# As if the torture photos weren't enough... **URL:** \ **Category:** The BBQ Pit\ **Created:** [May 4, 2004, 6:57pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/as-if-the-torture-photos-werent-enough/243504 "2004-05-04T18:57:42Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 6
**Author:** ![Eutychus](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/a3d4f5/32.png) [@Eutychus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Eutychus)\ **Post date:** [May 5, 2004, 12:49am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/as-if-the-torture-photos-werent-enough/243504/101 "2004-05-05T00:49:35Z")
> [@booka](#): > > Ya. That’s it. It’s as basic as it gets. > > There is no lesson to be learned. This isn’t a controlled classroom. Lunacy and horror are running the show, and no amount of effort will stop war atrocities and bad behavior. It’s like asking a fine sports car to track a straight line in a hurricane. > > Cameras or no cameras, most Americans just don’t get the concept of war, and never will. Which is generally fine, I suppose, until they try to place it a familiar context, and then start mouthing off like they know what they’re talking about. So, what’s your answer? We should all just sit back in our rocking chairs and go back to sleep while the world goes to hell? Sorry … I see human nature as something that can be redeemed, not as something that should be left to run rampant. ---
**Author:** ![wring](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/w/838e76/32.png) [@wring](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/wring)\ **Post date:** [May 5, 2004, 12:52am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/as-if-the-torture-photos-werent-enough/243504/102 "2004-05-05T00:52:26Z")
no lesson to be learned? and you point a finger of scorn at others in this thread? and again you ignore requests for support (for example, that the soldiers involved are the scared 19/20 year olds); won’t comment on that I **expect** soldiers to act honorably, that the torture of prisoners shouldn’t be a shrug and ‘what do you expect, lunacy is running the show’. this wasn’t a combat situation in the heat of the moment - this was the slow, planned torture of prisoners held in a secure environment (granting that yes, the entire country is less than safe for most folks now, it certainly wasn’t similar to situations for example in Nam). this was wrong. people are responsible for their behavior. their commanders are responsible for the failure of the system. ---
**Author:** ![booka](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/e0b2c6/32.png) [@booka](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/booka)\ **Post date:** [May 5, 2004, 1:11am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/as-if-the-torture-photos-werent-enough/243504/103 "2004-05-05T01:11:04Z")
> [@jarbabyj](#): > > As for Brian Urlacher, it’s BASEBALL SEASON YOU FUCK. KERRY WOOD IS MY BOYFRIEND NOW. All the other stuff you said was nice, but THIS was funny! ---
**Author:** ![Squink](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/b5e925/32.png) [@Squink](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Squink)\ **Post date:** [May 5, 2004, 1:23am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/as-if-the-torture-photos-werent-enough/243504/104 "2004-05-05T01:23:29Z")
> [@wring](#): > > no lesson to be learned? At the very least, this is teaching Rummy how to talk like a lawyer: > [@](#): > > SEC. RUMSFELD: I think that – I’m not a lawyer. My impression is that what has been charged thus far is abuse, which I believe technically is different from torture. > > Just a minute. > > Q (Off mike.) SEC. RUMSFELD: I don’t know if the – it is correct to say what you just said, that torture has taken place, or that there’s been a conviction for torture. And therefore **I’m not going to address the torture word**. [Defense Department Operational Update Briefing](http://www.dod.mil/transcripts/2004/tr20040504-secdef1423.html) ---
**Author:** ![booka](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/e0b2c6/32.png) [@booka](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/booka)\ **Post date:** [May 5, 2004, 1:29am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/as-if-the-torture-photos-werent-enough/243504/105 "2004-05-05T01:29:01Z")
> [@wring](#): > > …no lesson to be learned? > > and you point a finger of scorn at others in this thread? Yeah - there is nothing new to be learned here. Quit trying to cleverly establish a link that isn’t relevant. Stop typing and go think. But, because you need an answer, the “lesson” here is that each generation gets to re-learn the same hateful realities of war as the last generation. There’s your lesson - now go and take your seat. Besides, it wasn’t my finger that I was pointing. > [@wring](#): > > …and again you ignore requests for support (for example, that the soldiers involved are the scared 19/20 year olds); won’t comment on that I **expect** soldiers to act honorably, that the torture of prisoners shouldn’t be a shrug and ‘what do you expect, lunacy is running the show’. this wasn’t a combat situation in the heat of the moment - this was the slow, planned torture of prisoners held in a secure environment (granting that yes, the entire country is less than safe for most folks now, it certainly wasn’t similar to situations for example in Nam). > > this was wrong. people are responsible for their behavior. their commanders are responsible for the failure of the system. Yeah, it was wrong for them to behave like that. We do expect more from them. In the words of Jeremiah Johnson, “_It oughta been different_.”