Torture of military prisoners

I don't see much complacency, Blatham. I don't see any complacency in fact.

I'd like to address McTag's quote first, "Now admittedly GWB is famously ignorant, even though he should have known about this, having been Governor of Texas,....." Let's not forget that this "compassionate conservative" executed more people during his tenure as governor of Texas than anybody before or since. Now to address Fox; without understanding human behavior, it's rather an ignorant assumption that US armed forces personnel are incapable of such atrocities. It matters who is responsible at the top, and that includes president Bush and all his minions. Our prisons are full of inhuman behavior of the guards against their charge. It has nothing to do with "American ideals." This administration has made so many mistakes during the past three years, it's a wonder to many of us how half of Americans can still support Bush and his criminals. All the major decisions they have made turned out to be a mistake; 1) pre-emptive strike on Iraq justified on the basis that Saddam had WMDs, 2) that the Iraqis would welcome us as liberators, 3) that the war will be short, 4) that we could secure Iraq with less than 100,000 troops after the "war," and 5) capturing or killing Saddam will end all hostilities. This administration has squandered our credibility not only in Europe but with most Arab countries. It is costing American lives daily for a purpose not yet articulated, because it's impossible to do so. "Stay the course" is not planning for the future. Many Americans say, "I support the right of freedom for Iraqis," but fail to understand that giving sovereignty to Iraq means control by Muslim clerics and what that entails. I guess sacrificing our men and women of the military and billioins of dollars is okay to bring freedom to Iraq. I wonder if those supporting this war in Iraq really understands all the costs involved while we sacrifice what is needed at home?

I don't see how any of that addresses the thesis of this thread C.I. It has all been discussed extensively on other threads however and no doubt would be again if you start a thread addressing the points you raise. For now I will respectfully disagree with most of it.

At a minimum, Rumsfield must go, then move Powell into the vacated position. rumsfeld embodies everything about this administration that i find repugnant.

Powell's credibility is, I do believe at this juncture, even lower than Rumsfeld. I also offer that while I am no fan of McCain I do think he has the credibility to over-come the devastation currently being piled higher and deeper daily within this current administration. One seldom gets free of the hole he is in by digging deeper. perhaps Rumsfeld can reach back in time and rediscover Reagan's defense "I don't remember."

bookmark

I do not think it is a wise idea to appoint an ex general secretary of defence. That traditionally has been a civilian job and for good reasons. I doubt McCain would leave a secure senate seat for this mess. It would show real character if the entire pack of these scoundrels would announce enmasse that they had no intention of seeking reelection or an extension of their term in office.

There are at least five threads about what happened at the prison. It seems like people post at least one new thread every day about it.


I've heard that there was torture too. I don't remember a link to the actual investigation, but there have been so many threads on this topic that I've lost track of them all. If you go here and click on "Gallery: Military abuse report" in the sidebar about halfway down the page, here's what CNN has to say about it:


I don't see any allegations about rape and murder there, although I have heard such allegations elsewhere. I would love to read the actual report if anyone has a link to it. I understood that it was very critical of the people in charge.

In the link to the Guardian story about "torture methods," they discussed "R2I techniques," which were listed as follows:


The story is rather vague, but it sounds to me like the R2I training sessions are meant to acquaint British soldiers with what they might face if they are captured, and not designed to instruct them what to do if they themselves have to interrogate a prisoner. And it sounds like that information was given to soldiers who had not been trained about the technique, who then tried to use it on prisoners.

Nothing in that story talked about raping prisoners as a way to extract information. And I doubt that US soldiers are taught to rape prisoners. So I asked myself whether there was a country where rape was routinely used in jails and prisons. And of course we all know the answer. Along with that, I've heard that there were some Iraqis involved as guards or advisors in the prisons. So I can imagine a scenario something like this:

Iraqi advisor: What are you doing?
US soldier: Pouring water on this prisoner.
Iraqi advisor: Why?
US soldier: I'm trying to get him to reveal information.
Iraqi advisor: That's not how you force a prisoner to talk. Let me show you how we get information in Iraq. * rapes prisoner *
US soldier: HOLY %#$&!!!

My prediction is that we will find out there were Iraqis involved, and that's where the extreme torture occurred. Even with some of the creepy and horrible stories that have come out, I can't visualize a male US soldier raping a male prisoner. And of course if he watched someone else do it and didn't report it, that's a crime.


I don't see it that way. I've seen a few immediate reactions like "George Bush is as bad as Saddam Hussein," but not too many. Extremists are the first to voice their opinions about almost any event. What's important is the consequences later, after the investigations are done and the criminals have been sentenced. Even now, a few days into the investigations, I'm hearing that the Bush apology has gone a long way toward calming things down.

