Powell: Prisoner Abuse Scandal 'Could Get Worse'

[seemslikeadream]

Secretary of State Colin Powell gives a speech at the State Department, May 7, 2004.
Credit: State Department


May 11, 2004 -- With video footage and more photos expected to emerge of U.S. soldiers abusing Iraqi prisoners, public outcry over the mistreatment could soon intensify, Secretary of State Colin Powell says.

After being briefed with President Bush at the Pentagon about the abuses, Powell said: "It could get worse before it gets better. But it will get better. I just don't know what tomorrow will bring, but this is not over yet."

Powell tells NPR's Juan Williams that the photos released so far have given the United States "a black eye" and caused outrage in the Arab world.

"We have presented ourselves as a value-based country and we are," he says. "And so when they see this kind of activity taking place, it causes a tremendous response out in the region. I think Americans are as outraged by these pictures as our Arab friends."
http://www.npr.org/features/feature.php?wfId=1892012

[boobooday]

1. Our whole country has suffered the fate of Colin

Shamed and disgraced. Discredited and with a destroyed reputation.



http://www.wgoeshome.com

[wtmusic]

2. WHAT ARAB FRIENDS???? n/t

[seemslikeadream]

7. Adnan Khashoggi and Chalibi

n/t

[WannaJumpMyScooter]

16. Why , the house of Saud, of course

the only arabs * likes.

[theshadow]

21. Danny Thomas....

... oh wait, he's dead.

[seemslikeadream]

3. Rosco T. in GD says

Powell just blew the whistle on Shrubya as to when 'he knew'...


on Countdown... he said the Adminstration was fully informed by the Red Cross, in Jan..

[saigon68]

5. THE NEOCONS ARE WHIPPING UP THE GOMERS

With the Beheading stories. The right wing really now wants to kill all the Rag Heads <their words not mine>

[Skittles]

14. the want to kill the people we are there to liberate

nice

[seemslikeadream]

23. Waiting for 'Torture Fatigue'

Waiting for 'Torture Fatigue'

By Bill Berkowitz, AlterNet
May 11, 2004

Two weeks after photos depicting torture in Abu Ghraib prison became public, the right-wing media machine is telling America to get over it, already. According to the conservatives, the inhumane treatment of detainees is turning into a scandal because the liberal media is prolonging the attention, allowing lefty "Bush-haters" to politicize and capitalize on the affair. And all this hand-wringing will only hurt the troops in Iraq.


"We need to move on to something else ... get on with the war on terror," former Senator Bob Dole recently told MSNBC on May 11. Dole complained that recent polls were unfavorable to President Bush because he was being hammered in the media by all this prisoner abuse stuff. And that, claims Glenn Reynolds of the conservative web log

href="http://instapundit.com/">Instapundit, is the aim of the coverage: "If all this coverage is leaving you demoralized, and hopeless, and depressed, let me suggest that this isn't an accident – it's the goal."


Sen. James Inhofe (R-OK) led the rightwing counter-offensive on Wednesday at the Senate Armed Services Committee hearing:

"First of all, I regret I wasn't here on Friday. I was unable to be here. But maybe it's better that I wasn't because as I watch this outrage that everyone seems to have about the treatment of these prisoners I have to say and I'm probably not the only one up at this table that is more outraged by the outrage than we are by the treatment.


"The idea that these prisoners, they're not there for traffic violations. If they're in cell block 1A or 1B, these prisoners, they're murderers, they're terrorists, they're insurgents, and many of them probably have American blood probably on their hands and here we're so concerned about the treatment of those individuals."
http://www.alternet.org/story.html?StoryID=18676

Does this look familiar to you saigon68?

[nothingshocksmeanymore]

4. Tomorrow brought an American being beheaded by the "evildoers"

how totally fucking prophetic, COLIN

[librechik]

6. so, brother American, when are you going to turn State's evidence?

and stand up for America?

When are you going to cast those serpents out of the White House?

When are you going to do the right thing?

When are you going to help instead of cover up?

When are you going to do your duty?

What is it going to take, Colin?

[The_Casual_Observer]

8. He would rather die than to admit anything

Who would hire him after that?

[Malva Zebrina]

9. He ought to just shut up

the more I read about him and what he says, the more I think him repulsive. He is a disgrace as much as Bush is.

There is nothing he can say that, in my mind, will redeem him.


He supported the Bush lies to invade Iraq and did so willingly , sensationally and stupidly.

We saw that performance before the UN Security Council.

We saw that Picasso's Guernica was covered up so that he could go before the cameras and do his little act without people having to see that replica of the angst of a Picasso masterpiece that commemerated the evils of fascism.

He lied as much as Bush and is responsible for the murders of all those people. He cannot redeem himself as far as I am concerned. He is also a war criminal and now we are expected to redeem his former reputation as a man who is the stablilizing influence because he now, as has been his act, is attempting to change the image.

more lies.

[FlemingsGhost]

10. Read: "We're gonna keep using the soldiers to protect Bush."

That's a good soldier, Colin.

