Six U.S. troops charged with Iraq torture

[seemslikeadream]

Baghdad, , Apr. 29 (UPI) -- Six U.S. soldiers in Iraq are facing court martial for abusing and torturing Iraqi prisoners at a prison near Baghdad, CBS reports.

The network said it had obtained dozens of photographs taken by soldiers of other soldiers inflicting pain or humiliation on the Iraqis at the Abu Ghraib prison, which was known as a torture chamber under former Iraqi leader Saddam Hussein.

In some of the photos, the male prisoners are positioned to simulate sex with each other. And in most of the pictures, the U.S. soldiers are laughing, posing, pointing, or giving the camera a thumbs-up.

Last month, the U.S. Army announced 17 soldiers in Iraq, including a brigadier general, had been removed from duty after charges of mistreating Iraqi prisoners, and said it had launched an investigation.

more
http://washingtontimes.com/upi-breaking/20040429-101232-6958r.htm

[NMDemDist2]

1. ok I repeat "we are 'better' than Saddam ??how?? exactly?" n/t

[KansDem]

2. "We" are better because...

Umm...

Well,...

Because "we" are...

Uh...

I mean...

...because...

You know...

It's because...

Mmmmm...

Let me get back to you on this...ok?

[NMDemDist2]

3. ROFL, my point egggsactly n/t

[saigon68]

65. Who the Fuck are these people Anyway?

The Press is asleep on this. If they were Scott Peterson's Dog's groomers they would be on Fox and Freinds

Just what the hell is going on here?

[AP]

5. You don't need Hussein as a point of reference to understand why

those pictures are bad.

However, it's important to have a sense of proportionality and perspective.

Sadaam wouldn't have taken the time to take pictures of prisoners before executing them.

And whether Sadaam executed people or not doesn't give America the right to invade and humiliate.

[TahitiNut]

9. OK, let's be "proportional".

When a regime is wary and cautious enough to make sure that records and photographs don't exist, it seems to me they're marginally more aware of their own corruption than a regime like the Nazis where abudnant records, movies and photographs were taken and catalogued.

What's particularly worth paying attention to is the fact that these POW abuses were photographed. That, in itself, is incontrovertible proof that the 'culture' with which their atrocious behavior occurred is itself obscenely corrupt ... up to and including the civilian 'leadership' (i.e. the Busholini regime).

In an authoritarian culture like the military (or Germany between 1930 and 1945), the rot at the bottom merely portrays the corruption at the top. That's how authoritarianism works.

These people KNEW their behavior was at least marginally consistent with the mores, attitudes, and orientations of their 'culture'!

[AP]

14. I agree with that.

I don't doubt that the soldiers in the pictures will probably go through a moment of thinking, WTF -- this was a mood that was encouraged by their superiors whether or not the acts themselves and the photos were explicitly prohibited.

[TahitiNut]

23. Those 'superiors' most probably encouraged this behavior ...

... while carefully maintaining "plausible deniability" ... (like corrupt and malicious autocrats do).

I have no doubt whatsoever that the 800th MP Brigade can be characterized as corrupt from the top down ... and, as demonstrated by these photographs, was continuously and deliberately desensitized to human rights, morality, and any concept of human dignity. This behavior, and the photographing of this behavior (for some as-yet-undefined 'audience'), aptly portrays what can (and does) happen in a military organization, especially when 'led' by "professional" sycophants and not generously salted with conscripts who'd be willing if not eager to blow the whistle.

While such atrocities cannot be totally eliminated, they're far less common when the military is heavily leavened with draftees. This is what happens with a "professional military" ... which are common in military dictatorships. In totalitarian regimes, care is taken to maintain "pure" (i.e. "professional") units wherein such behavior (unhindered by conscience or morality) can be deployed at the whim of the Fuhrer or Reichsmarshalls.

[PaDUer]

53. Just think how they're going to be

IF they come home..they've taught them to "do the job". They'll never be the same again.

