US military in prisoner torture Photographs

To make the assumption that all Arabs believe the same way would be like visiting California, speaking with the first person you see, and then concluding that the rest of the US is represented by the West Coast.

No, I would say it is much more akin to assuming that all Republicans like President Bush.

 

I do need to make one clarification from what I posted earlier.

Gen. Karpinski, the commander of the prison when this happened, has not been relieved of command.

She was simply allowed to rotate back to the US with a offical admonishment in her record(which effectively ends her military career)

However, this is troubling, because at least with her, she will be allowed to keep her pension and retirement benefits, unless the military adopts a harsher punishment, which they should, to keep the example fitting from the top down.

 

You ought to work on your thread titles.

By the way, I've noticed this:

"Charred bodies hung in Fallujah"
NUCULAR BOMB TEH IRAQIS. Seriously, bomb every one of their cities to radioactive glass. Buncha sand monkeys. Everyone there should learn that this is what happens when you screw with AMERICA.

"Americans torture Iraqi prisoners"
They don't speak for all Americans. We can't lose faith in the war because of a few bad troops.

 

We can't lose faith in the war because of a few bad troops.

There is irony in that statement, but I can't put my finger on it.

 

But isn't the USA the "land of the free" and the "home of the brave"?

Might as well add "home of a few sadistic interrogators" to the stanza.

God Bless America!

I can tell you're a Democrat.

You actually judge an entire nation based on the actions of six individuals? THey're being rigorously punished, and Bush immediately came out and said how disgusting their crimes were. So yes, God Bless America, where we do not promote hatred or abuse.

 

Copy and paste to your address bar:

KK EDIT: Just use the shortened link below.

 

Or just click here

 

I'm not gonna lie to you. I have no problem with using things like drugs, sleep depervation, alternating between extreme hot and cold temperatures, playing loud music, and even taking away some food as a means to extract information from some one who we are reasonable sure has information that we need to have, but i think it's really rediculous to rape, brutalise, and humilate people. It gets even worse if you think about the fact that these people weren't being interogatted or anything, they were just casually being victimised. Now let me just make myself extra clear, even if they did have info we needed, it still wouldn't have been ok to do those types of things to those people. Ye si do realise that there are some people in the middle east who would like to torture americans, but if we stoop to there level we show the world that we are also terrorist.

 

I am of the opinion that the US and it's coalition allies lost the war when those pics came out. I really think they are a turning point. Hearts and minds will never be won now.

 

That's actually a fair point, Uruk. Regional newspapers are calling it another My Lai, except with photos.

E_S

 

That's actually a fair point, Uruk.

Don't sound so shocked!

 

Compared with My Lai (and the several other killings who are not so famous) it is not so a great crime. I mean, killing of hundreds of innocent civilians (like in My Lai and My Khe) is still much more worse. What not mean, that this in Iraq is not a thing, for what the guilty person should be punished - not to weak. I mean, think, what would be happend if the same would be done with american prisoners. What would happend with the guilty people?

I must agree what someone said befor. After the killing of the four mercenarys or security guards, or whatever they were, and the abuse of their bodies (what was of course wrong - even if it is the question if such people are civilists or not, the abuse was absolutly wrong), I read in a american forum things, who sound like some want to punish the Falludschis alltogether for that. Was there a same carefully point of view like now? The city was punished and a lot of people die - so it sound a bit strange that now the american leaders say such things like "don't blame America for things, some people did". Falludscha was, in a very hard way.

With such things the try to show, that the americans are "liberators", looks impossible.
I don't know if this were only single cases, or if there are more things like this, in other prisons. And also today. I could imagine, it is - but I don't know. There were rumors about simelar things also in the past, I think. It will make it very hard for people who cooperate with the americans to defend their decision.

I think the best way would be, to let international (and also neutral iraqi) groups into the prisons, who should make sure, that such things could not happend again. A kind of control or so. But of course, the damage is always done...

I think, one problem is the criminalisation of the enemy. If you tell your people over and over again, that his opponent are not more then criminals, terrorists, the great evil - they may forget that this are still human beeings and have still rights as such. Same problem like in Vietnam, I think. The clear black-white point of view, who was shown in this war, make this things easier - I think.

