A Tale of Two Lives Destroyed by Abu Ghraib

[neweurope]

THE PRISONER AND THE GUARD

A Tale of Two Lives Destroyed by Abu Ghraib

By Marian Blasberg and Anita Blasberg

With Lynndie England's conviction earlier this week, seven US soldiers have now been sentenced for their role in the Abu Ghraib torture scandal. But is it enough? DER SPIEGEL looks at two lives destroyed by Abu Ghraib. One, an Iraqi community leader -- the other, his American guard...

http://service.spiegel.de/cache/international/spiegel/0,1518,377361,00.html


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[dolo amber]

1. That was amazing

Sickening...but amazing. Thanks for the link. :hi:

[Karenina]

2. Kick!

:kick:

[neweurope]

3. kick

[tsuki]

4. kick

[Just Me]

5. Horrible.

:cry:

[Z_I_Peevey]

6. I can't read this all in one sitting.

I'm sick, just heartsick.

[neweurope]

7. Good journalism -pointing out that the perpetrator is a victim, too.

And, therefore, that the torture is systematic. No "bad apples".

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Remember Fallujah

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[Laughing Mirror]

8. It is not only systematic, it is systemic, and not just at Abu Ghraib

Good to hear Davis's lawyer wants to put Rumsfeld on trial. May he live to see the day. Then we would be getting somewhere with this justice business.

This der Spiegel article is the best article I've read on Abu Ghraib, which should not even be called a prison, but a torture camp.

[neweurope]

9. Thanks, it's the best I've read so far, too. Rumsfeld on trial

sounds sooo sweet...

By the way: "Systemic" was the word I wanted to use, but then I checked my dictionary and it seemed to be wrong. You learn something every day :)

Because I do think that this is an excellent article from every point of view I'll shamelessly kick this.

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Remember Fallujah

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[Laughing Mirror]

10. Don't be ashamed to kick and nominate this superb story

Everybody should take the time to read it and really think it over. I suspect we'll be hearing and seeing and thinking a lot more about our torture camps once the other pictures and videos are released.

[neweurope]

14. Can't nominate it myself - but thanks to everybody who did nominate

it. I do think everybody should read it. All in one sitting, too...

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Remember Fallujah

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[malaise]

40. Superb journalism

Thank you.

[leftchick]

11. The woman prisoner...

The caption makes it sound like past tense. I hope she is no longer there. How awful... :cry:

http://www.spiegel.de/img/0,1020,352757,00.jpg

[neweurope]

12. Evidently - also according to the documents that ACLU wants to

have released - there were quite a few women. Who were raped, by all reports. And CHILDREN.

This article only focuses on two people, on what they have seen and experienced.

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Remember Fallujah

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[Zhade]

13. Kick

Kick

[Laughing Mirror]

15. Association of Victims of American Occupation Prisons has 40,000 members

that's a lot of torture and false arrests. And I guess that's just counting Iraqi victims. How many other victims? How many dead?

[neweurope]

18. 40.000 victims - that are ORGANIZED. How many more that aren't?

Yes.

- How many dead? Maimed for life? Gone crazy over the pain?

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Remember Fallujah

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[One_of_8]

16. It is awful but necessary to read this

I made myself read it all. Impeachment is too good for George Bush and Dick Cheney, and their mob. They are as evil as Saddam Hussein.

[leftchick]

17. it is awful but necessary...

indeed. I am halfway through and OMG I want to vomit...

:puke:

[truebrit71]

19. Hmmm, so THAT's what proper journalism looks like....???

Wow, powerful story. Can't help but feel enraged by what I read. It is a rage that is compounded when you add into the mix the two Brit soldiers that got nicked, and then busted out of jail dressed as "arabs" and carrying all sorts of naughty weaponry....

Makes you wonder about the validity of the whole "insurgency" thing, and it makes my blood boil that the vile criminals that did these things (and CONTINUE to do these things) under our name, DON'T want their crimes to be revealed, and hide behind government lawyers when the ACLU comes calling...

Can you imagine the terror and despair of being held captive, tortured, and degraded and being repeatedly asked to say something you just don't know?

Can you imagine the RAGE, the blind fury, and violent hatred that you would feel towards your abusers when they finally believed you, and released you?

If that were to happen to me, there would be no force on heaven or earth that would stop me from exacting my revenge, and extracting justice from those that created that hell...

Now imagine that there are 10,000 people that feel that way RIGHT NOW, and you happen to be occupying their country...Is it any wonder that this illegal war is doomed? When your troops just want to get out, and your enemy wants to kill as many before they do, who, exactly, wins in that situation?

Who?

[neweurope]

21. Big money, that's who. The Brits and the US WANT it like this.

They WANT civil war in Iraq. They WANT torture, they WANT babies killed. They WANT women raped. Dead babies are no "collateral damage" to them, as atrocious as that word is. They WANT them dead.

They are EXACTLY like the German nazis.

When I first came to DU an "old" DUer, a Buddhist, told me that he believed they are the German nazis re-born. I cannot remember all his arguments - good arguments -, but I thought long about what he told me. To-day I'm convinced.

