watch the prisoner abuse scandal widen

[ItalianStereotype]

okay, instead of saying that this is some sort of conspiracy that reaches to the highest climbs of power, couldn't we also consider that these soldiers were simply reservists who were on a power trip? not that this excuses any of their actions, but what good is it to continue to be so divisive?

[kellychaos]

The "just following orders" thing is obviously a cop-out. It's not as cut and dry as that. Even when you are in the military, orders have their limits. If a superior orders you to do something unlawful, then you can refuse. True, you may be subject to a military trial for refusing to follow orders but you will get a fair chance to plead your case.

[Abcdxxxx]

Even if explicit orders came down I doubt they involved orders along the lines of "make sure you take lots of pictures! And video! And be sure to smile! And point at them in every picture so we're sure who the victims are! And now here's where it gets tricky...we need them to form the shape of a pyramid, um, and then we need a few of them dead, but not all of them, okay, oh and please by all means, make sure you have some non-military people take part so it'll make our coverup process that much easier, thanks!!"

[mburbank]

"Well that's some logic there Burbank. I guess that means all Muslims are terrorists, all Blacks are gangbangers, all Irish drink green beer, and blah blah blah."
-ABC123

Yep, that's what I'm saying. I hate to say it, but unfortunately there's no space at all between "I doubt it's a few bad apples" and every single person in the military was involved. I hate this binary world we live in, but everything is either black or white. It's not at all possible that this came straight down the chain of command without involving everyone, and it's also not impossible that some important people above the level of enlisted folks encouraged and new about this unless everyone did. It's always one thing or the other, and that's what I meant.

If I'm wrong though, then it was just six people, and the lack of raining, lack of planning, involvement of the CIA, use of private contractors for interrogation, nodding and winking were all purely coincidental and not related in any way and the only people who bear any responsability at all are these six sick bastards, and now that they've beenstopped the problem must be totally over.

That's my logic. I hate it, but that's the way things work.

Oh, and Vinth, sell me your site, you cowardly fat ass.[/code]

[Helm]

I have to just repeat this bit, but where's the global outrage over the countless innocent deaths on this whole war? Hell, wait a moment, where's the moral outrage over the countless not-so-innocent deaths of this war? Weren't christians supposed to be appaled by the murder of any man? I know this may seem like a pretty basic argument, but why did it take torture for people to not stand for it? Is it as if the murder that somehow is justified as to be a means for a honourable end is excused by people of the Christian faith? I'm not trying to derail this conversation, but this just seems to fucking crazy to me that I need someone to make me understand. I mean, does this sound absurd? :

1. We hate murder.
2. Somebody in the middle east is killing people.
3. We hate him.
4. We will send our troops to kill him.

And everybody's ok up to this!

And then when some prisoner of war is tortured, this stirs up this moral outrage in everybody that supported this war. What, what did it take? Was it the pictures? Didn't people see the pictures of children casualities from this war anyhow? It can't be the pictures. And it sure as hell can't be because the deaths of thousands in the effort to occupy Iraq could somehow be said to be justified and necessary. Because if one thinks so, then it could be said that the torture, humiliation and murder of prisoners of war serves the purpose of collecting information that will go a long way towards solidifying the democratic effort in Iraq, and it thusly is as justified as this whole war. This doesn't make any sense!

[Abcdxxxx]

Well maybe you out to consider some in between options before you rest on such an extreme position. It wouldn't make you less compassionate.

Isn't there a military version of the thin blue line? They try and protect their own? So sure that incriminates at least some higher ups, but I think it's pretty deranged to think that an entire organization played an active part on such an absurdly horrid incident. My impression is the military has a bit of a frat atmosphere, and again, the concept of putting panties naked prisoners heads has the air of a prank verging on snuff film territory. You really think that's some US Army policy, that was part of the job interviews with outside contractors ??

The other element that plays a huge part were cameras. Soldiers are walking around video taping themselves in front of Saddam's palace, carrying cell phones and calling family from the battle field. That's a new phenomenon waiting to be abused during war time savagery.

