Sigh, more lies about abuses

What a thing to joke about.

You have moved down the scale from merely repugnant to completely morally bankrupt, Brandon.

Perhaps you should sign up for the armed forces; I hear they are looking for a few good men these days who feel the way you do about things.

Cycloptichorn

Ah ha! Now that's what I'm talking about, Drewdad!

Quote:

As an aside, I will note that many people find release in humor from things that they find painful or frightening. In fact, most of humor is based on this.

In fact, I would go so far to say that all humor is based upon this; either pain or embarassment for some party.

Ask yourself, can you think of a single joke where there isn't pain or embarassment for one of the parties involved? I can't. The closest you can come is a pun, which doesn't really make us laugh out loud, though we can see the humor in it.

Now, to address my original point: you can make jokes about all sort of situations in life, because life hurts and laughter is how we deal with it!

It's wrong to be crass and insult someone to their face; imagine yourself present at the scene of some of the jokes you know and ask yourself if you would laugh out loud, or would you be embarassed? This doesn't keep them from being funny from a distance! Laughter is like, well, warding off bad spirits. I don't think there's such a thing as an inappropriate joke, really, as there really is no situation that can't stand to be made light of a little bit.

Cycloptichorn

Miller was recommended by the FBI to be reprimanded, but he wasn't. Instead he was sent to Iraq. Within weeks similar tactics were being used which was used in Gitmo. The lower ranking personnel and interrogators were charged and sentenced for crimes that some here think to be little more than college pranks. (Of course that was after pictures were actually shown.)

In Iraq we are under the Geneva Convention where we got to follow clear cut laid out standards. So it really does not matter if you all think it is ok for some Muslims to be mistreated or abused or not. It really is not your call to make on whether something is just embarrassing or abusive or even torture. There are guidelines in place in the Geneva Convention to make those judgments.

Cycloptichorn wrote:

What a thing to joke about.

You have moved down the scale from merely repugnant to completely morally bankrupt, Brandon.

Perhaps you should sign up for the armed forces; I hear they are looking for a few good men these days who feel the way you do about things.

Cycloptichorn

Nice try. TTF acted as though I myself were torturing people. I made fun of his absurd accusation, not the thing itself. You people are all about pinning blame on people for things they haven't done.

You're right, I was wrong to give you a hard time about the joke.

Cycloptichorn

Brandon9000 wrote:

Cycloptichorn wrote:

What a thing to joke about.

You have moved down the scale from merely repugnant to completely morally bankrupt, Brandon.

Perhaps you should sign up for the armed forces; I hear they are looking for a few good men these days who feel the way you do about things.

Cycloptichorn

Nice try. TTF acted as though I myself were torturing people. I made fun of his absurd accusation, not the thing itself. You people are all about pinning blame on people for things they haven't done.

I saw the joke. I thought it was funny.

I only brought that up because your entire defense on our actions in Gitmo and Abu Garib seem to be 'yeah - but he did it first!'. It is not a defense. It is an admission of wrong doing and then an attempt to mitigate blame - plain and simple.

This thread has degraded into - but what about our soldier? I hear you brother, what about them? To act as if the spooks that run gitmo and set up Abu Garib are honerable, and that what other soldiers are being asked to do by people that will not and could not take the heat these men and women are now taking dishonors our soldier.

I could care less if every one of the people in Gitmo or Abu Garib are guilty as slime balls - there is a system of justice and honor that we, in America, claim to be sevants of an examples of. We are selling our freedom, liberty, and our ethics to this war. It is not worth the cost. To sell out our long term principles for a temporary increase in safety is not worth it. I, for the life of me, cannot understand why you blindly defend everything that comes out of our government as sacrsanct and then attempt to brand every person who questions policy as traitors.

You remind me more of Parsons everyday.

TTF

It is absurd to concentrate only on this sin of ours and yet seem to be uninterested in the fact that our opponents are deliberately murdering children.

Quote:

It is absurd to concentrate only on this sin of ours and yet seem to be uninterested in the fact that our opponents are deliberately murdering children.

Given that the thread was specifically about a particular subject it would seem to be to be perfectly reasonable to stay on topic. You attempted to divert the discussion by bringing in an unrelated event.