As for where to lay the blame, well of course the criminals commit the crime. Whether they were encouraged or allowed to do so by their superiors is something that needs to be determined. It looks to me like General Karpinski was at the very least negligent in her duties for not knowing what was going on in her own command. I doubt that the problem extends any farther up the line than that, but we shall see. It appears that those who are using this event (and whatever else they can find) as an excuse for a shakeup in the present administration will be disappointed, and that is as it should be. It is impossible for this kind of abuse to have sprung full grown from the loins of George W. Bush. It had to have been going on for years if not decades in the military and the intelligence services.

And with that in mind, I was thinking about what should happen next. Of course there should be an investigation, or maybe more than one. The criminals in this particular case need to be found, prosecuted, and sentenced. But beyond that, we need to find out where the mindset that it's okay to "soften up" prisoners is coming from, and get rid of it. Everyone who might possibly come into contact with a prisoner has to be trained on how they are to be treated, and this includes civilian contractors.

There's an interesting website that talks about a previous "atrocity" or "war crime" if you will. An Introduction to the My Lai Courts-Martial is its name. An estimated 500 civilians, including women and children, were killed in My Lai, Vietnam on March 16, 1968. After an attempted cover-up and extensive publicity, even after only one person was ever convicted and sent to prison for the massacre, the world does not hate the United States as a result. So I would conclude that the events at Abu Ghraib prison will not have a lasting effect on world opinion of the US as long as we take the appropriate actions to ensure that kind of thing never happens again. And I think that is as it should be also.


EDIT - The Smoking Gun has a copy of the 53-page report. I'll read it later.

EDIT AGAIN - I scanned over it, and don't see any allegations of rape or actual torture. There was humiliation and some beatings. Later in the report there is documentation of prisoners ("detainees") being killed, but it appears that was only during riots as a last resort when all else failed, or in one case where an Iraqi guard gave a pistol to a prisoner. So I'm sure the report will put those allegations to an end.

There have been two Iraqi prisoners murdered while in detention and allegations of 23 others. One was commited by a soldier who was reduced in rank to Private and thrown out of the service. The other by a civilian employee who has not been charged.

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Two Iraqi prisoners were murdered by Americans and 23 other deaths are being investigated in Iraq and Afghanistan, the United States revealed on Tuesday as the Bush administration tried to contain growing outrage over the abuse of Iraqi detainees.

May 4, 2004




Link CNN

!
The American people are complicit in the over all policy of the US Govt. because they did not protest in mass to the policy of granting zero rights to any of the people aprehended by American forces and "detained" indefenitely without any rights whatsoever. This policy lead to the "abuse" and torture of "detainees". Rumsfeld and his cohorts are indeed directly responsible because they set the policy that the Geneva Convention Rules were to be totally ignored. In fact, this issue is being debated in the Supreme Court and arrived there before the photos emereged.

People seem to be upset more with the photos themselves than with the policy of zero rights for detainees. In fact, a Right Wing zealot here at this BB stated that criminals in Getmo didn't deserve any rights when I brought the topic up several weeks ago. That is the mindset of millions of "democratic" Americans.

Had the photos not emerged and any had any Media merely spoken about the various events, it is doubtful that much of a reaction would have occurred. The events were not "isolated" and did not occur just last week. Events of abuse, humiliation and torture have been occuring for over a few years and they were part and parcel of policy set by Rumsfeld and the Defense Dept. This is indeed what America IS!!

Rumsfeld Apology Fails to Calm Arab Anger

By Andrew Hammond

DUBAI (Reuters) - His apology was late and the damage done, said Arab and European commentators on Saturday, reacting to Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld.


Some Iraqis Not Satisfied With Rumsfeld Apology
(Reuters Video)


"While he (Rumsfeld) has been in charge, murder, torture and humiliation were heaped on Iraqi detainees almost as a matter of course," the Saudi daily Arab News commented.


"Rumsfeld's apology came too late," said Jordanian analyst Hani Hourani. "I believe Rumsfeld should resign because the torture reflected a widespread policy adopted by the U.S. army in Iraq (news - web sites) and maybe Afghanistan (news - web sites) as well."


Rumsfeld took responsibility on Friday for abuse of Iraqi prisoners by U.S. troops and offered his "deepest apology" to victims during U.S. Senate hearings broadcast live in the Arab world as well as the United States.


But Rumsfeld said he would not resign just to satisfy his political enemies.


Many Arabs and Europeans, however, said he should quit.


Reinhard Buetikofer, chairman of Germany's Green Party, a junior partner in the government, said: "The minister who is responsible for such things must resign: Mr. Rumsfeld."