[sspadowsky]

I'm not 100% certain, but it looks to me like Abcd may have somehow not been drenched by the thunderstorm of sarcasm pouring from Burbank's post.

[Abcdxxxx]

downpour or desperate spittle, i got the sarcasm, but i also got the implications of his not so sarcastic comments earlier in the thread. i not certain, but i think spadds just called burbank a joke 100% of the time.


"And if it was 'just a few bad apples' how did they mnage to generate so much material with none of the good apples stopping them for such a long time?"

oh, it's a total thunderstorm.

[KevinTheOmnivore]

Originally Posted by VinceZeb

You would think anything that was written in a leftist point would "hit it on the head".

Shut the fuck up, Kevin. There are too many lefties on this board that make you useless.

Chimpy is correct. Friedman is in fact a neo-liberal who supported this war. And you, Vince, are in fact the dumbest person alive.

Dispute what Friedman said, or go lose some weight. Pick one.

[mburbank]

"You really think that's some US Army policy, that was part of the job interviews with outside contractors ?? "

Here's what I think the policy was.
"Do what ever you think will make these guys miserable. Whatever it takes, got me? Use your imagination, no ones looking. Just make sure these guys are in the mood to cooperate when we get them. "

Do you think if Lindy and her boyfriend had any inkling what kind of trouble they'd be in, they'd havce taken pictures? I'm not suggesting a speciffic policy of 'stack 'em naked in pyramids of exactly nine, and make sure that guy gets those womens pnaties on his head, we requistioned a box of the right size, it's all regulation" I am suggesting an officially sanctioned atmosphere of free for all without supervision or consequences.

At VERY BEST I'm suggesting a level of incompetence in supervsion and policy that allows for a free for all, and conspiracy or not, I think that reaches a little higher thn privates and specialists.

And , Acdxcpgrhstgf, your pathology is still showing. You're still using words like 'frat' and 'prank' and then saing 'now I'm not saying frats and parnks aren't very. very bad.'

Do you read the papers? The red cross says 'widespread' and 'pattern' over and over. They say we killed people, we raped women and we watched while Iraqi guards raped boys. How long before it turns out those Iraqi gurds used to work at the same prison doing the same thing for Sadaam? They say 90% of our detentions were mistakes, without merit.

Are murder and rape 'pranks'? Okay, I get you think I'm overreacting. hat sort of reaction do you think would be appropriatte? nd for the record, I totally agree with Helm. This is the most gratuitous horror of this war, but hardly the most outraageous.

[mburbank]

" Senator Lindsey O. Graham, Republican of South Carolina, who was given a classified briefing on the matter, has said new photos and videotapes provide evidence of the rape and murder of prisoners."
-Boston Globe

[ItalianStereotype]

Insider Report from NewsMax.com

3. Mystic: Iraqi Prisoner Photos a 'Set-up'

We usually don't report on psychic phenomena - "out there" as it is.

Still, we get some unusual observations over the transom from time to time.

One mystic we have covered is Elizabeth Baron of elizabethbaron.com, who seemed to have great revelations during the Washington sniper story. Days before police captured Muhammad and Malvo, Baron was on a national radio program (it was recorded) and said the feds had it all wrong: there were two shooters, one younger, another older; that they were motivated by religion; and that they were driving a blue car. At the time, FBI profilers said there was only a single white male conducting the killings, and reports had him driving a white van.

As it turned out, the older Muhammad and the younger Malvo, both Muslims, were captured in a blue car days later.

Interestingly, Baron e-mailed us early this week and said the revelation she got from a saint told her that "the people in the videotape who are doing the Iraqi prisoners wrong --- that is a setup."

We found it interesting that this reference to a "videotape" came days before Donald Rumsfeld and the Pentagon first said that the abuse scandal includes videotape of these incidents.

"I cannot understand why the public has not picked up this information," Baron's revelation offered, adding that there are some powerful forces behind this story.

"The authority goes pretty high up but it is a setup to make the President of the United States and to make America look stupid and to be seen with two faces," she said.

