careful what you wish for
FreeDuck wrote:
Of course, if we found out that folks in the British government were drafting legal opinions designed to show that there was no need to adhere to the Geneve Conventions and seeking to redefine torture, I might have something to say about the leaders of the British government.
Yeah - but, as I realised, there HAVE been lots of allegations about their policies in Ireland.
I will have a look at The Guardian meself after work - now I am interested!!!!
One would have to assume the Intelligence services talked a lot about tactics, no?????
Er - McGentrix - if you feel that "snipe" definition - which actually was longer than I thought - derails your thread at all - I am very happy to edit it out!!! (Blush)
Yep, good point. We just don't get much reporting of what's going on in the British government here.
No worries.
When you get human nature and politics together, you get people doing bad things. Especially when they are given a bit of power.
McBrutish is constantly try to stir up some "stuff".
McBrutish, yer just a "stuff"-stirrer.
I know it, YOU know it, and all the A2K regulars know it.
The way you sit there in your ersatz "righteousness" and feign your "innocence"...
it's just too precious.
But it's hardly original... there are hundreds of other Rush Blimpbaugh clones sowing their seeds of arrogance and discord.
Bleat away...
I was just as much against the British government invading Iraq as I was against the U.S.
The fact that British soldiers are doing the same thing as American soldiers is of no surprise whatsoever. They are in lock step with each other regarding the torturing and murdering of innocent Iraqi civilians.
next...
Really McG...you know me. I look for hypocrisy in the right AND the left. There's none here.
Snipe Hunt- Leading a tenderfoot Boy Scout into the woods....and leaving him there!!
Now the Danish!!!
This surprised me, for some reason.
Danish troops charged with abuse
Captain Annemette Hommel was sent home early from Iraq
A Danish army intelligence officer and four military police sergeants have been charged with mistreating Iraqi prisoners in southern Iraq last year.
Captain Annemette Hommel was charged with four counts of negligence while on duty in March, April and June 2004.
All five are accused of verbal abuse of detainees, denying them food and water, and forcing them to kneel in discomfort during interrogation.
Denmark has about 500 troops in southern Iraq, near Basra.
No date has been set for a trial. The defendants could face a year in jail if found guilty.
'Misunderstanding'
Capt Hommel, 37, who was ordered to return home from Iraq before her tour of duty ended, said she had done nothing wrong.
Last year, she said the allegations stemmed from a misunderstanding with the Palestinian translators working at the camp, who had objected to her interrogation techniques.
Jesper Helsoe, commander of the Danish armed forces, told Danish radio on Friday: "I will be the first person to apologise if the military has made mistakes, but the trial now has to take place. No one has been convicted yet."
Correspondents say the scandal shocked many in Denmark, where most people support their government's backing of the US-led coalition in Iraq.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/europe/4195021.stm
Doesn't sound as terrible as the US and British crimes....but.....
Al Jazeera's article on the trial of the British troops:
UK major denies Iraq abuse
Friday 21 January 2005, 20:22 Makka Time, 17:22 GMT
Soldiers from Royal Regiment of Fusiliers are accused of abuse
The commander of three British servicemen accused of mistreating detained Iraqi civilians has said he saw no abuse.
Major Dan Taylor denied wrongdoing and said he gave the order to crack down because looters kept returning to the sprawling compound outside Basra even after being kicked out, and that warning shots had little effect.
"We seemed to have an increasing number of looters in there. Nothing made any difference," Taylor testified on Friday during the soldiers' court-martial by a panel of seven officers at a British base in Germany.
Three soldiers from the Royal Regiment of Fusiliers under Taylor's command are accused of abusing detainees after being ordered to get tough on looters.
Defence lawyers argue that the three were following Taylor's orders and had unclear legal guidance on how to treat common criminals as the army shifted from war to a policing role.
Taylor denied the charges.
Looting
Taylor said he came up with a plan he dubbed Operation Ali Baba to deter stealing, mainly of food.
"In this case they were not normal civilians, they were looters"
"I was going to talk to them, they were then going to be given some work to do, we would talk to them again, and they were then going to leave the complex," Taylor said.
Taylor said British troops had even been asked by Iraqis working at the former state warehouse to shoot looters and that the troops felt responsible for making sure humanitarian aid was not stolen. He said he cleared his crackdown order with a superior officer who approved the proposal.
He said later he walked by as captives were working cleaning up garbage and saw no abuse. He said he did not believe his order was illegal at the time and let the Iraqis go after about one and a half hours.
"In this case, they were not normal civilians, they were looters," he said. "I didn't believe it was breaking any laws or regulations."
Photographic evidence
Abuse was shown in photos taken by a soldier who was arrested in England after bringing the film to be developed.
