And btw, in my earlier post, that “concienscous” was supposed to be “conscientious”. I even typed it into Word to see if the spellcheck would accept it and it did, at first. When I looked again (after submitting, naturally) it had decided it didn’t like it and I needed three tries before I came close enough that spellcheck could even suggest the right way.
Forget Bush for a moment, if you all can. If this report is true, there are some U.S. servicemen or contractors who watched and videotaped rapes of children. I refuse to believe that anyone condoned or encouraged this sort of action without evidence to the contrary. Regardless, if the chain of commanders have not already court-martialed the men and women responsible and meted out appropriate punishment, then I would call for those leaders to step down starting with the lowest level supervisor on up, all the way to the President. Some things simply cannot be tolerated. And if you can’t be expected to prevent it, then you damn well better be able to punish after the fact as a warning to other would-be rogues.
I think any organization can have bad apples in the bunch. And I don’t necessarily agree with the people who think that if Pedophile Pete works for Corp X, then Corp X is somehow accountable for the actions of Pete. However, if Corp X knows that Pedophile Pete is out wreaking havoc and then does nothing in the hopes that everything can just be hidden under a capret, then some heads at Corp X ought to roll.
Here’s another link that starts with Hersh’s speech (those are quite a bit longer and include other people):
http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article6492.htm (web page with video on the page)
http://stream.realimpact.net/?file=clients/aclu/conf2004/20040707_aclu_AmericaAtACrossroads_300.rm&start=1:07:51 (direct, stand-alone video)
Here’s Tom Tomorrow’s take on it which includes links to several different news stories…all of which are from other countries. Perhaps one of them will be acceptable to the people in here who are demanding proof.
While that is certainly bad enough on its own, the report in question doesn’t contain specific allegations of rape. See also here.
Not only has the white house repudiated those torture memos , they’re forcing the pentagon to develop a non-ad hoc policy for dealing with detainee issues.
Who could ever have predicted that wartime prisons could become breeding grounds for evil?
From that first link:
Oh yeah, I believe everything “U.S. officials” tell me. If their “humane behavior” is anything like their “humane bombing” I’ll have a few more questions for them.
We were supposed to be the good guys. Once upon a time. In fairy tales.
That’s a completely different matter, separate from what we’re discussing in this thread. That one talks about torturing a kid in front of his father to get his father to talk.
We sure don’t lack for things to be ashamed of and horrified by.
Can someone help me with duffer’s posts?
I’ve got my Official Ann Coulter “Defending America and America’s Greatest Son From Commie Pinko Liberal Faggot Attacks”, but I want to make sure I’ve got all the right stuff checked.
“It’s just a few bad apples.” CHECK.
“If you don’t blindly believe everything the Administration says you’re not supporting the troops.” CHECK.
Mock offense at Hitler/Bush reference. CHECK.
“It’s just a few bad apples.” CHECK.
“Do you believe everything you read?” CHECK.
“It’s just a few bad apples.” CHECK.
Inability to grasp simple hyperbole and attempt to deflect discussion in that direction. CHECK.
“It’s just a few bad apples.” CHECK.
“Why do you hate the President/America/Armed Forces/Puppies/Kittens/Jesus?” CHECK.
Anyone have any I’ve missed?
-Joe
Well, we’ll have to agree to disagree. I’ll concede that there have been a few, but I generally disregard wholesale rants against the military as a whole.
I don’t doubt that some here do forget the role that Congress has in how the military is used. But the Senate doesn’t have the authority as Commander in Chief of the Armed Services. They can go a long way in reigning in what the President and Armed Forces can do, but they’ve been rather reluctant to do so (they don’t want to be seen as not supporting the military in wartime - politicians being politicians, you see).
Agreed - but at some point down the chain of command SOMEONE is responsible/accountable. Rumsfeld? Myers? Sanchez? All these people are still in place.
Problem is, while the person who was in charge of the prisons is being held responsible (Karpinski), she didn’t have authority over those military/non-military personnel who were involved in interrogating the prioners. In other words, while she was given responsiblity for overseeing the prisons, she had no real authority over the activities that took place there. And when you give someone responsibility with no real authority, then you’ve set yourself up for an abuse of the system (or a breakdown in the chain of command).
As for Pappas (in charge of the interrogators), I don’t know what his status is. But the person who set up the command arrangement that led to the Abu Ghraib fisco should at the very leat be let go (don’t know if this is Sanchez or not; if it is, he’s still in place. Which means that he’s the weak link in the chain of command and those higher up have done nothing to correct the problem. Which leads back to Myers, Rumsfeld, and the President).
Anyway, Sublight provided a nice example illustrating my take on the whole matter.
Merijeek…
Maybe you should try COUNTERING the arguments, instead of simply commenting that, yes, they have been made?
Or do you think we shoudl condemn all Arabs because of the handful that blew up a few buildings? I sure don’t, but hell… “It’s just a few bad apples, CHECK”.
I think the issue of GeeDubya’s personal responsibility in all of this might better be examined in terms of response rather than in terms of origination. (Even though it seems to me that the whole tough-guy, taking off the gloves attitude did, in fact, originate from on high, with his consent if not at his direction…)
This story is out. It is difficult to imagine that he remains entirely ignorant, especially as Rummy is on record as being cognizant of worse news to come. Clearly, there are two potentials here: one, the story is false, two, the story is true.
If the story is false, I naturally expect the Bushiviks to come out swinging, I want this story crushed under the weight of fact and testimony, leaving no doubt in the minds of anyone, friend or foe, that such horror did not occur and will not occur. I am troubled that no response has been mustered, no such “full court press” can be observed. Permitting a false story of atrocity to float about gives propaganda “aid and comfort” to the enemy, and, as such, endangers our soldiers by invigorating the resistance. Under the circumstances, persons sympathetic to the resistance will naturally take such silence as acceptance. If there had been no Abu Ghraib, of course, the bar would be much higher. But there was, and it isn’t.
