IRAQ: US Soldiers Abuse Iraqi Prisoners. Photographic Evidence. Pentagon Held Back Publication FOR 2 WEEKS! The World Condems.

Anyone seen Platoon? I imagine it would be a lot like that scene where Charlie Sheen and Matt Dillon's brother starts capping mofo's at the village because in reality they all are the enemy only because they couldnt tell the difference. The guerilla style nonconventional warfare has to be the most stressful shit in the world.

Lets not forget these are the same people that strap bombs to their childrens' clothes, slap them on their asses, then tell them to make their family proud!

But surely human decency should tell him how not to act.

And im not saying that they deserve it...dont label me that radical. I am just saying that i understand how it could come to that. And I dont believe that it makes them evil people, just humans pushed to a breaking point.

He stressed the abuse by a few soldiers at the Abu Ghraib jail was not representative of coalition troops.

But Labour MP John McDonnell instead argued the coalition's occupation of Iraq was being discredited.

A US military investigation has recommended disciplinary action against several of its officers for the alleged abuse of Iraqi prisoners.

Brigadier General Janice Karpinski is among seven officers being investigated following claims that soldiers under their command mistreated detainees.

This is not representative of the 150,000 soldiers that are in Iraq

Tony Blair's spokesman

The officers have already been suspended from duty.

Photographs of naked, hooded men being subjected to mock torture have been broadcast on American television channel CBS TV.

The US military says it is appalled by the behaviour of its soldiers, but insists this is an isolated case.

Mr Blair's official spokesman said: "The US army spokesman has said this morning that he is appalled, that those responsible have let their fellow soldiers down, and those are views that we would associate the UK Government with."

He added: "This is not representative of the 150,000 soldiers that are in Iraq, and they should not judge the actions of the coalition as a whole on the actions of a few.

"But it is regrettable, to say the least."

Jail worries

Ann Clwyd, Mr Blair's special envoy in Iraq and a supporter of the military action, told BBC Radio 4's Today programme: "These [pictures] are absolutely terrible."

The Labour MP said she had visited Abu Ghraib prison and raised concerns with the general in charge - although this was not the officer now being investigated.

You cannot compare that with the tens of thousands of people that Saddam Hussein was responsible for executing and torturing

Ann Clwyd
Special envoy to Iraq

"I was particularly concerned that so many prisoners are being held there over a long period of time, that their families quite often don't know they are even there," she said.

Families often queued outside the jail as they tried to discover whether their relatives were being detained there.

Ms Clwyd said she had raised worries about Abu Ghraib on her recent visit to the White House.

A "very senior" White House official had told her US troops did not abuse Iraqi prisoners.

She continued: "The people in charge did not know this was going on."

Occupation 'discredited'

The MP also denied the pictures could cause a perception that the coalition was adopting tactics similar to those used by the former Iraqi regime.

"On a small number of cases, horrible that they are, you cannot compare that with the tens of thousands of people that Saddam Hussein was responsible for executing and torturing," she added.

Such behaviour is unacceptable and very damaging to building confidence in Iraq

Michael Ancram
Shadow foreign secretary

Mr McDonnell, from the anti-war Socialist Campaign Group of Labour MPs, said the pictures underlined the need for a United Nations peacekeeping force to take over from the US-led coalition.

"They are very, very shocking. I think this is further evidence which builds up on top of the attack on Falluja which is discrediting the American occupation of Iraq," he said.

Conservative shadow foreign secretary Michael Ancram welcomed the "swift and firm" moves to tackle those allegedly behind the abuse.

"Such behaviour is unacceptable and very damaging to building confidence in Iraq," he said.

The Ministry of Defence said the abuse allegations were a "purely American matter".

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk_politics/3672599.stm

If I was American I would be very proud of my nation's military.

Nah, they can do what they want. They'll get some trash talk, but then again, thats what we do. Nothing really came of that other than the renaming of certain fried potatoes.

English Muffins ==> Freedom Muffins

Even if you can see 'how people would snap' surely it's in the interests of the US government to get soldiers the hell out of there before they do?

Watch it again. Charlie Sheen's character registers disgust throughout the whole scene. And Wilem Dafoe's character tries to stop it. Simplistic readings don't support your flimsy argument, either. You think Vietnam vets who committed atrocities are actually proud of what they did? "Capping mofo's?" You're a fucking moron.

With condom, of course!

The UN is the result of a long history of efforts to promote international cooperation. In the late 18th century, German philosopher Immanuel Kant proposed a federation or “league” of the world’s nations. Kant believed that such a federation would allow countries to unite and punish any nation that committed an act of aggression. This type of union by nations to protect each other against an aggressor is sometimes referred to as collective security. Kant also felt that the federation would protect the rights of small nations that often become pawns in power struggles between larger countries.

