A valid comparison as they both are nothing more then pictures. Sure the Abu pictures where most likely not doctored, but they do not show the context of the pictures taken. They do not show how the abuses occured, they do not show if it was done by the detaining soldiers, guards, or other inmates. (For the most part)
To say that you can look at the pictures and judge the whole situation is false. You only see what the pictures convey. Did that prisoner with the RAPIEST on his ass just rape a guard? Not that it excuses the abuse, but it would help add to the pictures don’t you think?
Maybe Bricker has “prior form” but I have not dealt with him, and only seen him in GQ where he offers informative answers.
Opps, sorry that quote wasn’t from Rummie.
It was a GOP commitee member.
If you can point to me where I have said abuses did not occur I would gladly print it out and eat my words. These do not need to placed along side anything, from the first release I knew abuses had occured, but was not expecting none.
Abuses occur in American prisons with trained guards for crying out loud, usually not to the same degree of violence and humilition but the situations are different.
*I am not excusing the guards in AG or in the US prison systems, simply stating that abuses occur in both.
Are you insinuating that Graham knows more about the situation than Abbie?
-Joe
Yojimbo has given the definitive response.
All i can add is that ‘if it carps like an apologist, if it cavils like an apologist, if it nit-picks like an apologist …’ I’m sure you can fill in the rest.
When dealing with you, pretty much all of it.
In a courtroom or in a deposition, I know standard practice is to start from zero in terms of establishing facts. For instance, a deposition will normally begin with the deposee (if that’s the right word) being asked to identify himself and state basic information about himself, even if everyone on both sides of the case already knows those basics.
But IRL, or even in its SDMB equivalent, intelligent people conversing usually assume a certain knowledge of the world, and fill in gaps if they emerge.
“Based solely on the photos you just linked to” would mean one thing in intelligent conversation between ordinary people who already were familiar with the revelations about Abu Ghraib in May 2004, and another very different thing in a courtroom or a deposition.
In the former conversation, one might already know that a bunch more pix were found at the same time as those that were publicly released two years ago, but these other photos weren’t publicly released, although they were shown to some members of Congress, and some of those members were pretty upset by them. There was nothing at the time suggesting that they were taken at the time of the prisoners’ being initially checked in to Abu Ghraib. The Australian media involved in their present release say that these new pictures are some of those photos.
In MY world, “based solely on the photos” means “based solely on the photos, in the context of the background already known.” For you, it apparently means tabula rasa. Feel free to use that standard in a conversation with other lawyers concerning court cases. But remember that you’re talking with mostly nonlawyers here, just the way I remember I’m talking mostly with nonmathematicians. It ain’t hard, really.
In YOUR world, why would someone say “Solely?” What word would they use to indicate they were commenting … er… solely on the pictures, and nothing else?
I suppose it’s theoretically possible that the blood on the walls and floor in picture #3 and picture #12 was somehow drawn before the prisoners were incarcerated. Perhaps some enterprising Iraqi kept some of his blood in a Ziploc baggie, and deliberately spilled it on the floor before picture #3 was taken. To undermine our troops’ morale, of course. Those sneaky terrorists.
And the Bricker hijack, designed to prevent him from actually having to address something he doesn’t like when it comes to this administration, continues…
Considering that Rush doesn’t post here, I’m not sure what kind of response you expect. Has anyone on this board said that what happened at A-G did not cross the line into torture?
What, exactly, are we debating here?
So. Practices approved for use only in Gitmo rapdily spread to getting used in several other prisons in Iraq and Afghanistan. We aren’t aware of exactly what was approved and what wasn’t. But what we are sure of is that vast numbers of these people, including the people in Gitmo, were completely innocent. Which just goes to prove my point: once you get to make up the legal rules for yourself, once you eliminate due process, you haven’t done so for the special class of people whom you define “enemy combatant” or whatever. You do so for EVERYONE everywhere. If no one can contest their status, how can the category possibly have any restrictive meaning?
