More Abu Ghraib torture photos
Wired has gotten hold of an incredibly disturbing set of photos from the US torture crimes at Abu Ghraib. Does anyone really believe that this was just a couple of rogue operators? If I wanted to reduce the number of jihadis in the world, I'd start by making sure that stuff like this didn't happen -- I can think of no better recruiting boost for Al Quaeda than prisons like Abu Ghraib.
Link
As an expert witness in the defense of an Abu Ghraib guard who was court-martialed, psychologist Philip Zimbardo had access to many of the images of abuse that were taken by the guards themselves. For a presentation at the TED conference in Monterey, California, Zimbardo assembled some of these pictures into a short video. Wired.com obtained the video from Zimbardo's talk, and is publishing some of the stills from that video here. Many of the images are explicit and gruesome, depicting nudity, degradation, simulated sex acts and guards posing with decaying corpses. Viewer discretion is advised.
the latest
latest episodes
Hah, hah, our troops sure love their high-spirited fraternity-style hi-jinks! I bet the prisoners had fun too!
[/heartsick snark]
I was watching one of Dan Dennet's TED talks from a couple of years ago last night, and he had an excellent, slap-my-head-that-seems-obvious explanation of what creates extremism.
I'm sure this type of treatment (or invading someone else's nation) doesn't help, but his reasoning goes much deeper than this and is beautifully elegant.
Look at the American idiot Jihadist coward pummeling his helpless victim. Down with America.
most of these images have already appeared earlier.
I wonder what happened to the really bad ones.
Cory, I would say anyone who beleives that this could have happened on orders from some high-ranking officer has little familiarity with the army. Every private who makes it through basic gets schooled on how to process prisoners, and everyone knows that beating on prisoners is totally illegal. It's made quite clear to every soldier that he's obligated to refuse illegal orders. There's absolutely no way these sadistic morons could have thought that what they were doing was either legal or the intent of the brass. Plus, just the monstrous stupidity of the Abu Ghraib abuses should make it clear that they were the brainchildren of a few retarded enlisted guys, not of the theater policy makers that ostensibly have a clue.
No. I believe they were deliberately led into the abuse and given carte blanche to do it. And then they were thrown to the wolves when it leaked. All guilty. Top to bottom.
Would that be the same basic that makes it clear that torturing a prisoner -- e.g., by filling their nasal passages with water and preventing them from breathing -- is a crime?
I'm inclined to believe that gavin is sort of right - I don't think anybody cared about the wellbeing of the prisoners, but I can't imagine they wanted their guards youtubing the beatings either.
Not defending the actions of the American staff at Abu Gharib, but let's put it in context....
Just a few years earlier, before the fall of Saddam, in the very same prison, people were having eyes gouged out, fingers cut off one by one with rusty pliers, dropped from three stories up with their hand's tied behind them, and other unspeakable atrocities.
Abu Gharib used to be a concentration camp where mass executions and horrible acts of torture were committed, and unkown tens of thousands of people died horrible deaths.
And then the Americans came and beat and abused the staff that used to work there.
After seeing the "other" Abu Gharib videos, it's kind of hard for me to feel bad about what the Americans did.
Was anyone even killed, or for that matter, maimed?
The American soldiers abuses didn't seem any worse than the abuses carried out by tazer-happy guards at regular American civilian prisons.
Again, not trying to defend their actions, but I have to say I am a bit disturbed that people really think the worst thing to happen at Abu Gharib was the American occupation of it.
So, we should torture the US guards? Then torture their torturers? Then...
not trying to defend, but will anyway?
Many of the imprisoned were picked up at random and released (much later). Sure, some prize bastards were there. So what? So the new prize bastards could have fun?
Imagine how the Iraqis felt. Life under Saddam (who was a creature of America and helped into power by America). Total destruction of their country for a 911 they had nothing to do with and for WMDs that were lies - said destruction by Americans, "liberation" of the prison by Americans - who behave like the previous monsters....
what don't you get about this?
Again, not trying to defend their actions, but I have to say I am a bit disturbed that people really think the worst thing to happen at Abu Gharib was the American occupation of it.
Nothing like this should have ever been done by Americans. When the German concentration camps were liberated in 1945, they didn't fill them up again and beat the hell out of people, did they?
No matter how people try to justify this, it's wrong and should be accounted for completely.
/cursing/ That other humans did similar or worse horrible things does not make this hideous behaviour any g#ddamn better. This is what you want to take from these images? From the story that accompanies it? That the prisoners deserved it?!
Here's a related article from the Turkish Daily News: ... we've been the good guys for the last century, anyway, and looked at those vile pictures with a certain smugness. Yes, we did. But no more.
And if you want to look at one of the reasons why/how this could happen, from TFA: Within three months there's a thousand prisoners with a handful of guards to take care of them, so they're overwhelmed. Frederick and the others worked 12-hour shifts. How many days a week? Seven. How many days without a day off? Forty. That kind of stress reduces decision-making and critical thinking and rationality. But that's only the beginning.
Even if there were no explicit commands from these soldiers' higher-ups, this is not the isolated work of a few bad apples.
interestingly enough, after the war the allies kept up their OSS type agencies and turned them into the CIA and MI6 etc. They captured a lot of commies, real and imagined, and tortured them. As did the KGB. The Brits just had it emerge the other year that actual Gestapo thumbscrews from a concentration camp were used on suspected communist agents by the British. There were deaths from interrogation.Rest, assured,America has always tortured,always will torture and should always be held to strictest account when caught torturing. Pretending it doesn't happen makes it too damn easy to get away with.
