Videos Amplify Picture of Violence

[maddezmom]

The video begins with three soldiers huddled around a naked detainee, his thin frame backed against a wall. With a snap of his wrist, one of the soldiers slaps the man across his left cheek so hard that the prisoner's knees buckle. Another detainee, handcuffed and on his back, is dragged across the prison floor.


Then, the human pyramid begins to take shape. Soldiers force hooded and naked prisoners into crouches on the floor, one by one, side by side, a soldier pointing to where the next ones should go. The video stops. But there is more.

In a collection of hundreds of so-far-unreleased photographs and short digital videos obtained by The Washington Post, U.S. soldiers are shown physically and emotionally abusing detainees last fall in the Abu Ghraib prison on the outskirts of Baghdad.

The new pictures and videos go beyond the photos previously released to the public in several ways, amplifying the overt violence against detainees and displaying a variety of abusive techniques previously unseen. They show a group of apparently cavalier soldiers assaulting prisoners, forcing detainees to masturbate, and standing over a naked prisoner while holding a shotgun. Some of the videos echo scenes in previously released still photographs -- such as the stacking of naked detainees -- but the video images render the incidents more vividly.

~snip~
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A43785-2004May20.html

[thebigidea]

1. and I'm proud to be an American, where at least I know I'm free

and I'll gladly stand up... and be beaten back.

sigh.



"Be on notice," Rumsfeld said in a standing-room-only Senate hearing room May 8. "There are a lot more photographs and videos that exist. If these are released to the public, obviously it's going to make matters worse."

[maddezmom]

2. things just got worse

my question is how much? :(

[thebigidea]

3. lets see what the prisoners themselves said...

I see the statements are online as well:

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/world/iraq/abughraib/swornstatements042104.html

[maddezmom]

5. OMG...just opened the first PDF

there is so much horrifying detail....... :(

[thebigidea]

6. Guy Womack is sweating right now, somewhere in his office.

How he can defend Graner now should prove interesting. I hope they get to the MI/CIA/CopperGreen types...

[maddezmom]

7. Read pg2 of Hilas statement

he details the rape of the child 15-18....lots of black marker to cover names???

[thebigidea]

8. there is one paragraph the Hannity/Limbaugh set will quote incessantly:

"All the guards excluding Grainer and Davis are very good with the prisoners and the prisoners like them and respect them and are very happy with them. They give a good image of the United States and they prove by their good treatment the big difference between the Baath Party and the United States."

hmm. I'd like to see this guy tracked down and that bit confirmed. Edited in? Coerced? Serious? It will be used to bolster the "bad apple" lie.

The blacked out bit is the name of the raped prisoner. Probably the "name withheld" statement, which I'm about to read.

Edit: wish I didn't. They beat him, pissed on him, raped him.

BUSH: "May God Continue to Bless America."

[leftofthedial]

4. words fail

They do this in our names.

We failed to stop the monsters who seized our country, unleashed this on the world and turned our fellow citizens into monsters like this.

My father spent 25 years of his all-tto-short life and died in teh service of America, but not this America.

How can we ever make this right again?

[maddezmom]

9. oops dupe

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_mesg&forum=102&topic_id=570763&mesg_id=570763

alerting on myself :crazy:

[Moderator]

10. Locking - please discuss on earlier thread, thanks