GD or IMHO? I’ll try IMHO as it more polly than debatey
The Iraqi abuse cases are underway and the defendants are claiming that they were following orders. This isn’t exactly a surprise tactic but the more you read about this stuff the more you think how true it could be.
We’ve seen the “Torture memo” (Warning: Large pdf file ) and had a thread about it.
We are also hearing that although the initial set up of Guantanamo was meant to be
we hear that
Not a very good picture I think you’ll agree. It’s really starting to look like there is a larger problem that just some rogue element in Iraq and the Admin had at the very least some influence in the dehumanisation of the prisoners and the methods of dealing with them.
A poster pjen started several threads around the US losing the Moral high ground and was liberally slammed and put down for his views.
Event though some of his stuff was OTT he’s not looking too stupid from where I’m sitting.
So with all of the above and the myriad of other info available how do you feel now about how your country is acting and how it is perceived? The US should have a white hate on. They are currently wearing a very dark grey one IMO. What do you think?
Do you expect us not to be outraged at how our military is behaving? Do you assume the American population as a whole to be as calloused as our military?
Why ask this question? How would YOU feel if it was YOUR military that treated POWs this way?
Me personally, I am ashamed of how our military is behaving and how our government is reacting. There isn’t a whole lot I can personally do about it, other than to cast my vote in the opposite direction in hopes it sends a message.
I am ashamed, first and foremost. The perpetrators are my fellow volunteers, and well could have been the people who work here with me, or me. None of us has much control over where we get assigned. On the one side, the things they did are inexcusable and I would like to think that were I placed in that situation I would hold myself on a higher moral ground. On the other hand, I don’t know what its like. They were getting shot at and hundreds of detainees were being brought in day by day by day. Their superiors demanded information NOW, and their comrades were dying. That’s a tough spot.
Politically? In the Navy, the Skipper has to sleep at night, so he turns his ship over to the Officer of the Deck with full trust that he will take care of her and keep her on course. If that Officer of the Deck runs the ship aground or hits a small vessel and kills people, the Skipper takes a forced early retirement - along with all officers who were on the bridge. They say in the military that shit rolls downhill, but it’s only because it starts at the top. In this case the top was the Pentagon and the bottom were these previously innocent volunteers for America, and I think the entire ladder is guilty.
I would be angry. Ireland has been criticised quite strongly for our treatment of civilian prisoners and the conditions we house them so I am not for one second saying that the US is doing anything that a lot of other countries including my own wouldn’t do.
This is not a dig at you or your country. It’s a honest question. I have seen a lot of Americans(Here. on TV and in the papers) who while slamming the abusers in Iraq personally ignoring the larger picture and throwing their full support behind GITMO.
I was just wondering how people are feeling now that there really does seem to be a larger problem that just a few bad seeds.
The US is at war…undeclared perhaps, but at war all the same. If forcing Iraqui prisoners to wear women’s underpants results in worthwhile intelligence,so be it. Or how about Al-Queda sawing offpeople’s heads? I truly find it amazing that there is such concern for these unlucky prisoners…while nobody says anything about the murder of 3500 innocent people on 9/11.
When amnest international says something about Saddam’s death camps, perhaps I’ll listen. Otherwise, yack all you want…every intelligence service in the world uses somewhat unsavory methods to elicit confessions and information…the German Police murdered the Baader-Meinhoff gang in their prison cells. The British MI-5 murdered IRA agents in Spain, and the French secret service has committed extrajudicial killings as well.
Those ofyou WITHOUT sin, cast the first stone!
The people in Iraq were nobodies and some of them were innocent same goes in GITMO for most of them. Little or no useful intel came out of it.
Terrorists do horrible things, do you really want your country judged on the level of "Hey at least we’re a few rungs up the ladder from terrorists?
Absolute bollocks of the highest order. Do you actually believe this? The world mourned with you. There was a 2 mile queue outside the US embassy here and I’ve heard the same form a lot of other countries. I supported the attack on Afghanistan like most of the rest of the world. Nobody says anything about 9/11? Get a grip will you. Do you think that the US should now get a blank cheque just because you were the victim of terrorism? Please.