. Go ahead and **expect** soldiers to act honorably. Most do, and some always will act badly. Finally, just because you demand accountability, and answers to all of this, doesn’t mean that they exist. Maybe if you stomp up and down and scream a bunch, and DEMAND it, then yeah, everything will line up and make sense. :eek: ---
**Author:** ![Reeder](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/c6cbf5/32.png) [@Reeder](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Reeder)\ **Post date:** [May 5, 2004, 1:44am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/as-if-the-torture-photos-werent-enough/243504/106 "2004-05-05T01:44:44Z")
Y’all keep saying it was in the middle of the night…how the hell do you know? Is 5 am the middle of the night? How many farmers in the US go to work before dawn? As for not being in the field next to an army base. If your field was next to the base were the hell else would you go? ---
**Author:** ![Diogenes\_the\_Cynic](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/e99b99/32.png) [@Diogenes\_the\_Cynic](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Diogenes_the_Cynic)\ **Post date:** [May 5, 2004, 2:06am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/as-if-the-torture-photos-werent-enough/243504/107 "2004-05-05T02:06:22Z")
> [@Squink](#): > > At the very least, this is teaching Rummy how to talk like a lawyer: > [Defense Department Operational Update Briefing](http://www.dod.mil/transcripts/2004/tr20040504-secdef1423.html) I wonder if Rummy considers any of the [following](http://news.myway.com/top/article/id/401383%7Ctop%7C05-04-2004::17:05%7Creuters.html) to be “torture” or “abuse:” > [@](#): > > Shocking excerpts from a report on the abuse completed on March 3 by Maj. Gen. Antonio Taguba and acquired by Reuters on Tuesday, were likely to further stoke fury at home and abroad. > > “Between October and December 2003, at the Abu Ghraib Confinement Facility (BCCF), numerous incidents of sadistic, blatant, and wanton criminal abuses were inflicted on several detainees,” the report said. > > “This systemic and illegal abuse of detainees was intentionally perpetrated by several members of the military police guard force (372nd Military Police Company, 320th Military Police Battalion, 800th MP Brigade), in Tier (section) 1-A of the Abu Ghraib Prison (BCCF).” > > Taguba said several detainees had credibly described acts of abuse, including: > > - Breaking chemical lights and pouring the phosphoric liquid on detainees > > - Beating detainees with a broom handle and a chair > > - Sodomizing a detainee with a chemical light and perhaps a broom stick > > - Arranging naked male detainees in a pile and then jumping on them > > - Forcing detainees to remove their clothing and keeping them naked for several days at a time > > - Forcing groups of male detainees to masturbate themselves while being photographed and videotaped This is in addition to the deaths of 25 Iraqis of Iraqi detainees, at least two of which the military has acknowledged as homicides by Americans. Apparently, one US soldier who murdered an Iraqi wth a rock was simply discharged without serving any prison tome and no real punishment. I guess killing an Iraqi isn’t the same as murdering a real person or anything…at least not in the eyes of the US military. ---
**Author:** ![flickster](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/7bcc69/32.png) [@flickster](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/flickster)\ **Post date:** [May 5, 2004, 2:20am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/as-if-the-torture-photos-werent-enough/243504/108 "2004-05-05T02:20:58Z")
> [@](#): > > - Breaking chemical lights and pouring the phosphoric liquid on detainees > > - Beating detainees with a broom handle and a chair > > - Sodomizing a detainee with a chemical light and perhaps a broom stick > > - Arranging naked male detainees in a pile and then jumping on them > > - Forcing detainees to remove their clothing and keeping them naked for several days at a time > > - Forcing groups of male detainees to masturbate themselves while being photographed and videotaped Sadly, with the exception of the chemical light, a trip to Iraq is not required for most of this prison activity. ---