The suicide bombing of the children and the soldiers in Iraq can be a separate thread. Start one if you wish. I will come along and agree with everyone else that such behaviour is not only despicable on so many levels but that it must surely be working against the jihadist cause.

But I would prefer to read and contribute to a thread that wasn't contnually diverted by irrelevant issues.

General contradicted his sworn testimony on Pentagon, Abu Ghraib

BY STEPHEN J. HEDGES

Chicago Tribune


WASHINGTON - (KRT) - An Army general who has been criticized for his role in the treatment of prisoners at the Guantanamo Bay detention center and Abu Ghraib prison in Iraq has contradicted his sworn congressional testimony about contacts with senior Pentagon officials.

Gen. Geoffrey Miller told the Senate Armed Services Committee in May 2004 that he had only filed a report on a recent visit to Abu Ghraib, and did not talk to Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld or his top aides about the fact-finding trip.

But in a recorded statement to attorneys three months later, Miller said he gave two of Rumsfeld's most senior aides - then-Deputy Defense Secretary Paul Wolfowitz and Undersecretary for Intelligence Steve Cambone - a briefing on his visit and his subsequent recommendations.

"Following our return in the fall, I gave an outbrief to both Dr. Wolfowitz and Secretary Cambone," Miller said in the Aug. 21, 2004, statement to lawyers for guards accused of prisoner abuse, a transcript of which was obtained by the Chicago Tribune.

"I went over the report that we had developed and gave them a briefing on the intelligence activities, recommendations, and some recommendations on detention operations," Miller added.

Specific interrogation techniques, he said, were not discussed.

Miller's statement about the meeting, if true, suggests that officials at the very top of the Pentagon may have been more involved in monitoring activities at the prison than previously disclosed. Abu Ghraib was later at the center of a scandal surrounding prisoner abuse, which has led to punishments for soldiers.

Miller, Cambone and Wolfowitz, who is now acting director of the World Bank, each declined to respond to written questions about Miller's contradictory statements. Rumsfeld, Cambone, Wolfowitz and Miller have denied knowledge of prisoner abuse.

In the Aug. 21 statement, Miller says that he never spoke directly to Rumsfeld about his Abu Ghraib visit or his subsequent recommendations for new, tougher interrogation tactics there.

Miller's name came up again this week, when he was named in a military investigation made public Wednesday on FBI claims that detainees held by the United States at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, were being mistreated. The report recommended that Miller be reprimanded for not monitoring the interrogation tactics used on one detainee, Mohamed al-Qahtani, who allegedly intended to be the 20th hijacker in the Sept. 11 plot.

Miller's superior officer, Gen. Bantz Craddock, overruled the reprimand, arguing that there was no evidence that laws had been broken.

Cambone has asserted that he was not briefed by Miller after the general returned from Abu Ghraib. During his own appearance on May 11, 2004, before the Senate Armed Services Committee, Cambone said he and Miller did not speak about Abu Ghraib after Miller's return from the September 2003 fact-finding mission.

"I was not briefed by Gen. Miller," Cambone testified. Instead, Cambone said, a military aide, Gen. William Boykin, briefed Cambone on Miller's trip.

Wolfowitz, who also testified before Congress in May 2004 about prisoner abuses, was not asked during the hearings if he was briefed by Miller.

Miller's role at Abu Ghraib has come under scrutiny since news reports first revealed that U.S. personnel within the prison abused inmates. The mistreatment occurred from the fall of 2003 until January 2004, when a soldier reported the abuses.

Miller was sent to visit the prison in late summer 2003 at the suggestion of Cambone, who had dealt previously with Miller on issues related to the detention of terror suspects at Guantanamo. At the time, the insurgency in Iraq was growing more violent, and U.S. commanders were keen to get intelligence from the growing number of Iraqi men detained by U.S. troops.

The abuses at Abu Ghraib began to occur after Miller's visit, according to Pentagon inquiries, and after the arrival of so-called Tiger Team interrogation units from Guantanamo that Miller said in the August 2004 statement that he helped select.

"We tried to pick the best 10 people that we could send," Miller said.

The abuses also took place after new military police and intelligence units arrived at Abu Ghraib, and after the then-U.S. commander in Iraq, Lt. Gen. Ricardo Sanchez, approved a set of interrogation practices recommended by Miller. Those tactics were later scaled back at the recommendation of the U.S. Central Command.

