 320th Military Police Battalion, 800th MP Brigade), in Tier 1-A of the Abu Ghraib Prison."

He described specific abuses, which he said were "amply supported" by statements by suspects, detainees and witnesses.

They included:

* Detainees were threatened with a loaded pistol

* Cold water was poured on naked prisoners

* Inmates were beaten with a broom handle and chair

* Male detainees were threatened with rape

* A prisoner was sodomised with a chemical light

* Detainees were forced into various sexual positions to be photographed

* Naked inmates were arranged in a pile and then jumped on

* Male detainees were forced to wear women's underwear

* Male detainees were forced to masturbate while being photographed and videotaped

* Military dogs were used to frighten and intimidate; in one case a detainee was bitten

Does this show a deliberate policy towards prisoner abuse? No, of course it doesn't, and I've no doubt that the vast majority of troops in Iraq are horrified at all this. But what it has done is devastate the credibility of both the US and UK in the eyes of the Arab world.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/middle_east/3683067.stm

The news bulletin was playing loudly on a TV in the corner of a café in Cairo's old town. Men looked up from their chess boards and water pipes.

"This is shameful, shameful, shameful," said one, getting nods of agreement. "A soldier urinating on a prisoner, sexual abuse and humiliation, is this human?"

Pictures flashed by of naked bodies piled up on one another and the taunting grin of an American woman soldier. All this is especially upsetting in a culture which prizes dignity, modesty and respect.

The man added: "The United States used to stand for liberty, now it stands for imperialism." One of the waiters said he was ready to go to Iraq to become a martyr, fighting the Americans.

These remarks were not surprising. The "Arab street" is often angry with the US and Israel. It is a safe way to express general discontent when criticism of your own leaders could be a risky business.

But there is no doubting the deep offence that these photographs have caused. The US Senator Joe Biden has called this the worst blow to American prestige in the Arab world for a decade.

The cafe I visited was well known in Cairo because - exceptionally - they cheered when the Americans took Baghdad and toppled Saddam just over a year ago. The coalition has no defenders there now.

And the damage goes beyond the usual tea-house chatter. The Arab League has condemned what it calls the savage mistreatment and humiliation of Iraqi prisoners by US and British soldiers.

The Arab Commission for Human Rights wants an urgent and independent investigation. It says these are not isolated incidents.

I honestly believe (though I pray I'm wrong) that this is a devastating blow to any hopes of peace in the region. It would have been bad enough on its own, but with reports coming out of Falluja of hundreds of civilian deaths and indiscriminate fire from US forces, and the defeat of Ariel Sharon's proposed withdrawal plan by his own party (thus damaging the credibility of the US and UK governments that backed it) and the date for handover in Iraq fast approaching it's all adding fuel to the fire. And before anyone reaches for the flame button, take a deep breath and try and think of it from the Iraqi peoples point of view...

One other quote from that MSNBC article, from President Bush:

The America I know has sent troops into Iraq to promote freedom

Really? Did that even make the top three on the "reasons for invading Iraq" power point slide? I'm asking, no, begging all those that live in the US and read these boards, don't be taken in by this. By all means be proud of what your troops are trying to achieve in Iraq, but PLEASE remember that the people that put those soldiers in harms way lied to get them there and didn't care enough about Iraqi Freedom to pay more than lip service to it in the months leading up to the war.

MrMacphisto

05-06-2004, 01:50 AM

Ah... Fuck it... We went in for the wrong reasons, but these people weren't worth the effort anyway. Let's just take the oil and run; after all, that was the original plan, wasn't it?

While greed is America's main downfall, religion is the downfall of the Arab world. We fucked this whole freedom idea up, and now, we might have to settle this with more ammo since these religious nuts who follow an outdated religion want to kill us. Maybe the U.N. can serve as a diplomatic force to fix this image problem, but until Bush & co. let them in, peace is a joke... And don't even get me started on Israel... greedy bitches...

BOFH666

05-06-2004, 02:53 AM

Another day, another SNAFU from the white house... Yesterday (Wednesday, 5th May) President Bush conducted two interviews for the al-Hurra network and the al-Arabiya satellite channel. Note the absence of Al-Jazeera from that list. Al-Hurra is an american funded channel that, according to news reports, is considered as a Pentagon mouthpiece by many in the Arab world and al-Arabiya carried the presidents interview in English with a summary at the end in Arabic.

But the contents of those interviews may cause yet more problems. Why? Becuase while Bush said he deplored the incidents documented he never apologised for them. When later asked about this in a White House briefing spokesman Scott McClellan said that Mr Bush was "deeply sorry" for what had happened to the prisoners.

Asked why Mr Bush himself had not apologised, he added: "I'm saying it now for him." The White House spokesman also pointed out that Mr Bush had not been pressed to apologise by the two TV channels on which he appeared, the Dubai-based al-Arabiya and the US-funded al-Hurra.

So it's clear that Bush feels no need to apologise for these acts himself, even though he's commander in chief of the armed forces, and that you only need to apologise for something if you're caught and asked for such an apology. There was also this little gem:

Mr Bush laughed off suggestions that US military action in Iraq was inviting new attacks from al-Qaeda, saying that Osama Bin Laden's group had declared war in its attacks of 11 September 2001 and that that conflict was still being fought.

The only conclusion I can draw is that he just doesn't get it. Yes, terrorism is a global problem and needs to be addressed but is there anyone who'd seriously argue that the invasion of Iraq has only added fuel to the fire? First thing to do if he's serious about stopping Terrorism is to stop giving these organisations such perfect recruitment material. Cut off their popular support in the hearts and minds (remember that one?) of the people and THEN go after what's left.

TKpervert

05-06-2004, 03:22 AM

I am getting fucking sick of armchair prophets sitting on their fat butts in front of their widescreen Sony TV's trying to dictate how the war in Iraq should proceed.

Sure, drive your crowded freeway to work tomorrow, and whine and complain about your problems, when other folks have their CHILDREN over there defending your stupid right to drive that freeway to earn your crummy $13 an hour.

Suggestion: go to Iraq and face some bullets. then report back to us about how you would treat those who tried to rip your heart out with a bullet.

How many here have faced a bullet ? I have and it ain't pretty.

Haltickling

05-06-2004, 08:19 AM

Originally posted by TKpervert
I am getting fucking sick of armchair prophets sitting on their fat butts in front of their widescreen Sony TV's trying to dictate how the war in Iraq should proceed.

Suggestion: go to Iraq and face some bullets. then report back to us about how you would treat those who tried to rip your heart out with a bullet.

How many here have faced a bullet ? I have and it ain't pretty.
So having faced a bullet entitles you to do what? To torture prisoners? To ignore all human rights? To ignore even your own command structure?

And those who haven't faced a bullet themselves haven't got a right to criticize actions of some soldiers as abhorring? When even the president (who faced ballots but not bullets) calls them such?

Check out the number of veterans against this war, they HAVE faced bullets. Check out the number of friends and relatives of US soldiers fighting in Iraq, who are just as disgusted by what some US soldiers did.

And which US highway are the US troops in Iraq defending by torturing prisoners?

Just answer these questions to yourself, but be honest to yourself.

TklDuo-Ann

05-06-2004, 11:08 AM

To answer the original question...I DID see it coming. I'd hoped and prayed that I was wrong, though. You send guys out to get shot at who are supposed to be our LAST line of defense (as is the case with the reserves and guard), tell them that they'll be coming home and keep changing your mind or let them go home only to return in two weeks and moral will disintegrate. I'm sure that those who were caught are just the ones who had an opportunity to act on the anger and resentment that is undoubtedly in them at this point.

I firmly believe that something had to be done over there. But, I also believe that we went in for the wrong reasons...again. I fully support our troops, even though I don't support the politics. I have a nephew (in-law) in the Fellujah area as we speak. He's already been shot once, fortunately not a serious wound. He was told he'd be home around Christmas time. He was lucky enough be one of the few who actually did come home. He and my niece got married right after he got in, only for him to be sent back days later having had no opportunity to truly celebrate since he was packing to ship back out.

I'm sure there are plenty of other guys/gals in the same position...and worse. If we're constantly telling lies to the ones we expect to do our bidding, how can we expect them to keep clear heads and exercise proper judgement? While there is no excuse for the kinds of actions that were taken, I'm not surprised by them given the stresses these guys face. We proclaim ourselves to be defenders of freedom and liberators of the world. We just cut our own throats by allowing this kind of thing to take place. These jerks just spit in the face of every soldier over there and everyone back home.

The soldiers involved need to be tried and imprisoned. The superiors (who had to have known what was going on) should be included...no matter who it may involve. There is NO justification for this kind of behavior. I hope they're guarded closely. The rest of our guys over there are likely to want their pound of flesh for the increased tensions they've caused. How much time and how many lives did these jerks cost us?! :sowrong:

Ann

qjakal

05-06-2004, 11:37 AM

Ann, I can't, and wouldn't, advance an argument to even *try* to justify any of the actions we've seen in recent days news reports.

We have people there who have used bad judgement, and as was discussed earlier, no amount of horrific action from the other side of the conflict ratifies retaliation. That being said, many of those involved are young, and obviously foolish, despite their training. Officers are being fired as we write, and well they should be in this instance. An integral part of any command position is making sure your culture reflects your beliefs, and given the evidence, we will have removed some closet sadists. Extreme situations such as war provide a glimpse into the soul for all too many of the parties involved......

This is what phsycological profiling was designed to prevent/minimize. This is what training and chain of command were designed to stop. This is what having a code of honor should not permit.

Abuses such as this have been going on behind closed doors since the dawn of civilization. It's a corollary to the truism regarding "absolute power" and the resultant actions inherent in such scenarios. History has taught us that this will continue, and all we can do as a civilization is try to uncover it and burn the cancer out as quickly as it's detected.

Small consolation to the involved victims.

The only people that we can be proud of in this sad situation are the rank and file who did NOT stand by idly, but reported the violations forcibly enough to draw attention and action.

War is part of our heritage. Torture and abuse are NOT. I'll steal from MadKalnod on this quote:

"War is an ugly thing, but not the ugliest of things. The decayed and degraded state of moral and patriotic feeling which thinks that nothing is worth war is much worse. The person who has nothing for which he is willing to fight, nothing which is more important than his own personal safety, is a miserable creature and has no chance of being free unless made and kept so by the exertions of better men than himself" -- John Stuart Mill

These individual soldiers/officers are not an example of *better men*, but I firmly believe that as an organization we will stand scrutiny and be driven to improve. In the meantime, we hang our heads in shame and clean house...yet again.

:sowrong: Q

AussieMonkey

05-06-2004, 12:15 PM

i sit here, typing in the darkness, illumed by the irradiated screen of my laptop.