[AP]

56. I think it's the other way around. I think they probably learned to treat

people like that within the framework of peculiar American institutions, like fraternities and sororities, and are exporting a brand of racism and ridicule and nastiness abroad that we already have plenty of here.

I mean, like, I think I've already seen this reality show on Fox.

[ithacan]

62. absolutely: this is a reflection on US society, and

on what it's become under the brutish guidance of the right wing extremists of the Republican Party.

I remember when this kind of thing was reported from Bosnia, and people were appalled at how awful those Bosnian Serb soldiers were.

Well, here are your own US soldiers doing the same kind of thing, where is the outrage?

I'd guess that among right wingers there is none, and that they are asking why the soldiers didn't go further in their tortures...

[Abbalon]

39. Here here nt

[uncertainty1999]

69. 'we are better' because we've destroyed Saddam's torture chambers ...

... and replaced them with US military prisons

....and replaced them with corporate activities that are lining our 401Ks

No, this is not a very inspiring list, I'm afraid.

[Just Me]

4. These people are war criminals, period.

They should be charged, tried and convicted of war crimes,...just like the Nazis.

[AP]

6. Again, proportionality.

Humiliating people is very wrong and should be punished. But what Nazis did is much worse.

You're going easy on Nazi's by equating this with what they did.

[Eleutherias]

7. One thing forgotten

one thing you forget by equating us with Saddam. under Saddam you'd not have heard of this, nor would the soldiers have been punished. a huge difference between us and them actually....

[Jacobin]

10. Then how did you know what Saddam did, if we would never

have heard about it. Huh?

[AP]

11. I'm not sure I was "equating" this with Hussein.

However, it's important to note that Hussein actually did publicize his brutality. It was meant as a lesson to people thinking about challenging him.

In fact, remember when he had that purge -- he named names at the assembly, people stood up, grown men were in tears, the men who were named were never seen again. That was all on TV.

[daleo]

13. You forgot the other right wing apologist talking points

- only a few bad apples.
- nobody was killed.
- Iraqis actually enjoy this sort of thing.

But you managed to get in "Saddam was worse" and "our media let us know" in only a couple of lines, which is pretty good.

[AP]

18. I didn't say 'Saddam was worse.' I said it's a different kind of bad.

I'm saying now that it's a kind of bad that is potentially worse than Saddam's bad. But it's still a different kind of bad.

I'm also saying that saying these photo reveal a bad of the same quality that is worse than the kind of bad Saddam was is just going to detract from a very good argument about why these pictures are bad.

See below. Saying that these soldiers are worse than Nazis reveals a profound misunderstanding of what Nazis were all about.

[Just Me]

21. ???? I must have missed the "worse than Nazis" post.

I must say that those photos did immediately bring to my mind images from "Schindler's List". The utter dehumanizing that took place before the gas chambers.

[saigon68]

67. ABSOLUTELY CORRECT

They didn't have Black Unifrms like the Nazis

[daleo]

44. Actually, I was talking to the 2 poster guy

I didn't mean to accuse you of using RW talking points. I probably should have went easier on him too, but the photos do tend to produce an emotional reaction.

[Eleutherias]

40. assume I'm rightwing just b/c I dont have the same view?

yes, and you forgot the leftwing nutless points of "war never solved anything" with the rightwing solution list of nazism, communism, italian facism, islamic expansion into eastern europe 17th cent, russian imperialism 18th cent, spanish imperialism 16th cent, angevin english imperialism 15th cent, islamic expansion into asia, and now it solved Saddam Hussein it seems.
im not trying to bring up cliches, so don't respond with cliches unless that's all you've got. Merely stating at least we heard about our failures, instead of repressing them. Bremer doesn't have a torture palace set up over there.

[DrWeird]

43. It's not because you don't have the same view.

It's because you're an apologist for war crimes.

[seemslikeadream]

46. Bush's Terrorist: John Negroponte Sent to Iraq

Please read this. It is all part of the plan.