Pentagon officials and several investigative reports conducted by the Army and a civilian panel chosen by Rumsfeld have concluded that the abuses were the actions of lower-ranking soldiers, and were not ordered by senior officers.

So far, seven soldiers have been convicted on charges related to the abuses. Two senior officers, an Army colonel and an Army Reserve brigadier general, have been reprimanded.

When he appeared before the Armed Services Committee on May 19, 2004, to explain his role at Abu Ghraib, Miller said that he had no contact with Cambone or others in Rumsfeld's office after he returned from Iraq in September 2003.

"I submitted the report up to SOUTHCOM (U.S. Southern Command, where Miller was attached in 2003)," Miller told the committee. "I had no direct discussions with Secretary Cambone."

Miller made the same claim in a signed, sworn statement he gave to Army investigators on June 19, 2004.

In his Aug. 21, 2004, statement to defense attorneys, though, Miller said he and Cambone discussed "how we could improve the flow of intelligence from Iraq through and in interrogations."

Also present, he told the attorneys, were two top Army officers, Gens. Ron Burgess, the head of intelligence for the Pentagon's Joint Staff, and William Caldwell, the military aide to Wolfowitz.

Miller said there was one other participant in the briefing, but he could not recall who it was.

A spokeswoman for Caldwell, who is now commander of the Army's 82nd Airborne Division, said, "All the meetings and briefs that our commanding general took part in during a previous assignment he considers private and confidential."

Burgess also declined to respond to written questions about Miller's statements.

---

© 2005, Chicago Tribune.

Here's one that I know you'll love, Brandon.

Quote:

General contradicted his sworn testimony on Pentagon, Abu Ghraib

BY STEPHEN J. HEDGES

Chicago Tribune


WASHINGTON - (KRT) - An Army general who has been criticized for his role in the treatment of prisoners at the Guantanamo Bay detention center and Abu Ghraib prison in Iraq ...Burgess also declined to respond to written questions about Miller's statements.

---

© 2005, Chicago Tribune.

Interesting

http://www.sanluisobispo.com/mld/sanluisobispo/news/politics/12135066.htm

Cycloptichorn

Everyone who is guilty of complicity in illegal activities is a criminal and should be prosecuted, but you have to be able to prove it. Is someone's complicity can be proven, he should be prosecuted. If it cannot, then there isn't much point in gossiping about it.

Brandon9000 wrote:

Everyone who is guilty of complicity in illegal activities is a criminal and should be prosecuted, but you have to be able to prove it. Is someone's complicity can be proven, he should be prosecuted. If it cannot, then there isn't much point in gossiping about it.

A dogma you are obviously not willing to apply to those detained at Gitmo or Bagram, of course.

The United States will hold states, organizations, and individuals who gain control of United States personnel responsible for treating such personnel humanely and consistent with applicable law.

Well, not exactly on the battlefield, as the Commander in Chief has pointed out. Otherwise they would be prisoners of war, and the Geneva Convention would apply, right? But, of course, the US have not declared war on Iraq or on Afghanistan, so there can't be any POWs, I have to admit - just 'enemy combatants'....

It is ironic that in the directive were Bush outlined this (ie that the Geneva Convention wouldn't be applied), this paragraph is to be found:

Quote:

The United States will hold states, organizations, and individuals who gain control of United States personnel responsible for treating such personnel humanely and consistent with applicable law.

Brandon, you are always pointing out the 'sawing off your head' as something utterly cruel (which it is). At the same time you virtually ignore that hanging somebody from the ceiling of a cell, breaking his legs and leaving him there to die is at least as cruel.

I don't fail to notice and accuse the first. But don't expect me to fail to notice the latter, too.

And let me add this: characterizing oneself as a shining city upon the hill while issuing memos that allow 'Category III techniques' (which would cover most of what we have seen out of Abu Ghraib, for example) is perceived as hypocrisy at best.

This is the image today's US of A have in the world, and flowery speeches about how the responsible persons will be put to trial won't help much, when it is in fact the Secretary of Defense or the President who call for suchlike action in the first place.

(addendum: in the meantime, Rumsfeld's directive to use 'Category III techniques' has been revoked, which leaves just Category I and Category II for interrogations. Technically.)