There were children at Abu Ghraib.
and there still someone at Gitmo who entered there as a child
Occam's razor, Cory. Don't assume malice what can be explained by gross incompetence. Long term stress and being isolated in the prison is a more likely explanation than a secret order. The fact that photos like these were even taken should strongly support that. It is the Stanford prison experiment on a grand scale.
Oh my god. Those are horrifying.
AnnoyedCapitalist, gross incompetence is a cop-out.
I am disgusted by these photos. I grew up in a fascist state believing we who were in power were not doing anything wrong. Until pictures like those above were shoved under our noses day in day out and at the end we had to say. We are responsible, collectively. Then we had the TRUTH AND RECONCILIATION commission to open the wounds and doctor them. Apartheid South Africa is still reeling under our brain implosions.
What has happened to brand America? The one that gave us so many wonderful things? I think America is going insane and not slowly but surely but faster than a speeding bullet.
How is gross incompetence a cop-out? Has the US not had truth (prehaps not reconciliation) about much of this?
We need to look for actual solutions. Claiming that it's only because of a few people at the top is a cop-out. A simple change in commander-in-chief will not change this. Do you not think that by reducing the number of troops while maintaining these facility in Iraq by half we just might increase stress and the chance of this happening again?
Cory thinking that he could just wish the problem away if only he were in charge is ridiculous.
Don't ever forget that peace happiness and prosperity are possible and are still worth striving for. Don't let these fuckers make you cynical. That would be the ultimate triumph. Militant optimism. That is my motto, and that it was I will tell the shitheads.
Read your Conrad, folks. The darkness whispers to all of us.
ANNOYEDCAPITALIST, GAVINKOVITE, SONGE: We have several good reasons to believe that this was not the work of a "few bad apples":
1) It is well documented that many of the methods used at Abu Gharaib, and Guantanamo, were designed by the CIA throughout the 60's and 70's, and were taught by the USA to various other repressive regimes, such as those in the southern cone of South America (read about the "School of the Americas" for example).
2) We know that various legal preperations were made by the Bush administration for expanding the legal definitions of allowable "interrogation methods". (E.g. declaring individuals as enemy combatants not deserving of Geneva Convention protections.)
3) People who worked at Abu Gharaib (such as Janis Karpinski) have claimed that indivduals working as civillian contractors for the DOD directed much of the abuse.
4) General Ricardo Sanchez, a senior millitary figure in Iraq, authorized the use of many of these techniques explicitly (e.g. military dogs, temperature extremes, reversed sleep patterns, sensory deprivation, see the following article from the WP: http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A35612-2004Jun11.html
5) It makes no sense that soldiers, who are typically decent human beings, would do this sort of thing simply for pleasure. I think it is safe to say that, more often than not, soldiers do bad things when they are instructed to not because they want to.
It is a fact: Torture is a tool used by the American government, they used it before (in the Phillipines, Latin America, etc.), and they're using it presently. It is not used to extract information (as noted by others, it is not very good for that); it is used to terrorize individuals and members of a populace or armed movement who pose a political/millitary threat. The "Western Powers", headed by the USA, are in the business of repression and terror like other governments, but they are smart enough to restrict its use to people outside their own nations. The sort of outrage that Cory and others feel is a natural, and humane, response to repression and terror. It is only with ideological "we're the good guys" glasses that anyone can have a reaction otherwise.
but, America does not torture, so therefore, this is not torture.
Ooops, I was totally mispelling Abu Ghraib. D'oh!
"Does anyone really believe that this was just a couple of rogue operators?"
I sure the hell don't believe that.
You're not going to find a memo from George W. Bush saying "It's OK for you to beat the shit out of prisoners", but the fact is that the Bush administration was working away at its doctrine of allowing torture in certain situations - power that is, according to them, above the law as made by Congress and as judged by the courts - at the same time Abu Ghraib was happening.
That's how policy trickles down.
The mindless cruelty and the stupidity of filming it are part of human nature when humans are given free rein to do whatever they want to their prisoners... As has been mentioned, that's your basic Stanford Prisoner Experiment.
But before that could happen, somebody had to run that experiment - somebody had to decide that the soldiers had free rein and loosen oversight on them.
Which is how the administration is absolutely culpable, in my opinion.
no one (neither here nor there) is linking to errol morris' documentary about the abu ghraib photographs "standard operating procedure"?
">spiegel interview
new yorker talk
screen daily article
guardian opinion
here
morris provides the sort of context that is dourly missing from the general discussion of these events.
Shame full, Horrifying, American troops should dishonor of their act. Its not a humanity and sure this is not the way they can resolve the issue of terrorism.
These are so despicable that the happiest song in the world (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2A2Jt4WOxN8) can only just counter them. Now that's fucking horrible (though I do agree that there are probably worse ones we aren't seeing).
oops: ">spiegel interview.
??
http://www.spiegel.de/international/germany/0,1518,535350,00.html
Saying "But the muslims did much worse" is not actually any sort of a defense.
If you find a rape victim do you give her one gently, cause after all the other guy did much worse?
If you join in torture you don't get the motral higher ground.
