watch the prisoner abuse scandal widen

[mburbank]

Bush didn't know at all. Rumsfled and the joint chiefs hadn't read the report which was 'still working it's way up the chain of command'. One has to wonder how severe an offnese or problem woud have to be to 'work it's way up' any faster.

Here are the questions to ask and things to watch for as this proceeds.

1.) To what extent has interrogation been privatized?
2.) Who's deision was that?
3.) Who supervises civillian interagators?
4.) Since civillian contractors in Iraq are not subject to military command or justice, what rules are they following? What laws if any are they subject to? How is their conduct monitored?
5.) Look for denials followed by the exposure of a cover up. There's always ass covering (pardon the pun) in corruption. It already looks as if Military PMs are being required to take a fall, and some lawyers are already suggesting that the CIA encouraged this kind of abuse to 'soften' detainees for interrogation.
6.) What other traditional military roles have been privatized?
7.) Has intelligecne gathering been privatized precisely BECAUSE civillian contractors are not constrained by military codes of conduct?


I think in the end this will hang around Rumsfelds neck. If I had to make a guess who's bright idea privatising interrogation was, I'd say Rumsfeld.

[Ronnie Raygun]

How many of the prisoners died?

How many of them were even disfigured?

I really haven't heard anyone on the news say.... other that just taunting them, how bad does this thing really get?

[kellychaos]

To be brutally honest, I'm all for the ideals of the Geneva Convention, hope that all adhere to them and am not ususually about the "eye for an eye" attitude. I'm not sure, however, that the rules are always practical. I'm sure that there was a lot of these types of atrocities on both sides of the fence in a multitude of previous wars that were never reported. If degrading bodies is how they show us disrespect boast to their muslim neighbors, perhaps similiar degradation on our part is what they'll understand and respect. I don't know because I don't have the perspective of those involved in the conflict. I don't understand their culture or what motivates them. I can understand them wanting to trade lives for lives but they overstepped themselves. The burning and mutilization of the contracted workers left me cold and I'm not really sure how badly I feel about the retaliatory efforts by other contracted workers. Aren't both incidents really outside the bounds of the Geneva Convention anyway?

[ScruU2wice]

Both evens were independent of each other though. They are rebel fighters undr no government only repersenting there want for us to leave. We are the soldiers sent by the US to liberate iraq. We cannot go an eye for an eye on this because they will never learn respect this way we're only gonna be more and more villified by them.

I don't doubt that people are "softened up for interrogation" but according to the pictures these guys were just humiliated. And further more i don't think anyone would think it wise to photograph these breakings of the geneva convention...

[Drew Katsikas]

Originally Posted by kellychaos

To be brutally honest, I'm all for the ideals of the Geneva Convention, hope that all adhere to them and am not ususually about the "eye for an eye" attitude. I'm not sure, however, that the rules are always practical. I'm sure that there was a lot of these types of atrocities on both sides of the fence in a multitude of previous wars that were never reported. If degrading bodies is how they show us disrespect boast to their muslim neighbors, perhaps similiar degradation on our part is what they'll understand and respect. I don't know because I don't have the perspective of those involved in the conflict. I don't understand their culture or what motivates them. I can understand them wanting to trade lives for lives but they overstepped themselves. The burning and mutilization of the contracted workers left me cold and I'm not really sure how badly I feel about the retaliatory efforts by other contracted workers. Aren't both incidents really outside the bounds of the Geneva Convention anyway?

This was before Fallujah.

[Ronnie Raygun]

I don't agree that an eye for an eye is the right way to look at it.

I think our soldiers should abide by the geneva convention and those who don't should be punished....

BUT....I think this whole thing has been blown way out of proportion.

[Drew Katsikas]

Shutup, asshat. Just because you're a conservative doesn't mean you should pathetically attempt to mitigate this bullshit. When people get upset when I make you stand on one foot on an MRE box, attach wires to various parts of your body, including your tiny dick, and flip the on switch, then you can tell them they're blowing it out of proportion.