**Author:** ![Cisco](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/ccd318/32.png) [@Cisco](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Cisco)\ **Post date:** [May 5, 2004, 2:22am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/as-if-the-torture-photos-werent-enough/243504/109 "2004-05-05T02:22:17Z")
I have no interest in getting involved with this debate but I have a question. I’ve seen the video (a long time ago) and the one thing that caught my attention was: those aren’t personnel rounds, are they? ---
**Author:** ![RedFury](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/ec9cab/32.png) [@RedFury](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/RedFury)\ **Post date:** [May 5, 2004, 2:42am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/as-if-the-torture-photos-werent-enough/243504/110 "2004-05-05T02:42:03Z")
> [@flickster](#): > > Sadly, with the exception of the chemical light, a trip to Iraq is not required for most of this prison activity. And yet your Commander In Thief feels he has a call from God to spread thse values in the ME. How about a “why don’t you gauge your eyes out with a rusty spoon” instead? ---
**Author:** ![lieu](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/c2a13f/32.png) [@lieu](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/lieu)\ **Post date:** [May 5, 2004, 3:12am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/as-if-the-torture-photos-werent-enough/243504/111 "2004-05-05T03:12:31Z")
**jar** , I called those who fight in the manner of the three killed in the video chickenshits for assuming civilian personnas during the day, lobbing a mortar under cover of the night and then planning to merge back among civilians again. Fighting in this manner unfairly brings suspicion upon everyone else in the future, innocent or not. At least al Sadr’s militia have the decency to distinguish themselves from the non-combatents. I made this point in reference to your question, “How do we know they’re soldiers?” No shit! They blur the lines and in so doing bring danger upon everyone else. You’re right, chickenshit was too generous. **RedFury** , the sunnis aren’t fighting for some noble homeland against the invaders cause. They were at the top of the receiving triangle for graft and corruption in the country and they want it back. They’re also fighting to make sure the people they’ve been screwing and murdering for decades don’t get an equal power foothold and extract some revenge. Noble warriors my ass. **Cisco** , no, probably rounds designed to at least incapacitate a vehicle. T’was a chain gun, like 30 to 50 cal. Course reloading just prior to a conflict would be, in a word, unadvisable. ---
**Author:** ![Diane](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/2acd7d/32.png) [@Diane](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Diane)\ **Post date:** [May 5, 2004, 3:25am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/as-if-the-torture-photos-werent-enough/243504/112 "2004-05-05T03:25:45Z")
As a veteran counselor who has a large number of Vietnam vets as clients (most suffering from PTSD), I hope like hell we have come a long way from the days soldiers were spit on and called babykillers upon their arrival home and it worries me to see comments steering in that direction. I see the damage it has done to the Vietnam vet and I hope and pray we don’t get another generation of the same. We don’t know what the helicopter gunners saw (which was more than a grainy video), we have no way of understanding what happened before the incident, and we don’t know what information they received. War is an ugly, bloody game and sometimes people get killed who shouldn’t have. I like to think that the recent examples of horrendous actions (the photo of the sexual abuse) are very few and far between and that these assholes will be punished accordingly. Aside from that, I like to believe that our soldiers are doing the best that they possibly can in light of the situation they have found themselves in. I can also assure you that most don’t want to be there any more than we want them to be. ---
**Author:** ![gobear](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/8dc957/32.png) [@gobear](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/gobear)\ **Post date:** [May 5, 2004, 3:30am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/as-if-the-torture-photos-werent-enough/243504/113 "2004-05-05T03:30:49Z")
You know, somewhere out in the Great Beyond, the shade of Stanley Milgram is looking very smug. ---