"War is an ugly thing, but not the ugliest of things. The decayed and degraded state of moral and patriotic feeling which thinks that nothing is worth war is much worse. The person who has nothing for which he is willing to fight, nothing which is more important than his own personal safety, is a miserable creature and has no chance of being free unless made and kept so by the exertions of better men than himself" -- John Stuart Mill

i jad not thought of it in those terms, QJ. i agree, but wonder if this argument justifies the american led war on iraq? what exactly are they fighting for? oil? saddam? terror? freedom? revenue? religion? democracy?

if oil, then yes, they got it. woohoo. now fix the damn country and leave.you take a country's oil forcibly, you need to make amends. if for revenue, again, a startling success. contracts are pouring in dollars to the economic super-machine. not so much going to other countries, even those who supported the US. practically none going to Iraqis. but hey, who cares about those rag-heads? SAddam? yep. got him, too. only it turns out he dont know much, and hated osama, who was responsible for the attacks. terror? well, that certainly stopped terrorist attacks on the 'free' world! yessir... no terrorist attacks here... but even if there was a global terrorist threat, did they really believe an armed incursion was going to stop it? freedom, that most elusive and vagrant of terms! well, people are certainly free to steal priceless art and cultural artefacts, to riot violently, to kill, to be taken away and tortured, to starve, to create armed insurgency... religion? well, the fundies are certainly happy, in both religions. the muslims are happy because it gives them more reason to declare jihad against the 'Great SAtan'. any loss of control the mullahs and ayatollahs may have suffered in the intermediate years is regained twofold. christians are happy because they can now more freely spout their gospel as shepherds dressed in aid worker's clothing. democracy? uh, dont go there.

Sunday_10pm

05-06-2004, 12:15 PM

Sunday_10pm

05-06-2004, 12:24 PM

Originally posted by MrMacphisto
Ah... Fuck it... We went in for the wrong reasons, but these people weren't worth the effort anyway. Let's just take the oil and run; after all, that was the original plan, wasn't it?

While greed is America's main downfall, religion is the downfall of the Arab world. We fucked this whole freedom idea up, and now, we might have to settle this with more ammo since these religious nuts who follow an outdated religion want to kill us. Maybe the U.N. can serve as a diplomatic force to fix this image problem, but until Bush & co. let them in, peace is a joke... And don't even get me started on Israel... greedy bitches...

Are you being sarcastic? Having re-read it, it looks like a dry, sarcastic joke except that in the second paragraph you seem to be talking seriously? Give us a hint would you..

I'd be amused either way.

Cosmo_ac

05-06-2004, 12:31 PM

These people weren't acting out aggression. They were told and encouraged to torture these people by the interogaters. And, while they didn';t have to do it, they certainly did chose to didn't they? Speaks volumes about these people. Also the fact that it was ignorerd for long also says something.
In my opinion, those directly involved should be given dishonorable discharges and put in jail,

BOFH666

05-06-2004, 12:55 PM

Originally posted by TKpervert
I am getting fucking sick of armchair prophets sitting on their fat butts in front of their widescreen Sony TV's trying to dictate how the war in Iraq should proceed.

Sure, drive your crowded freeway to work tomorrow, and whine and complain about your problems, when other folks have their CHILDREN over there defending your stupid right to drive that freeway to earn your crummy $13 an hour.

Suggestion: go to Iraq and face some bullets. then report back to us about how you would treat those who tried to rip your heart out with a bullet.

How many here have faced a bullet ? I have and it ain't pretty.

"Ignorance is the parent of fear . . ."

Herman Melville - Moby Dick

And it always amazes me how willing people are to remain ignorant. Let's be clear here shall we, no-one is saying that troops in a combat situation should do anything other than respond with lethal force. However the situations discussed here are NOT combat situations. Also, if you read back through this thread, no-one is saying that the actions of a few soldiers SHOULD reflect on the entire military force in Iraq or anywhere else for that matter. However the sad truth of the matter is this has already become one of the defining moments and images of this 'war' and is, in its own way, just as significant to the Arab world as 9/11 was in the US. Note I'm not comparing the two in terms of intent or casualties (that's a whole other discussion and not one I want to raise here) but only in terms of cultural impact. It was vital for Coalition forces to present a whiter-than-white image in order to present the ideal of democracy. Now many are saying, publicly, "what's the difference between Democracy and Saddam". Again, note this is not my own viewpoint but it IS one that's gathering momentum with many Arab commentators pointing to what they see as the gap between the wartime US rhetoric of liberating Iraq and the subsequent abuse of Iraqi prisoners.

This is not being helped in the least by the heavy-handed approach being taken in Iraq. I won't republish the entire article here, but there's an excellent piece on Salon.com (http://www.salon.com/news/feature/2004/03/03/prison/index.html) that highlights the major problems being encountered with maintaining law and order, arrests made on 'tippoffs' that are motivated solely by profiting from the rewards on offer, an administrative system that's running so far behind reality that one solicitor, when trying to ascertain the location and charges against his client was told "he was an extremely dangerous man and was being held indefinitely" (paraphrased). The lawyer went to tell the mans wife the bad news.... only to find the man in question had been released that morning with no charges. With tales of false arrest, 'sweeps' of areas after a bomb explosion or other incidents and many reports (before this whole sorry affair hit the press) of beatings and mistreatments against people who are often released without being charged several months after their arrest the situation in Iraq is a grim one.

As an example, the BBC is carrying a report of a man who says he is one of those that was photographed, though it doesn't state he is in the pictures that are currently in the public domain. The story makes for depressing reading:

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/americas/3689371.stm

I had hired a taxi and we were stopped at the main gate of Taji Camp in Baghdad which is under the control of the American troops. It was during Ramadan (November 2003).

They demanded to see my papers, but I didn't have any, so I was arrested and taken to the army headquarters in Fifth District and then to the detention camp at the airport.

I was told they would ask me a few questions and then I'd be released after a couple of days, but nothing happened for three days.

Then, at four in the morning on the third day they called out my number, 13077, and I was taken to Boqa camp in Basra where I thought I'd be tried in an Iraqi court.

But what have I done? I'm not a criminal. I've got five kids and my family didn't even know where I was.

Then I was taken to Camp One in Abu Ghraib.

They tortured me after I had a fight with an Iraqi working in the camp who was having a relationship with a female soldier.

He was giving us a hard time and we had to beat him up.

So they started torturing us. They cut our clothes off with blades. We were stripped naked, even our underwear was cut off.

Then they ordered us to do things in front of a female soldier.

They told us to masturbate towards this female soldier. But we didn't agree to do it, so they beat us.

How could you do something like that in such circumstances. I was frightened, my whole body was shaking.

Then they put a bag on my head, and I pretended, I made movements like I was masturbating.

They made us act like dogs, putting leashes around our necks and making us bark. They'd whistle and we'd have to bark like dogs.

They made us stand up and then climb on top of each other, one after the other.

They said they were going to kill us, but in the end they took the bags off our heads and I was surprised to see my friends around me.

They had beat me so hard that they broke my jawbone. Even now I can't eat properly

Later a team of American intelligence officers came to see us.

They asked us what had happened and I told them exactly what I've just told you.

I was taken to court, but on 15 April I was released.

It is not possible to verify Mr Abed's account of his experiences in Abu Ghraib prison, although the abuse is consistent with the findings of a US Department of Defense investigation.

On a separate point, how on earth is having troops in Iraq defending peoples right to drive the freeway (I presume you are using that as a metaphor for defending the freedom of the regular citizens)? Again, let's be clear here, Iraq in 2002 was NEVER a threat to the US or anyone else other than its immediate neighbors and even that's questionable. During the buildup to the war there was wide spread skepticism about the need to attack, with evidence called into question at every turn and those that knew the situation on the ground (the UN Weapons Inspectors for example) contradicting the 'official' reports. THIS is why you have so many people commentating on this, it was an unnecessary campaign that, right now, is doing more harm than good. Remember Iraq had nothing to do with 9/11, it had nothing to do with al-Qeada, it seems at this moment in time as if it had no weapons of mass destruction (and that whole WMD thing is a red herring anyway, you can easily obtain chemical weapons from virtually any major American city just by raiding a suitable chemical plant, chlorine I believe is a particularly simple agent to acquire). Yes, "freeing" Iraq was and is a worthwhile goal but as I mentioned above, this was hardly the main thrust of the war.

If you want to be f'd off at someone for putting these troops in harms way, I'd suggest taking a long hard look at your current government who seemingly have no grasp of compromise or diplomacy and believe everything can be solved by forcing, as you so dramatically put it, someone else's children to face bullets. It seems that even some at the highest level of this administration are not happy with the way things are going:

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/middle_east/3689083.stm

Larry Wilkerson is one of Mr Powell's closest and longest serving aides, and must surely have had permission to make his comments.

Mr Wilkerson said the Secretary of State had spent much of his time doing damage control around the world for the actions of his colleagues.

Mr Wilkerson attacked those he said were making cavalier decisions about sending men and women out to die.

He compared the Deputy Defence Secretary, Paul Wolfowitz, to the Russian revolutionary leader Vladimir Lenin, describing them both as Utopians.

"When all you use is a stick," he pointed out, "you're not going to get too far."

On the US policy towards Cuba, it was the "dumbest policy on the face of the earth," he said. "It's crazy."

And even now, when the need for honesty is paramount in restoring some of the tarnished image of US forces President Bush can't seem to get his facts straight. Take this speech from a Michigan rally last Monday, from just seven sentences we can see four factual errors:

"My opponent admits that Saddam Hussein was a threat. He just didn't support my decision to remove Saddam from power. (1) Maybe he was hoping Saddam would lose the next Iraqi election. (Laughter.) We showed the dictator and a watching world that America means what it says. (Applause.) Because -- because we acted, Saddam's torture chambers are closed. (2) Because we acted, Iraq's weapons programs are ended forever. (3) (Applause.) Because we acted, nations like Libya got the message and renounced their own weapons programs. (4) (Applause.)

1.) Kerry voted to authorize the use of force in Iraq. He disagreed with the president's rush to use force. As Kerry wrote in an op-ed in September 2002: "Regime change in Iraq is a worthy goal. But regime change by itself is not a justification for going to war. Absent a Qaeda connection, overthrowing Saddam Hussein -- the ultimate weapons-inspection enforcement mechanism -- should be the last step, not the first." http://www.cfr.org/campaign2004/pub5596/kerry/we_still_have_a_choice_on_iraq.php

2.) Saddam's torture chambers may be closed, but the president should be embarrassed to even mention the phrase "torture chamber" and Iraq in the same sentence this week. I surely don't need to provide any link for this one?