VISIONS OF SADDAM


And Kuwait, a close U.S. ally in the Gulf, said the abuses by American soldiers recalled the brutality of Saddam Hussein (news - web sites)'s regime.


"For us in Kuwait these (abuses) mean a lot of things, and recall the brutal acts by Saddam Hussein's regime in the same prison, Abu Ghraib, which held many Kuwaiti detainees," Foreign Minister Sheikh Mohammad al-Salem al-Sabah was quoted as saying.


Arabic newspapers, from Egypt's opposition al-Wafd to Saudi Arabia's semi-official Okaz, showed pictures of Rumsfeld looking troubled with his hands over his face.


The Arab News dismissed Rumsfeld's order for a review of the case.


"Rumsfeld's suggestion that an independent inquiry be set up into what happened is a waste of time, and Iraqis simply do not have time to waste," it said.


"If he resigns without fuss, perhaps he may begin to redeem himself by making a tiny contribution to the restoration of America's good name in the world."


Underscoring emotions in the Arab world, al-Wafd had a picture of a dead Iraqi child with the caption: "The new Mongols massacre the children of Iraq before the eyes of the world."


Of 60,000 respondents to a poll on the Web site of leading Arabic satellite channel Al Jazeera, some 87 percent said the United States would be unable to improve its image among Arabs and Muslims.


"I used to agree with the American campaign in Iraq, now I'm very reluctant, I don't know if they are fulfilling the purpose they are meant to fulfil anymore," said Suliman Buhaimed of the American University of Kuwait.





Rumsfeld failed to impress ordinary Iraqis, who suffered three-decades of brutal Saddam rule before insurgents locked horns with U.S.-led occupying forces after last year's invasion. "Apology is not enough. What they have committed against the Iraqis won't be erased from our memory," Taha Duraib Hussein, 41, a shopowner in Baghdad, said.

BROKEN TRUST

"By committing these atrocities, the Americans have broken the trust between them and the Iraqis and it's very difficult to build it again," Salah Wadie, 30, said.

President Bush (news - web sites), seeking re-election in November, sought to repair the U.S. image by pledging on Arab television last week that Americans behind the prisoner abuse and killings of detainees would be punished.

A number of European newspapers said the scandal signaled the failure of Bush's Iraq policy.

"If Rumsfeld takes responsibility for what happened in Iraqi prisons, as he declared yesterday in the Senate, his only possibility...is to resign," leading Spanish daily El Pais said.

French left-wing daily Liberation said: "The torture was not the work of a handful of corrupt criminals ... They were really the disciplined cogs of a system ignorant of the Geneva Convention (on treatment of prisoners)." (Additional reporting by Baghdad, Cairo, Amman, Madrid, Paris, Kuwait)

American Govt.- Hypocrites!!!!
"The torture was not the work of a handful of corrupt criminals ... They were really the disciplined cogs of a system ignorant of the Geneva Convention (on treatment of prisoners)."

Wrong! Geneva Convention was not in play at all. There were no rules and the "detainees", who knows how many had commited no crimes, had zero rights!

Rumsfeld should be impeached!!!!! All involved should be facing criminal charges. America wants to mete out justice but refuses to accept justice for it's own criminal acts and perpetrators. The American Govt. and Congress has abdicated their responsibilties to administer real justice!!! The World knows this!!!

Tarantulas

Further to what has been added above, the murder and rape allegations were brought up by a Senator in the commission hearing yesterday.

foxfyre

Once again, you suggest that such arguments as I and others have advanced regarding this event are driven or motivated by 'hate' of the administration. You do that every time. No complaint, no negative statement, no argument manages to escape your over-arching thesis.

One wonders what it might finally take for you to understand that you have this upside down. It isn't that we think as we do because we dislike them. We dislike them precisely because of what they do.

Blatham, the only concerns most conservatives have is their own welfare, and their own wallets. They're completely lacking in the basic humanity required yours, or anyone else's disgust over these events. Their support for the shrub is so blind they'd find a way to justify or ignore prisoners being hung from light poles all over Baghdad.

blatham writes


I respectfully submit that I have done no such thing. I have my point of view. You have yours. I stated mine. You stated yours. What you choose to read into my point of view is your prerogative. It's wrong. But then so is your opinion on the thesis in this thread.

Wilso

That support is too often too blindly supportive is the only portion of your post I agree with.

http://news.independent.co.uk/world/americas/story.jsp?story=519448

Mr. Rumsfeld's Defense
May 8, 2004

If Donald Rumsfeld went to Congress yesterday to explain
why he should remain secretary of defense, he failed. His
daylong testimony in the House and Senate has confirmed
that Mr. Rumsfeld fatally bungled the Abu Ghraib prison
scandal.