Just my hunch based on my own experience in the Army 15 years ago., but I think gavinkovite's got it right. Except for deciding our deployment positions and general missions, officers played only a tiny role in the day-to-day military field operations of the Army unit to which I was attached. We lower enlisted folk (including minor Non-Commissioned Officers) pretty much had the run of 98% of the deployed activities. I'm betting that if any military officers (O1's or 02's) were complicit, it was in a "don't ask, don't tell" way. My guess would be that the highest this kind of stuff went was with someone in a role of platoon sergeant (E-6, E-7). *shrugs*
#9 >> dequeued
funny that USA executed Japanse soldiers at the end of the secon world war who were responsible of probably less cruel tortures...
If you are right, I'm puzzled why US military closed the nazi concentration camps back them instead of adapting it to the NAZI'z "high-spirited fraternity-style"...
The tortures should be contestualized in the politician "kill them all" policy after 911... Maybe I'm wrong but I think Hitler never signed an EXPLICIT order to torture and kill people in concentration camps but does this make him not responsible?
Nazi used to kill 10 people/enemies for each Nazi killed. I think they were kind of moderate if compared to the number of people killed so far in Iraq just for revenge of something that Iraq was not involved at all...
Anyway Saddam was one of the coolest animation character ever appeared on TV so why kill him?!
Gotta say, the flash ad in the middle of that disturbing slideshow was a bit incongruous.
As the saying goes: An eye for an eye leaves everyone standing on a box in a robe with a sack on their head and their hands wired up to something.
#34 You need context to determine the value of torture?
Torture is immoral and its advocates are amoral.
I don't need a context to know that.
You guys aren't supporting our troops.
@TAKUAN #11
Imagine how the Iraqis felt. Life under Saddam (who was a creature of America and helped into power by America). Total destruction of their country for a 911 they had nothing to do with and for WMDs that were lies - said destruction by Americans, "liberation" of the prison by Americans - who behave like the previous monsters....
what don't you get about this?
Um.. No?
Do you see in those pictures Americans hacking off prisoners limbs with swords?
Or burning the prisoner's skin off with boiling oil?
I am not going to post a video link here, but if you have the stomach for it, the Abu Ghairb videos are not hard to find.
Yes, you *can* compare one torturer to another.
And the Americans were not 1/100th as bad as the Iraqis.
Don't believe me? Do this thought experiment:
If you had to choose between the Iraqi prison guards, and the American soldiers, you would gladly run to the Americans.
I would much rather have a few ribs cracked by some hick and be forced to wear soiled panties on my head than have my skin ripped off in strips.
But I guess all torture is exactly the same, eh?
@JIM OCONNELL #12
Nothing like this should have ever been done by Americans. When the German concentration camps were liberated in 1945, they didn't fill them up again and beat the hell out of people, did they?
No matter how people try to justify this, it's wrong and should be accounted for completely.
Interesting to use the example of concentration camps.
*IF* the allies *HAD* put nazi officers up in concentration camps after the war, and beaten them up and otherwise abused them, and then, after that, the world media ignored the suffering of the people murdered at the camps, and focused solely on the abused nazis, I would have a problem with that, as I do with this.
If our history books said the worst thing to happen at Auschwitz was that Nazi officers were abused by allied soldiers...
Anyway, as I said, this does not *excuse* the conduct of the soldiers there, and just because someone else did something worse does not mean that they are somehow now accountable.
But lets keep this in context people.
@ERROR404 #32
Saying "But the muslims did much worse" is not actually any sort of a defense.
If you find a rape victim do you give her one gently, cause after all the other guy did much worse?
If you join in torture you don't get the motral higher ground.
Bad example, dude.
A better example might be, if you find a rape victim who was also mugged by someone else after she was raped, do you give up looking for her rapist and try to find her mugger?
It's so irrational and stupid to ignore the horrible war crimes committed at Abu Ghairb for the much lesser war crimes committed a few years later.
Why are people so willing to dismiss the war crimes of Iraqis but focus only on the (lesser) war crimes of Americans?
Is it that you think Iraqis didn't know any better and shouldn't be held to the same standards?
I find that attitude to be highly racist and offensive.
And I never said that anyone had the "motral" high ground.
I am all for punishing the people who were guilty of that, and they were punished.
I just think it's insensitive to the real victims of Abu Ghairb to ignore their plight in favor of a more tabloid-esqe story.
It's fun to see the arguments deployed here by people who are generally of the opinion that "this is not so bad."
1) Moral relativism: others have done worse. While true, it is not an argument that has any appeal even to true moral relativists. Our standards of decent behaviour have been violated, not someone else's. And besides, what relevance does the behaviour of others have? Sharks tear their living victims apart with their teeth! Does that make shooting people ok? If so, why?
2) Rogue elements: this is the fault of a few bad apples amongst enlisted personnel. The problem with this is that even if it is true, officers and their political masters created a situation where this behaviour was inevitable. It is particularly funny to see the Stanford Experiment deployed as a defence of the actions of soldiers at Abu Gharib, when it should instead lead one to conclude that the behaviour of these soldiers was entirely predictable. It is a matter of well-documented empirical fact that when you give one group of human beings absolute power over another, they abuse it.
3) Incompetent officers: this was not a matter of deliberate policy, but poor decision making. Even if this were believable--that the entire command structure of the most powerful, professional military force on Earth did not have one person in the chain of command regarding this prison who was even minimally competent, which is all it would have taken to realize the inevitable consequences of crowding, under-staffing, and poor supervision--it is not an excuse. In law, gross incompetence is as actionable as wilful intent. To say the officers responsible are "innocent by reason of incompetence" is an oxymoron.