Bush's Terrorist: John Negroponte Sent to Iraq


Iraqi ambassador pick grilled on hand-over




By Steven Weisman
The New York Times

WASHINGTON -- President Bush's nominee for ambassador to Iraq on Tuesday defended the limits that would be placed on Iraqi self-rule, particularly those on control over security forces, asserting that after June 30 Iraqis will have "a lot more sovereignty than they have right now."
Facing skeptical questions about the new constraints emerging in the long-planned transfer of power before the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, the nominee, John Negroponte, said he saw his major challenge as trying to avert conflicts if the new Iraqi government objected to U.S. military actions. "These are the kinds of questions that I think our diplomacy is going to have to deal with," said Negroponte, who is now ambassador to the United Nations.
The toughest questions came from Democrats, but all the senators said they would support Negroponte's confirmation, which the committee could approve on Thursday. Senate aides said Negroponte could be confirmed by the full Senate as early as next week.
Negroponte said that any decisions on whether to attack rebel strongholds, as the United States is threatening now in Fallujah and Najaf, would require "great political sensitivity" even though American s will nominally be in charge of such decisions.

http://www.sltrib.com/2004/Apr/04282004/nation_w/161439.asp





Bush's Terrorist: John Negroponte Sent to Iraq


Dems Ignore Negroponte's Death Squad Past, Look to Confirm Iraq Appointmen


As Negroponte, responded to Hagel, he was interrupted by an activist, Andres Conteris of Non-violence International.

Andres Conteris, is program director for Latin America and the Caribbean for the human rights group Non-violence International. He disrupted yesterday's Senate Foreign Relations Committee hearing on John Negroponte's appointment as US ambassador to Iraq.

As ambassador to Honduras, Negroponte played a key role in coordinating US covert aid to the Contra death squads in Nicaragua and shoring up a CIA-backed death squad in Honduras. During his term as ambassador there, diplomats alleged that the embassy's annual human rights reports made Honduras sound more like Norway than Argentina. In a 1995 series, the Baltimore Sun detailed the activities of a secret CIA-trained Honduran army unit, Battalion 3-16, that used "shock and suffocation devices in interrogations. Prisoners often were kept naked and, when no longer useful, killed and buried in unmarked graves." In 1994, Honduras's National Commission for the Protection of Human Rights reported that it was officially admitted that 179 civilians were still missing.

A former official who served under Negroponte says he was ordered to remove all mention of torture and executions from the draft of his 1982 report on the human rights situation in Honduras. During Negroponte's tenure, US military aid to Honduras skyrocketed from $3.9 million to over $77 million. Much of this went to ensure the Honduran army's loyalty in the battle against popular movements throughout Central America.

http://www.pacifica.org/programs/dn/040428.html

Bush's Terrorist: John Negroponte Sent to Iraq




Negroponte's "embassy" in Baghdad will, according to press reports, constitute the largest US "embassy staff" in the world with some 3000 employees, including up to 1,000 Americans.


Yet according to a four-part series in the Baltimore Sun in 1995, in 1982 alone the Honduran press ran 318 stories of murders and kidnappings by the Honduran military.

Opponents of Negroponte are demanding that all Senators read the full report before voting on his nomination.http://www.globalresearch.ca/articles/ROF111A.html
In a cruel irony, the Bush administration has appointed a bona fide "terrorist" to wage its "war on terrorism" in Iraq.


It should come as no surprise that "on the day he was appointed to Iraq, Honduras decided to bring its troops in Iraq home." (Financial Times, April 21, 2004)

http://www.conspiracyplanet.com/channel.cfm?channelid=2&contentid=1189



Face-off: Bush's Foreign Policy Warriors


On August 27, 1997, CIA Inspector General Frederick P. Hitz released a 211-page classified report entitled "Selected Issues Relating to CIA Activities in Honduras in the 1980's." This report was partly declassified on Oct. 22, 1998, in response to demands by the Honduran human rights ombudsman. Opponents of Negroponte are demanding that all Senators read the full report before voting on his nomination.