 

I'm not shocked, Uruk...

Ardiff, in terms of how this colours the American presence in Iraq, it's comparable to My Lai, not literally of course.

E_S

 

"There is irony in that statement, but I can't put my finger on it. "

Of course there was. I wasn't saying that I subscribe to the views represented in that post, I'm just making an observation about others' views on two different situations.

 

I was not surprised at all when I heard about these tortures.
I would expect nothing less from mercenaries who are paid to invade a foreign land and kill it's people...

 

I was not surprised at all when I heard about these tortures.
I would expect nothing less from mercenaries who are paid to invade a foreign land and kill it's people...

Yeah, I wouldn't either, but what has that got to do with reality.




b4k4^2

 

Gen. Karpinski, the commander of the prison when this happened, has not been relieved of command.

She was simply allowed to rotate back to the US with a offical admonishment in her record(which effectively ends her military career)

However, this is troubling, because at least with her, she will be allowed to keep her pension and retirement benefits, unless the military adopts a harsher punishment, which they should, to keep the example fitting from the top down.

Mr44, as I write this the lead story on the CNN web site is confirming more or less most of the things I made in my posts on the previous pages.

The woman in command of the site has alledged military intelligence is responsible largely for what happened and that her unit was not trained properly.

Gen. Kimmit has been quoted that she is "absolutely correct" that "there are concerns about military intelligence" and that it was the reason for the third investigation.

A classified report was made availible ot CNN, apparently the same report made availible to Mr. Hersh, that documents many more abuses at the prison than contained in the photos, the earliest being on May 12, 2003.

Incidents contain the following:

Threatening with a 9 mm pistol.


Pouring cold water on naked detainees.


Threatening males with rape.


Beating with a broom handle and a chair.


Sodomizing a detainee with a chemical light and perhaps a broom stick.


Threatening with military dogs.


Attaching wires to extremities, including the penis.


Accusing prisoners of being homosexual.


Forcing detainees into compromising positions while naked.

And I personally believe there are more considering this does not include mention of one or two other incidents spoken of in the press (the dead IV prisoner incident).

The report is here:

http://www.cnn.com/2004/WORLD/meast/05/04/iraq.abuse.main/index.html

I'm not going to say 'told you so' or anything, but it does seem to erode most of your skepticism of Mr. Hersh written here earlier.

EDIT: Oh, but JFT, for what it's worth, there's your evidence.

 

Also, I should mention that the seperate case of photos of BRITISH torture and abuse of prisoners seem to have been faked. The equipment (rifle, truck) seen in the pictures is inconsistent to what the British military is currently using in Iraq. These are the pictures of a prisoner being urinated on, etc.

 

Yes, is it me or do the the Daily Mirror rebuttals seem relatively pissweak?

E_S

 

Why do I find the fact that these Absolutley horrific pictures are acceptible to be shown, yet flag drapped coffins are not...

Sorry, a tangent I know, but I cannot believe these images... I was shocked and horrified and felt.. dirty and ashamed. The purpertrators need to be punished to the fullest extent of International Law...

 

I'm not going to say 'told you so' or anything, but it does seem to erode most of your skepticism of Mr. Hersh written here earlier.

Gonk, I'm certainly not going to get into a "mine is bigger than yours" type of arguement. It is simply counterproductive.

What everyone has to do, myself included, is slow down, wait for the investigation to be complete, for the facts to emerge, and quit jumping on the heresy badwagon.

Gonk, of course allegations are flying around. We are now fully into what is known as the CYA zone.

Just like with any scandal, speculation is being thrown around faster than anyone can keep track of, because nobody wants the buck to stop on them.

I'm sorry, but reality dictates that Hersh knows no more than than anyone else at the moment.

Your link still detailed the original actions that were the focus of this entire incident.

For example, his photograph of the Iraqi on ice has still not had a context applied, except for his own interpretation.

Karpenski herself is the one expanding the scope.

However, Karpenski was a Brigadier General, for pete's sake.

That is what is known as a "flag rank" in the military, and perhaps you have to serve to completely understand what that means.