These people don't even get naked in front of their wives. It's stupid to us, but regardless, these soldiers have completley and totally degraded them. It's sick and wrong, and to think anything less is complete idiocy. Moron.

[Guderian]

When I was commanding an army on the Eastern Front in WWII, we had to commit atrocities, because of all the evil that communism stands for. We had no choice but to ruthlessly slaughter commisars, communist party officials, and random peasants to ensure that the old regime didn't try to come back. We also had to physically and mentally abuse any prisoners captured, as a lesson to those bolshevik fools to lay down their arms and surrender, because if all of them surrendered there would be too many of them to abuse them all.

It's completely the same situation in Iraq. Just a little psychological warfare. Besides, torture is always a good way to take one's mind of the war. Nazi soldiers were notoriously stress-free.

[davinxtk]

Whose character is that?










I need to know whether to get pissed off or laugh.

[Cosmo Electrolux]

Originally Posted by Guderian

When I was commanding an army on the Eastern Front in WWII, we had to commit atrocities, because of all the evil that communism stands for. We had no choice but to ruthlessly slaughter commisars, communist party officials, and random peasants to ensure that the old regime didn't try to come back. We also had to physically and mentally abuse any prisoners captured, as a lesson to those bolshevik fools to lay down their arms and surrender, because if all of them surrendered there would be too many of them to abuse them all.

It's completely the same situation in Iraq. Just a little psychological warfare. Besides, torture is always a good way to take one's mind of the war. Nazi soldiers were notoriously stress-free.

I'm strangely aroused.....

[mburbank]

So far, Naldo, there have been two prisoner deaths the army has ruled homicides.

so, the next question to look out for

8.) How long ago did the army rule that the deaths were homicides? Why is this only coming ouut now?
9.) An unamed soldier found guilty of murder was court martialed and discharged from the army. Will there be criminal prosecution? If I murdered someone, I'd certainly loose my job, but I'd probably also go to jail, and my name would be a matter of public record.

'Taunting', Naldo? 'Taunting'? If I tied your arms behind your back, put a hood over your head, stripped you naked and took photos of you simulating a blow job with another bound, naked guy, would you say I'd 'taunted' you?

That's kind of a moronic thing to say, which makes you a moron. See, THAT's taunting. making you press your johnson against a naked guys ass and taking pictures? Kind of outside the deffinition of taunting. Oh, and killing you while your in jail. That is some very heavy taunting. If these turn out to be totally isolated incidents in no way aprroved of, encouraged, or known about by intelligence or the chain of command, then you MIGHT say that apart from the enormous damage it does to our stated mission and the obvious dereliction of duty it reflects on the chain of command, that this is overblown. But since multiple investigations are ongoing, you might want to wait. Maybe , like the Iraqi prisoners themselves, the situation only 'simulates' overblown.

[mburbank]

"Miller said he had reviewed the U.S. Army's interrogation manual's list of 53 techniques for questioning prisoners and spoke to Lt. Gen. Ricardo Sanchez, the top general in Iraq.

"He has approved my recommendation to restrict some of those techniques," Miller said.

On Tuesday, the U.S. military said it was ordering troops to use blindfolds instead of hoods and requiring interrogators to get permission before depriving inmates of sleep or keeping them in stressful positions for extended periods — two of the most common techniques reported by freed Iraqis. "
-AP wire

I think a public airing of what these '53 techniques' are is in order, as are deffinitions of terms. What exactly does 'stressful position' mean? How long is an 'extended period'. Most people suppose that America does not torture POW's, but the deffinition of 'torture' is loose. I think a thorough descrription of the techniques we use to interrogate people, and the techniques used to 'soften' them prior to interogation would strike many, many people as torture.

You may recall pictures of naked man duct taped to a board. That would be John Walker Lindh, and American citizen. To me, that looked like something a civilzed country doesn't need to do. It looked more like vengance, something I understand the desire for but I don't understand the institutionalization of.

I think, at very least, the deliberate humiliation of prisoners in fairly awful ways, was something these people, however small in number, felt allowed to do. You don't take and circulate photos of secrets. It's obvious they enjoyed it, and it seems probable at very least a lot of people looked the other way.

