Your reasoning is illogical, hon.
The USA is trying to win the trust of the Iraqi people (if Bush is to be believed) so what are we doing to them? We're torturing them.
What happened in Vietnam, WWII, WI, the Civil War, or the 100 Years War, shouldn't be the standard we gauge our behavior today. Especially, when Bush keeps saying his Iraq war is about winning trust and bringing democracy to the Iraqi people.
Rest assured, if this had happened on Clinton's watch, the sofia's of the world would be calling for Clinton's impeachment. But, because it happened on Bush's watch, we're supposed to look the other way and dismiss the abuses with, "everyone does it."
Is this how you raised your children? Everyone: steals supplies from their employer, cheats on their taxes, breaks speed laws, and returns clothes to department stores after wearing them, so it's OK?
I never said it was ok. What part of this do you not comprehend?
And, no, I wasn't a mindless attacking partisan when it came to Clinton. I agreed with some of what he did, and disagreed with some...
Your nutty stereotype doesn't fit me, because like most wild-eyed partisans, you've read into what I wrote and saw what you wanted to see, instead of what was there.
Would you consider these tactics torture:
Isolation
Forced to stay in a small cell
Forced to listen to the same song continuously
Be threatened with viscious, barking dogs
Denied a bath and a shave
Yelled at during interrogation
We have some of these and more tactics used in our prisons.
Is forcing someone to stand nude torture?
Again, for those who think I am on the side of torture, I am not trying to make a point, leading to an approval of torture. I think it is an interesting topic, if it is discussed realistically.
If Rummie was outraged before, this one should make him resign.
************
Abuse reported in Afghanistan.
*******
Top Stories - Reuters
U.S. Military Hit by Another Afghan Abuse Charge
Sat May 15, 4:35 PM ET Add Top Stories - Reuters to My Yahoo!
By Mike Collett-White
KABUL (Reuters) - The U.S. military in Afghanistan (news - web sites) has launched its second investigation into prisoner abuse in a week, as the scandal over the treatment of Iraqi detainees threatens to spread.
U.S. spokesman Lieutenant-Colonel Tucker Mansager told reporters on Saturday that fresh allegations of mistreatment were relayed to the military on Thursday, days after a former detainee said he had been sexually abused in 2003.
"Upon notification, coalition forces launched an immediate investigation into this matter," he said. "Coalition forces are committed to ensuring that all detainees are treated humanely and consistent with international law."
He added that such allegations threatened the military's interests in Afghanistan.
"Our investigation is proof that we are concerned about these things," Mansager said. "Our center of gravity is the Afghan people. When allegations like this come to light, that can affect that center of gravity and we take that very seriously."
In a tiny, remote village in the east of the country, the family and friends of one of three Afghans who have died while in U.S. custody expressed anger at American abuses.
"We ask the Americans: 'Why are you arresting and killing innocent people?' We don't know how he was killed," said Ibrahim, best friend of Dilawar who died in December, 2002, at Bagram air base, the main U.S. detention center north of Kabul.
Eighteen months later, the U.S. military has yet to conclude its investigation into the death, which according to reports was caused by "blunt force injuries" to the legs. Ibrahim said Dilawar, 22, was accused of being an al Qaeda supporter, but his brothers told Reuters in Yaqubi, 87 miles southeast of Kabul, that he was a taxi driver.
"We don't want the Americans in our country. They should leave it for us," Ibrahim added.
FEW DETAILS
There were few details of the latest complaint, except that it was made to the military via a third party and the person involved was held by Americans last year and later released.
Earlier this week, the Americans launched an investigation into allegations made by former policeman Sayed Nabi Siddiqui that he had been subjected to beating, sleep deprivation, taunts and sexual abuse during about 40 days in U.S. custody last year.
The complaints, following prisoner abuse in Iraq (news - web sites) that sparked rage across the Arab world, have led to new calls for human rights groups to be given access to Afghan detention centers.
But Mansager said that only the International Committee of the Red Cross would be allowed access to Bagram.
"There will be no change in that policy, as we view the ICRC as the sole international organization charged with looking after the rights of persons under control."
Some of the most serious allegations by detainees in Afghanistan, made since the U.S. waged a war that toppled the Taliban in 2001, concern Asadabad in the east, Kandahar in the south and Gardez, south of Kabul.
An ICRC spokeswoman in Kabul said the group visited Bagram about once every two weeks but did not go to other centers. She did not comment on an informal request by the ICRC to visit one of the other sites, which Mansager said had been made on Friday.
Human Rights Watch has complained of prisoner abuse in Afghanistan before, and this week called the problem "systemic."
Hundreds of Islamic militant suspects are in detention centers around the country. Some are sent on to Guantanamo Bay in Cuba, where many are kept incommunicado for months.