It's about power, it's about oil, it's about money. And, the more I think about it, it's really about the "good" and the "evil". Somehow evidently every generation has to fight this fight anew. There IS some progress, generally speaking (the idea of having something like the United Nations would have been unconceivable during the 30-year war, for instance), but at snail's pace...

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[Czolgosz]

20. This is a must read!

[hvn_nbr_2]

22. Obviously from the foreign press

Hell and doom and pestilence and boils and bankruptcy and warts and vomiting blood and creeping, shriveling dysentery on every fucking American media outlet and shill that won't report the truth of this goddamned evil corrupt bloodthirsty hate-mongering warmongering greed-filled Republican cabal of criminals.

[neweurope]

23. I wouldn't have thought it possible but you made me laugh.

Thanks for your fluent swearing, and I'm joining in - in German. German is a good language to swear in.

:pals:

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Remember Fallujah

Bush to The Hague!

[hvn_nbr_2]

24. Swearing in German

Yeah, I'll bet my rant could have included a few thirty-letter compounded words in German.
:toast:

[neweurope]

25. Like:

"Himmelherrgottsakramentkreuzdonnerwetternocheinmal!" ?

Learn that by heart. For an American it should not be harder than "Streichholzschachtel" for a Frenchman :)

:toast:

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Remember Fallujah

Bush to The Hague!

[kineneb]

43. gotta remember that one

German is my second language and the language of a majority of my ancestors (along with English, Norwegian and French). I have a lovely little book that covers "idiomatic" usage called "Scheisse".

[neweurope]

26. kick

[neweurope]

27. I won't give up... *kick*

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Remember Fallujah

Bush to The Hague!

[WildEyedLiberal]

28. Heartbreaking

Excellent find... too bad real journalism doesn't exist like that in this country.

[UpInArms]

29. thanks for this post

I am weeping for the lost soul of my country, my fellow citizens, any honor that was...

:cry:

[Turn CO Blue]

30. Bookmarking.

[muriel_volestrangler]

31. Wow, what an article.

As you say, the torture was systemic - deliberate, planned, and further encouraged by the general who had used it at Guantanamo - and who was sent to achieve the same 'results' as Abu Ghraib by even more senior generals, Secretaries of Defense, Vice-Presidents and Presidents. Who should all be on trial for this.

Reading this reminds us why Iraqis will hate us for generations. We cannot be 'thier partners'.

[tomg]

32. Where has our soul gone?

All I can think of is the Yeat's poem "The Second Coming." Tough reading, but necessary.
on edit: the article is tough, I meant.

[neweurope]

33. "The best lack all convictions / while the worst are full of passionate

intensity"

The Second Coming -- W. B. Yeats

Turning and turning in the widening gyre
The falcon cannot hear the falconer;
Things fall apart; the centre cannot hold;
Mere anarchy is loosed upon the world,
The blood-dimmed tide is loosed, and everywhere
The ceremony of innocence is drowned;
The best lack all convictions, while the worst
Are full of passionate intensity.

Surely some revelation is at hand;
Surely the Second Coming is at hand.
The Second Coming! Hardly are those words out
When a vast image out of Spiritus Mundi
Troubles my sight: somewhere in sands of the desert
A shape with lion body and the head of a man,
A gaze blank and pitiless as the sun,
Is moving its slow thighs, while all about it
Reel shadows of the indignant desert birds.
The darkness drops again; but now I know
That twenty centuries of stony sleep
Were vexed to nightmare by a rocking cradle,
And what rough beast, its hour come round at last,
Slouches towards Bethlehem to be born?

[tomg]

34. Amazing poem.

Unfortunate that Yeats was very far right-wing ( as in a Fascist,or damn close). Always a problem when I teach Yeats, Pound and Eliot balancing my hatred for the politics with my love of the poetry. Even more unfortunate that this poem so clearly describes the situation now. I guess that this is what makes it great work.

[neweurope]

35. Yes - truly great art will always be up to date, no matter

how tastes change. This poem has captured me; it so clearly expresses all my fears.

I didn't know about Yeats being fascist - so now I have to read up on Yeats. Which I had planned to to after my Ireland vacation last year, anyway :)

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Remember Fallujah

Bush to The Hague!

[Why Syzygy]

36. Thanks for the post

Nice to have you here.

[neweurope]

37. kick

[cwydro]

38. I hate to feel

embarrassed and ashamed to be an American, but how can one feel any other way? And they only punished the very lowest soldiers. Sickening. Rumsfuck is a war criminal.

[I Have A Dream]

39. Kick

:kick:

[I Have A Dream]

42. .

[neweurope]

41. It's after midnight here and I must go to bed -please read and keep

kicked. It is so important.

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Remember Fallujah

Bush to The Hague!

[I Have A Dream]

45. I posted it again, neweurope. It really is too important to let it sink..

into oblivion. My post will probably also sink, but it's worth a shot. Here's the link:

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_mesg&forum=104&topic_id=4946499&mesg_id=4946499

[nyhuskyfan]

46. A kick...

For the weekend crowd

[neweurope]

60. Thank you!

:hi:

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Remember Fallujah

Bush to The Hague!