3.) Since no one, not even the U.S. agents scouring Iraq, has found evidence that Saddam had active WMD programs just prior to the invasion last year, it is not right to say they were ended "because we acted." In fact, they "ended" well before Bush rushed to war with questionable 'evidence'. The UN says Iraq hadn't had WMD of any significance since 1994. http://www.usatoday.com/news/world/iraq/2004-03-02-un-wmd_x.htm

4.) Bush continues to mention the Iraq War as the reason Muammar Gaddafi gave up pursuit of WMD programs. To get a different view on this topic, read Brookings' Martin Indyk's piece, called The Iraq War did not Force Gadaffi's Hand. http://www.brookings.edu/views/op-ed/indyk/20040309.htm

Oh, and just for the record, I'm not "anti-war" or any other label you might be preparing along those lines, I just believe that going to war is a last resort and, in this case, the reasons given for taking that option were simply not good enough. In actual fact I'm extremely proud of our armed forces, considering we're such a small nation I'd say that Britain has every right to be proud of her armed forces at every level as one of the best in the world. If we'd gone into Iraq with international backing to remove Saddam and establish a new form of government, then all well and good. We didn't though and no amount of revisionist history will change that.

"Anyway, no drug, not even alcohol, causes the fundamental ills of society. If we're looking for the source of our troubles, we shouldn't test people for drugs, we should test them for stupidity, ignorance, greed and love of power. ~P.J. O'Rourke"

MrMacphisto

05-06-2004, 01:23 PM

Heh... Sunday_10pm, where I was sarcastic: take the oil and run.

In the rest of it, I was serious... We're in a total mess right now, and the main problems we're facing are due to American greed and Islamic stupidity. Don't get me wrong; most Muslims are just like anyone else. Most Muslims don't even live in the Middle East, but a lot of the ones that do are incredibly desperate, highly uneducated (or selectively educated), and prone to extremism. I can understand how Iraqis don't like how we've conquered their country. As has been said time and time again, it was a really dumb idea to enter this war. But now that we're there, we have to fix their country. The problem is that they want to fix it themselves, and history has shown that they aren't really capable of that.

About the only ethnic group that seems organized enough and cooperative enough with our efforts is the Kurds. The Kurds have been shat on by just about everyone, whether it's the Arabs or the Turks. We should just give the Kurds their own country in the northern part of Iraq and withdraw our funding from Turkey and our membership in NATO. Turkey's leadership is about as self-centered as ours, and they've been screwing the Kurds while we've been looking the other way. The only reason we've been ignoring this is because we're both part of NATO. Fuck NATO... Now that Russia has joined it, what's the point? Contrary to popular American belief, the U.N. is still relevant, but NATO is a joke.

On a related subject, Israel is being run by fanatical idiots that want peace about as much the PLO wants it. The U.S. should withdraw its funding from Israel as well and just let these people kill each other to get it over with. The creation of Israel was the second biggest mistake made in the 20th Century (the first being the U.S.'s refusal to join the League of Nations after WWI), and we've been having to pay for it ever since.

If any country deserves to be conquered in the Middle East, it's Saudi Arabia. These fuckers have the nerve to fund the families of suicide bombers while we protect them militarily and trade with them heavily. Of course, this will never be addressed as long as oil companies run the government and the current administration is run by a family with heavy ties to Saudi Arabia. Granted, declaring war on Saudi Arabia is equal to declaring war on the Muslim World, but then again, haven't we effectively done that at this point? They already hate us, so we might as well give them a reason to....

qjakal

05-06-2004, 04:18 PM

Originally posted by AussieMonkey
i sit here, typing in the darkness, illumed by the irradiated screen of my laptop.

"War is an ugly thing, but not the ugliest of things. The decayed and degraded state of moral and patriotic feeling which thinks that nothing is worth war is much worse. The person who has nothing for which he is willing to fight, nothing which is more important than his own personal safety, is a miserable creature and has no chance of being free unless made and kept so by the exertions of better men than himself" -- John Stuart Mill

i jad not thought of it in those terms, QJ. i agree, but wonder if this argument justifies the american led war on iraq? what exactly are they fighting for? oil? saddam? terror? freedom? revenue? religion? democracy?

-------------------------------------------------

Beats me bud. I'm not convinced we should be in Iraq either, although these oil conspiracy theories are a bit far fetched. If we really wanted oil there's easier ways to get it than spending more than you'll ever get back.....we're powerful, not stupid.

I wasn't interested in justifying either the war or the sadism, but rather observing the need for soldiers that has and will exist until we no longer do as a species, apparently. The command structure is the villian in this instance, and crappy leaders beget crappy soldiers and worse. This sort of breakdown is inexcusable in armed forces that represent democracy OR any other organization/nation unless it actually reflects the will of that group, which I sincerely feel is NOT the case here....better not be...sigh.

Q

ticklebutton

05-06-2004, 06:10 PM

US commanders in Iraq announced that seven military supervisors have received administrative reprimands over the alleged abuse, and that the investigation into the supervisors -- officers and non-commissioned officers -- was complete and they would not face further proceedings.

Four civilian contract workers identified in an internal army report for their involvement in the physical and sexual mistreatment of the prisoners -- including the alleged rape of one detainee -- cannot be punished under military law, and it is unclear whether they will face any charges under either US or Iraqi laws.

An army report -- written in February and obtained by a reporter for the New Yorker magazine -- found evidence that civilian interpreters with the San Diego-based Titan Corp and civilian interrogators employed by the Virginia-based firm CACI were directly involved in the abuses at the prison.

These companies have reaped millions for contracts in military support and intelligence, a private industry that has boomed with government funding since 9/11 - Titan has a contract for $657 million and CACI for $154.7 million, according to the US Army Intelligence and Security Command.

Military officials said yesterday that the contractors could not be tried under military laws and that they were unsure if Iraqi or US laws would be applied.

A US spokeswoman in Baghdad said the military usually refers such cases back to the companies that employ them, and she believed that is what is being done in this case.

But CACI chief executive Jack London said yesterday that the firm has not received any information from the US government or military about the alleged crimes, despite inquiries and a request for a copy of the internal report.
[http://www.boston.com/news/nation/articles/2004/05/04/civilians_idd_in_abuse_may_face_no_charges/]

MrMacphisto

05-06-2004, 06:22 PM

Wow... I suppose there are now two primary sources of corporate corruption in the Middle East: oil companies and civilian interrogators.

Knox The Hatter

05-06-2004, 08:41 PM

Isn't it interesting how first George W. Bush said that he doesn't aggressively read incoming information, but has his people pick and choose what's important for him, but today he upbraided Rumsfeld for not showing him the pictures?

Meanwhile, the three rationales the Bush Administration made for going to war (the ones for public consumption, that is), have now all gone up in smoke. The link to Al-Qaeda? A lead balloon. WMDs? Completely illusory. The humanitarian reasons? Now totally wiped out. These soldiers and their superiors who sanctioned this behavior have done irreparable harm to this mission. The question begs to be asked: how could this have been allowed to happen? With the political ends of the equation so much at stake, how could this have been perpetrated so nakedly?
Bush can say he's sorry until July 4th. I don't think it's going to help. Yes, one could only imagine how Americans would be treated, yadda yadda yadda. That's not the issue. We keep telling people how morally superior we are to Saddam, et al. We certainly don't live up to it.

So, you're getting sick of armchair prophets, huh, TK? Too bad. I served my country too, in a war zone, as well. You want to hang out here, you're gonna have to hang out with us armchair prophets. :sowrong:

zyclos_b

05-07-2004, 02:21 AM

Wow. Maybe now some people will start to see why the Arabs dislike us so much.

Haltickling

05-07-2004, 08:41 AM

The incidents from the view of American cartoonists (satire from both sides of the political fence): http://cagle.slate.msn.com/news/IraqPrisonPhotos/main.asp

AussieMonkey

05-07-2004, 11:37 AM

i think that one of the most woeful things about the intelligence of the masses is that relatively few people have an in-depth grounding or even a general education in modern history. while i am no nostradamus, certain patterns of human disposition tend to repeat themselves if you look at the reasons behind world events. for starters, right-wing Americans continually make comparisons between concilliation to Saddam Hussein and Appeasement of Hitler, but few mention that the first world war began as a 'War on Terror', specifically, the Black hand organisation, a militant Serbian independence group. i must confess that my historical knowledge is also lacking in intensity. perhaps if more people knew about our race's mistakes, they would not be so keen to add to the list.

Sadistictickler

05-07-2004, 12:03 PM

Such hypocrisy sickens me. From the moment I heard that news, I have smiled every time I heard of american casualties. Of course, most guys who get shot don't have anything to do with it but they are a part of it therefor I hail their destruction.

Blagh, down with US occupation of Iraq, on with the UN...

natural tickler

05-07-2004, 12:16 PM

You know ST, you wouldn't be saying this if your country's soldiers were there. Then if we would have said we're smiling everytime yours is shot, you wouldn't like it, would you?

Now as far as those pictures go, well, I don't think those soldiers did it on their own, but by orders for higher authorities. I don't believe they would have thought of this themselves. Besides, they need a scapegoat, and these soldiers are perfect for that. I think it was the higher authorities thinking behind this, and they need to blame someone else to cover for them:sowrong:

Sadistictickler

05-07-2004, 12:22 PM

There are dutch soldiers in Iraq, and I spent alot of time laughing my arse of in the way the governement treats them; they are not supposed to take any risk, you know, maybe they could get hurt... (they're soldiers goddamnit, their job is getting involved in dangerous activities)

venray

05-07-2004, 12:53 PM

Originally posted by Sadistictickler
Such hypocrisy sickens me. From the moment I heard that news, I have smiled every time I heard of american casualties. Of course, most guys who get shot don't have anything to do with it but they are a part of it therefor I hail their destruction.

Blagh, down with US occupation of Iraq, on with the UN...

Anyone who would hail the death of any human being no matter what country they are from definitely needs some help. I feel sorry for you ST....you must be a very lonely person in this world..:(

Cosmo_ac

05-07-2004, 01:09 PM

Sadist, even though what these soldiers did was horrible, You can't blame all American soldiers for there actions, just as you can't blame any race or nation for the actions of a few. People are indiviuals, and while i don't ignore the fact some people are probably this happened, i'd like to think, or at least hope, that most are disgusted. Anger at the US can be understandable, but try and focus that anger at the ones who actually did the deed, and those who ignored it.

Natural, there could very possible be higher ups involved. The Red cross has apparently bein sending reports since Octber of last year about prisoners being mistreated, but obviously that was ignored, or at least not followed through with. Will some of the top brass be caught by this? Probably not. However, even if ordered to, these soldiers should have known what they were doing was wrong. Yet, they did it any way. They deserve to be punished.