Don't get me wrong, I'm not justifying this behavior--it's disgusting and wrong and needs punishment stat. But given the context, it's not surprising. It is interesting and heartening that we haven't heard about this sort of thing from other troops, and the U.S. needs to take a freaking lesson from the world about that, oh, and about a whole bunch of other stuff too (cf. entire Bush foreign policy).

(x-post)

"The 'American' invasion is an act of agression"

But I think this more properly identifies the Hussein/Iraq agression towards Kuwait, the 'smaller nation that was to become a pawn in a power struggle'. Everything that ensued following the Gulf War were acts of aggression upon their own people.

Im not condoning it, just not surprised by it. Nor would you find me appaulled.

..And good luck to us now, getting any country's support in Iraq.

xxxxxxxxpost. (by now, probably irrelevant.)

As is http://images-eu.amazon.com/images/P/B00008PROB.01.MZZZZZZZ.jpg

This makes it look even worse than the CBS report

(xxpost)

Oh please, of course i'm not that stupid, I am just intrigued by someone's pov who think that this was inevitable.

(I am sort of wondering why this is happening on this thread rather than the one yesterday.)

xpost to pink: naive != stupid.

Wouldn't that be easier than bullshitting around?

>>The report said the war in Iraq has turned that country into "a central battleground in the global war on terrorism."

It said former regime elements conducting attacks against coalition forces have "increasingly allied themselves tactically and operationally with foreign fighters and Islamic extremists, including some linked to Ansar al-Islam, al Qaeda and Abu Musab al-Zarqawi.<<

but to say that Iraqi militia were not so much a threat to American lives as they are now seems pretty true.

Charles Heyman, senior defence analyst for Jane's Consultancy Group, wrote in the London Times on Monday:

"It begins to look as though there is going to be a rather messy political solution to the whole affair, possibly brokered by the United Nations.

"Expect to see an agreement where both sides can claim some sort of a victory, followed by a rather hasty withdrawal of coalition troops at some stage in the next six months."

If even that long, I suspect. So much for the long term commitment to 'ideals' if that comes about, but we shall see.

Looking at Middle East questions from a different angle, Stratfor has a story up right now with this summary:

The latest U.S. announcements about threats in the Middle East likely are based on increasingly reliable local intelligence, making the warnings that much more serious. The same sources of local intelligence are also increasingly at risk.

As I can't access the article, no way to tell if this argument speaks of gains in Iraq or not helping on this front, though I suspect it's more of a larger picture.

The thing that really gets my goat and molests my moose about this argument is that it can only exist in an environment in which the prevailing dichotomy is still Bush's "With us or against us" split, that you somehow have to choose between George W. Bush and Saddam Hussein (or Osama bin Laden, or whoever the designated Evil One of the Week is), and therefore if you find fault with Bush you're somehow "siding" with the other guys, because those are the only sides there are.

Which is obviously complete and utter bullshit. But the problem is that, in the United States at least and even to some degree in the world at large, there has yet to be a well articulated and firm representation for the many millions of us here and abroad who find Bushism a much lesser horror than bin Ladenism but a horror nonetheless. There are plenty of people -- probably a majority of the "Western" world -- who think it's necessary to oppose both Islamic fundamentalism and Bush-style Christian nationalism. And yet they have almost no representative voice (Zapatero? Maybe. But nobody really listen to Spain anyway).

If I'm right that this is a majority position of the population of Western democracies -- and I think I am -- then its lack of sufficient international representation is a failure of Western democracy, and nothing's going to get better until we get our own houses in order. We have to be able to stand up both to the suicide-cultist Islamists and the corporate Christian aristocracy, or we're not really much use to anyone at all.

There's a difference between constructive and nonconstructive criticism. You can support a cause but criticize it in ways that harm it.

Even if you are against both Islamic fundamentalism and Bush-style Christian nationalism, and you believe both are enemies of the United States or the Liberal Democracy or Freedom or whatever, you have to acknowledge that - especially due to the effects of searching under the streetlamp - there are ways of criticizing Bush that hurt your cause. It is necessary, no matter what your position is, to take the potential for blowback into account.

No criticism is off-limits to analysis. The right to your own opinion does not include the right to enjoy it without dispute. Freaking out every time someone criticizes your criticism, and automatically blaming it on some "Us vs Them" witchhunt, is a straw man of the flimsiest order. Hiding from criticism behind the "right to your own opinion" or the "need for open debate" is intellectual cowardice.

