New Prisoner Abuse Photos: Now It's The Navy's Turn

The BBQ Pit
41

It means that in a legal sense, they are not ‘Prisoners of War’. The GC is quite specific in outlining who is and who is not a ‘Prisoner of War’. These fellows don’t meet the requirments.

Again, I will trust that the US Navy SEALS know what constitutes productive treatment of captives. If they have a problem, they’ll deal with it. And hopefully, they won’t be pressuring into dealing with a non-problem because some of you (and the press) got woozy at the sight of a terr with a bloody face. (Probably got butt-stroked).

Our troops need leeway in dealing with these insurgents. If that means some treatment that makes you guys sad, I care not one wit. Pretty much anything the US Armed Forces do sends you guys into coniption fits, so it’s pretty damned silly to pay heed to what you view as acceptable and unacceptable actions. This whole thread is proof of that: No pictures of torture or abuse, but you guys are going on like it Dachau V2.0. Ridiculous.

42

You don’t see abuse in those photos? Is the bruised and bleeding man being photographed after a tragic spork incident?

All these folks bringing up heads being cut off as real torture:

OF COURSE IT IS. but shouldn’t we as the supposed ‘good guys’ hold ourselves to a slightly higher standard than fucking TERRORISTS? Just a thought.

43

Actually, the relevant question would be: given that anarchists see no need to follow the laws set in the U.S., are U.S. law enforcement officers therefore no longer bound by laws when dealing with anarchists?

44

Or, as seems to be becoming more common, doing as they please with anyone, and then claiming afterwards that it was justified because it was all for the purpose of combating anarchy?

45

Well, no. This would be like playing blackjack where I have to limit my card total to 21, but you can draw till you have whatever number you want.

This may not be the best analogy available, but I trust you can see the point I’m trying to make. If there are a set of rules all parties must abide by, then all parties abide by them. If one party wants to break the rules, or not even recognize they’re breaking any rules, those rules are invalid.

Even though the US still will follow them. (And citing a few soldiers out of +130k isn’t a general indictment).

[Dr Phil]Lynndie England, how’s that “Women in combat roles” working out for you?[/Dr Phil]

46

Actually, the relevant question would be:

How come you seem to be so convinced that any Iraqi should feel as if he should follow the laws set in the USA?

Did you forget that the US invaded a sovereign nation and keeps it under occupation and already think in terms of annexation?

Salaam. A

47

So the bugger was butt-stroked. Or enthusiatically slammed to the ground. Or punched. That any of those events strike you as some sort of ‘abuse’ is pretty bizarre (though hardly unexpected, as I said.) Blunt force has no place on the modern battlefield, huh? Would you feel better if they just shot the dude, rather than take a prisoner?

But thanks for working towards proving my point: You made-up the ‘bruised’ bit, when the photos show no bruising. Just blood in a pattern that fits with getting ones nose cracked, or face slammed in the ground. Hard. But for some reason, you see a need to fabricate what is not there. Gosh, I wonder why.

48

Ah! What have we here? Why simply further proof of the much-vaunted American “moral superiority.”

Rah rah…go USA!

49

Sublight: Actually, the relevant question would be: given that anarchists see no need to follow the laws set in the U.S., are U.S. law enforcement officers therefore no longer bound by laws when dealing with anarchists?

duffer: Well, no. This would be like playing blackjack where I have to limit my card total to 21, but you can draw till you have whatever number you want.

That’s totally absurd. Law enforcement officers do have to obey the law even when dealing with lawbreakers—for heaven’s sake, that’s their freaking job. They do not get to say “Well, we’ll follow the laws when dealing with ordinary citizens, but we can do whatever we like to criminals.”

That would be a very stupid policy, for a number of reasons. First and foremost, law enforcement officials aren’t perfect, and sometimes they mistake a law-abiding citizen for a criminal. We don’t want law-abiding citizens hacked up because some guy in uniform made a mistake. (This was one of the most negative aspects of the Abu Ghraib torture scandal, namely that many of the mistreated prisoners were innocent civilians rather than actual enemy soldiers or terrorists.)