It basically means that she was in the same category as Schwarzkopf and Powell were when they commanded Desert Storm. I'm sorry, her claims of she wasn't told are dubious at best.

Nothing would have happened under her command that she didn't have a say in, unless she wanted it that way.

Of course the credibility of the US is at stake, but that doesn't mean that everyone with a story to tell knows what is going on.

 

Mr44, I think you're being partisan on this issue, and needlessly so. First of all you're characterizing the accusations as 'wild' when there's plenty of circumstantial evidence to suspect military intelligence was involved. Secondly, the accusations do not go beyond military intelligence and the civilian contractors. Thirdly, you're wasting breath making the Brigadier General look biased -- she obviously would be by definition of her position in the incident -- but Kimmit said himself she's 'absolutely correct' about the military intelligence angle.

So at least one statement you made in your last post, that she herself is expanding the scope, is 100% wrong.

 

Yes, is it me or do the the Daily Mirror rebuttals seem relatively pissweak?

This is what happens when ideology clouds judgement. The Mirror were probably so delighted to get the pictures that they never subjected them to any level of scrutiny. There are so many inconsistancies that it is laughable.

 

I'm surprised that no one has raised the possibility that abuses like this are inevitable when a military force puts in place an arrest, incarceration and interrogation system like the one used in Iraq.

We have had, over the course of the occupation:

1) countless raids in which numerous Iraqis are swept up and deposited into places like Abu Ghraib

2) without ever being charged with crimes

3) without families being notified of prisoners whereabouts or whether they've been arrested at all

4) with "moderate physical pressure" or "light torture" or whatever you want to call it, being condoned at the highest levels for interrogating prisoners.

Given all these facts, the only real surprise is that the public found out about the alleged abuses such a short time after they occurred. Trying to pin these incidents on the renegade crimes of a scattered few simply ignores the infrastructural reality of what the U.S. is doing in Iraq, namely the deliberate maintenance of an organizational structure in which widespread abuses are inevitable and in which those committing the abuses believe they have authorization for their actions.

Maybe things have changed now that a(nother) Congressional investigation is in the pipeline and the world media is focused on the problem. But once again we have a situation in which the military can only be counted on to do the right thing when the cameras are pointed directly at them.

 

Fresh from the DRUDGE REPORT

US probes claims of Indians being ill-treated in Iraq
Tue May 04 2004 10:09:08 ET

American officials in India said Tuesday they were looking into allegations that Indian civilians working for the US military in Iraq were being ill-treated by their employers.

A US embassy spokesman in New Delhi said the allegations were being checked following an expression of concern by the Indian government over media reports Indians were being made to work like "slaves" in US military camps.

"We take all reports of abuse seriously and all allegations of mistreatment are investigated. We are committed to treating all persons under coalition authority with dignity, respect and humanity," the spokesman told AFP.

Reports published in leading national dailies on Tuesday quoted two Indian brothers, employed in American military camps in Iraq, as saying US troops abused them and made them work long hours with little food.

"We were slaves in American kitchens. We barely got two hours of sleep," one of the brothers, Hameed, told the Hindustan Times paper in Kollam in southern Kerala state.

His brother Shahjahan was quoted as saying, "Once I told the kitchen in-charge that as I was a devout Muslim I could not cook pork. I was beaten up with rifle butts."

The two brothers, who were identified in the report by their first names only, were among 25 Indians recruited in August by private agencies in Kerala, the report said.

They had been expecting to work in Kuwait but were transported across the border into Iraq, where they ended up in US military camps.

Once they realised they had been duped, the brothers managed to leave, returning to India on April 28.

Shahjahan said there were at least 70 other Indians in US camps in Iraq.

END

-Well, that tears it! What the heck is going on over there in Iraq, the land that law forgot? I mean, Saddam was a lawless punk, the U.S. acts like a bunch of red-neck cowboys and takes out the outlaw Saddam, but then the lawlessness continues and multiplies in different forms!

-This all should reflect poorly on George Bush. The buck stops with him, he is responsible for Iraq and it seems he has done a pretty piss-poor job with the Nation-Building over there. Send in Nato and the UN already.