Why should an Iraqi believe this was 'aberant'? Why would they now believe we were telling the truth about anything now? And if your argument is 'well, they hate us anyway', then what happens to the idea that we 'liberated' them and we're going to 'establish democracy'.

[Abcdxxxx]

What's freakish to me is that all we care about is why it took this long to investigate, and if there was an attempted coverup. The bigger issue is why these acts are so commonplace throughout the world, but especially in the Middle East. Okay, so our corn fed American kids put their own spin on it, and added in some College broomstick up the ass hazing to the mix. This type of stuff goes on every day unreported, and nobody shows much outrage. Our prisoners of war have never enjoyed much comfort in captivity, and while I don't think it's a very strong argument/excuse, it's true that Saddam did far worse things to far more Iraqi citizens. What you're seeing here is Arab oppurtunism over shadowing humanistic outrage....and yes I'd bet a good deal of Arabs are honestly just outraged period, but enough with the double standard, these events were horrid...put them alongside Fallujah, and so many more happening in the Sudan, and Congo, and so on, and so on, so that we can have zero tolerance for this shit. These were some disturbed kids, but this kind of cruelty shoudln't even be in the air.

[mburbank]

"so our corn fed American kids put their own spin on it, and added in some College broomstick up the ass hazing to the mix."

What the hell college did you go to?

"This type of stuff goes on every day unreported, and nobody shows much outrage."

A lot of good people show a lot of outrage all the time. Amnesty International has a large membership. Read Harold Pinter on Torture. If what you mean is the avergae cornfed american doesn't give a shit unless you rub their noses in it like a dog, well, I'd say that was pretty much correct, and I'd say this administration counts on it. Plus, it's easier to respond to sstuff that does get reported. We're lazy and e have short attention span. I'd gather by you calling this collegiate you think it's no big deal.

"while I don't think it's a very strong argument/excuse, it's true that Saddam did far worse things to far more Iraqi citizens."

If you don't think it's a stroong argument, why are you making it?

"These were some disturbed kids, but this kind of cruelty shoudln't even be in the air."

Like I said, it's hard to be outraged if something doesn't get reported. Personally, I think occupying a country and filling it's most notorius torture house with fresh inmates brings out the disturbed kid in a lot of people.

I agree, we don't give a flying fuck about the Congo and we damn well should. That's why I scream my head off any time W. and his pack of bastards say the war in Iraq had anything whatsoever to do with Humanitarian goals and liberating people. Here's the thing think you're missing. I find the Sudanese behavior outrageous. I'm very much against it. I'm not Sudanese. I am American. My tax money bought the damn wires and ice. If there was any offciial nodding and winking attatched to this, I'm part of it. The outrage of the rest of the world is of interest to me only in that it makes our job that much more impossible and for no good reason. It's one more fuck up in the sea of fuck ups that is our foreign policy. My outrage is entirely appropriatte. If it turns out there' not a lot more of this going on, if it turns out it really has stopped, if it turns out it wasn't condoned, if it turns out this didn't happen because of undertrained overburdened cornfed kids who don't have enough ground suppport because Rummy has a fucking theory about troop numbers, if it has nothing to do with privatising interrogation, if this really truly is just a few bad apples, I'll feel better about it. But if pigs fly out my ass I'll have free pork.

If in some way Ethnic cleansing in the Congo makes you feel better about this, I don't get it. When Abner Louima got a broomstick up hius ass, there was plenty of outrage. By and Large, Americans like to think one of the things that makes us the good guys is we don't shove broomsticks up the ass of prisoners.

say, here's a slogan that will really win hearts and minds:

"AMERICA; TORTURING FAR FEWER IRAQIS THEN SADAAM!"