(edited for clarity)

[northofdenali]

11. This is what pisses me off:

"the photos released so far have given the United States "a black eye" and caused outrage in the Arab world."

Hey, ASSHOLES, IT ISN'T THE PICTURES. IT'S WHAT THE PICTURES PROVE!!!!!

[Generator]

12. Maybe Jesse Jackson could negotiate

a release of Colin from the clutches of the neocons. He's been so good in other regimes.

[hunter]

13. The way they parse their words...

It makes me think they are not in control of the releases. Rumsfeld, under oath, didn't sound like he had the pictures, only that he knew they were out there.

Powell's statements are the same.

[LittleApple81]

15. Beheaders = ALQAIDA not Iraqis!!!! - at least is what they said.

Somebody in another thread pointed out the beheaders said they were AlQaida (suppossedly Al-Zarqawi (sp) which is weird because if it were him why say it is him and not show his face?) not IRAQIS!!!! And Bush let Al-Zarqawi scape twice at the beginning.

[jdj]

20. and they were dissing Musharraf. al qaeda for sure.

Here they go again, playing on people's racism. Despite the fact that the Iraqis did surgery on Thomas Hammill, and treated Jessica Lynch and Shoshanna Johnson well.

But they know people are idiots, and think all arabs and persians are the same period, they're all al qaeda.

And Rush today was using that "outrage at the outrage" line. This is an RNC talking point for sure. They are now trying to say that if you are offended by this you don't support the troops. Some moron called in today and said that he was initially offended because he had been "sensitized by the liberals in this country" and but now he just didn't care about it and didn't understand why anyone else would. It's a shame these folks don't make Rush work any harder for his millions. They seem to be standing around like blank chalkboards going "tell me how to think, Master Rush".

[TacticalPeek]

19. Rumdum was indeed careful with his counters to Senator Dayton.

SEN. MARK DAYTON (D), MINNESOTA: Mr. Secretary were you aware, did you authorize General Myers to call CBS to suppress their news report?

RUMSFELD: I don't have any idea if he discussed it with me. I don't think he did.

DAYTON: Over the last two weeks, calling CBS to suppress the news report?

RUMSFELD: "Suppress" is not the right word at all.

DAYTON: I'm sorry, sir, but I...

RUMSFELD: It's an inaccurate word.

DAYTON: General Myers, did you discuss it with the secretary?

MYERS: This had been worked at lower levels with the secretary's staff and my staff for some time.

DAYTON: That you would call CBS to suppress their news report?

MYERS: I called CBS to ask them to delay the pictures showing on CBS's "60 Minutes" because I thought it would result in direct harm...

DAYTON: Mr. Secretary, is that standard procedure for the military command of this country to try to suppress a news report at the highest level?

MYERS: It didn't -- let me just -- Senator Dayton, this is a serious allegation...

DAYTON: Sure is.

MYERS: ... and it's absolutely -- the context of your question, I believe, is wrong.

DAYTON: I understand the context, General, you...


-----------


Rescued by Myers playing decoy.

Note no clear answer, no date, etc.

[Dirk39]

17. Colin Powell, commanding officer at MyLai has spoken....

"We have presented ourselves as a value-based country and we are," he says. "And so when they see this kind of activity taking place, it causes a tremendous response out in the region. I think Americans are as outraged by these pictures as our Arab friends."

Why should they? Powell has his job, 'cause he finds no atrocity too objectionable to committ. And he's still the same. This comment just makes me puke.
If the USA would be a "value-based country", Powell would have sentenced to live-long prison, decades ago.
The values are torture, kill, steal for the wealthy few. And little has changed since Mylai.
America is still based on the same values...

And if the pictures wouldn't have been published, Powell would just do what he has done a thousand times: lying, taking orders and covering it up.

"We burned the thatched huts, starting the blaze with Ronson and Zippo lighters ... Why were we torching houses and destroying crops? Ho Chi Minh had said people were like the sea in which his guerillas swam. We tried to solve the problem by making the whole sea uninhabitable. In the hard logic of war, what difference does it make if you shot your enemy or starved him to death?"
Colin Powel in his "autobiography" about american values, I guess.


Hello from Germany,
Dirk

[seemslikeadream]

22. "Was Your Family all Together for Thanksgiving?"

"Was Your Family all Together for Thanksgiving?"

This drawing by Tom Francis Darcy originally appeared in the November 28, 1969 edition of Newsday. This depiction of the My Lai massacre in Vietnam accompanied an editorial criticizing American military action.



Scapegoat

This picture of Lieutenant William Laws Calley has a caption that reads, "Scapegoat: a person, group, or thing that bears the blame for the mistakes or crimes of others." In 1971 Calley was found guilty of the premeditated murder of at least twenty-two Vietnamese civilians in connection with the My Lai massacre in Vietnam. His conviction was later overturned.

http://www.picturehistory.com/find/p/13047/mcms.html

Hello Dirk

[bpilgrim]

18. you hear that you dirty COMMIES!

SHOCK-n-AWE



peace