The abuse photos have provoked
widespread dismay in Britain
Some of the photos show a bound Iraqi being dangled over a loading dock by a forklift, and another showing two Iraqis stripped and forced to feign sexual acts together.
The pictures have provoked widespread dismay in Britain and uncomfortable comparisons with the scandal over abuse of Iraqi prisoners by US soldiers at the Abu Ghraib prison in Baghdad.
Lance Corporal Darren Larkin, 30, has pleaded guilty to one count of battery after prosecutors alleged he was the man shown in a photo standing with both feet on a tied-up Iraqi lying on the ground.
Larkin and Lance Corporal Mark Cooley, 25, denied all other charges.
Cooley is charged with tethering the detainee to the forklift and driving it. He also is charged with simulating a kick and a punch against the other detainee, seen in two separate photos.
Corporal Daniel Kenyon, 33, the highest-ranking defendant, is charged with several counts of failing to report abuse to superiors. He has pleaded not guilty.
Under tough questioning from Kenyon's lawyer, Taylor acknowledged that there was no explicit authority in army rules of engagement to punish looters in Iraq.
"This was Operation Mishmash, Operation Mismanagement," said lawyer Stephen Giret.........
Full article here:
http://english.aljazeera.net/NR/exeres/1F6CFF45-2351-4825-B44F-9FB5B6EEBA2B.htm
Re: British soldiers torture Iraqi citizens
McGentrix wrote:Why hasn't this topic been brought up here yet?
I was hoping someone from the left was going to take the lead on this story and condemn the actions of another governments actions. Obviously Tony Blair is at fault for this.
One bit of the story
I've been away a couple of days, and couldn't reply earlier to this.
But before, I posted that of course here - two days, before you created this thread:
http://www.able2know.com/forums/viewtopic.php?t=27940&postdays=0&postorder=asc&start=5710
Welcome back Herr Hinteler
panzade wrote:Welcome back Herr Hinteler
Too kind, Panzade Esq :wink:
Re: British soldiers torture Iraqi citizens
Missed that one Walter. Good of you to have posted it.
What the revelation of the British incidents of abuse tells us is that such incidents are almost predictable within the context of a war, and, contrary to the wishful thinking of anti-Americans, not peculiar to US troops.
It is a credit to the cultures and political systems of both the US and the UK that these incidents have been brought to light and condemned, however it is important to maintain a sense of context.
As Tony Blair recently said, it is not that nothing bad ever happens within a Democratic nation, but that when they do happen, they are identified and dealt with.
Comparing the abuses of US and British troops (as repugnant as they may be) with the atrocities of real torture experts is over the top. This is not to excuse the abuse, merely to establish context. There is a drop in the credibility of critics who liken these abuses to the worst excesses of the true monsters in the world.
It is unquestionable that we, in the West, like to hold ourselves above the monsters and so when we slip into base behaviors it stings all the more, but it's interesting that the voices that bray the loudest about these abuses were silent when worse offenses were perpetrated by Saddam.
Selective outrage is difficult to reconcile.
For quite some time, War has been Hell, and to expect it to be conducted as if the battlefield were in Heaven is a bit fanciful.
In any case, while I have always been a declared anglophile, I do find it ironically amusing that the Brit military elite who were, heretofore, so pompously condescending in the their comparisons between the actions and capabilities of US and UK forces in Iraq are now found with their pants down.
Finn d'Abuzz wrote:
In any case, while I have always been a declared anglophile, I do find it ironically amusing that the Brit military elite who were, heretofore, so pompously condescending in the their comparisons between the actions and capabilities of US and UK forces in Iraq are now found with their pants down.
"Anglophile"?
Gee, Finn, I dunno 'bout Tejas, but here in New England we use a different terminology with which to describe men who enjoy seeing other men butt-nekkid.
Quote:It is unquestionable that we, in the West, like to hold ourselves above the monsters and so when we slip into base behaviors it stings all the more, but it's interesting that the voices that bray the loudest about these abuses were silent when worse offenses were perpetrated by Saddam.
And when Amnesty International and the Red Cross and the UN, etc used to report and agitate the West
NEVER WANTED TO KNOW. It was all a commie-inspired plot to overthrow capitalism by insisting that nations anywhere respect human rights.
And if you did happen to mention Iraq and... say, El Salvador in the same breath you were both a god-less communist AND the soul-brother of terrorists and worse. Christ, what BS
I haven't figured how to link to a different page in the forum, but here is where I brought up the British incident before this thread was created.
Posted: Thu Jan 20, 2005 8:06 am Post: 1135023 - (iraq thread by seneta)
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
http://www.nytimes.com/2005/01/20/international/europe/20britain.html?th
Makes you proud to be part of something so marvelous.