Here are some more revelations that we can't endorse but certainly find interesting:

"It is very important for the President to get to the culprit. The man [or woman] who is behind all that wears a tan uniform and has two stars on his shoulders. He is an individual who hates the American way and wants to see changes in America. He does not have an interest in winning a war. That is definitely not his interest. This man has been paid millions and millions of dollars to do this awful thing. It doesn't take someone who is really bright to look at these videos and see that they are staged. And everything that was done was staged so that it would look so ridiculous. It is important for the Intelligence to get to the bottom of this. They will find that an officer [which could be a man or a woman] who is very high up will have money put in a Swiss bank. It will not be in his name though. It will be in a woman's name who is connected with him/her and she is not American. She is not his wife; she is a girlfriend, but this money will be transferred around in years to come. This money was put together by a number of people who got together and planted this little scheme right in the middle of political battles in America. It was meant to make the President look silly. It is important for everyone to pray for peace because this war can go into another war and that could go into another war and as you know, two of the most dangerous places on earth are Iran and North Korea. These people have the ability to create mass destruction in many ways so it is important for everyone to pray for peace at this time."



....sigh

[mburbank]

With Rumsfeld at his side, Bush said his Cabinet officer was "courageously leading our nation in our war against terror...You are a strong secretary of defense and our nation owes you a debt of gratitude."

Bush's comments appeared designed to head off rising speculation that Rumsfeld would resign as both men braced for the anticipated release of more pictures and video images showing Iraqi prisoners being abused by American soldiers.

Blinking into the cameras, Rumsfeld stood ramrod straight at Bush's left shoulder with his hands clasped behind his back. Vice President Dick Cheney, who had over the weekend called Rumsfeld the best secretary of defense ever, also was there.
-AP wire

[sspadowsky]

Originally Posted by Abcdxxxx

downpour or desperate spittle, i got the sarcasm, but i also got the implications of his not so sarcastic comments earlier in the thread. i not certain, but i think spadds just called burbank a joke 100% of the time.


"And if it was 'just a few bad apples' how did they mnage to generate so much material with none of the good apples stopping them for such a long time?"

oh, it's a total thunderstorm.

I just thought you might've missed it on account of that cloud of arrogance that surrounds you.

[Bennett]

I can't believe the complete lack of shame and responsibility of this administration. Not to mention the smug "teflon" arrogance. If he were the "best secretary of defense ever." (is Cheney quoting the simpson's comic guy now?), there is no way that this shit would go down, period. As far removed as he may or may not be, the old saying of, "not on my watch" doesn't even seem to be a concern for these fuckers. This nation is turning to shit, and our entire administration has this "what are you going to do about it, bitch?" attitude. I really, sincerely hope that enough people get their heads out of their asses and get these clowns out of office.

[mburbank]

Yeah, I gotta say 'best ever' is kind of reaching no matter where you line up on the political spectrum, and I think Chenney knows that, and this kind of thing is what I mean about the administrations contempt for the citizenry.

I mean, you could say all sorts of stuff, you coud say Rummy has done very well under unprecedented and difficult circumstances (not that I;d say that, but you could make the argument) but to call him the best ever? That's just giving the public the finger. Plus, Chenney's quoted in todays paper as telling people to 'get off Rumsfeld case". Get off his case? What, is Chenney America's teenage son now? is he going to ask to borrow America's car keys?

And what about Rummy. He says he accepts full responsability, and that's great, but he makes it meaningless if he doesn't then step down. Full responsability? What does he mean, for what? For the torture itself? For the failure of oversight? For the atmosphere in which this all took place? He might as well say, 'yeah, I'm responsible, but I'm the best ever, now get off my case!'

By letting this drip, drip, drip, a revelation every few hours you loose any chance of regaining moral authority. Plus, even if there is no cover up at all, and even if we really cared about Iraqi human rights all along nd this isn't pattern, it's just a bizarre aberation, not getting everything on the table and firing Rumsfled makes it look like a cover up and look like we never gave a crap.

Rumsfeld says himself that he didn't get how serious this all was by reading descriptions of what was in the photos. Isn't that, all by itself, a really good reason to give him the boot? Plus, he's out there every day giving the world the impression that what's really the big problem here is that photos were taken and the world saw them. the problem isn't the photos.