Reich, unlike Negroponte, is primarily a lobbyist and anti-Castro activist rather than a diplomat. He is director of the Washington-based Center for a Free Cuba and works for some of America's favorite industries: liquor (Bacardi), tobacco (British-American Tobacco), and weapons (Lockheed Martin). He also serves as vice-chairman of the Worldwide Responsible Apparel Program, or WRAP, an apparel industry-backed group characterized by union activists as an artifice for clothing importers to avoid serious scrutiny of their factories in developing countries.

In the 1980s, he headed a propaganda department in the State Department called the Office of Public Diplomacy. This unit, staffed with CIA and Pentagon psychological warfare specialists, reported to Oliver North. The function of the operation was to win support for administration policy in Central America. They wrote op-eds under the name of Nicaraguan rebel leaders and attacked those who differed with Reagan's policies. The Congressional investigation of the Iran-contra scandal identified numerous illegalities which led to the closure of the Office of Public Diplomacy.

Reich followed up these activities by serving as ambassador to Venezuela from 1986-89, at the height of the Iran-contra scandal. The Venezuelan government tried unsuccessfully to block his nomination.

While working for Bacardi, he successfully lobbied to slip Section 211 into the 1998 Omnibus Appropriations Bill, thus stripping Cuba of trademark protection. Ironically, he will be overseeing the Helms-Burton Act, which he helped to draft, which the administration has just decided not to carry into effect.

http://www.globalresearch.ca/articles/ROF111A.html


NEGROPONTE - Sleeping Ambassador or Death Squad Diplomat?

The widespread use of American aerial surveillance to direct the Contra murderers to villages where only women and children were present to be killed, the routine use of torture, the encouragement of drug-smuggling into the U.S. to provide funding for the U.S.-backed forces all were revealed only after Negroponte had left his post as U.S. Ambassador to the Honduras. And who could forget the Honduran Anti-communist Liberation Army's ever popular practice of dropping victims from helicopters while they were in flight?

Make no mistake about it -- both Iraqi rebels and Al Qaeda terrorists see Negroponte's appointment as the first stage in implementing a policy of covert violence against their right to sovereignty and will effectively use it to recruit and incite radicals to commit more acts of violence against us. It's no coincidence that our Office of Homeland Security issued a heightened security alert just as Bush announced his plans for Negroponte.

http://www.buzzflash.com/contributors/04/04/con04178.html

US Martyrs Pose Questions for Negroponte
October 28, 2003
By TONI SOLO

US nuns murdered in El Salvador 4

In 1981, a couple of decades before Rachel Corrie was murdered, the bodies of four women were found in a shallow grave in a rural district not far from San Salvador, El Salvador's capital. They had been raped and shot dead by members of the Salvadoran army on the orders of senior officers. In the context of the time, the atrocity would hardly have merited reporting. But the women were United States citizens. Two were religious sisters of the New York based Maryknoll order, Ita Ford and Maureen Clarke. One was an Ursuline Sister, Dorothy Kazel, the fourth a lay missioner, Jean Donovan. By virtue of their nationality, the story did make the news, just--the back page of the New York Times, to that paper's eternal shame.

Those four women had helped defend Salvadorans from the terror unleashed against their own people by the Salvadoran government with support from the United States administrations of Jimmy Carter and Ronald Reagan. They gave their lives working alongside vulnerable people and communities in El Salvador. The murders followed the assassination in 1980 of Salvadoran Archbishop Oscar Romero. The women's deaths were manipulated by the US government and its ever-pliant news media. The full facts took years to emerge. US ambassador to the UN, Jean Kirkpatrick, falsely accused the women of having supported the Salvadoran armed opposition, the FMLN. In fact, the four women were passionate advocates of non-violence, accompanying the rural villagers they served while caught up in a violent civil war.

Ambassador Kirkpatrick's statements on the case of the four women were to be expected from an unrepentant supporter of the bloodthirsty Argentinian military dictatorship. Her successor at the UN was Vernon Walters, former deputy director of the CIA, co-organiser of the continent wide terrorist blueprint Plan Condor and promoter of Ronald Reagan's terrorist war against Nicaragua. In 1986 Vernon Walters threw in the face of the UN his government's rejection of the International Court of Justice verdict convicting the US of terrorism against Nicaragua.