If the story is true…well, sweet bleeding Jesus, I sure hope not. But if it is, it demands a response as well. Whether any such response could truly be adequate to convince the Iraqi people that this represents a wild abberation, wholly repugnant to American values and morality, I very much doubt. People of this culture take a much sterner view of justice and retribution that we would ever permit to be visited on the guilty, they take the notion “heads will roll” more literally, they are not likely to be satisfied by a year in jail and a stern talking-to. But at the very least, some effort must be made, to ignore the matter says simply that we feel at liberty to ignore them, their greivances are of no consequence, we don’t care, we don’t have to care, we’re the Americans.
It still remains possible that the whole thing is a hoax, cooked up by our unscrupulous enemies. I would very much like to believe that. More importantly, I want them to believe it. But I don’t. And I very much doubt that they do either.
Not to dash your hopes or anything, but can you supply a plausible mechanism whereby evil of the sort already admitted to could be allowed to flourish, yet be limited to NOT raping young children? Abu Ghraib operated under a permissive atmosphere, and evil has a tendency to bloom in all forms that are not actively discouraged.
Did the administration have an anti-child rape program going, or were child prisoners just treated as part and parcel of their overall detainee strategy?
Umm…why?
Seriously, the “bad apples” argument has been torn to pieces in these forums dozens, if not hundreds of times.
Somehow, though, lots of people somehow still refuse to see what’s right before them. Some of them were always blind to things they didn’t like (read: Brutus, Shodan, duffer) and others used to have the ability to deal with things they didn’t like, rather than ignoring them (read:** Sam Stone**.)
The few people who will be swayed by anyhing other than luci’s necropedophillia already have been so. The rest are just a lost cause.
If your can’t convince them with the facts, maybe you can drill into their closed little minds a little shame.
-Joe
Oh, Lord God, Squink, its a whole quantum level of monstrosity. I dont know if the principle has any recognized name, but perhaps “level of enmity” might suffice?
The most plausible, albeit shabby, excuse offered for the infamy at Abu Ghraib is that the soldiers involved sincerely believed that they were dealing with “the enemy”, that “the enemy” might be coerced into revealing information that might save the lives of fellow soldiers. Our committment to civilized behavior does not permit us to accept this justification, but I think we can fairy recognize it as plausible. Its not enough, but its something. These are grown men, they are responsible for their committment to cause, they are the enemy, they are “fair game”. And there is some reason to believe they might have actual intelligence to offer: that is, they are empowered to change their circumstances by compliance with our demands, give us what we want, and the pain stops.
Clearly, none of this applies to children. What intelligence could they have to offer? They cannot decide to give up what we demand, they haven’t got it in the first place.
Perhaps more to the point, there is the sheer ham-fisted stupidity. A soldier necessarily seeks to reduce the number of our enemies, often by the most direct means: i.e., killing them. The kinds of things done at Abu Ghraib cannot possibly have any other effect but to increase the number of our enemies and their level of committment. If you and I were Iraqis, as yet undecided as to where our loyalties lay, and our brother, father or cousin were one of the victims - well, I daresay no further testimony about the goodly motives of the Americans is likely to be considered, the verdict is in, the only question is where is the nearest place to enlist.
And that is bad enough, Heaven knows. I am a father, as are many of you, and many of them. Do something like that to my brother, you have made an enemy, I will seek a means of redress, a weapon, a bomb. Do something like that to my child, and I will tear your throat out with my teeth. Our common humanity assures me that an Iraqi father will feel no differently.
Once again, it seems as though the script is written by our sworn enemies, for no other purpose but to show our soldiers as the most despicable and craven of infidels, no more worthy than a rabid dog, and no more human. We sow the dragons teeth, our newly minted enemies spring up from the ground. And their motivation will be raw hatred, which is non-negotiable, no rational compromise can be reached. You can negotiate with an enemy that opposes you for political reasons, even for religious reasons.
That it is so is bad enough. That the hatred is justifiable, and that we have actually created that justification…words fail. Scream with rage till your throat is raw, and you won’t even come close.
fairytale??? (sorry, I understand your horror, but I think you’re grasping at straws.)
Once you get people covering up murders and such, as we know happened, they become co-conspirators in the whole sorry enterprise. It’d take a collosal act of goodness to then draw the line at child-rape, knowing that the whole thing’ll come down on your head if you say anything.
Sure there’s leap there, but everyone who could have prevented it from happening was already caught in a trap.
Anyone who’s ever seen a prison movie or a war movie should have known this sort of thing was possible, and the pentagon should have had plans in place to prevent it. They didn’t. :mad:
Ooops. “fairly recognize as plausible”, as in a willingness to stretch to reach. Or, as you put it, to grasp at straws.
I confess, I am so willing. Give me any plausible explanation, anything to take shelter under, however flimsy, however great a leap of faith required. Anything that will permit me to believe that this never happened, not by my countrymen, not in my name. Give me anything. Al Queda’s Ministry of Disinformation made it all up, Al Jazeera concocted the whole thing on a soundstage in Jordan. Anything at all.
As Jefferson said: “I tremble for my country when I reflect that God is just.”
I wonder why there was nothing about this on the Dutch news.
Oh, I know. You’ll say the dutchies are slow getting the latest. 
But there wasn’t anything on the English, German or Belgian news either.
“You’re an American-hating liberal” and “This is no worse than a college frat prank” come to mind.
I’d direct folk to my first reply to this thread for the latter…