Perhaps he is, but what I would like to know is how you can insinuate I even pretended to know more about the situation then Graham, Rummie, Merijeek, Bricker,etc.
Based solely on the photo’s he does not base his opinion that abuse occured. That was what he said. He did not say abuse did not occur, he did not try to say it was okay, he said he agreed abuse occured, but not based solely on the pictures provided. Is it that hard to understand? I am stupid, I mean really dumb, never implied otherwise, yet I can see what he is saying.
Care to *explain * why you’re trying to impose that weird restriction on discussion? Surely you’ve heard of Abu Ghraib before, like everyone *else * has, haven’t you? There are plenty of threads you could easily search if in fact you need to catch up.
Or you can just leave it, and the impression it leaves, alone. Your choice.
No - you’re just being so irrelevant it looks like you are joining Bricker in his standard tactic of derailing any discussion he doesn’t like with standards of evidence suited to a courtroom but not a board discussion of a well-known incident with people assumed to have knowledge of the subject.
In GQ i’m sure he’s very helpful but in GD, as you can infer from other’s posts, he has form.
If we all actually agree abuse and torture was going on there is absolutely no point in saying you technically can’t prove it from pictures, unless your intention is not to discuss the subject but hijack it. Is that hard to understand? Is it hard to understand why GD regulars in this thread are tired by the same-old same-old tactic?
I do think we all agree that abuses occured, and based on that why was the OP even placed here? If this is just a pit the abuse it should be in the PIT if he wanted something to debate, Bricker found something. Is that like laying a trap to try to jump on someone?
No - it’s not trapping someone. I wasn’t my OP but I guess it was intended to reopen the debate of whether it was a few bad eggs or, as is clearly the case IMHO, a policy for which higher-ups should be punished. Of particular interest is whether any high ranking officers appear in the new shots.
Also of interest is the general victory for free-speech the judgement that released the pics entails.
I have noticed that when seemingly non-debatable political stuff gets posted in the Pit, a debate almost always emerges anyway. As you’ve seen, one debate has emerged here already. More may come along; who knows?
And by having posted this in GD and not the Pit, we don’t have to put up with Weirddave’s obsession with other posters’ wee-wees. Would be nice if we had a forum where we could Pit off-board entities but were required to adhere to GD rules of engagement, so to speak. Since we don’t have one of those, I’m going with the rules of engagement I prefer, given the tendency of political matter to arouse debate in whichever forum it’s placed.
See, here’s the thing (and this is in response to **RTF **also). There is no real debate here. No is going to come into this thread and deny that torture occured at A-G. So why is it surprising when someone like **Bricker **tries to carve out some debate in this thread, and that the debate is narrowly focused? Otherwise, all we’d have is posts that say “yes, I agree”. The only people denying there was torture at A-G are not posters in this forum.
You have never said they haven’t occurred, You did however throw doubt on them by saying that the people could be injured before hand and then threw in the Lockness monster and Big Foot as examples of the dangers of just using photos for evidence. All as I said were true points but in the context of this thread and the evidence already submitted I still think it’s a crap way of addressing this issue.
Oh I agree that the punishment stopped way short in the ranks, dismissing someone from command, rather then stripping them of freedom as should of been done. The common soldier took the fall for the abuse they gave, but not nearly enough punishment rolled uphill.
As someone in command takes the glory for the good, they should as well be held liable for the bad. If they did not know it was going on, they should of been court martialed for dereliction of duty or something similar. I “didn’t” know is not an excuse a commanding officer should be able to make over something so widespread as the abuse appeared to be.
Now that said, it is my understanding the release of these newest pictures have little to do with a victory for free speech as the ACLU did not win its case as of yet, this was an Australian find. And to be honest, I do question the timing of the release by them, as it stands the Muslim anger was centered on a cartoon, nothing to do with America, now some of the anger may just increase, and be directed back at America.