Kirkpatrick's and Walters' apologetics for mass murder helped John Negroponte, then US ambassador to Honduras, cover up his support for the systematic forced disappearances used to destroy Honduran civilian opposition to the presence of Contra bases in their country. Thomas Pickering, US ambassador to El Salvador at the time, also gave misleading information on local army and paramilitary murders, probably an essential qualification for his subsequent posting in 1989 as US ambassador to the UN, taking over from Vernon Walters.

Jean Kirkpatrick, Vernon Walters, Thomas Pickering, John Negroponte and other US government representatives sent clear signals that the local military in El Salvador, Honduras and Guatemala were to be allowed a free hand by the United States government to murder tens of thousands of civilians and anyone who spoke out against the slaughter. Perhaps the defining climax to the sickening murder campaign came in 1989 when the Salvadoran army killed six Jesuit academics and two of their domestic staff at the University of Central America in San Salvador. These crimes were made possible because the United States government consistently tried to conceal its institutional role in funding, training and supporting the military and paramilitary perpetrators. The Iran-Contra scandal was the culmination of that sustained program of regional deceit.


http://www.counterpunch.org/solo10282003.html

[Throckmorton]

64. No, we are much worse than Saddam

We know better. He, after all, was just a misunderstood political leader.

[DrWeird]

42. Who do you think trained Saddam?

The United States.

And I'm sure these photos wouldn't have gotten out if somebody hadn't sneaked it out.

[Tuttle]

61. ???

You said:
"one thing you forget by equating us with Saddam. under Saddam you'd not have heard of this, nor would the soldiers have been punished. a huge difference between us and them actually...."

I say - our pretzeldent has reminded of this, endlessly and used this as a reason for invading Iraq: so now we have his 'just cause' to invade ourselves.

Tut-tut

[Fleshdancer]

8. I just hope these photos show the worst of what happened....

although I wouldn't be too suprised if there was more than humiliation involved. The photo with the wires is psychological torture. Do we know for sure electroshock wasn't administered? I have no idea.

I agree that the photos don't compare with the Nazis, I just hope that it didn't go beyond what the photos depicted.

[seemslikeadream]

22. It's not the worse from what I've read

Her mother will so proud. I wonder if they'll put that photo of her on the front page of the local paper

[TahitiNut]

24. SHE is no more or less at fault than her male comrades.

Let's not perpetuate the myth of some higher standard or expectation based on gender. There's absolutely nothing to indicate that her behavior is any more reprehensible or less expected due to her gender. The totally specious notion that there's some sort of gender-based moral superiority in the military or a war zone has no valid basis whatsoever.

That the atrocity itself is exacerbated by subjecting people whose cultural norms and mores increase their humiliation when it comes from a female is undeniable, but that doesn't make her own culpability any more or less than that of her male collaborators.

[seemslikeadream]

32. I'm sorry that was not my intention

His mother may be troubled also.

[seemslikeadream]

38. Iraq: US general faces cruelty charges

Among the more disturbing pictures were prisoners with wires attached to their genitals and others being attacked by a dog.

The military police officers have been charged by the US Army with crimes ranging from assault and maltreatment to indecent acts against prisoners.

Other charges include conspiracy, dereliction of duty, cruelty, maltreatment, assault and indecent acts with another.


http://english.aljazeera.net/NR/exeres/966AE903-390F-4B56-B786-CCED9BFD22BB.htm

[SOS]

57. It is much worse than these photos

From the 60 Minutes transcript:

"Part of the Army's own investigation is a statement from an Iraqi detainee who charges a translator - hired to work at the prison - with raping a male juvenile prisoner: "They covered all the doors with sheets. I heard the screaming. ...and the female soldier was taking pictures."