Haltickling

05-07-2004, 01:23 PM

I think that Sadistictickler's remark is way over the target, although I agree that these atricities might have been ordered by superiors. Laughing at other people's deaths, however, puts ST in the same category as any war criminal or even terrorism sympathizers.

Regrettably, such remarks are highly contraproductive to the original purpose of such an important and serious thread.

Sadistictickler

05-07-2004, 01:48 PM

Originally posted by venray1
Anyone who would hail the death of any human being no matter what country they are from definitely needs some help. I feel sorry for you ST....you must be a very lonely person in this world..:(

I'm not lonely at all, I just think of human beings in numbers, which makes matter alot less complicated.

BOFH666

05-07-2004, 01:52 PM

From Mr Rumsfeld's testimony today:

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/americas/3692507.stm

"Judge us by our actions," Mr Rumsfeld said in conclusion.

"Watch how Americans, watch how a democracy deals with wrongdoing and with scandal and the pain of acknowledging and correcting our own mistakes and our own weaknesses."

We have already watched how this administration deals with wrongdoing. First they tried to hide it, then they asume no-one will care, then they try to down play it, then they blame the rank and file..... and then they apologise.

Sorry folks, but the reaction of the Bush administration to this has made me sick to my stomach. I've always said I'm not against any particular party or administration but seeing the total distain and chaos at the highest levels over something they had such a long grace period on has put me firmly in the "anyone but Bush" camp. I wonder if that's the case on that side of the pond as well....

MrMacphisto

05-07-2004, 06:17 PM

Here's the problem, BOFH666.... The Bush administration acts in ways that many Americans act. Rather than actually learning from their mistakes, they spend more time looking for excuses for them, while scolding their rivals for the pettiest things in order to distract people from the real issues. A lot of people in general do this kind of thing, and because of this, much of our society is numb to such hypocrisy and atrocity. However, this isn't just an American problem; this is a human problem. Look at the other side of the picture: we're trying to help a group of desperate, poor, uneducated, and often religiously fanatical people enter the modern age. The problem is that their culture is stuck in the dark ages, while our administration has its head up the ass of the Christian Coalition and oil corporations. Meanwhile, the military is being run by a bunch of hawks with little knowledge of the culture they are overseeing. If the U.N. were allowed to aid us, it would not only lessen the feelings of American imperialism, but it would also bring people into the nation-building process who are actually familiar with Iraqi culture or can at least speak the language.

BOFH666

05-07-2004, 07:15 PM

Originally posted by MrMacphisto
Here's the problem, BOFH666.... The Bush administration acts in ways that many Americans act. Rather than actually learning from their mistakes, they spend more time looking for excuses for them, while scolding their rivals for the pettiest things in order to distract people from the real issues. A lot of people in general do this kind of thing, and because of this, much of our society is numb to such hypocrisy and atrocity. However, this isn't just an American problem; this is a human problem. Look at the other side of the picture: we're trying to help a group of desperate, poor, uneducated, and often religiously fanatical people enter the modern age. The problem is that their culture is stuck in the dark ages, while our administration has its head up the ass of the Christian Coalition and oil corporations. Meanwhile, the military is being run by a bunch of hawks with little knowledge of the culture they are overseeing. If the U.N. were allowed to aid us, it would not only lessen the feelings of American imperialism, but it would also bring people into the nation-building process who are actually familiar with Iraqi culture or can at least speak the language.

Uneducated? Last time I looked Iraq was far from uneducated, with something like 20 universities in the country and 40+ technical colleges. While education suffered under the later years of Saddam's regime, it is the looting following the invasion of Iraq and subsequent security vacuum that caused the most damage and is currently threatening education standards across the country.

"Often Religiously Fanatical", sorry mate but I just don't see it. Yes, Religion is used as a rallying cry but as far as I'm aware it's NOT being used as a call to Genocide as the term implies. Rather it is a banner behind which hatred fueled by what THEY see as American atrocities (not just these pictures but events throughout the last 15 years or more) is gathering.

Desperate and poor they certainly are, but all of us that belong to countries that enforced sanctions on Iraq and bombed it on a regular basis must share in the blame for that. Their biggest problem is that you've got three groups all bitterly opposed to at LEAST one of the other two who, right now, are being driven together by a growing anti-American sentiment. I fear the only real solution to the problem is to create three separate states but we've seen how well that works in Israel...

Sorry to go on about this folks, but having just spent the better part of the evening watching live feeds of Rumsfeld trying to explain this very subject I'm feeling more than a little cynical towards the current US Administration as I just don't buy what's being said. Is it REALLY possible that the President didn't know about this, considering the report was done in January? And if it is, then what does that say about his suitability for the job? One would have thought that if you start a war and pin your election hopes on it you'd at least have a passing interest in how things were going. Oh, wait, I forgot:

Mission Accomplished

MrMacphisto

05-07-2004, 08:56 PM

Perhaps, I should have said "selectively educated." Most institutions of learning in Iraq and in the Middle East in general have a major connection to Islam, which skews any philosophical discussions. Imagine what would happen to the U.S. if every university was officially Christian. Now think about what would happen if the government was also theocratic. This is what I'm getting at, BOFH666. I realize that Iraq was more of a dictatorship than a theocracy, but Islam pervades so much of their institutions that they are very susceptible to religion being used as a "rallying cry" as you put it.

As far as genocide is concerned, Iraqis are thoroughly familiar with that concept, given that Saddam's totalitarian rule (as bad as it may have been) was about the only thing keeping these different Muslim groups from killing each other. I agree that what our country is doing is really stupid, but on the other hand, the people we're trying to help aren't too bright either....

Cosmo_ac

05-08-2004, 03:50 AM

Here are some new links to some of the reports of what happened. Frankly, it's disgusting. Even if these soldiers say they weren't given a Code of conduct and rules, they should have known better. The smiles and Thumbs ups are certainly not making for sympathetic images, are they? And one of the most disgusting things of all, is the civilian contractors might get away free, because there are no laws in place for these things.

http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2004/04/27/60II/main614063.shtml

http://www.cnn.com/2004/WORLD/meast/04/30/iraq.photos/

BOFH666

05-08-2004, 04:15 AM

Originally posted by MrMacphisto
Perhaps, I should have said "selectively educated." Most institutions of learning in Iraq and in the Middle East in general have a major connection to Islam, which skews any philosophical discussions. Imagine what would happen to the U.S. if every university was officially Christian. Now think about what would happen if the government was also theocratic. This is what I'm getting at, BOFH666. I realize that Iraq was more of a dictatorship than a theocracy, but Islam pervades so much of their institutions that they are very susceptible to religion being used as a "rallying cry" as you put it.

As far as genocide is concerned, Iraqis are thoroughly familiar with that concept, given that Saddam's totalitarian rule (as bad as it may have been) was about the only thing keeping these different Muslim groups from killing each other. I agree that what our country is doing is really stupid, but on the other hand, the people we're trying to help aren't too bright either....

:D Sorry if last reply was a bit snappy mate, six hours of Rumsfeld will do that to ya! Agree with pretty much all of that, especially the part about Saddam keeping the country together, it wasn't pretty but it really was the only way Iraq 'worked' at all.

Just a thought to ponder on though, and one I KNOW I'm goona get flamed on so before anyone reaches for the Napalm take a second to think about what's being said. If religion is such a simple rallying cry in Iraq (and indeed other countries in the middle east) may I suggest that America suffers from something very similar. Not religion but 'Patriotism'.

MrMacphisto

05-08-2004, 01:37 PM

I totally agree that Patriotism is just as much a disease in this country as Islam is over in the Middle East. Judaism has become a disease in Israel as well. I'd also say that greed is a disease that is affecting American and Middle Eastern leadership on all sides.

To sum it up, each group of humans involved in this mess is obsessed with one thing or another. If they simply used "common sense" and rational thought as their ways of thinking, then maybe we could come to some agreement between all sides. Of course, the chance of this happening without U.N. involvement is slim to none. Americans are too arrogant, Muslims are too fanatical, and Israelis are both. It may come down to a "might makes right" solution given that logic doesn't seem to be getting anywhere with this conflict. The Kurds and Brits are about the only rational people getting involved in this mess. Granted, Tony Blair is still almost as much of an idiot as Bush is....

Cosmo_ac

05-08-2004, 01:40 PM

Actually Mac, there are also reports of British officers torturing Iraqs too, though the focus seems to stay mainly on the US, which really isn't that big a surprise.

Sunday_10pm

05-08-2004, 04:09 PM

It looks like some of our men have been at it too now. In my opinion, torture is the single most vile act a human can commit. It is absolutely disgusting how a human being can inflict such harm on a completely defensless man/woman. I read in an article in the papers today in which an ex-SBS (special boat service (more elite than the SAS)) soldier explained that it looked as though these people were using a particular technique tought to elite forces as a method of interrogation. However, for an interrogation there is a strict 48 hour time limit, and the interrogator should be properly trained: He explained that proper training includes having to undergo it yourself which is a truly horrible experience and is necessary to fully comprehend what you are doing to people. He also stated that there should be an official psychologist and medic present. These people are clearly either very sick, or have no idea what they are doing. It's a fucking disgrace and they should now be forced to undergo the training they missed out on.

Knox The Hatter

05-08-2004, 04:24 PM

Brilliant insights here...
Caught the repeat of the hearings last night on C-SPAN. I was half falling asleep, but I think I caught Rummie's answer to the question "if you could do it all over again, how would you prevent this from happening" as being a five minute dissertation with "I'd ban cameras from the premises" as its theme. Boy, that brought me wide awake!
The Bush Reg- uh...Administration had almost no credibility with the rest of the world even before these pictures came out, given that everyone else knew exactly what these people were all about. In the realm of world opinion, the Bush Constituency, comprised of people who desire earnestly to be fooled each and every day, is a small one indeed. If Bush wins in November, he looks forward to another four years of being avoided and ostracized and even ignored by the countries that share the world with us. The minority who applaud the cause of unilateralism might think that this millstone would do well to disappear from being around our necks, but in fact, there is no benefit from this.
I don't know how the Bush White House will get out of this one, the embarrassment, the fallout, the complete mockery of our values. I don't hold out much hope.
By the way, Rummie intimated that along with a further collection of photos to be exposed, we have VIDEO. Oh, brother.

MrMacphisto

05-08-2004, 04:24 PM

I stand corrected.... Thanks for the info; I guess that leaves only one group as rational then. I hope the Kurds get their own country, because at this point, they've surely earned it through cooperation.