[Abcdxxxx]

What's freakish to me is that all we care about is why it took this long to investigate, and if there was an attempted coverup. The bigger issue is why these acts are so commonplace throughout the world, but especially in the Middle East. Okay, so our corn fed American kids put their own spin on it, and added in some College broomstick up the ass hazing to the mix. This type of stuff goes on every day unreported, and nobody shows much outrage. Our prisoners of war have never enjoyed much comfort in captivity, and while I don't think it's a very strong argument/excuse, it's true that Saddam did far worse things to far more Iraqi citizens. What you're seeing here is Arab oppurtunism over shadowing humanistic outrage....and yes I'd bet a good deal of Arabs are honestly just outraged period, but enough with the double standard, these events were horrid...put them alongside Fallujah, and so many more happening in the Sudan, and Congo, and so on, and so on, so that we can have zero tolerance for this shit. These were some disturbed kids, but this kind of cruelty shoudln't even be in the air.

[mburbank]

I'm going to assume that was an inadvertant double post.

[mburbank]

"The number of prisoner deaths in Iraq and Afghanistan known to be under U.S. investigation or already blamed on Americans rose to 14 on Wednesday, including two additional deaths being scrutinized by the CIA 's inspector general. "
-AP wire

[kellychaos]

Originally Posted by Drew Katsikas

This was before Fallujah.

Thanks. I didn't have all the facts on the situation at that point and I thought it was some kind of retaliatory effort on the part of the U.S. troops. Clearly, I'll have to do some more reading on the subject ... and no, I'm not being sarcastic ... just ill-informed.

[ScruU2wice]

This is gonna set intellegence back a ton, because now people who are interrogating will be afraid for there jobs and well being when they're trying to extract needed information from people. I know that alotta the techniques aren't very humane but they are suppose to get people to talk, and thats what they do. Now when people abuse these techniqes this is what happens people call into question the whole system. You can't act suprised that the Mighty Empir of Virtue delved its hands into underhanded techiniques of such means to get info...

See now this is where i like how we try to make the nazis look bad by saying they made death camps but not all germans knew of this just like not all of us knew of the treatment of prisoners. Just like alotta people are disgusted of this, i bet alotta of germans would have been disgusted with the death camps....

[mburbank]

Red Cross Sought Action on Prisoner Abuse
AP Wire

GENEVA - The international Red Cross said Thursday that it had repeatedly asked U.S. authorities to take action over alleged prisoner abuse at Iraq's Abu Ghraib prison before recent revelations about the way detainees were treated.

"We were aware of what was going on, and based on our findings we have repeatedly requested the U.S. authorities to take corrective action," said Nada Doumani, spokeswoman for the International Committee of the Red Cross, speaking from Amman, Jordan.

The ICRC, which visits prisoners held by coalition authorities in Iraq, had previously declined to comment publicly on conditions at the prison.

"We've been visiting Abu Ghraib prison since already from last year," Doumani told The Associated Press. "We are of course aware of the situation since we talk with the detainees privately.

"We get testimony from them. We visit all the premises in this place. We crosscheck information we receive from different detainees. Definitely we were aware of what was going on in Abu Ghraib.

Doumani said the visits have been taking place every five or six weeks since last year. The most recent visit was March 20, she said.

The scandal over treatment of prisoners began when CBS television broadcast pictures of smiling American guards with Iraqi prisoners in humiliating positions. That unleashed a huge international outcry.

The ICRC is designated by the Geneva Conventions on warfare to visit prisoners of war and other people detained by an occupying power. It traditionally discusses its observations only with the detaining authority, but has been under pressure to say whether it had specifically warned the United States about prisoner abuse before the photographs came to light.

Doumani didn't say specifically when it gave its first warnings, but that it was over a period of months.

[mburbank]

Hey, check out this description I found of the college Naldo and Abcdzxxx went to where they were 'taunted' and 'hazed'.

