Poland Angrily Dismisses Iraq Abuse Report

[struggle4progress]

Poland vehemently denied its troops had mistreated Iraqi detainees in their occupation zone in southern Iraq, saying on Friday recent internal army investigations turned up no evidence of any abuse.
<snip>

"This is rubbish," Poland's deputy Defense Minister Janusz Zemke told reporters. "Our inspections didn't turn up anything of the sort."
<snip>

The AP report said a memo from U.S. investigators quoted a U.S. interrogator from Abu Ghraib as saying two Iraqi detainees there had complained they had been beaten by Polish soldiers.
<snip>

"Our command is shocked by the allegations," said Colonel Robert Strzelecki, spokesman for the Polish contingent. "We believe that it is an attempt to shift the blame for somebody else's actions."

http://www.reuters.com/newsArticle.jhtml?type=worldNews&storyID=5288479

[Endangered Specie]

1. When in doubt, blame Poland?

[CWebster]

2. What concentration camps? nt

[struggle4progress]

6. Well, there is that side of Polish history ...

but there was also a resistance, and Polish cryptographers may have done more than Turing to break the Enigma machine code.

Also, it seems unfair to blame the present generation for the vicious anti-Semitic crap in the Eastern Europe of their fathers or grandfathers, more than fifty years ago.

[CWebster]

7. True, it was unneccessarily harsh

but didn't I read somewhere that the Australians were trying to wash their hands as well? Interesting that the tactics the Australians were charged with - from the nakedness and hoods seem to be uniform across the board and not limited to a few bad US apples.

Iraqis are fighting the occupation. What are we doing there? What is our reason for being there? Soldiers fight---so they are fighting the Iraqis who are struggling in a war of independence against Western occupation--and we are torturing and killing them.

Who will say it?

[gratuitous]

3. The colonel should check with Lech Walesa

Lech knows who's to blame for the mess in Iraq -- Germany and France! Because they didn't try hard enough to stop the insane Bushler war. Of course, by Lech's reasoning, the Polish cavalry is responsible for World War II.

Why do I sense that Polack jokes, so long out of fashion, may be making a comeback?

[TahitiNut]

4. It was all General Jürgen Stroop's fault.

[Endangered Specie]

5. Youd think our Polish friends would be a little more concerned with this..

type of thing? no? You'd think theyd appreciate the GC.

[MasonJar]

8. Well, it won't be long until there is no so-called alliance. What a

way to win friends.