Haltickling

05-08-2004, 04:53 PM

Originally posted by MrMacphisto
I guess that leaves only one group as rational then. I hope the Kurds get their own country, because at this point, they've surely earned it through cooperation.
Sorry to burst another bubble: The Kurds are divided into a dozen separate fractions, united only by the desire to get rid of oppression from non-Kurds. Already now, they are in close infight about who owns Kirkuk (with a lot of oil). There are Sunnites, Shiites, Nestorian Christians, and even more archaic religions among them. Turkey complains that the Kurds are already oppressing the Turkmenes (sp?) in northern Iraq, which are about 20% of the population.

Give the Kurds one independent state, and they'll fight among each other for dominance, give them two states, they will fight each other. However, there's a small chance that a cleverly, justly divided Kurdistan could survive and prosper. But somehow, I doubt that the Americans are capable of doing that... :rolleyes:

MrMacphisto

05-08-2004, 08:06 PM

Hal, your post is a tad confusing... I remember reading things from a lot of valid sources saying that many Kurdish groups were actually more cooperative with our efforts and those of the British than most of the other ethnic groups in the region. Another thing to note is that Turkey is very oppressive toward the Kurds in their country, so it only makes sense that the Kurds in Iraq would oppress the Turks in retaliation. I'm not saying it makes it right, but at least you can see where they're coming from. I didn't realize that the Kurds have also been engaging in killing each other though...

Haltickling

05-08-2004, 08:55 PM

One of the most interesting articles on the context between the Bush administration's unterstanding of law and the torture of prisoners is here: http://www.iht.com/articles/518930.html

MrMacphisto: The Kurds didn't fight much among each other during Saddam's time, because they had a common enemy, and they have certainly been the most cooperative group in Iraq, seen from the US POV, because the Americans, too, were enemies of Saddam.

However, the Kurds are still strongly enmeshed in their tribal system. The two biggest Kurdish groups even have their own armed militias. By and large, it's a system of warlords, similar to Afghanistan. Take the lid of the pressure pot, and all the pent-up steam will come out. At least that is the impression that several Turkish Kurds have given to me, and it was confirmed by many foreign correspondents who have worked in that area for ten years or more.

Ever since the northern no-fly-zone was established by the Americans, the Kurds have squabbled about the possesion of oil-rich Kirkuk, which is a veritable melting-pot of ethnic groups. The two biggest rivals even send in loads of own population (whole family clans) to live there, in case of a caucus or Western-style election.

I'll try to dig up a few independent sources on that over the weekend, but this is actually leading away from the original topic. Maybe we should open a new thread.

tickleboynyc

05-09-2004, 03:13 PM

tickleboynyc

05-09-2004, 03:19 PM

Haltickling

05-09-2004, 04:11 PM

Originally posted by tickleboynyc
an 'outdated' religion?
Well, they follow an old view of Islam. Even older than Amish or Mormons.

Cosmo_ac

05-09-2004, 05:15 PM

You know, when i first saw this, these images, and read the reports, i was disgusted, and rightfully so, i believe. But, there was one upside. There were pictures, and a pictures worth a thousand words. And there were military peoples faces in the pictures. I'd say thats a pretty good hand-caught-in-the-cookie-jar scene. We don't know totally who was involved, but we have a start, and we have the people in the pictures. And i thought, well at least they will be punished.

Well, it seems that thought was wrong. The first person who is being charged faces these punishments. Possible domotion, a letter of conduct, and at worst, possible discharge and maybe up to a year in jail. Now, perhaps i heard wrong, but does anybody else see just how fucked up this is? No wonder the US military isn't scared of doing these things. They know they'll get a slap on the wrist, and be let go. Add in to the fact that there is the increasing possibility and reports that these tactics are more wide spread and encouraged by the US, and it is even more disgusting.

Flatfoot

05-09-2004, 05:55 PM

Originally posted by cosmo_ac
You know, when i first saw this, these images, and read the reports, i was disgusted, and rightfully so, i believe. But, there was one upside. There were pictures, and a pictures worth a thousand words. And there were military peoples faces in the pictures. I'd say thats a pretty good hand-caught-in-the-cookie-jar scene. We don't know totally who was involved, but we have a start, and we have the people in the pictures. And i thought, well at least they will be punished.

Well, it seems that thought was wrong. The first person who is being charged faces these punishments. Possible domotion, a letter of conduct, and at worst, possible discharge and maybe up to a year in jail. Now, perhaps i heard wrong, but does anybody else see just how fucked up this is? No wonder the US military isn't scared of doing these things. They know they'll get a slap on the wrist, and be let go. Add in to the fact that there is the increasing possibility and reports that these tactics are more wide spread and encouraged by the US, and it is even more disgusting.

Whoooaaaa, hold on, Turbo! Loss of rank, forfeiture of pay, brig time, and a dishonorable discharge is NOT what I would call a "slap on the wrist". Believe me, I've seen plenty of "slaps on the wrist". Call me crazy, but I don't think that list of consequences is worth screwing around with Iraqi prisoners to the average military personnel. I'll try to break it down some, since I don't think civilians truly understand how the system works (And don't watch JAG on tv, because you aren't going to learn jack from that crap show!).

Loss of rank: In this job, rank is pretty much EVERYTHING. Very few who lose rank have much of a chance to make a career out of this, because with it, respect goes out the window, as well. That person will no longer be respected by anybody in that command, from whoever is in charge of his section, right down to the low men on the totem pole, who he may have pissed off in the past by ordering them to "sponge out the urinals", etc. This guy may have been an NCO, used to leading troops, but now he'll be back to scrubbing out "pissers" for the rest of his time in. From that point on, this guy will be known as a "sh*tbag" by his peers and seniors, and if he has the opportunity to go anyplace else, that reputation will follow him to his next command.

Forfeiture of pay: Almost nothing hurts as bad as when you get hit in the wallet. Many of us are living from paycheck to paycheck as it is, and for those of us who have families, it can ruin all sense of financial stability, which could lead to future disciplinary problems, such as when a financial institution mails your command a letter telling them you've written some bad checks. For many, this is enough to make them reconsider doing something stupid.

Brig time: I don't need to really touch upon this one much. Fact of the matter is, these guys in the orange suits get treated worse than recruits in basic training. This is no vacation, and is NOT the type of "old war stories" that someone wants to tell their children/grandchildren.

Dishonorable Discharge: Try making use of the training you received in the military to get a higher paying job in the civilian world when you've got one of these little blemishes. Not likely that it's gonna happen. Pretty much, the mistakes these guys have made have pretty much limited their career opportunities from then on.

Keep in mind, I'm not even addressing the issue of whether or not they deserve this. I'm not getting into that. I'm merely stating that whatever they're going to get will NOT be a slap on the wrist, especially in this day and age where the military is always under the spotlight.

Cosmo_ac

05-09-2004, 06:07 PM

Flat, keep in mind the people being chraged are reserves. The only reason there there, and not working there normal jobs is because the were called over. There not the Military Life people. ALso, lets face it, if Iraq or the UN were able to press charges, they'd more then likely be a lot worse. But, because the UN is not involved, and Iraq gave the US sanctions when they arrived, they can't.

Simply put, if you ask me, if you can't act within a certainly level of human decency, then you have no place in the army. These people have no place in any army, and i'll be disgusted if anybody who was directly involved in this is allowed to remain part of it. If you have any doubts about my feelings, then answer me this, how would you feel if you turned on the TV and found out American prisoners were being treated this way. The US would want there heads on a pike.

red indian

05-09-2004, 08:20 PM

....so it looks like the U.S. is NOT the keeper of the iternal flame of morality after all.

"Sunday_10pm" I hope you are feeling hungry, because it looks like you have a lot of words to eat.

I would like to remind many Americans that your concern for the effects of terrorism is rather late in the day. Britain has had over 30 years of misery at the hands of the I.R.A. and much of their murderous activity has been bank rolled by Americans.U.S. support for the U.K. over these last 30 years of bloodshed has been at best luke warm.

I hope you have noticed that despite all this, we are supporting YOU when you need US.

Its time I heard some thanks or recognition from the U.S. for what we are doing for you.

Its also time for the U.S. high command to have a closer look at how the Brits are running the the south of Iraq. Why are we so much more successfull at handling a war against terroists? how did we gain this experience I wonder?

venray

05-09-2004, 09:08 PM

Originally posted by tickleboynyc
For once i agree with you venray...

;)

General Zod

05-10-2004, 04:16 PM

I wonder Would the Arabs been as outraged if a woman did not take part in the torture? That pic really shocked there world I'll bet Another thing,where was the Arab outrage when four American civilians were cut to death and left hanging from a bridge in Iraq?
Please don't get me wrong I was just as outraged that those U.S. servicemen did that to those prisoners as most civilized people were
It just really bugs me that the Arab people don't show any outrage when they do shitty stuff to non-arabs

BOFH666

05-10-2004, 06:29 PM

And as the days pass more and more evidence comes to light. The exact sources follow, but to editorialize for a moment:

It is starting to look like the incidents in the photographs we have seen to date are far from unique in Iraq, with the abuse and torture of Iraqi prisoners seemingly part of the routine. What began as a public relations disaster is fast becoming a major problem and with the reaction across the world being one of condemnation for these actions I can't see the press, or indeed the public, letting this story just vanish. Worse, the US has confirmed these techniques are in use and the man brought in to run Abu Ghraib prison has said that while the more aggressive techniques would be closely examined, he has not said they will stop.

The more I learn about this the worse I feel and in my opinion America needs to immediately stop ANY use of these techniques in ANY location. Let's be clear here, the prisoners they are being used on are, in nine out of ten cases, innocent of any crime and are picked up in random sweeps. These are not hardened criminals, these are not terrorists. Or maybe we should say, they weren't terrorists because they've certainly got reason to become so now.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/middle_east/3698965.stm

A key question which remains unresolved after the furore over the photos of alleged Iraqi prisoner abuse is to what extent the breaking of prisoner morale is still part of American policy.

The man brought in to run the Abu Ghraib prison is Maj Gen Geoffrey Miller, the man who ran the US detention facility at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba.

He told reporters who were shown the prison near Baghdad that sensory deprivation methods would now be used only after a general had "signed off" on them.

"We will examine very closely the more aggressive techniques," he said. But he did not say they would be stopped.

Yet he also said on Saturday that the Geneva Conventions would be applied in Iraq - they are not in Guantanamo though the Pentagon says their "spirit" is respected.

The Geneva Conventions are designed to protect prisoners of war from inhumane treatment.

On Saturday Gen Miller referred to the Fourth Geneva Convention, which applies to the protection of civilians in wartime.

Both it and the Third Geneva Convention, also drawn up in 1949, but this time to cover prisoners of war, lay down a series of measures to ensure that protection.