**Author:** ![Triskadecamus](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/b19c9b/32.png) [@Triskadecamus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Triskadecamus)\ **Post date:** [May 5, 2004, 4:02am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/as-if-the-torture-photos-werent-enough/243504/114 "2004-05-05T04:02:50Z")
Trying to turn an army into a police force ruins the army, and gives you really shitty police. Armies are good a war. War involves killing people, and destroying things. You don’t expect the army to suddenly change into a police force. You don’t expect the civilian populace to believe you if you lie to them and tell them this is not an army, it is a police force. Turning police forces into prison guards ruins the police force, and gives you really shitty prison guards. The Republican Party of the United States is not aware of these simple facts. Stop this war now. Tris ---
**Author:** ![dropzone](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/dropzone/32/7515_2.png) [@dropzone](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/dropzone)\ **Post date:** [May 5, 2004, 4:07am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/as-if-the-torture-photos-werent-enough/243504/115 "2004-05-05T04:07:52Z")
Dammit, gobear, I can’t memorize every damned name in the phone book! (muttering about how I should buy stock in Google since I use it so much) [A reminder](http://www.new-life.net/milgram.htm) for those like me with clogged synapses. ---
**Author:** ![Voyager](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/voyager/32/133_2.png) [@Voyager](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Voyager)\ **Post date:** [May 5, 2004, 4:46am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/as-if-the-torture-photos-werent-enough/243504/116 "2004-05-05T04:46:46Z")
Just out of curiousity, does anyone know if they found out what the tube was when they cleaned up the bodies? Not that it matters - the helicopter crew had more justification in firing than Bush did in starting the war in the first place. Also - doesn’t anyone think it odd that the Iraqis would be setting up a mortar with a chopper right overhead? Unless we have real quiet ones, you’d think it would be obvious, right? If I were an insurgent, and I heard a chopper, I whistle innocently and get the hell out of there. ---
**Author:** ![Cisco](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/ccd318/32.png) [@Cisco](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Cisco)\ **Post date:** [May 5, 2004, 4:49am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/as-if-the-torture-photos-werent-enough/243504/117 "2004-05-05T04:49:43Z")
> [@Voyager](#): > > Also - doesn’t anyone think it odd that the Iraqis would be setting up a mortar with a chopper right overhead? Unless we have real quiet ones, you’d think it would be obvious, right? If I were an insurgent, and I heard a chopper, I whistle innocently and get the hell out of there. They are real quiet, and that thing could have been a mile away. ---
**Author:** ![Lt\_Engineer](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/90ced4/32.png) [@Lt\_Engineer](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lt_Engineer)\ **Post date:** [May 5, 2004, 5:19am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/as-if-the-torture-photos-werent-enough/243504/118 "2004-05-05T05:19:07Z")
This may have been mentioned in this long thread already but I need to say it myself. What makes people think this footage is from Iraq? Are there alot of tractors and hay bales in Iraq? I saw this video AT LEAST a year ago. I suspect it is actually from eastern europe. ---
**Author:** ![Cisco](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/ccd318/32.png) [@Cisco](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Cisco)\ **Post date:** [May 5, 2004, 5:23am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/as-if-the-torture-photos-werent-enough/243504/119 "2004-05-05T05:23:45Z")
Actually, I was going to say that I thought I saw it at least long enough ago that I thought it was Afghanisthan, but people seem to be pretty sure that it’s Iraq. ---
**Author:** ![lieu](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/c2a13f/32.png) [@lieu](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/lieu)\ **Post date:** [May 5, 2004, 5:33am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/as-if-the-torture-photos-werent-enough/243504/120 "2004-05-05T05:33:44Z")
> [@gobear](#): > > You know, somewhere out in the Great Beyond, the shade of Stanley Milgram is looking very smug. I know I’ve got to have misunderstood you. There’s no way you’re suggesting that the occupants of the helicopter, removed from personal interaction with the enemy combatents, are delivering a lethal force simply for fuck’s sake and deriving some perverse pleasure from it. If I’ve mischaracterized your reference, and I’m sincerely hoping I have, then I sincerely apologize for suggesting you offered such an asnine response. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/as-if-the-torture-photos-werent-enough/243504.md?page=5) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/as-if-the-torture-photos-werent-enough/243504.md?page=7)