4) Basic Training: troops are trained not to do this stuff, so they wouldn't ever do it. See 2, above. Humans are human. Believing otherwise is believing in fairies and angels.
On the flip-side, people who believe that ordinary soldiers would never do stuff like this unless ordered to do so by higher-ups are as badly in need of a remedial psychology course as those who believe that basic training is capable of suppressing our nastier side.
Here are some principles to judge people's responsibility:
1) Did the soldiers who did these things know what they were doing was wrong? Yes, because they did receive training that it was wrong.
2) Did the officers who created the situation know where it would inevitably lead? Almost certainly. Prisoner abuse and the situations that create it are well-documented.
3) Did the politicians who revised behavioural standards to permit American soldiers to engage in what used to be defined as torture know they were creating an environment where things that are still defined as torture would happen? Again, almost certainly, unless they were brain-dead.
Humans like to hurt each other. It is one of the most fundamental, hard-wired means by which we maintain our social organization. Civilized societies find ways and means of re-channelling, subverting or recontextualizing this desire in useful or harmless ways, from your local BDSM club to rugby to corporate management.
Uncivilized societies allow our sadistic impulses free reign. Places like Abu Gharib are the entirely predictable result.
It is understandable you do not wish to face unpleasant truth. It is however, your duty.
I cannot believe that there are people here that uses the OTHERS HAVE DONE WORSE argument. What are you? 5 years old? You LEAD BY EXAMPLE! Others will always do as you do not do as you say. How can the USA chastise China on its human rights record now? Talk about the pot calling the kettle black. The fact that your enemies treat you bad is ALL THE MORE REASON to treat them better!
Who is actually defending those actions, Tom? Just because we think you guys are idiots who just want an excuse to hate on a few politicians doesn't mean we agree with torture.
mmm let's see; you are against voter's protesting against being disenfranchised, you are an apologist for torture, we are all"idiots"....... oh do go one, this is most droll.
re: 36
Yeah, I kinda wondered if Lexus liked having their car pop up as the next photo in this slide show... Probably some irony in there.
Takuan, I have never been an apologist for torture. Nor am I against protesting. Perhaps you should read what I actually write rather than assume my politics are opposite yours.
TOM, I agree that the leadership at Abu Ghraib was criminally negligent in letting this kind of thing happen. It's weird that, in all the media hoopla, we never once heard about their platoon leader or company commander. It's almost as if they didn't have one.
I'm just protesting that it's ridiculous to think that these freaks weren't "bad apples."
1. I can't believe that those guys got any useful information out of their prisoners by stacking them naked in pyramids or whatever. It's useless from a military standpoint, and (as we can see) stands to make the whole command look like a horse's ass. Also, it's sick and illegal. There are at probably 8 or 10 experienced officers in a direct chain of command between CENTCOM and the jailers. And you think they all signed off on this?
2. Soldiers never take orders from civilians. Trust me, I was in Iraq, too. All command comes from your commanding officer.
3. If those jailers were acting on orders from higher, then higher must have been confident that if they ordered sexual abuse, sexual abuse would be carried out. In whatever low regard you hold American soldiers, I can't believe that you think we're all completely morally bankrupt. That kind of order is completely fucked up and illegal, and soldiers are not obliged to carry it out even if it was given (which it definitely wasn't). And stress was no excuse - it's not unusual to work 40 days straight in a combat deployment - my guys did too, but we never tortured anyone or attacked civilians.
That's why I hate hearing civilians casualy remark that Abu Ghraib was army policy. Not only is it ignorant, but it's incredibly insulting to everyone else who served over there.
Abu Ghraib Officer Gets Reprimand
Non-Court-Martial Punishment for Dereliction of Duty Includes Fine
By R. Jeffrey Smith
Washington Post Staff Writer
Thursday, May 12, 2005; Page A16
The Army has decided to punish the top military intelligence officer stationed at the Abu Ghraib prison in Iraq in 2003 with a letter of reprimand and a fine amounting to half of his pay for two months for his role in the notorious abuse of Iraqis, a senior Army official disclosed yesterday.
The officer, Col. Thomas M. Pappas, had operational control of the Abu Ghraib prison wing where military reservists had photographed Iraqis being threatened by police dogs, paraded without clothes, forced to simulate sex acts, and physically struck by their guards in October and November of that year.
I am NOT, repeat NOT defending their actions.
The Americans who are responsible should be punished severely, just like every corrupt cop and prison guard.
Since they abused their authority to commit crimes, they are actually far worse than common criminals.
Now then.
We have two instances of torture, that happened in the same place, within the frame of a few years.
1) The Americans: Low level abuse, no one was killed or maimed.
No worse than what happens every day under the watch of someone like Joe Arpaio.
Horrible, yes, but I don't believe it crosses the line into being *evil*
And Abu Ghairb is just a symptom of a much larger problem in American society...
2) The Iraqis: High level war crimes, unspeakable acts of carnage and brutality, mass murder.
A glaring example of the worst of humanity.
So we have two instance of torture, and everyone ignores #2 and only cares about #1.
I am sure the families digging through the unmarked graves for their dissapeared loved ones would be happy to know that you're bitching about the inevitable result of some hicks given too much power.
What I am trying to say here, is that only focusing on #1 is -insane-, and insulting to the people who were murdered there.
If #1 and #2 happened at the same time, right next to each other, would you still only focus on #1?
Tell me.