Are you talking to yourself?

Why don't we get back to why you felt the need to bring out the "oooh, you criticized Bush/Bushwar obviously you've equated Bush/the US with Saddam!" argument? Have you found an instance where anyone equated Bush or the US with Saddam?

Why can't you just admit that no one did, Stu?

The problem is the absence of international liberal leadership. Where that's supposed to come from, I have no idea. But in its absence, we're stuck with a bunch of bozos fighting about who's god is the right one, and a lot of carpetbaggers ka-chinging away in the background.

You seem to think I'm making up the "we're no better than Saddam" position, but the "we've brought inhumanity to Iraq" and "this proves we never should have gone - we should rethink our war policy" bullshit boils down to "what we're doing in Iraq is no better than what Saddam was doing." This argument exists. It's referenced in this thread, both in what people in the thread have said - which I quoted earlier, and things people around the world have said in response to news of these abuses. You can see it in the reactions Newshound posted upthread ("The Iraq people are suffering violence and torture under a brutal regime - so no change there then!" Helen, Hong Kong). How can someone argue that these pictures show we shouldn't have taken over Iraq without arguing that we're as bad or worse than Saddam? Are you denying that people believe such things?

You've yet to explain how calling someone a cokehead cowboy with zero respect for human rights or civilian casualties ISN'T putting them on the same level as Saddam. If Bush has zero respect for these things, what did Saddam have?

I personally wouldn't deny that "people" believe anything. I wouldn't deny that some people believe the earth is made of compressed fig newtons, or that, say, dinosaurs lived 5,000 years ago and the Grand Canyon was formed by Noah's flood. People believe all kinds of things.

What I personally would deny is that most American critics of the Bush administration think that Bush is "as bad as" Saddam. I mean, c'mon. That's like saying Joe McCarthy was "as bad as" Joe Stalin. You don't have to believe in equivalency to think they're both sons-of-bitches. And unless you live in some horrorworld where those are your only two options (the world the Bush administration would like us all to believe we do live in), then you are free to wholeheartedly reject both of them, even while ranking the crimes of Saddam Hussein as worse than the crimes of George W. Bush.

And anyway, if you flip your argument around, it ain't much of a case. OK, so Bush isn't as bad as Saddam. Stipulated. Happy now? Can we please throw the fucker out of office now?

Case in point:

You seem to think I'm making up the "we're no better than Saddam" position, but the "we've brought inhumanity to Iraq" and "this proves we never should have gone - we should rethink our war policy" bullshit boils down to "what we're doing in Iraq is no better than what Saddam was doing."
See, that's just making shit up. "I don't like your position, so I'm going to claim it 'boils down' to this other thing that I tried arguing before and failed miserably."

How does criticizing human rights abuses or the conduct of the war in Iraq "boil down" to anything but criticizing human rights abuses and the conduct of the war?

It doesn't. But you can't just admit that and deal with it.

This argument exists. It's referenced in this thread, both in what people in the thread have said - which I quoted earlier, and things people around the world have said in response to news of these abuses.
Yes, "this argument exists." As Spittle said, lots of "arguments exist."

But you're changing your argument - before it was that we - as in people posting to this thread, specifically me - were claiming that Bush/the US were equal to Saddam. Not "some people out in the world with no relation to anyone posting to this thread."

Nor have you located a statement in which anyone placed Saddam and Bush on equal footing.

Why'd you change your argument, Stu? Can't just admit that you were wrong? That you tried to make a ridiculous claim and got called on it?

How can someone argue that these pictures show we shouldn't have taken over Iraq without arguing that we're as bad or worse than Saddam? Are you denying that people believe such things?
I forget the name of the logical error in your first sentence. Something about assumptions without evidence - you're phrasing the question as if the conclusion is foregone. My response - "they're not, it doesn't."

See how that works? You make a vague statement, I make an equally vague one in reply.

Now, why don't you put on your thinking cap, and actually find where anyone here has equated Bush and Saddam. Not this mumbling, bumbling bullshit. Either find where someone did, or apologize.

You've yet to explain how calling someone a cokehead cowboy with zero respect for human rights or civilian casualties ISN'T putting them on the same level as Saddam. If Bush has zero respect for these things, what did Saddam have?
You've yet to explain how calling someone a cokehead cowboy with zero respect for human rights or civilian casualties IS putting them on the same level as Saddam.

Christ.

hopefully the bush admin will prove me wrong and lots of people will lose their jobs and worse.