What? Are you really that clueless? This took me a minute to Google
It was the SAS and Gibraltar and the UK was internationally criticised for the actions. Those actions also directly caused a chain of events in NI that led to the death of several people including two soldiers and a very signifigant increase in tension and hostility.
I find it interesting that you focus heavily on the least of the tortures that the Soldiers did, but on the worst of the terrorist actions, including one action that had nothing to do with Iraq. There is no point condemning torture commited by your enemies when your own troops are torturing also.
What’s this now? Please explain this “9/11”. 3500 murdered??? When and where was this? This is the first I’ve heard of it. What is “9/11” is that September 11th or November 9th? Or is it something else altogether?
Please excuse my ignorance. It must have to do with the fact that nobody ever says anything about it.
>So with all of the above and the myriad of other info available how do you feel now about how your country is acting and how it is perceived?
I am very unhappy with how my country is acting and I gather that perceptions abroad are often negative in various ways - and rightly so.
I think the United States of America is generally the greatest movement in world history, but sadly it’s also many other things.
Please, non-Americans, understand that many of us did not want the Bush administration; more than a few of us don’t think he was legitimately elected. I side with the many experts who think the electoral process was derailed when the Supreme Court voted along party lines to put him in office. To the extent that Bush himself and members of his administration represent America, I am embarrassed to be an American. I blame this administration for exploiting, twisting, and squandering the support so much of the world showed us after September 11, and likewise whatever moral high ground we held before or around that time. And I see this administration as the biggest component of our current poor standing. But I also think American material greed and some arrogance also contributed, especially to the decades of history that have fueled current problems.
Here’s hoping that our legal process uncovers the truth about what happened in our political prisons. I guess it’s likely that leadership as high as Rumsfeld and perhaps Bush knowingly set up a situation conducive to terrible abuses, if not specifically ordering them. It’s true that average humans will commit all sorts of atrocities with surprisingly little persuasion in some settings - perhaps the most active soldiers in these abuses were people predisposed to such things - still I suspect the problem had to include a system its leaders intended to do something vile. I have to think that what we did to Iraqi prisoners was milder and less outrageous than what Saddam was doing to them, and than what terrorists did to our citizens. But, that isn’t the most important thing to judge - we should judge how we are behaving in the world relative to how we think we and everybody else should behave.
Citizens and especially knowledgeable leaders of other modern countries must shake their heads in baffled dismay as they watch US actions.
No-one has mentioned the victims of 9/11. We’ve all forgotten them. There have been absolutely no tributes to them, no days of mourning, no remembrance ceremonies, no threads on these message boards talking about how terrible it all was. It’s as if the whole thing never happened.
The only thing which embarasses me more than the continuing screwups perpetuated by the Bush Administration is the mindless flag-waving jingoism of folks who continue to support them.
I believe this is the heart of the misunderstanding. These weren’t prisoners, they were detainees. Prisoners are convicted criminals who have been proven of being guilty of some sort of wrong-doing. Detainees are people seemingly randomly picked off the streets for looking suspicious (and then released after being beaten, tortured, humiliated, raped and/or killed). 90% of those detainees are released.
This was not a case of seven rogue wackos foisting their perversions on detainees. The government hired private interrogators, and allowed military police to participate (both violations of international law.) The International Red Cross said the same torture techniques were used in several prisons. It was clearly widespread and organized.
The memos released Tuesday show that the White House counsel Alberto Gonzales, Attorney General John Ashcroft, Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld, and President George W. Bush all believed they were not subject to the Geneva Conventions when it came to torture.
I’m not happy about all that. Mr. Bush campaigned as a Compassionate Conservative, and now he might be charged as a war criminal. When he says torture is okay, he’s dragging my name, my nation, through the mud. I take offense at that.
What’s this now? Please explain this “9/11”. 3500 murdered??? When and where was this? This is the first I’ve heard of it. What is “9/11” is that September 11th or November 9th? Or is it something else altogether?