These pictures are in the hands of the military.
60 Minutes would not have relied on the word of an "Iraqi detainee" without corroboration. It was just too sickening to broadcast. I

[saigon68]

66. Here you go GloriaSmith

The prisoner on the photo has electric wires attached to his genitals - he was probably tortured with electric power. On another photo a dog is attacking a prisoner. A dead body of a fiercely beaten Iraqi is on the next photo. However, the most shocking images will remain unknown to public: a prisoner testifies that the male soldier working as a translator, raped the Iraqi while his female fellow-soldier was watching the scene and making pictures - there are no these photos in CBS "collection".

Americans follow Saddam"s traditions of torturing prisoners


http://english.pravda.ru/accidents/21/93/375/12666_UStroops.html

[Just Me]

17. They are still war criminals.

Have they gone as far as did the Nazis?

:shrug:

What few pictures have been published demonstrate war crimes.

They should be tried for those crimes.

[leftchick]

27. Did you miss the dead prisoner photo?

One of the photos showed a prisoner apparently beaten to death. His face was unrecognizable. :grr:

[gate of the sun]

36. I wonder what happens

when people do these things and are not caught and then come back to society?

[Mayberry Machiavelli]

48. "Night Stalker" Richard Ramirez helped get his start from

a family friend who was an Green Beret from Vietnam who had photos of atrocities he had committed "incountry". This guy wound up killing his own wife in front of the future serial killer. His companionship with this guy and his stories and photos helped fuel his depraved fantasy life and get his "career" going. Decent narrative about this here:


http://crimelibrary.com/serial_killers/notorious/ramirez/satan_2.html?sect=1

[AP]

41. Did you miss where I said...

...this is bad?

I'm just a little confused by posts that say this makes us worse that Saddam, so why'd we get rid of Saddam.

We're talking about completely different issues.

If we treated the Iraqis well, and with dignity, and followed the Geneva Convention to the letter, there'd still be problems with the fact we invaded Iraq on flimsy pretext.

And if the way you treat political prisoners is a measure of legitimacy, then the US would probably be a more legitimate government for Iraq than the dictatorship which preceeded it, and it isn't.

[funkybutt]

12. Notice the excuse?

"The Army investigation confirmed soldiers at Abu Ghraib had not been trained in Geneva Convention rules. And most were reservists, part-time soldiers who didn't get the kind of specialized prisoner of war training given to regular Army."

WTF aren't they given that kind of training? It appears to me that they don't seem to think that they believe themselves to be committing any crime (having documented it so well with photographs)

[daleo]

15. One was even a prison guard in civilian life

Which makes you wonder.

Looking at the pictures, does anyone really think that you need to be grounded in the Geneva Convention documents to know that this is wrong, and illegal?

[Just Me]

19. Does anyone require training before recognizing these crimes?

Common human decency and dignity dictates these actions are criminal. Familiarity with Geneva Convention rules are not required knowledge for any human being to recognize this behavior as atrocious.

[Lugnut]

31. My sentiments exactly. n/t

n/t

[TahitiNut]

52. It really takes some appreciation and understanding ...

... of how incredibly compliant and conformist human beings (all of us) are, especially in authoritarian (sub)cultures.

If there's one theme I harp upon at DU it is that we're all human beings and are subject to the same failings. Not a one of us are immune from that which leads to the behavior we see in this POW prison: authoritarianism and conformity.

When you take young, relatively inexperienced people and subject them to the intensely authoritarian military culture, you will observe all manner of atrocious behavior, when such behavior and the motivation underlying that behavior is rewarded and encouraged by the 'command structure.' That's what authoritarianism is all about. The next time you look around for a 'leader,' try thinking about that.

There are three psychological experiments, conducted over a far shorter time than any military training period, that clearly indicate our human propensity to leave our 'absolute' ethics behind and adopt an ethic that conforms to our current condition:

The Asch Experiment - Conformity to Perceptions
The Milgram Experiment - Conformity to Directions
The Stanford Prison Experiment - Conformity to Roles

See http://www.irregulartimes.com/conformity.html

Once indoctrinated within an authoritarian culture like the military, a human being has 'conformity' drives that're amplified - intentionally! This is what allows the military to function in the first place.