Importantly, both state that prisoners must "be treated humanely at all times".
Gen Miller is not new to Abu Ghraib. Last summer he was brought in to review the handling of prisoners there. His findings are revealed in the report this year by Maj Gen Antonio Taguba into abuses at Abu Ghraib.

The report uses euphemisms as it describes Gen Miller's conclusions. But the meaning is clear enough - prisoners have to be prepared for questioning.
"MG Miller's team focused on three areas: Intelligence integration, synchronisation, and fusion; interrogation operations; and detention operations.

"The principal focus of MG Miller's team was on the strategic interrogation of detainees/internees in Iraq. Among its conclusions in its Executive Summary were that CJTF-7 [the US army in Iraq] did not have authorities and procedures in place to affect a unified strategy to detain, interrogate, and report information from detainees/internees in Iraq. The Executive Summary also stated that detention operations must act as an enabler for interrogation."

The words "integration", "synchronisation", "fusion" and the phrase "enabler for interrogation" must mean the process by which the detention officers prepare the prisoners for questioning by subjecting them to demoralising techniques.

There is more.

"MG Miller's team stated that the function of Detention Operations is to provide a safe, secure, and humane environment that supports the expeditious collection of intelligence. However, it also stated "it is essential that the guard force be actively engaged in setting the conditions for successful exploitation of the internees".

Did the guard force at Abu Ghraib who liked to take pictures of themselves at work simply overstep the mark while following a general instruction to set the "conditions for successful exploitation of the internees"?
Evidence that it is all part of policy has come from one of the soldiers seen in the photos. Specialist Sabrina Harman of the Military Police was pictured smiling behind a pyramid of naked prisoners.

She is quoted in the Washington Post as saying in an e-mail that the aim was to break down the prisoners for interrogation.

"If the prisoner was co-operating, then the prisoner was able to keep his jumpsuit, mattress, and was allowed cigarettes on request or even hot food. But if the prisoner didn't give what they wanted, it was all taken away until [military intelligence] decided," she wrote.

"The job of the MP [military police] was to keep them awake, make it hell so they would talk."

The whole issue of interrogation is now under examination by yet another investigation, this time led by Maj Gen George Fay.

And as US Defence Secretary Donald Rumsfeld himself said during Friday's Congressional hearings into the alleged abuse, there is more to come.

During the hearings Republican Senator Lindsey Graham warned that the further revelations might concern "rape and murder".

It was striking that only one senator, the senior Democrat Carl Levin, asked Mr Rumsfeld about this. Many others chose to use most of their time making speeches, as often happens in Senate hearings.

Mr Levin identified the problem. The photos, he suggested, did not show a few "bad apples" infecting the rest of the barrel, but the application of a policy.
One is reminded of the calamitous effect of the British treatment of IRA suspects during internment without trial in the early 1970s.

The British army put into practice so-called "sensory deprivation" techniques designed to break down a prisoner's resistance before and during interrogation.

Those techniques involved isolation, subjection to white noise, hooding, sleep deprivation and physical hardship, such as being kept standing or keeping arms spread out.

When news of these methods came out, as they did quite quickly, there was an uproar and the IRA was handed a new recruiting sergeant.

The CIA and the US military developed similar coercive techniques. An American manual describing some of them and called "Human Resource Exploitation Training Manual - 1983" was released under the US Freedom of Information Act in 1997.

The methods included the threat of force on relatives, blindfolding and the stripping of prisoners naked.

The methods used in Abu Ghraib have added in sexual humiliation, presumably regarded by the guards as particularly effective in the Arab world.

http://news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&cid=518&u=/ap/20040505/ap_on_re_eu/britain_iraq_us_prisoner_abuse&printer=1

LONDON - U.S. soldiers who detained an elderly Iraqi woman last year placed a harness on her, made her crawl on all fours and rode her like a donkey, Prime Minister Tony Blair's personal human rights envoy to Iraq said Wednesday.

The envoy, legislator Ann Clwyd, said she had investigated the claims of the woman in her 70s and believed they were true.
During five visits to Iraq in the last 18 months, Clwyd said, she stopped at British and U.S. jails, including Abu Ghraib, and questioned everyone she could about the woman's claims. But she did not say whether the people questioned included U.S. forces or commanders.
Asked for details, Clwyd said during a telephone interview with The Associated Press that she "didn't want to harp on the case because as far as I'm concerned it's been resolved."
Clwyd, 67, is a veteran politician of the governing Labour Party and a strong Blair supporter who regularly visits Iraq and reports back on issues such as human rights, the delivery of food and medical supplies to Iraqis, and Iraq's Kurdish minority. Her job as Blair's human rights envoy is unpaid and advisory.
Clwyd said the Iraqi woman was arrested in Iraq in July and accused of having links to a former member of Saddam Hussein's regime — a charge she denied.
The abuse occurred last year in Baghdad's Abu Ghraib prison and at another coalition detention center, Clwyd said.
"She was held for about six weeks without charge," the envoy told Wednesday's Evening Standard newspaper. "During that time she was insulted and told she was a donkey. A harness was put on her, and an American rode on her back."
Clwyd said the woman has recovered physically but remains traumatized.

http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&u=/ap/20040510/ap_on_re_mi_ea/red_cross_prisoner_abuse&cid=540&ncid=1480

Up to 90 percent of Iraqi detainees were arrested "by mistake," according to coalition intelligence officers cited in a Red Cross report disclosed Monday. It also said U.S. officers mistreated inmates at the notorious Abu Ghraib prison by keeping them naked in totally dark, empty cells.
Abuse of Iraqi prisoners by American soldiers was widespread and routine, the report finds — contrary to President Bush (news - web sites)'s contention that the mistreatment "was the wrongdoing of a few."
While many detainees were quickly released, high-ranking officials in Saddam Hussein (news - web sites)'s government — including those listed on the U.S. military's deck of cards — were held for months in solitary confinement.
Red Cross delegates saw U.S. military intelligence officers mistreating prisoners under interrogation at Abu Ghraib and collected allegations of abuse at more than 10 other detention facilities, including the military intelligence section at Camp Cropper at Baghdad International Airport and the Tikrit holding area, according to the report.
The 24-page document cites abuses — some "tantamount to torture" — including brutality, hooding, humiliation and threats of "imminent execution."
"These methods of physical and psychological coercion were used by the military intelligence in a systematic way to gain confessions and extract information and other forms of cooperation from persons who had been arrested in connection with suspected security offenses or deemed to have an 'intelligence value.'"
High-ranking officials were singled out for special treatment, according to the report, which the International Committee of the Red Cross confirmed as authentic after it was published by The Wall Street Journal on Monday.
"Since June 2003 over a hundred 'high value detainees' have been held for nearly 23 hours a day in strict solitary confinement in small concrete cells devoid of daylight," said the report. "Their continued internment several months after their arrest in strict solitary confinement constituted a serious violation of the third and fourth Geneva Conventions."
It did not say who the detainees were, but an official who discussed the report with the Red Cross told The Associated Press they include some of the 55 top officials in Saddam's regime named in the deck of cards given to troops.
The official, who spoke on condition of anonymity, said detainees being held at Baghdad International Airport include many of the 44 "deck of cards" suspects already captured. It was not clear if Saddam was at the airport, but the Red Cross has said it visited him in coalition detention somewhere in Iraq (news - web sites) last month.
The high-value detainees were deprived of any contact with other inmates, "guards, family members (except through Red Cross messages) and the rest of the outside world," the report said.
Those whose investigations were near an end were said to be allowed to exercise together outside the cells for 20 minutes twice a day.
The report said some coalition military intelligence officers estimated "between 70 percent and 90 percent" of the detainees in Iraq "had been arrested by mistake. They also attributed the brutality of some arrests to the lack of proper supervision of battle group units."
The agency said arrests allegedly tended to follow a pattern.
"Arresting authorities entered houses usually after dark, breaking down doors, waking up residents roughly, yelling orders, forcing family members into one room under military guard while searching the rest of the house and further breaking doors, cabinets and other property," the report said.
"Sometimes they arrested all adult males present in a house, including elderly, handicapped or sick people," it said. "Treatment often included pushing people around, insulting, taking aim with rifles, punching and kicking and striking with rifles."
It was unclear what the Red Cross meant by "mistake." However, many Iraqis over the past year have claimed they were arrested by American forces because of misunderstandings, bogus claims by personal enemies, mistaken identity or simply for having been at the wrong place at the wrong time.

http://www.salon.com/news/feature/2004/05/08/torture/index.html

The cameraman's ordeal began Nov. 13 last year, when al Baz arrived at the site of a convoy attack in Samarra with his camera. U.S. soldiers stopped him and began to search his car. Al Baz said that when they found his Al-Jazeera I.D. badge, the soldiers asked him how he knew about the attack in advance, and then tied his hands behind his back. Al Baz says he arrived at the site four hours after the attack, and by that time, the entire city knew about it. Following his arrest, al Baz says that soldiers from the 4th Infantry Division took him to a U.S. military base in Samarra and interrogated him for two days.

"At the base I first saw a tall heavy man who put a black hood over my head," he recalls. "Then he forced me to stand in front of a wall for three or four hours. I was treated very roughly, then taken to a room and interrogated. When the tall man was not satisfied with my answers, he hit me in the face. They asked questions in a way that showed they were not interested in the truth." Al Baz says at first he was not given food or water, or allowed to pray. On the second day, he was given foul-smelling food. Immediately after his arrest, colleagues from the network and friends began to pressure the coalition for information but were told by Gen. Kimmit's staff that there was no information available. This is a common reply for people seeking information about recently detained people. Al Baz said it took a week for the military to issue him a prison I.D. number.

"I asked them if I could contact my family because they would be worried about me. The tall man told me to forget it, that my destiny was in Guantánamo Bay." Al Baz said that during his time at the base, soldiers came into his cell spitting on him and screaming in his ear to keep him awake. "I didn't know if it was day or night. They tied my hands so tightly my wrists started bleeding, but at this stage I was still allowed to keep my clothes. This was a wonderful period compared to my time in Abu Ghraib."

Al Baz says that he was taken from the base in Samarra to the airport in Baghdad, where his treatment took a sharp turn for the worse. "In there I heard some horrible noises, many people screaming. They told me to sit on the floor and I went numb from the cold. If I moved my head even a little bit, a soldier would grab my hood and slam my head into the wall. Sometimes they pretended to kill me by pulling the trigger of their rifles. I found out later that they were punishing other people there." Al Baz says that he heard screams, men shouting "Good Bush, bad Saddam!" and crying out to God for help. "But it didn't do anything to decrease the punishment they were going through."
When al Baz moved to Abu Ghraib in late November, he said he was asked to strip naked at one point but was never forced to take part in staged scenes like the others. "It didn't happen like that to me," he said. But he did say that he witnessed a disturbing episode involving a father and son. From his cell, al Baz said he watched through the small window and saw two men stripped naked. "The boy was only about 16 years old, and then a soldier poured cold water over them. Their cell was directly across from mine." Al Baz says that the father and son were made to stand naked in front of other prisoners for days.