Takuan @16: One person still in Gitmo is Omar Khadr, who was 15 when captured by US forces. He fulfils the definition of "child soldier" that is the source of so much justifiable hand-wringing in Africa.
AnnoyedCapitalist @everywhere: I'd like to know the point of Post#9 if not to defend the actions of the torturers of Abu Ghraib by making their actions seem not so bad by irrelevant comparison. What is your take on the intent of the poster? The post is incomprehensible to me if it isn't meant to make the actions of the torturers seem not so bad.
In particular, the last line suggests that the poster believes that it is important that the behaviour of the American torturers at Abu Ghraib was not the worst thing that happened there. If this is not intended to imply that the actions of the American torturers at Abu Ghraib were not something we should get so worked up about, I am at a loss to understand what the intent is. And that, to me, sounds like someone defending the American torturers at Abu Ghraib.
Also, your own post arguing that the American torturers were just a few bad apples sounds to me like a defence of the higher-ups who wilfully created a situation where they knew or could reasonably be expected to know that torture would occur.
As I said: innocent by reason of incompetence is an oxymoron.
Also, I am not claiming "it was just a few people at the top". It was a lot of people at a lot of levels, although obviously responsibility grows as you go up the tree.
Nor am I claiming that other people haven't done worse. I just don't see the relevance of the behaviour of one individual human to another individual human, neither of whom had any influence on each other and both of whom behaved in characteristically human, and depressingly nasty, ways.
You seem keen on condemning some Iraqis, for example, but why are you all het up about them when the NAZIs did so much worse? Let's keep it in perspective! It isn't as if Iraq was a particularly bad place to live compared to many places at various times. So why are you all shook up about it?
I don't understand why people bring up these irrelevant cases UNLESS it is to somehow diminish or distract from the fact that the American torturers at Abu Ghraib committed acts of unmitigated evil, and did so under circumstances that are empirically known to strongly favour such acts.
Sounds like defence to me.
Ok, I'm done. Please go back to being wrong.
@50: Ok, I'm breaking my own rule.
The most powerful nation on Earth invaded Iraq using the abuses at places like Abu Ghraib as part of the justification. It was shut down, prisoners freed, guards punished, the government responsible destroyed, the head of state executed.
I'd say that's focus enough. Time to move on.
Now I'm really done.
Yeah, it is an internet argument, lol.
The last thing I will say is that what happened in Abu Ghairb is relevant and a fair comparison because it happened right beforehand, in the same place.
I would agree with you if it had happened on the other side of the country, or a decade beforehand, but it didn't.
And all I am trying to say is that it is heartless to ignore that.
And if you still don't think it is a relevant comparison, when would it be relevant?
What if the prison was partitioned between Iraqi and Americans, and we could literally see how they treated their prisoners side by side?
Would you still feel the same way?
American blood is more precious than Iraqi blood. Everyone knows that.
Torturing is not what America should be about.
I am embarrassed and ashamed to be an American.
The Devil in the Details: The CIA and Saddam Hussein
"The coup that brought the Ba'ath Party to power in 1963 was celebrated by the United States.
The CIA had a hand in it. They had funded the Ba'ath Party - of which Saddam Hussein was a young member - when it was in opposition.
US diplomat James Akins served in the Baghdad Embassy at the time. Mr. Akins said, "I knew all the Ba'ath Party leaders and I liked them".
"The CIA were definitely involved in that coup. We saw the rise of the Ba'athists as a way of replacing a pro-Soviet government with a pro-American one and you don't get that chance very often.
"Sure, some people were rounded up and shot but these were mostly communists so that didn't bother us".
This happy co-existence lasted right through the 1980s." 1
Wow, the level of ignorance of the real world displayed in many of the comments here is amazing (but not entirely unexpected). Oooooh! America is sooooo evil. Down with America! Let's all have another cinnamon latte and write outraged comments!
My comment: Those of you who are so outraged by these photos are utterly clueless about how evil some of those prisoners were and how evil is . These were guys who coldly decapitated multiple people in ditches while they squirmed in their own blood, who knowingly blasted children and anyone at random to bits in public markets and who hanged peoples' burned corpses in public places after they had beaten them to death. Why? Because they were from a different branch of their own religion or of a different political philosophy!
Save me your outrage over the sophmoric idiots at Abu G; Where were your outraged comments about the daily horrors perpetrated by the monsters who got roughed up and humiliated in Abu Garaib. In my opinion, no one should have wasted time screwing around with those men; most of those guys merited a quick bullet throught the face followed by cremation. That the American military DIDN'T do that (except in very isolated and unusual cases) speaks loads about how basically moral its approach actually is. If justice were truly served, the terrorist perps that were obviously guilty would never have been captured and detained at all. They would have been removed from any further possibility of killing innocents immediately.
So, go vent your ignorant outrage if you will, but remember to do a reality check before you get so worked up that you choke on your latte. Never forget that the ONLY reason that you have the freedom to express your propaganda is because the American military has consistently stood fast against the truly evil, fascist forces on the planet, buying WITH THEIR BLOOD the freedoms you enjoy and take for granted every day. All you people in other countries owe the American military a debt greater than you can ever repay because your countries would have been swept under the domination of the nazis, the Japanese fascists, the Soviet Union's domination if it had not been for America. And, if the islamo-fascists of our time continue unchecked, you can kiss your negative comments on BoingBoing goodbye, as well as the rest of the internet and any free, political discourse. Think about it. Any criticisms you sincerely hold should always be prefaced by a note of appreciation that you CAN criticize because good men bought that privilege for you with their own blood.