Based upon my own experience in the military, I have steadfastly encouraged others to recognize that people in military service should be honored, not for their behavior, but for their surrender - their surrender of their very souls and self-determination to the will of their greater community: us. We The People have an inescapable responsibility for the behavior of our own military. This is much of why I call for a Universal National Service obligation. This is much of why I emphasize the evil of a "professional military." The current administration is far more free to commit its global atrocities because so few families (especially the wealthier ones) have had a son or daughter surrender to the "will of the people" as implemented through our government. That must end.

[lumpy]

26. The military must

handpick sadists for prison guard duty. Waiting for the torture pictures from Gitmo. It is difficult to 'support the troops' when this sort of thing goes on. This is just one isolated instance of vicious mistreatment. Over all, the treatment of Iraqis by the military is abysimal. Thousands of Iraqis killed, mutilated, prisoners treated worse than animals. US military record is no better than Saddam's record. If I had any child of mine in Iraq I would advise that child to lay down the arms, sit in the sand and refuse to move. I would rather that child sacrifice his life before being a part of this atrocity.

[TahitiNut]

30. They self-select.

There's far, far less psychological screening for MP's than there is on your local Police Department. Sadists with uniform fetishes are attracted to MP duty or prison guard vocations. They're usually weeded out of police departments.

[gate of the sun]

37. I am ashamed and

disgusted and outraged!

[birdbrain]

54. Reservists go to the same boot camp as regulars.

Code of Conduct in war is part of the training regimen. And as previously noted, how much training do you really need to know whether torture is right or wrong?

[MaineDem]

16. As I asked on the thread that was locked...

Is this the same prison that was mortar-attacked a week or so ago?

If so, and we know many prisoners died, that makes this all very suspicious. Why did only prisoners die and no guards?

Hmmmmmmmm

[Mayberry Machiavelli]

45. I've seen no news yet on this. If you find out anything,

please post a separate thread. I assume you are asking did the victims of these war crimes get fortuitously blown up in a "mortar attack" to help whitewash the courtmartial and publicity in advance? Pretty difficult to any info coming out of official channels these days, eh?

[MaineDem]

59. It sure looks like it's the same

From the Washington Post:
A mortar attack on a prison near Baghdad today killed 22 Iraqi detainee and injured more than 90, the U.S. military said.

Military spokesmen said everyone killed at the Abu Ghraib prison, about 10 miles west of the capital, was classified as security detainees, meaning they were either former members of Saddam Hussein's Baathist government or people involved in attacks on U.S. forces.


Ouch...did we "disappear" some witnesses???

[berry]

47. Also, is this the same prison where the Palestinian photographer

Also, is this the same prison where the Palestinian photographer was killed by a soldier on a US tank last year? I think it was after the press was allowed to see the prison for the first time.

For whatever reason (security is probably cited), all the prisons and detention centers have been off-limits to the press.

Not that any amount of officially sanctioned access would have revealed this, I suppose.

But maybe I shouldn't be so shocked--even these horrendous photos don't go that far beyond what should have been imagined from seeing all the photos of "bagged" prisoners, and videos of soldiers breaking into homes.... The goal was clearly to humiliate and terrify prisoners. From brutalizing to torture was probably a small step.

I'm feeling sick-angry-appalled. And daunted to think of what must be done to turn this country around. I want to hope it's possible...

[funkybutt]

20. electrical torture?

is that what's going on in that last pic?

[Stuckinthebush]

33. I think it is simulation torture

They wanted the guy to think that he might be electrocuted.

Still very wrong - mental torture.

[Mayberry Machiavelli]

25. Didn't see the show. But what is the bushco spin on these prisoners?

Do they claim that they are not "prisoners of war" since it's, er, not a war or something, just a tank/machinegun/occupation/thingy? And therefore Geneva convention does not apply? Bushco has poohpooed Geneva convention etc. with respect to Guantanamo. What say they with respect to these "detainees"? Do US soldiers captured by Iraqis = "hostages" or POWs and need to be treated by Geneva convention?