The U.S. military leads a force of around 20,000 soldiers in Afghanistan hunting down militants from the al Qaeda network and the ousted Taliban regime.
(Additional reporting by Samar Zwak in YAQUBI)
!
"A senior C.I.A. official, in confirming the details of this account last week, said that the operation stemmed from Rumsfeld's long-standing desire to wrest control of America's clandestine and paramilitary operations from the C.I.A.
Rumsfeld wants to create a small, focused, tactical military that handles everything itself. Kind of a horizontal monopoly on war-mongering. That way, everything the military does would be directly under Rummy's control (and subsequent Republican administrations).
This attitude flies in the face of everything our Constitution protects. The whole idea of a democracy is for the people to elect the president, who then directs the military with the input and oversight of an elected Congress.
This is the reason why Rummy and Cheney insisted on using a small force to invade and attempt to occupy Iraq. They wanted to prove that it could be done with tactical forces.
I was reading yesterday that the US has adopted a process of "rendition" for prisoners, whereby they are shipped to various countries for torture and execution.
Bulk numbers are flown in cargo aircraft e.g. from Afghanistan to Cuba. High value prisoners are flown by a fleet of Gulf Stream jets to places like Jordan Syria (even) and Egypt for various levels of torture and abuse.
"Egypt is the place to dispose of people".
It seems the US has in place a network of camps, military bases and foreign detention centres where the individual has no rights and can be subject to a range of tortures from medieval barbarity to the lastest drug induced psychological techniques.
The American Gulag is a reality.
[Having American nationality is no help, once you're in the system you are nothing].
pps Uzbekistan boils people alive. Or rather submerges prisoners in boiling water until dead. The British Ambassador has protested this, but London told him to shut up, in fact summoned him back home and put him on "sick leave"
!
Bushco is a strong advocate of outsourcing torture!
What disappoints me pisstoff is that my attitude towards the US has been changed through 180 deg in the last 2 1/2 years.
Every American I have met (without exception) has been really nice. Yet when I hear American accents on the tv or radio, or film or any other media, I now suffer a Pavlovian-type disgust reaction.
I'm sorry really, but that is the affect the axis of evil Bush Cheney Rumsfeld Sharon has brought about.
There are up coming local and European elections in the UK. For aligning the this country so closely with Bush, Blair is going to get the biggest electoral kick in the pants ever. (Although hardly a local or European issue!)
I'm a member of the Labour party. My friend is a govt minister. I would normally go canvassing with him, but not this time. He's paid to explain the logic of government policy to irate householders, and even if I was paid, I couldn't do it. The whole thing is a tragedy because Blair is a decent guy who has done a lot of good for this country. I used to say to criticism.. yes but he gets it right more often than he gets it wrong. Now the catastrophe of Iraq dominates everything, and it will the end of him as pm. Worse he will go down in history, not as leader of a reforming government, but as the man who took a naive gamble on the integrity of George Bush, and to his surprise, lost.
hi Steve- Please don't go all negative on all Americans. Remember, Bush only has a 42% approval rating (according to Newsweek) and 59% of Americans don't trust Bush (according to CNN/Time) and 71% of Americans are horrified by the torture scandal (according to CNN/Time), so the vast majority of us believe as you do about Bush, Cheney, Rummy the Dummy, Condi Rice et al.
We will throw Bush to the curb in November and start cleaning up our economy, the war, and fixing our ruined relationships with the world Bush & co. have destroyed during the past 4 years.
Please don't look at the current stench wafting up from the White House and think we're happy with it. The majority of Americans didn't even vote for the little S.O.B.
Ooooh, I guess we Americans will need to stay away from the next A2K Europe Gathering at Walters. A shame.
Re: !
pistoff wrote:"A senior C.I.A. official, in confirming the details of this account last week, said that the operation stemmed from Rumsfeld's long-standing desire to wrest control of America's clandestine and paramilitary operations from the C.I.A.
Rumsfeld wants to create a small, focused, tactical military that handles everything itself. Kind of a horizontal monopoly on war-mongering. That way, everything the military does would be directly under Rummy's control (and subsequent Republican administrations).
This attitude flies in the face of everything our Constitution protects. The whole idea of a democracy is for the people to elect the president, who then directs the military with the input and oversight of an elected Congress.
This is the reason why Rummy and Cheney insisted on using a small force to invade and attempt to occupy Iraq. They wanted to prove that it could be done with tactical forces.
Don't forget they created the M.I. branch that created the inertia for the war - WofMD, al Qada, etc. Yet, I haven't heard this point discussed, or investigated in the causes for the lies leading up to the war. Who has dropped this ball
With pressure coming from John McCain to get to the "top" of this in short order, something might actually get done to find those responsible.