I ll enter in:
In an age where many employees of ordinary companies cannot use the toilet without their manager knowing, one would expect, you know, /the army/, known for controlling most aspects of its soldiers lives, to have some knowledge of what their people are doing. It beggars belief that these scum are acting without the knowledge of officers, if not on orders.
These photos are indicative of the motives and methods of the American regime, maybe, but hardly proofs. I think we can all agree the conclusion to be drawn here is not necessarily a radical one: the United States armed forces need a structural overhaul, including better training, command structure and accountability. And if accountability reduces functionability, so much the better. Better for the army not to function then function like this. Absolutely disgusting.
In fact, I'm not sure it wouldn't be better to bring back the draft. At least then some cooler heads may prevail, as people would be there who didn't need the army to survive, let alone enjoy what they do.
Isn't it meant to be these people, and not the godless liberals, who have some sense of morality?
"guys who coldly decapitated multiple people in ditches while they squirmed in their own blood, who knowingly blasted children and anyone at random to bits in public markets"
ooh! sounds like My Lai and William Calley together with the initial bombing of Baghdad!
Your rant isn't even a very good one, much less informed. Not even one "America, Fuck Yeah!"
Shall we take this discussion into a detailed examination of ongoing American atrocities in Iraq? I have days of material.
durkadurkamohammmedjihaddurka
"The 24 Iraqi civilians killed on Nov. 19 included children and the women who were trying to shield them, witnesses told a Washington Post special correspondent in Haditha this week and U.S. investigators said in Washington. The girls killed inside Khafif's house were ages 14, 10, 5, 3 and 1, according to death certificates."
durkadurka
And you, Harvey, do crack a book every now and then. What seems good in general is often something different in particular, including WWII, where we know the allies couldn't have cared less about the Jews, including any number of conflicts since then of which you appear ignorant. The wholesale demolition of Central America in the 80s for instance.
I imagine the real world would indeed surprise you, if you cared to join us in it. Remember, only a Sith deals in absolutes.
I appreciate WIRED using their soapbox to bring to light these things, but would it be so much to ask them to put all of the advertising money earned from the pageviews into a fund for Amnesty International or something? It is a little bit gross to see anyone profit from this sort of stuff.
Maybe they're going to do this anyway, and I just didn't notice.
To all those people asking why the tortures perpetrated by the Iraqis at Abu Ghraib are being ignored, and those perpetrated by the American military are getting all of the attention, I posit the following:
The American military follows a chain of command. At the top of that chain is their Commander in Chief, also known as the President of the United States of America. The position of President is a post which one attains after being voted in by the American populace. This means that, ultimately, the American populace is in some small manner _responsible_ for what the American military does.
If you were a citizen of the United States of America, would you want to be responsible, in any part, for any amount of torture?
Yes, the actions of the Iraqis in Abu Ghraib were also reprehensible. However, for the most part, the average first world nation dweller had no way to influence what was going on there. The actions of the Americans, however, well, it should be possible to influence those through several means. US citizens can protest, can write letters to their congressmen or senators, can vote out the politicians that allowed this kind of thing to happen, and can vote in people who promise to put a stop to it. Citizens of other countries can encourage US Citizens to do this, as well as encourage their own political leaders to talk to the leaders of the USA in an attempt to get the practices stopped.
This is not what America is supposed to be about.
To put it mildly.
9/11, Saddam's regime, Daniel Pearl, etc. are no excuse.
If "our" "side" does this, then what difference does it make which "side" "wins" the "war"?
Please vote, and work for progressive candidates where you find them.
The pictures are disturbing, but not nearly as disturbing as those who would make excuses or ask for "perspective" as if it were somehow wrong to be outraged over this. Those are the people who really scare me.
i remember the speech that 'el presidente' bush gave to congress right after the invasion where he basically told the world that the u.s. was gonna do what the fuck we pleased with the prisoners, and everyone else could go fuck themselves. i'm paraphrasing, of course. then i recall big don rumsfeld taking a tour of iraq and the prison, before the scandal broke, and reporting back as to what a frikkin fine job our boys ( and girls!) were doing there. it was policy from the beginning to torture, and is still being carried out in secret to this day!
"How about showing the footage the of the twin towers before and after the attack?
Oh, and then let's show photos of some of the people that were in the Trade Towers before and after the attack. No wait, I guess we can't do that can we?"
9/11 wasn't conducted by Iraqis. By your logic, we should've bombed Antarctica for Pearl Harbor.
one mo thing: after the battle at valley forge, washington and his men had their hands on a regiment of british and hessian soldiers as prisoners of war. the british had done some REALLY nasty things to the colonists up to that point, and many of the men wanted to torture their brit prisoners for either intel or revenge. washington took out his pistol and said he would personally shoot anyone who treated these prisoners less then humanely, and ordered blankets and food be brought out to them. that is what this country is based on. if we deviate from geneva conventions with OUR prisoners, how can we expect our enemies to treat our soldiers with dignity and humanity.
I'm going for the win in internet comments!
Tom: #9 and the others "mitigating" the torture are coming at the issue from a utilitarian view, using Saddam as a counterweight. You may not agree with it, but you certainly shouldn't interpret their comments as pro-torture. In fact they admit that it shouldn't have happened. Not agreeing with you does not mean thinking the opposite of you. You two are arguing past each other.