Brutus: *Our troops need leeway in dealing with these insurgents. *

The recognized rules of war give civilized soldiers all the leeway they need or ought to have in dealing with opponents of any kind. If our troops fighting fair can’t figure out a way to defeat opponents fighting dirty, maybe we need to think twice about sending them off to unnecessary and counterproductive wars against such opponents in the first place.

Remember, what the troops in Iraq are fighting is to a large extent a popular insurgency, fueled and manned by resentment of the sufferings caused by the occupation. The more oppressively the occupation forces act, the more that strengthens and stimulates the insurgency.

We object to illegal abuses by soldiers not because we care more about the comfort of the poor widdle terrorists than about the safety and effectiveness of our own troops, but rather because we realize (as you apparently don’t) that the safety and effectiveness of the troops depends to a large part on how ordinary people perceive them. And pictures that show soldiers torturing or abusing or humiliating prisoners produce an absolutely shitty, suck-ass perception of our troops on the part of ordinary people. That’s why, or one of the reasons why, it’s important for the good guys to abide by the rules even when the bad guys don’t.

50

Reality check:

Maybe you mean well but I fail to see why any US soldier invading a sovereign nation while killing thousands of its civilians would - and could - ever be considered as part of “The Good Guys”.

Invaders of invading nations are not “Good Guys”. They are the army of the Criminals that ordered the invasion and occupation.

Salaam. A

51

I completely agree. When we’re talking about city cops in the US. This discussion has to do with military soldiers in a war. Small difference maybe, but still a difference.

52

Not a broad brush at all. These soldiers were acting at the behest of their country. They did shit that many people find awful. There’s no need to drag all the other reasons people hate us into the argument as you did. This incident alone is enough to cause people to think ill of us.

53

I strongly get the feeling that the Mullahs need an enemy. Always.

If we withdrew support for Israel, I think the situation we have there now would dissolve into a shitstorm. If the Arab world succeeded in pushing Israel into the sea, I think that the Mulahs would next choose another “Satan” to whip up their masses.

It’s about power, IMO.

And BTW, thanks.

54

Aldebaran: Maybe you mean well but I fail to see why any US soldier invading a sovereign nation while killing thousands of its civilians would - and could - ever be considered as part of “The Good Guys”.

Well, the official American take on this is that the Iraqi dictator was such a danger to other nations and such a disaster for his own people that the only prudent choice for the US was to launch an invasion to take him out. Killing civilians in the process was unintentional, inevitable, minimized, and regretted. The US’s goal is to bring freedom, security, and autonomy to the Iraqi people, and the US’s policy is to use only legitimate means to secure, protect, and rebuild the country until the Iraqis are able to assume control of it themselves. The US (and other occupation) troops are therefore “the good guys” in this scenario, and those opposing them are “the bad guys”.

If, as you point out, the rest of the world is already aware of some serious flaws in this version of events, all the more fucking reason not to undermine our position further by committing illegal and highly resented abuses. I simply do not understand why slavering torture baboons like Brutus (hey, it’s at least as accurate a descriptor as “sniveling surrender monkeys” for those opposed to such practices) cannot seem to grasp this.

55

Some people are obviously not too bright, not to mention lousy whiners. What in the world do certain people think soldiers do when they go to war ? There’s nothing even remotely close that could even be described as torture in anyone of the photos. Wow, there’s blood on one of the enemies ? My god, what an outrage. :smack:

Those people are there fighting for us, if they feel like taking a few photos, then big freakin’ deal. They’re in the middle of a war zone. They are there to kick ass. That’s what they get paid for.

Here is a question for any of the whiners.

Soldiers in a war zone are most likely to take pictures of ?

[ul]
(a) Gorillas at the local zoo
(b) various tourist attractions, and pictures of sunsets.
(c) War pictures. Blood, prisoners, captured enemies etc.
[/ul]

:wally

Hey, at least there wasn’t any womens panties on anybodys head. Now that would have been a huge scandal. I would’ve been tempted to phone Amnesty or the Red Cross if I had seen any womens panties.