The Kuwaiti political scientist, Dr Shamlan al-Eesa, was pointing out an uncomfortable truth. In many parts of the Middle East, this is how the police are expected to behave.

"These things happen every day in the Arab world, but no one reports it," he says. "That is the difference between the Arab world and the West - the West admits these things and tries to do something about it."

....

however, a lot of the heinous behavior that happens in those arab (and other) companies is with the tacit (or explicit) consent of the united states.

more from the bbc article:

A male student added: "I was shocked. Why were these photographs taken at all? This implies the soldiers were enjoying themselves. This is what gives us most pain and sorrow."

otm

My problem with this type of statement is that there's a certain "damned if you do, damned if you don't" element to it. The UN for instance, seems more then happy to point out human rights abuses across the globe (especially in a certain tiny strip of land in the mideast) but much, much less eager to intervene.

Oh, it's depressing...

(Fox found some former Army dude to come on Hannity & Colmes and say that what happened is not much more than "frat hazing.")

"Abu Ghraib Prison Population to Be Cut in Half"

(Ouch!)

Anyway more serious matters..
The US military says there have been investigations into 25 deaths in US custody in Iraq and Afghanistan.

An Army official, speaking to Reuters on condition of anonymity, said a soldier had been convicted of killing one of the prisoners by hitting him with a rock.

He was thrown out of the army but did not go to jail.

The other murder was committed by a private contractor who worked for the CIA, the official said.

I kind of expected this whole thing to disappear more quickly than it looks like it's going to. This is probably going to blow up and make shit really ugly.

Published on Tuesday, May 4, 2004 by the Telegraph (Calcutta, India)
Dream Dies in US Army Kitchen
Four Indians Return Home After Nine-Month Ordeal in Iraq

by John Mary

Thiruvananthapuram, May 3: Tricked into working as kitchen assistants at a US army camp in Iraq, four natives of Kerala have returned home to recount their nine-month ordeal in the erstwhile Saddam country.

Faisal, who paid Rs 70,000 to a recruiting agent in Kollam in the hope of working in Kuwait as a butcher, said he was grateful to Allah for giving him another lease of life. “I never thought I would see my wife and three children,” he told The Telegraph.

The other three — Hameed, Shajahan and Mansoor, all from Kollam — had paid similar amounts hoping they would be able to land lucrative jobs in Kuwait and wipe off their debts.

Several others from different parts of Kerala, who were recruited for jobs in Kuwait but ended up in Iraq, have also returned. But so far the government has not been able to arrest any of their local contacts.

Faisal, Hameed, Shajahan and Mansoor were among 30 people who left their homes last year with dreams of making enough money for a decent living. Their ordeal started with a sham of a medical check-up at Kochi for which each of them paid Rs 1,500. They then left for Mumbai from where they were put on a flight to Kuwait.

All 30 landed in Kuwait City and were received by representatives of the Gulf Catering Company. They know nothing more about the company or its managers. They were then hustled into a bus. After a long ride, they reached Iraq.

When they realised they were being taken to Iraq, they protested, but their handler said he had paid Rs 45,000 for each to the main agent in Mumbai. “After all, you will be paid decent salaries and looked after well,” the company representative told them, Faisal said.

Faisal and the three others were taken to the Q West camp, some 5 km from Tikrit — the deposed Saddam Hussein’s hometown — for what would be the beginning of a thankless toil. Their day used to begin at 4 in the morning and end at 1 at night. In return for their work, the catering company used to send drafts of Rs 9,000 to their families back home, but that, too, was hardly regular.

As kitchen assistants, they had to serve food to the Americans. While they laid out sumptuous meals for the soldiers, they had to be content with leftovers. When a few of the assistants resorted to a feeble non-cooperation, one of the sentries shot a dog, in a crude warning of the fate awaiting the strikers. Once, the soldiers let them ring up their relatives, but they had to break off as a bomb went off nearby.

The four were allowed to leave the camp after much pleading. They reached Amman but had to return to Iraq because of discrepancies in travel documents. While returning, they were stopped and assaulted by Iraqi soldiers at Falluja. But realising their captives were Indians, the Iraqis let them go. Faisal and the others then reached the Indian embassy in Baghdad, from where they were flown out to Mumbai.

Asked if they had complained against the local agent, Thangal Kunju, and the sub-agent in Kochi, Faisal said: “What I want to do now is to get hold of the agent and deal with him physically. The rest can follow.”

Copyright © 2002 The Telegraph.

###

This explains so much about George Bush, doesn't it?

I'd probably be an embittered cokehead sociopath if my frat brothers forced me to perform 'mock fellatio' and shocked deez nuts.