And I don't know what argument you think I was making. It seems everyone likes to oversimplify. From the conspiracy viewpoint read Gavinkovite's comment on how insulting that is to a whole range of people. Like I said in my first comment, gross incompetence is a much more likely explanation.
Outrage is fine. I'm not arguing innocence on anyone's part. But the comments here exhibit a lot of willful ignorance about how the problems arose in order to blame someone whose politics they don't agree with. That pisses me off.
If you abhor American-perpetrated torture you should want to ensure it never happens again. That means you should work to understand how the military works, how it failed, and how to minimize the chances of something like this happening again.
Humanity.
Yey!
I think the correct behaviour is to treat people as you'd wish to be treated yourself - even if you think they are criminals.
Actions like this are just fuel to fire up people and make more martyrs.
The evidence for this, say in WW2, is that when civilian populations are badly treated, they don't lie down and keep quiet.
When London was bombed in the blitz, the people didn't shut up - they fought harder and for longer. The culmination of this bombing of civilians was not that Britain was defeated, but that Germany and Japan which suffered the same treatment, but worse, took even longer to beat as the people found new hope from their adversity.
When the Jews were carted off bit-by-bit to be killed, this was done with hardly a whimper. As soon as they were ghettoised and there was an assault on the ghetto, they rose up and fought like terriers.
Thus, treat people evenly, and they can be pushed around like sheep - harshly, and they'll revolt.
first causes: whose were the first torturers in Abu Ghraib? Saddam's? Who helped Saddam, traded with and armed him and then deposed him when he proved nconvenient? America. Anyone dispute this? The Iraqi torturers were there in the first place because of America. They may have been on Saddam's payroll, but they were hired by him when Saddam was on America's payroll. Prescott Bush traded with nazis, why should anything have changed?
America has far bigger problems than an out of control military.
how the military works:
"Frederick, a military policeman who is a prison officer in civilian life, acknowledged his part in the abuse but also blamed his chain of command, telling the court prisoners were forced to submit to public nudity and degrading treatment "for military intelligence purposes."
During the court martial, Chief Warrant Officer Kevin Kramer, a military intelligence soldier called as a witness, referred to an email from the US command in Baghdad telling him to order his interrogators to be tough on prisoners. "The gloves are coming off, gentlemen, regarding these detainees," said the email. It added that the command "wants the detainees broken."
Frederick, who was in charge of the night shift at the "hard site" facility at Abu Ghraib, west of Baghdad, said military intelligence soldiers and civilian interrogators told guards how to treat detainees. "
now lets just pat the dirt down with the back of the shovel a bit....
http://www.usatoday.com/news/world/2008-01-11-abu-ghraib-probe_N.htm
Harvey
Spare me you gungho machismo. Really. Watched too many John Wayne movies. Civilisation is governed by rules and respect for ALL individuals. USA is pretty alone on this one, not even the Brits could be so cruel... and they have a history. This is your IDIOCRACY combined with a big stick. Stupid people with power.
ah, Harvey's not real. Someone is just having fun with us. Nobody actually gets their history from old comic books. Its just a joke. Lighten up.
You're not going to find a memo from George W. Bush saying "It's OK for you to beat the shit out of prisoners"
Actually, that's not true. There was a well-publicized directive from the White House saying that they could use any interrogation techniques that didn't cause organ failure or death.
And, Dequeued, it really looks to me like you are defending them.
from Commondreams;
"Back in 2002, Adriel Bettleheim wrote in the Congressional Quarterly that Vice President Dick Cheney "considers it the responsibility of the current administration to reclaim those lost powers for the institution of the presidency." Indeed, the Bush administration has tried to remove all conceivable restrictions on the "imperial presidency," setting its sights in particular on dismantling the Freedom of Information Act, the Intelligence Oversight Act, and the War Powers Resolution.
Restoring limits on the power of the executive branch to conceal information, tell (and hide) lies, make war at its own discretion, or kidnap, torture, and kill without interference from Congress, the courts, and the public will be crucial tasks, if future Abu Ghraibs are to be prevented."
@Tom & @Takuan
I think you are both missing the point really. This kind of thing has existed since there was war (read forever). All your righteous indignation aside it will continue as long as there is war (again - forever). I am afraid that you a are spitting into the wind and complaining that there is wind.
And yes, I see the response a mile off - "But if we don't complain it will get worse!" And I agree to a large extent - call attention, shine the light, but don't complain about absolutes lest you want to start the War on Physical Matter.
I am afraid that you a are spitting into the wind...
Those who do not at least try to spit end up drooling on themselves in a dishonored dotage.
Just because someone brought up the Geneva conventions, and law and philosophy of law interests me:
A few years ago, the supreme court found that prisoners in Guantanamo were due certain rights according to the conventions, and so present circumstances are illegal, meaning whoever was in charge, ie Bush, could be brought up on war crimes. So congress rushed to pass a law essentially excusing the US from any international law, including the Geneva conventions, which, if I were a soldier, I would be pretty upset over. It doesn't apply retroactively, however, so a future administration so inclined could still, with full legal justification, march Bush down to the Hague.
Whats cool about it is you can argue right and wrong all you like, and you can argue what the law means, but you cant argue with the supreme court who unequivocally decided Bush broke the law.
here s a good summary from that rotten spout of half cooked truths, the New York Review of Books. And its by a professor at my former university too.
http://www.nybooks.com/articles/17293
If Bush and all his cronies could be brought to the gallows, I'd pull the lever myself. What utter bile this world wallows in that we all know he will enjoy a quiet retirement with his coloring books and bottle.