[enki23]

28. oh the cognitive dissonance

heroes/sex abusers... heroes/torturers...

many will respond by inflating the "hero" side of the equation, until the implications of these pictures are overwhelmed. it'll take a lot of mental work, but they'll do it.

[Lugnut]

29. Good.

Based on the pics that have been shown, they should be. It makes me wonder how pervasive this behavior is and has been for the past year.

[Mayberry Machiavelli]

34. US TV consumer sees Pat Tillman, American Hero. Arab Al-J watcher

sees LCPL Boudreau knocked up my sister pic, electric wire man, and human pyramid. And what must they think of our culture and society to see even the gleeful smiles on WOMEN perpetrating this! Reminds me of those old lynching photos with the smiling crowds, grinning and pointing at the "strange fruit", kids eating their ice cream cones and lollipops. Good wholesome fun for the whole family...

[Mayberry Machiavelli]

35. I wonder, when these bozos are rotting away in Leavenworth, 10 yrs from

now, what they will think of their beloved commander who brought them to this place. Dont' get me wrong, they are without a doubt war criminals. But they will also be scapegoats for the whole war and for bushco, who will of course shed no tear for them.

"Well, Peter... this is what comes of 'empire building.' "

[RebelOne]

58. Hell, they will never see Leavenworth.

All they will get is a slap on the wrist and told never to do it again.

[daleo]

49. My local paper didn't even mention this story today

A Canwest paper, a Canadian chain. The Globe and Mail ("Canada's National Paper") had some of it on the front page, but avoided all references to the sexual humiliation and assault details. I saw nothing this morning on CNN or MSNBC (although I only caught a half hour or so, you would think this would have led the 8:00 a.m. news).

Imagine how this would be played up if American captives were being treated this way.

[ConcernedCanuk]

50. Sorry, but I see no large discrepancy between Bush and Hitler

.
.
.

The methods are different, the results the same.

Junior's Daddy started the genocide with DU munitions back in the first Gulf War.

And his grandfather?

Read on



“Bush - Nazi Dealings Continued Until 1951” - Federal Documents

By John Buchanan and Stacey Michael

from The New Hampshire Gazette Vol. 248, No. 3,
November 7, 2003

After the seizures in late 1942 of five U.S. enterprises he managed on behalf of Nazi industrialist Fritz Thyssen, Prescott Bush, the grandfather of President George W. Bush, failed to divest himself of more than a dozen "enemy national" relationships that continued until as late as 1951, newly-discovered U.S. government documents reveal.

Furthermore, the records show that Bush and his colleagues routinely attempted to conceal their activities from government investigators.

MORE

And almost half the USA wants to RE-ELECT Bush?

We are in trouble indeed.
Be afraid.

Be VERY afraid.

[seemslikeadream]

51. We are in trouble indeed

Are we going to be forced to walk by the 'camps'

[saigon68]

68. Some may

[ihaveaquestion]

55. Iraq: US general faces cruelty charges - Al Jazeera

Article on Al Jazeera - only one picture, but doesn't look like the ones from CBS.

-snip-

A US general responsible for four jails in Iraq has been suspended pending an investigation into alleged abuse of her prisoners.


Brigadier General Janis Karpinski is among seven officers facing charges that soldiers under their command mistreated detainees.

The suspension follows shocking US television images of US soldiers stacking prisoners on top of each other and even applying electrodes to one at Abu Ghuraib prison near Baghdad.

-snip-

http://english.aljazeera.net/NR/exeres/966AE903-390F-4B56-B786-CCED9BF...


From this thread - http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_topic&forum=102&topic_id=518979

[0007]

60. I don't trust the Washington Times

I have to hear this from a legitimate source.

Isn't Abu Ghraib prison the place where Maria33's son is doing duty?

[daleo]

63. Yes, I believe so

This all must be triply tough on her and her family. I believe the photos were from late last year, which is before her son was assigned there, though.