[mburbank]

"In Afghanistan, the abuse of prisoners seems to have led to at least three deaths at U.S. interrogation facilities. According to U.S. military pathologists, two Afghan detainees died of "blunt force injuries" to "the lower extremities" and "legs" at Baghram in December 2002 and another Afghan prisoner died at a U.S. military camp in Kunar province in June 2003. Yet 18 months after the first deaths, a military investigation is still incomplete, and no broad inquiry like the Taguba probe has been launched into conditions at Baghram, according to a military spokesman in Kabul."
-Newsweek

There must have been a few bad apples in Afghanistan, too.

[Bennett]

Iraq and Afghanistan are apples and oranges, Max.

there were a few bad oranges in Afghanistan.

get your administration mumbo jumbo right, please.

[mburbank]

"This is not a few bad apples. This is a system failure, a massive failure," said Senate Armed Services Committee member Lindsay Graham, a conservative Republican who once helped to prosecute the impeached Bill Clinton.
-Newsweek

[mburbank]

Well, at least we can be certain the the New guy, Miller will clean this mess up.


"General Miller, in a press briefing, tried to show how he was now cleaning up interrogation procedures at Abu Ghraib. "We have approximately 50 approved interrogation techniques. They come from Army Field Manual 34-52," Miller said. Asked to explain what Miller meant, U.S. Army Intelligence Center spokesperson Tanja Linton said she would go away and inquire. She came back to report: "They have no idea what he is talking about." But a senior Defense Department official, speaking on background, confirms that there is a secret list of what he called "categories" of interrogation techniques—which, he says, can be used only with the case-by-case approval of Defense Secretary Rumsfeld."
-Newsweek

[kellychaos]

Originally Posted by mburbank

"Well that's some logic there Burbank. I guess that means all Muslims are terrorists, all Blacks are gangbangers, all Irish drink green beer, and blah blah blah."
-ABC123

Yep, that's what I'm saying. I hate to say it, but unfortunately there's no space at all between "I doubt it's a few bad apples" and every single person in the military was involved. I hate this binary world we live in, but everything is either black or white. It's not at all possible that this came straight down the chain of command without involving everyone, and it's also not impossible that some important people above the level of enlisted folks encouraged and new about this unless everyone did. It's always one thing or the other, and that's what I meant.

If I'm wrong though, then it was just six people, and the lack of raining, lack of planning, involvement of the CIA, use of private contractors for interrogation, nodding and winking were all purely coincidental and not related in any way and the only people who bear any responsability at all are these six sick bastards, and now that they've beenstopped the problem must be totally over.

That's my logic. I hate it, but that's the way things work.

Oh, and Vinth, sell me your site, you cowardly fat ass.[/code]

My beef was with the "following orders" cop-out, really. Were they pressured into their actions? If so, how much pressure (and from whom) was applied? In other words, if while I was in, someone from a lowly rank pressured me to do such things, they had better have been at a rank of full colonel with a gun to my head or else I would have told them to fuck off. While I admit this IS possible, Max, I have to admit that it sounds kind of "conspiracy theory" to me and that I had not seem such kinds of intimidation to commit unlawful acts in any of the commands that I was in. That being said; however, it IS kind of fishy that they were able to get away with such acts with no one above them in the chain of command being made aware of it.

[Abcdxxxx]

Burbank - My mistake... panties on the head has no illusions of frat prank whatsoever. Sounds like typical torture conduct.

Spadds, glad you can still spot arrogance while wallowing away in mediocrity over there.

[mburbank]

Abcdzxregdtc - My mistake... murder and rape have all the earmarks of frat pranks. Sounds like typical initiation hazing.

[Helm]

It makes me feel better that there are americans like you, burbank. I am not suggesting I agree with everything you say, but, god at least you're not so cynical as to disregard the moral bancruptcy that constitutes to turn a blind eye even to ONE casuality of an unfair war.

Isn't that the very least, most humble moral foundation on which us 'civilized westerners' usually all claim to share?

[mburbank]

There are lots of Americans like me. Not a vast majority, mind you, but I'm not alone. Thanks, though.