You want an absolute? My opposition.
I heard something on the radio today, Radio Canada CBC.
A man called Chuck Cadman was in the news again. A dead politician. Started out as an ordinary Joe,unpolitical, unremarkable. His son was randomly murdered walking down the street one day. Chuck got political. He got elected, changed laws, helped victims of crime - and stayed independent. He never took the political chocolate. The federal government of Canada a few years ago was in danger of falling to a non-confidence vote. Cadman's lone vote prevented the ruling party from being tossed out. Now, it has emerged, the opposing party had gone to Cadman on the eve of this critical vote. They had offered him one million dollars. He said no.
Good story huh? The million bucks was in the form of life insurance. Cadman was dying of cancer. He still said no.
Just because America has been hijacked by bastards, thugs, murderers and thieves doesn't mean you are allowed to give up on absolutes. Their day is ending. It won't end if you don't get angry and stay angry. There is no one on this earth more cynical than me. I look at guys like this Cadman. So should you.
EXCELLENT new doc by Errol Morris shows all these photos, who exactly took them and looks at the fall out as well, as only Morris can. It's called
"Standard Operating Procedure" and I saw a preview last night. It's opening nationwide soon:
http://www.participantproductions.com/films/Coming+Soon/433/StandardOperatingProcedure
@82 Glad you and Stalin share beliefs. By all means, hang the opposition, I mean after all, they have different beliefs.
And in case you missed the sarcasm, and you will, you are the fodder for Rush L.
How about helping our cause instead of fighting it
Opposition? Criminals are criminals. Beliefs? Sure, if you call robbery a religion.
Sarcasm? In the face of the incredible irony of "our cause"?.....
You and Stalin, eh?
that's not a very good picture of me
If my heart could vomit it would be doing so right now. The picture shown here is the least gruesome of the bunch. Clicking through to the article and playing the video shows you the horror of the situation. I'm heartsick, soulsick, just plain sick and frankly ashamed to be part of the human race right now.
TAKUAN, or whatever the spelling was, your agruments are shabby unfocused scattergun polemics.
Showing a pic of the twin towers side by side with Aby Ghraib, does not excuse torture.
The USA must be better than it's enemies, not worse.
to paraphrase..
What does it benefit a country to win a war but lose it's immortal soul.
hey sarcasm is the lowest form of humor, you know, according to ancient tradition.
Adorno wrote that there could be no poetry after the holocaust, but, however callous it may seem, atrocities beg to be understood and so remedied. Just look at the BB post today about the lucifer effect. My point is in answer to the question no one asks, what does it mean when those who write laws [congress] and those who enforce them [the executive branch, the police, the army] fail to follow them? For the people who proudly talk about the United States as a great protector of human rights, these photos show that, as far as the army is concerned, rights are nothing more then words on paper, void of any practical content. When someone rejects the law as a code of behavior determined by society, they substitute, according to psychoanalysis, the only code that makes sense in the absence of law: might makes right.
Things like innocent until proved guilty and a fair trial, ban on cruel and unusual punishment and so on, aren't too good for anyone, its simply the only rational way to preserve law. So when Bush rather cheekily responds to the anti war demonstrations by saying oh you know thats what we re trying to bring to Iraq, freedom to protest and all that, ask what these photos suggest the US is bringing to Iraq. The answer isn't, as some people seem to think, that mistakes were made.
I would elaborate, but I suspect Ive lost everyones interest, if indeed I ever had it. This is another Dworkin article about the new Supreme court. I know its dry, but the law dork in me thinks its really cool too.
http://www.nybooks.com/articles/20570
"agruments"? seems a shabby word.
As I mentioned earlier, most of these photographs are not at all new to me. I wonder, have people been remiss in keeping themselves informed? Could it be they are unaware their press is tightly managed?
Employee's suit: Company used waterboarding to motivate workers
By Erin Alberty
The Salt Lake Tribune
Article Last Updated: 02/27/2008 07:13:46 PM MST
Posted: 7:14 PM- A supervisor at a motivational coaching business in Provo is accused of waterboarding an employee in front of his sales team to demonstrate that they should work as hard on sales as the employee had worked to breathe.
In a lawsuit filed last month, former Prosper, Inc. salesman Chad Hudgens alleges his managers also allowed the supervisor to draw mustaches on employees' faces, take away their chairs and beat on their desks with a wooden paddle "because it resulted in increased revenues for the company."
get ready for it
Vets Break Silence on War Crimes
By Aaron Glantz
SAN FRANCISCO, Feb 28 (IPS) - U.S. veterans of the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan are planning to descend on Washington from Mar. 13-16 to testify about war crimes they committed or personally witnessed in those countries.
"The war in Iraq is not covered to its potential because of how dangerous it is for reporters to cover it," said Liam Madden, a former Marine and member of the group Iraq Veterans Against the War. "That's left a lot of misconceptions in the minds of the American public about what the true nature of military occupation looks like."
Iraq Veterans Against the War argues that well-publicised incidents of U.S. brutality like the Abu Ghraib prison scandal and the massacre of an entire family of Iraqis in the town of Haditha are not the isolated incidents perpetrated by "a few bad apples", as many politicians and military leaders have claimed. They are part of a pattern, the group says, of "an increasingly bloody occupation".
http://www.motherjones.com/cgi-bin/print_article.pl?url=http://www.motherjones.com/news/feature/2008/03/am-i-a-torturer.html