But the hearings highlighted broader issues.

Mr. Rumsfeld, the military brass and some of the lawmakers
badly missed the point by talking endlessly about a few bad
apples in one military unit. The despicable acts shown in
those famous photos - and in videos that are being held
back by the military but may still produce another round of
global humiliation - were uniquely outrageous and
inexcusable criminal acts. But behind them lies a detention
system that treats all prisoners as terrorists regardless
of their supposed offenses, and makes brutal interrogations
all too common.

The hearings also gave Americans a chilling new reminder of
the mess the Bush administration, particularly Mr.
Rumsfeld, has made of the Iraq occupation. With their
perfect sense of certainty that they were right and
everyone else wrong, Mr. Rumsfeld and his colleagues never
planned adequately for the occupation. They were unprepared
to handle the 43,000-plus Iraqi prisoners they ultimately
took or the armed insurgents they faced - even though
disorder and resistance were widely predicted.

The destructive stress created by the administration's lack
of preparation was distressingly evident yesterday, when
the hearings revealed that the members of the Army Reserve
military police detachment stationed at Abu Ghraib had been
sent to Iraq without being trained as ordinary prison
guards, much less for the nightmarish duty they would face.
Mr. Rumsfeld and other Pentagon witnesses said those
untrained part-time soldiers had been put under the
supervision of military intelligence officers who farmed
out interrogation work to private contractors. That
inexplicable chain of shifted responsibility violated not
just any sort of common sense, but also military rules.

Although the Army's own report said the guards had been
told by intelligence officers and their consultants to
"soften up" prisoners for interrogation by depriving them
of sleep and subjecting them to pain and humiliation, Mr.
Rumsfeld said he "cannot conceive" that they thought their
actions were condoned or encouraged. When he insisted that
the normal rules for handling prisoners were in effect,
several senators reminded him that he had said in January
2002 that suspected terrorists were not covered by the
Geneva Convention.

Mr. Rumsfeld told the senators that his remarks about
ignoring the international rules on the treatment of
prisoners applied only to people captured in Afghanistan,
not Iraq. That was a fine distinction some of the minimally
prepared guards at Abu Ghraib may not have grasped,
particularly since they were never instructed on the rules
of the Geneva Convention. Like most Americans, however,
they had heard their commander in chief paint the war in
Iraq as an antiterrorism campaign.

Mr. Rumsfeld's belated apology yesterday was nice to hear.
But the secretary spent a lot of time dodging
responsibility. When he was chided for not telling the
public, Congress or even the president about Abu Ghraib,
Mr. Rumsfeld claimed that the Army had provided all the
disclosure necessary last January with its inadequate press
release announcing the criminal investigations. But when he
was pressed on why he had not kept track of the case, Mr.
Rumsfeld offered the astonishing argument that he could not
have been expected to find this one case among the pile of
3,000 courts-martial initiated in the last year.

Yesterday, Senator John McCain eloquently warned that the
administration must deal quickly and publicly with the
investigation. "As Americans turned away from the Vietnam
War, they may turn away from this one unless this issue is
quickly resolved with full disclosure immediately," he
said.

We strongly agree.

http://www.nytimes.com/2004/05/08/opinion/08SAT1.html?ex=1085017390&ei=1&en=5b7e2d143d065ad3

Copyright 2004 The New York Times Company

Mr. Rumsfeld's belated apology yesterday was nice to hear. But the secretary spent a lot of time dodging responsibility. When he was chided for not telling the public, Congress or even the president about Abu Ghraib, Mr. Rumsfeld claimed that the Army had provided all the disclosure necessary last January with its inadequate press release announcing the criminal investigations. But when he was pressed on why he had not kept track of the case, Mr. Rumsfeld offered the astonishing argument that he could not have been expected to find this one case among the pile of 3,000 courts-martial initiated in the last year.

Only a lone voice from afar in the vast wasteland of the radical rightwing could characterize Rumsfeld'd pitiful performance as making "amends."

But consider the source. Next we'll read a passionate defense of Limbaugh claiming the "MP's were just letting off steam."

I guess the brain just gets checked at the door.

Has anyone considered that had Rumsfield answered all the questioned asked re the chain of command or other matters that are still under crimiinal investigation, he would be violating the Code of Military Justice?

fox

I somehow missed this sentence earlier. I don't have a negative assessment of YOU. I do have a negative assessment of Rush Limbaugh and Ann Coulter and Joseph McCarthy and Grover Norquist and the guy who held up the 7-11 on Tuesday. And I assess negatively certain of your ideas (serious disagreement, in other words), most particularly, what I consider a misplaced loyalty to a president and a party. But that is all about notions, not about the person.