Torturers often keep careful records; that is one of the odd but persistent features of the trade. It is never enough to destroy the captive -- there must also be proof of the victory over him, a souvenir. It is the prideful documentary urge that has undone the torturers of Abu Ghraib, although it is unlikely that the officers who sanctioned the abuse appear in the pictures. In any case, the Abu Ghraib prisoners were well aware that they were being photographed.

"I first knew that they were taking pictures when I saw that one of the computers had a picture of some prisoners as its desktop background. One of the prisoners had a black hood over his head and he was covered in cold water. I personally witnessed this event take place. The man was screaming, "I'm innocent!" until he got sick and his body got swollen from all the punishment," al Baz said. Cold water, solitary confinement, swollen bodies and constant psychological abuse are recurring images for the Al-Jazeera cameraman, who also credits his tormentors with ingenuity. "They had all different kinds of punishments and they changed them all the time. I begged them to interrogate me again so they would know that I was innocent, but they said no, that's it. All we know is that you're staying here."

The cameraman was released from Abu Ghraib in late January of this year. Since then he has returned to work for Al-Jazeera. On Friday afternoon, al Baz said, "I have one request, please don't concentrate so much on my story. There are still many people left in Abu Ghraib."

BOFH666

05-10-2004, 06:38 PM

And one more:

http://abcnews.go.com/sections/WNT/World/Iraq_abuse_death_040507-1.html

The photographs show a 52-year-old former Baath Party official, Nadem Sadoon Hatab, who died at the detention center last June after a three-day period in which he was allegedly subjected to beatings and karate kicks to the chest and left to die naked in his own feces.

Abuse of Iraqi prisoners at Camp White Horse was allegedly carried out by U.S. Marine reservists. The accused reservists have told their lawyers they were given orders to "soften up" the men in their custody for interrogation by what were known as human exploitation teams from military intelligence.

After the prisoners were allegedly softened up, "the interrogations were conducted by these human exploitation teams that as far as we can tell didn't report to anybody in the normal chain of command," according to Don Rehkopf, an attorney for one of the accused reservists.

According to the military autopsy report obtained by ABCNEWS, Hatab's death was ruled a homicide, caused by strangulation, the result of a fracture of a bone in his throat. The medical examiner testified it took him hours to die.

"He was … covered in sweat and feces. It was a little hard to get a grip on him so he was moved by essentially hauling him backward by his jaw, kind of holding him onto his lower jar and upper part of his head," said Jane Siegel, attorney for the former officer in charge at Camp White Horse, against whom charges have been dismissed.

Marine Reserve Cpl. William Scott Roy, a deputy sheriff in Rensselaer County, N.Y., has admitted his involvement and agreed to testify against fellow reservist Sgt. Gary Pittman, also from New York.

Pittman is accused of karate-kicking Hatab in the chest when the prisoner allegedly refused to follow orders.

Lawyers say none of the Marines spoke Arabic, nor were there any translators assigned to the camp.

"There was a failure in the senior command leadership. I'm not talking about the command at the Marine Corps level, I'm talking the DOD [Department of Defense] level," said Rehkopf.

According to testimony in the case, Hatab was targeted for especially harsh treatment because he was believed to be in possession of Jessica Lynch's 507th Army Battalion weapon and suspected of involvement in the ambush of her unit.

The court-martial in the alleged homicide, one in more than a dozen such suspicious deaths of Iraqi prisoners, is scheduled to begin in Camp Pendleton in San Diego in August.

The interesting thing here, other than the indications this was indeed a policy and not just a random act, is that this man was "believed to be in possession of Jessica Lynch's 507th Army Battalion weapon and suspected of involvement in the ambush of her unit". That makes him a member of the Iraq army and therefore a POW so there can be no question the the Geneva Convetion applied to him.

natural tickler

05-10-2004, 07:40 PM

It is like I said earlier, these soldiers did not do this on their own. It was probably ordered by higher ups and now they will be the scapegoats and punished hard because of it. It seems it is easier to nail the lower guy on the totem pole that to do what should be done, and that is get rid of Rumsfeld:sowrong:

Haltickling

05-10-2004, 07:47 PM

As an infrequent helper of amnesty international, I interwieved several torture victims, mostly from South/Central America and some Arabian countries. I can testify that those "softening-up" methods are a quite regular standard procedure, but that is what one would expect of totalitarian Third-World regimes.

Not from supposedly "civilized" countries.

I said it before, and I repeat it here: The Bush administration knew very well why they refused to cooperate with the UN War Crime Tribunal in The Hague.

On a different side note: Does anybody recall the "Stanford Experiment"? A group of university students (all volunteers) were given roles as "guards" and "prisoners", in realistic surroundings, and constantly watched by cameras. Otherwise they were left to themselves.

After a rather short time, the guards started to mistreat the prisoners. Douse them with cold water, withhold food, sleep, clothes. The experiment was terminated when the guards forced the prisoners to do "homosexual activities" among each other. Sounds familiar, eh?

That shows what happens if the conditions of detainment are not closely supervised by superiors. The guards abuse their absolute power, as inadvertantly human behavior.

The shocking revelation: Our so-called civilization is but a thin layer which camouflages the wild beast, inherent in most people. This beast can only be controlled if closely supervised by OUTSIDE authorities, never by other prison staff. Wars have always brought out the worst (and in some cases also the best) side of humans.

:sowrong:

natural tickler

05-10-2004, 07:57 PM

You seem to forget Hal that the UN and all the outside people had their chances to get involved, but when they refused the US's leading it, they backed out

Haltickling

05-10-2004, 08:15 PM

The UN was involved, until the US decided to their unilateral move. Besides, the US refusal to participate in the ICC happened before the war. This administration consider themselves above all laws... :rolleyes:

http://www.iht.com/articles/518930.html :
A president beyond the law sets a bad example

Anthony Lewis NYT
Saturday, May 8, 2004
A failure of leadership

CAMBRIDGE, Massachusetts The question tears at all of us, regardless of party or ideology: How could American men and women treat Iraqi prisoners with such cruelty - and laugh at their humiliation?
.
We are told that there was a failure of military leadership. Officers in the field were lax. Pentagon officials didn't care. So the worst in human nature was allowed to flourish.
.
But something much more profound underlies this terrible episode. It is a culture of low regard for the law, of respecting the law only when it is convenient.
.
Again and again, over these last years, President George W. Bush has made clear his view that law must bend to what he regards as necessity. National security as he defines it trumps American commitments to international law. The Constitution must yield to novel infringements on American freedom.
.
One clear example is the treatment of the prisoners at Guantánamo Bay, Cuba. The Third Geneva Convention requires that any dispute about a prisoner's status be decided by a "competent tribunal." American forces provided many such tribunals for prisoners taken in the Gulf war in 1991.
.
But Bush has refused to comply with the Third Geneva Convention. He decided that all the Guantánamo prisoners were "unlawful combatants" - that is, not regular soldiers but spies, terrorists or the like.
.
The Supreme Court is now considering whether the prisoners can use American courts to challenge their designation as unlawful. The Bush administration's brief could not be blunter in its argument that the president is the law on this issue: "The president, in his capacity as commander in chief, has conclusively determined that the Guantánamo detainees" are "not entitled to prisoner-of-war status under the Geneva convention."
.
The violation of the Geneva convention and that refusal to let the courts consider the issue have cost the United States dearly in the world legal community - the judges and lawyers in societies that, historically, have looked to the United States as the exemplar of a country committed to law.
.
Lord Steyn, a judge on Britain's highest court, condemned the Bush administration's position on Guantánamo in an address last autumn - pointing out that American courts would refuse even to hear claims of torture from prisoners. At the time, the idea of torture at Guantánamo seemed far-fetched to me. After the disclosures of the last 10 days, can we be sure?
.
Instead of a country committed to law, the United States is now seen as a country that proclaims high legal ideals and then says that they should apply to all others but not to itself. That view has been worsened by the Bush administration's determination that Americans not be subject to the new International Criminal Court, which is supposed to punish genocide and war crimes.
.
Fear of terrorism - a quite understandable fear after the Sept. 11 attacks - has led to harsh departures from normal legal practice within the United States. Aliens swept off the streets by the Justice Department as possible terrorists after Sept. 11, 2001, were subjected to physical abuse and humiliation by prison guards, the department's inspector general found. Attorney General John Ashcroft did not apologize - a posture that sent a message.
.
Inside the United States, the most radical departure from law as we have known it is Bush's claim that he can designate any American citizen an "enemy combatant" - and thereupon detain that person in solitary confinement indefinitely, without charges, without a trial, without a right to counsel. Again, the president's lawyers have argued determinedly that he must have the last word, with little or no scrutiny from lawyers and judges.
.
There was a stunning moment in Bush's 2003 State of the Union address when he said that more than 3,000 suspected terrorists "have been arrested in many countries. And many others have met a different fate. Let's put it this way: They are no longer a problem for the United States."
.
In all these matters, there is a pervasive attitude: that to follow the law is to be weak in the face of terrorism. But commitment to law is not a weakness. It has been the great strength of the United States from the beginning.
.
America's leaders depart from that commitment at their peril, and the peril of all Americans, for a reason that Justice Louis Brandeis memorably expressed 75 years ago.
.
"Our government is the potent, the omnipresent teacher," he wrote. "For good or ill, it teaches the whole people by its example. Crime is contagious. If the government becomes a lawbreaker, it breeds contempt for the law; it invites every man to become a law unto himself."
.
Anthony Lewis is a former columnist for The New York Times.

kis123

05-10-2004, 11:10 PM

Originally posted by venray1
True indeed Mac, but we as Americans cannot hold ourselves up as examples if we cannot follow the rules ourselves. What was done was horrible and ALL reponsible should face the consequences of their actions.

We cannot expect respect from others if we cannot act respectful ourselves, no matter what the circumstances.

Ray

And besides, two wrongs never made a right! We're supposed to be such a civilized society, we should know better.

American media has a tendency to describe people in these countries as something just above savages. I expect a savage to drag bodies in front of the media. We're are supposed to be educated and better than other parts of the world. This is a real black eye on American relations with the rest of the world. People are watching from all over the world. How do we really want them to see us?

Sunday_10pm

05-11-2004, 05:51 AM

This is just ridiculous. All of it!