"[b]etween October and December 2003, at the Abu Ghraib Confinement Facility (BCCF), numerous incidents of sadistic, blatant, and wanton criminal abuses were inflicted on several detainees. This systemic and illegal abuse of detainees was intentionally perpetrated by several members of the military police guard force. … The allegations of abuse were substantiated by detailed witness statements (ANNEX 26) and the discovery of extremely graphic photographic evidence. … I find that the intentional abuse of detainees by military police personnel included the following acts:

a. Punching, slapping, and kicking detainees; jumping on their naked feet;

b. Videotaping and photographing naked male and female detainees;

c. Forcibly arranging detainees in various sexually explicit positions for photographing;

d. Forcing detainees to remove their clothing and keeping them naked for several days at a time;

e. Forcing naked male detainees to wear women's underwear;

f. Forcing groups of male detainees to masturbate themselves while being photographed and videotaped;

g. Arranging naked male detainees in a pile and then jumping on them;

h. Positioning a naked detainee on a MRE Box, with a sandbag on his head, and attaching wires to his fingers, toes, and penis to simulate electric torture; …

j. Placing a dog chain or strap around a naked detainee's neck and having a female soldier pose for a picture;

k. A male MP guard having sex with a female detainee;

l. Using military working dogs (without muzzles) to intimidate and frighten detainees, and in at least one case biting and severely injuring a detainee …

These findings are amply supported by written confessions provided by several of the suspects, written statements provided by detainees, and witness statements. …

In addition, several detainees also described the following acts of abuse, which under the circumstances, I find credible based on the clarity of their statements and supporting evidence provided by other witnesses (ANNEX 26):

a. Breaking chemical lights and pouring the phosphoric liquid on detainees;

b. Threatening detainees with a charged 9mm pistol;

c. Pouring cold water on naked detainees;

d. Beating detainees with a broom handle and a chair;

e. Threatening male detainees with rape; …

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

[Buffalo Tom]

The way this is being handled is also exacerbating the situation. What is Bush doing sending out McClellan and Rice to apologize for the incident? He is the friggin' Commander-in-Chief of the armed forces! Since it was his troops who committed these acts, he himself should be apologizing to the Iraqi public and the American public. This guy is so ready to accept the accolades when everything goes right, yet he's the first to duck for cover when the shit hits the fan. Coward.

[mburbank]

I seem to recall him saying over and over again on Meet the Press that he was a war time president. Someone needs to sit him down and explain that commander in chief is a reference to his relationship with the armed forces. He is legally, oficially, the nations top military commander.

If it is appropriatte at all for anyone to issue an apology (and obviously the administration thinks it is, since several military officers in the chain of command have now done so, though notably not the prison commander at the tim of the abuse) it is approp[riatte for W. to do so.

I think this administrations motto should be "The Buck stops somewhere else."

[Buffalo Tom]

From the The Associated Press:

'White House aides said Mr. Bush had chastised Mr. Rumsfeld for failing to tell him about pictures of prisoner mistreatment.'

'In particular, Mr. Bush was unhappy about learning of the pictures only when they were broadcast, the aides said, insisting that they not be identified.'

Okay, was he unhappy over the abuse of the PoWs, or was he unhappy that photographic evidence of the abuse got out? No doubt that he was disgusted by the photos, like any other normal human being (I'll give Bush that slim benefit of doubt). However, the reports of his dressing-down of Rumsfeld seem to indicate he is more disappointed that the Pentagon and the Department of Defence was not able to control the now-unfolding scandal they way the Administration would have wanted it controlled. War-time president? More like no-good-at-any-time president.

[mburbank]

" There's another element to this. We're all talking in horror about a photo of a man in a hood standing on a box. But there's a context to this crime: While some agents of our government were making grown Iraqi men perform mock fellatio on each other, others were dropping 500-pound bombs on a small one-story town and in the process killing, among others, hundreds of women and children.

Which is the greater crime?"

-Matt Bivens, the Nation


That's a point I've tried to make earlier. War, no matter what your end goal is, is all about terror, pain, humiliation, and death. There is no getting around that no matter how hard you try. Some wars (some few) may be unavoidable. Some wars (some few) may yield the lesser evil. But ALL wars should be entered into with the utmost seriousness and anyone who treats them in any way like a football game or thinks the losses of the other side ar less painful and tragic than our own is no better than the flunkies that carry out dictators orders. All tey are is more lucky in the circumstances of their birth.

A very smart rabi once said "What you do unto the least of your brethern you do unto me." Saying shit like that was one of the things that got him beaten, humiliated and eventually tortured to death by an army occupying his homeland.