[kineneb]

44. excellent article, Der Spiegel does it again

I read their online news in German. I think that the Empire is rotting from within. The perps are at the top, just as at Nurnburg. But the lowly can not get away with "I was only doing my duty" either.

[I Have A Dream]

51. If you really liked it, kineneb, would you please RECOMMEND...

my thread below that points to this thread? I'm trying to get it on the GREATEST page again because this thread has timed out on the GREATEST page.

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_mesg&forum=104&topic_id=4946499&mesg_id=4946499

If you decide to do this, thanks for your help!

[Wilms]

47. kick n/t

[Bravo411]

48. A must read n/t

[I Have A Dream]

49. Since you think so, Bravo411, would you please RECOMMEND...

my thread below which is pointing to this thread? I'm trying to get it on the GREATEST page for this to be seen again. (This thread has timed out on the GREATEST page.)

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_mesg&forum=104&topic_id=4946499&mesg_id=4946499

If you choose to do this, thanks for your help. As you said, this really is "a must read".

[Bravo411]

50. Done deal n/t

[atfqn]

52. ...

All of this in the name of democracy and freedom... I am ill.

[chknltl]

53. I am so ashamed to call myself an american

I will print this and pass it around. I will forward to everyone I can. I don't know what else I can do.

[I Have A Dream]

54. Well, chknltl, there are five types of Americans in reference to...

things like this, in my opinion.

The first type actively allows and encourages it to happen.

The second type is aware of it, but never thinks about it more than as an afterthought.

The third type isn't even aware of it.

The fourth type doesn't like it, but doesn't do anything to change things, especially if it will cause them any type of hardship or ask for any type of sacrifice.

The fifth type doesn't like it and is doing everything in their power to make it stop.

I've very proud to be part of the fifth type, and I'm proud of all Americans who are part of this group. The world is aware that not all Americans find this to be acceptable and that we are working to change things. Thank you for being part of this fifth group as well.

[chknltl]

62. You honor me but...

I will add the contents of this article to my ever growing list of reasons to be ashamed to call myself an american. This list includes the actions of our government which are detailed in www.beyondtreason.com. Thank you I Have A Dream, for continuing to fight the good fight.

[Pooka Fey]

55. Thank you for posting this very important article. Nominated.

[LibertyorDeath]

56. They want justice

In May 2004, Hajj Ali decided to take advantage of his popularity. He founded an organization and called it the "Association of the Victims of American Occupation Prisons."

The organization quickly mushroomed into 40,000 members -- victims of torture, innocent suspects who were quickly released -- and its headquarters are at Hajj Ali's guesthouse.

There they collect the victims' horrible stories and assemble them into dossiers intended to provide an overview of the situation in the prisons. They take the information to newspapers, and they have exhibited the photos in Baghdad. But they are not interested in enlightenment. They want justice.

The organization has brought a lawsuit in an American civil court against the private contracting firms that were responsible for the interrogations at Abu Ghraib, companies like Titan and CACI, which it alleges played a key role in the torture. Hajj Ali hopes that they will be compensated, that the victims will receive monetary awards, something at least to make up for some of their suffering. This is his way of dealing with these things; he feels the need to do something to make peace with his memories.

[Tim4319]

57. Hajj Ali and Javal Davis should speak in front of the Senate?

And, it should be aired live on all major T.V. affiliates! This story is outrageous. I cannot wait for the time when the Dems control the House and the Senate. They had better do a thorough investigation into this whole scandal, and (no pun intended) heads should roll! This is ridiculous.

[alittlelark]

58. Wow... I had to stop a few times. That was intense.

Recommending - everyone should read that.

[nosmokes]

59. this is one of the most compelling pieces of

journalism to come out of the septic tank we've made over there. if this doesn't get a pulitzer then something's wrong.

[Laughing Mirror]

64. The same Pulitzer given Judy Miller?

Yes, something is wrong. Very very wrong.

[neweurope]

61. kick

[BamaBecky]

63. kick

[Tom Yossarian Joad]

65. Kicked. Thanks for posting the link. Highly recommended.

[bloom]

66. Thanks for posting....

I passed it on.

[bloom]

67. kick...

:kick:

[I Have A Dream]

68. I was happy to see that this is also on salon.com now, so more...

people should be seeing it outside of DU as well. (I love Salon!)

[neweurope]

69. kick

[bloom]

70. .

[Tom Yossarian Joad]

71. Kick

[Just Me]

72. Two caring human beings whose lives were destroyed by neoCON,...

,...policies of emperialism.

This is a fabulous depiction of the human element.

:kick:

[muriel_volestrangler]

73. This is now reprinted at the Salon website

http://www.salon.com/news/feature/2005/10/01/abu_ghraib/index.html

Good - the further it's spread, the better.

[neweurope]

74. Yes - I just read that Salon and SPIEGEL have some kind

of exchange going on. Salon articles being printed at the SPIEGEL, too.

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Remember Fallujah

Bush to The Hague!