Sunday_10pm

05-11-2004, 06:00 AM

:confused: It seems that the majority are against the war, but the federal govt. has stolen your freedom?

Haltickling

05-11-2004, 08:33 AM

:confused: :confused: :confused:

kis123

05-11-2004, 08:48 AM

Originally posted by Sunday_10pm
:confused: It seems that the majority are against the war, but the federal govt. has stolen your freedom?

How free do you really believe you are when your country's commander in chief is in bed with ours? If it hasn't happened yet, it will! Don't be so quick to beat up on our country when Tony Blair is so far up Bush's butt that it would require major surgery to get him out! By the way, just how are those taxes coming? How much does it cost to send the kids to college in your country these days?

You need to ask yourself, "why this alliance?", "what are they benefitting from the relationship?", and "when is it going to hurt the people?" because it will if it hasn't already. Believe me, there's more going on there that meets the eye between those two.

I want to make it perfectly clear that I am not attacking you. However, based on some of your previous posts and threads, you impress me as someone who really thinks that Americans are the only ones having the problems we are having in our country. Not true by any means.

Sunday_10pm

05-11-2004, 06:41 PM

kis - I'm only talking about America here because most of the people posting in this thread are American. Believe me I am equally demoralised with our government. I did apologise in the other thread i've been posting in since I created that one and it wasn't meant to be as serious as it ended up.

red indian - what words am I meant to eat? If you're referring to my description of why the man in the pictures was detained you are correct. I realised it was wrong just after I posted it but decided to leave it up because it describes a different Abu Graib prisoner and I felt it was still relevant.

red indian

05-11-2004, 08:31 PM

......on a sight seeing trip outside the solar system for the last few days, you may have noticed that the pictures you refer to with such authority have been exposed as fakes. There are now calls from even labour supporting public figures, for the editor of the Daily Mirror to resign.

Are you seriously telling me you did not know, that this was what I was refering to?

Sunday_10pm

05-12-2004, 06:02 AM

Well "red indian" I actually happened to be talking about the American pictures. If you look really closely you can find a number of little clues in this thread that somehow evaded you before you piped up about me eating words. Look, I'll show you..

The title of the thread is "US soldiers having iraqi prisoners tortured"

The Abu Ghraib is an American prison

The British "torture pictures" hadn't even been released on the date I posted, let alone been proven to be fake. And, although it is looking more likely every day, they still haven't been conclusively proven to be fake - The pressure on Piers Morgan is to resign if the pictures are a hoax.

Can you see? ;)

(ed.) for Cosmo: http://www.guardian.co.uk/Iraq/Story/0,2763,1212197,00.html
(the article on special forces interrogation techniques)

kis123

05-12-2004, 12:10 PM

It's starting to get real ugly......

Now an innocent American citizen has been cruelly murdered because of the prision pictures. I hope we can come out of this with minimal bloodshed, but I think it's too late for that.

No one counted up the costs of this war. No one saw that there are people willing to die and kill for their cause. These people in the Middle East are not playing around. This could make Vietnam look like a day at the beach!

I think it's best to get out of there now before they bring the fight to us. And this time, they won't have Bin Laden to blame.

Sadistictickler

05-12-2004, 01:11 PM

This morning I red an article in the local newspaper by an Iraqi professor who was forced to move to holland in 1997, refusing to join the Baath-party. He moved back to Bagdad to continue teaching but he found the college-building in ruins

He said the case in the photographs was not just an isolated one, according to him it's systematic, simply battering people for militairy interrogation in order to get them to talk. Two of his students sent out to take pictures of a sight for a new university building a bit near an American base, when they were arrested and held for 3 weeks accused with spying. The photos they took didn't even contain 1 soldier, but it took the americans 3 fucking weeks to find that out. Meanwhile, they were tortured, raped, humiliated and beaten every day and they got food once every 2 days. They were not the only ones being tormented (heck, the soldiers are said to have used exactly the same methods as fucking SADDAM HUSSEIN --> liberation and freedom my ass) as the building was filled with tortured prisoners. (a hotel if I recall well) The professor went after his students and got captured by the USA army too although he was released after being tied up for 4 hours (fuck, an innocent civillian just asking about 2 of his students? That gives me 60 year old déjà-vu's) seeing the commander didn't have the time by then.

I said I get a smile on my face every time I heard of US-casualties in Iraq, but by now, that's turned into a big grin and me shouting "YEAH BABY!"

it seems to be the same case as it was in Europe around 60 years ago...

kis123

05-12-2004, 04:02 PM

Originally posted by Sadistictickler

I said I get a smile on my face every time I heard of US-casualties in Iraq, but by now, that's turned into a big grin and me shouting "YEAH BABY!"

it seems to be the same case as it was in Europe around 60 years ago...

I can understand your frustration of how the US is handling things. I agree with you wholehartedly about the way Iraqis are being treated. But I don't understand this comment at all. Please elaborate how you can justify this statement with a straight face. I disagree with the violence on both sides. These people had families, loved ones. They were human beings and I'm not happy any of them, Iraqi, American, or any other nationality had to die.

red indian

05-12-2004, 08:12 PM

........"It looks like some of our men have been at it too now. In my opinion, torture is the single most vile act a human can commit. It is absolutely disgusting how a human being can inflict such harm on a completely defensless man/woman.".....I believe these are your words are they not? and you give your location as " sunny England".....how on earth could I have made such a school boy error? .......I dont know why I bother sometimes.

Do I get a "Duke of Edinburgh award" for stating the bleeding obvious?

Cosmo_ac

05-13-2004, 11:07 AM

i found this article, and i thought some might find it interesting. It makes a lot of good points.

Appalling, shocking, repulsive are some of the words used to describe the pictures taken by U.S. soldiers torturing Iraqis. With a flick of a camera's shutter CBS's Sixty Minutes II had captured the essence of one of this war's dirty little secrets. The report jerked the world's collective conscience to attention and focused on the appalling behavior of U.S. troops in Iraq as the photos of the torture taking place at Abu Ghraib prison aired freely around the globe, except in two countries. In Iraq the U.S. controlled media banned the airing of the photos and in the U.S. the distribution was severely limited.

Repercussions followed immediately as the Bush administration desperately tried to contain the damage. On the first day after the airing of the photos Bush feigned a personal disgust of the torture during a White House press briefing. A general, a sergeant and some privates were dismissed and face possible charges. The administration blamed the incident on a few rogues who lacked proper training and claimed it was an isolated incident. The Pentagon appointed the general who was in charge of Camp X-ray to take over managing of the prison in Iraq. Later in the week Bush was forced to apologize. Everyday brought new revelations. By the end of the week the dust still had not settled as Seymour Hersh revealed the existence of a hitherto secret army report by Army Major General Antonio Taguba. The report is criminally damaging to this administration. Bush claims he has not seen the report and blamed Secretary of Defense Rumsfeld for failing to show him the report.

While the shutter captured the gruesome horror in graphic detail, it missed capturing the full scope of the incident, as did CBS. This was not an isolated incident. It was not the result of a few rogues. Rather this incident was the result of careful long-term planning. In fact Bush and every other high official of this administration approved of the torture and we have their own words on that. The full scope leads down a dark trail, involving CIA mind control programs, child abuse/pedophile control rings, Nazi scientists and the vital recognition of the Bush family's willfuland voluntary association for more than 80 years with Nazi elements.

Within days of 9/11 members of the Bush administration including Bush proposed the use of torture. They claimed because 9/11 was an act of terrorism the Geneva Convention did not apply because terrorist suspects were not prisoners of war instead in an unprecedented form of Texas style verbal gerrymandering suspects were to be classified as enemy combatants. Even in the shocked post 9/11 environment this raised a few eyebrows among the liberals and those that value our constitutional rights. In fact they even went further in supporting the assassinations of suspects that could not be captured

This is the real story behind the torture reports the media has left out. For those that still fail to remember how this administration approved torture I suggest a trip to the local library and reading the immediate post 9/11newspapers. You will find that all the top officials Bush, Cheney, Rice, Ashcroft, Rumsfeld, Powell and others approved the use of torture on terrorist suspects.

This incident was by no means an isolated. A quick Google search of the web will reveal reports of torture and mistreatment of prisoners as early as January 2002. In a February 2002 article appearing in the Guardian, Wayne Madsen a former U.S. navy intelligence officer told the Guardian the US was using two methods of torture. The first he referred to as "lite" torture or psychological torture. (Note this is the torture method linked to mind control and child abuse and will appear in an article of a later date.) The second method is "full-blown" torture.

*Posters edit* This is just an example of senate Secretly Approved methods of "Lite" torture. These meatheds were used in the Cuba prison and many more. These include, Sleep deprivation, Prolonged exposer to bright lights, Being kept in complete darkness for Prolonged periods, sensory deprivation, prolonged exposer to loud music, being placed in stressful possitiones (ie, put in places one can not sit, stand properly, or must contort there bodies in unpleasent and sometimes painful positions) for prolonged periods, hooding and stripping of inmates. There are also accounts from guards of male inmates being made to go to the washroom or shower in front of female guards to humiliate them. It is believed that these tactics were used as a bases for the techniques used in Abu Ghraib prison, but to a much more extreme method and under untrained personal on the phsycological and physical effects this can have on a prisoner, which can be severe. *posters Edit finished*

In this second method the turns the prisoners over to a third country that has no limits on torture for interrogation. The interrogation proceeds oftentimes with an American overseeing the torture. Some prisoners have been summarily executed after the interrogation. The procedure of turning the prisoner over to a third country for interrogation is known as 'rendition.'

On March 11, 2002 the Washington Post published an article entitled "US Behind Secret Transfer of Terror Suspects." The article quoted an U.S. diplomat saying, "After September 11, these sorts of movements have been occurring all the time. It allows us to get information from terrorists in a way we can’t do on US soil." The article reports that "Since Sept. 11, the US government has secretly transported dozens of people suspected of links to terrorists to countries other than the United States, bypassing extradition procedures and legal formalities, according to Western diplomats and intelligence sources." The article continues "The suspects have been taken to countries, including Egypt and Jordan, whose intelligence services have close ties to the CIA and where they can be subjected to interrogation tactics—including torture and threats to families—that are illegal in the United States, the sources said. In some cases, US intelligence agents remain closely involved in the interrogation, the sources said."

Moreover, this is exactly the procedure US Immigration officials used in deporting Maher Arar, a Canadian citizen to Jordan and then on to Syria. The hapless Canadian was waiting for a connecting flight to Canada after returning from Switzerland when immigration officials seized him. He reported being beaten in Jordan and then taken to Syria where he endured ten months of torture.

The unconstitutional Patriotic Act made it possible for immigration authorities to d