:smiley:

56

TT: Those people are there fighting for us, if they feel like taking a few photos, then big freakin’ deal.

Dude, is it asking too much of you to read the OP’s freaking link before you respond to a thread?

The linked article says:

If you don’t think that anything shown in the photos is illegal or worthy of censure, kindly take it up with the Naval Criminal Investigative Service, okay? I’m sure they’ll be delighted to get your expert opinion on the subject.

But if the activities shown are illegal, then who the fuck are you to say that it’s “no big deal”? What I’m saying here is that illegal abuses on the part of soldiers are not to be tolerated, and apparently the military itself agrees with me, so you can quit your uninformed bitching about “lousy whiners”.

TT: *They are there to kick ass. That’s what they get paid for. *

Well, according to our own PR message, they are there to liberate Iraq from a tyrant and to protect and reconstruct the country in order to hand it over to its own citizens to govern in security and freedom. Now, can you understand how their doing things that cause outrage and resentment among ordinary Iraqi citizens might interfere with this mission?

Jesus Christ, it’s this Jekyll-and-Hyde aspect of war that gets to me the most sometimes. Before a war starts, all the war promoters are going on and on about the “noble cause” and “liberating the oppressed from the tyrant” and “making sacrifices for other people’s freedom” and “defending democracy” and all that good-sounding stuff.

Then once the war actually starts, the pro-war types rip off the mask and yell that it’s all about “kicking ass” and “butt-stroking”, etc., and how dare anybody presume to criticize anything that soldiers do! They’re fighting a war, dammit!

Next time, would you please take the trouble to remind us that it’s all about blood and brutality and kicking ass before the war gets started? Thank you.

57

duffer: * War has been a part of human development since the first caveman figured out how to use a bone to club his neighbor to pad his own food supply.*

(Missed this point before.) Actually, do you have any evidence for this? A paleoanthropologist friend of mine told me (to my surprise) that as far as the paleological record shows, war is actually a fairly recent development among human beings.

Certainly there have probably always been isolated instances of murder for personal gain, as in your example, but from what I’ve been told, there isn’t evidence of large-scale violent conflict between groups of people until about 10–15 thousand years ago, when humans began to gather in sedentary agrarian communities and argue about territory.

If that’s so, then war is not particularly intrinsic to “human development”, and there’s no reason to believe that it has to be an inevitable part of the human future. I agree that we don’t look to be getting rid of it anytime soon, though.

58

I am strongly convinced that the USA needs an enemy. Always.

I can’t follow this one. Can you maybe write this in simple English?

If the Arab world would see the USA withdraw its blatant hypocritical open support for Israel’s crimes, I think the USA would still need an enemy and it would still be the “Terrorists” (read: only those among them who happen to be Muslim) until the USA found an other scape goat to keep its war industry producing and its population bursting into tears of sheer patriotism simply by seeing the US flag waving somewhere in the background of their narrow worldview.

Completely about power and completely about criminal arrogance at an equal level.
Add to this mix the current president who completely believes he is communicating with God and was re-elected by completely blind and deaf idiots.

Salaam. A

59

Reminder: The “official” US standpoint was:
Iraq had stockpiles of WMD’s ready to be launched towards the USA in a time range of 45 minutes.
That was the “reason” the USA didn’t want to read the reports of Blix, launched a slander campaign against Blix (like by the way they do now against Annan) didn’t want to listen to the UN, but went on to invade a sovereign nation without any UN support, against the will of a notable part of its own population and acting like a cowboy in a Wild West Hollywood production.

What crap.
When you invade a nation using tons and tons and tons of bombs dropped onto that nation in a tactic sarcastically was called the “shock and awe” and “you ain’t seen nothign yet”, you do that
a) in the full knowledge that you are going to kill.
b) hence it is your intention to kill, since you know it that bombs kill.
c) killing is not “minimized” and not “inevitable” at all because there is no need at all to invade sovereign nations on idiotic scandalous false pretext to begin with.

And regrettable? Who regrets them? Those who’s family they were. The criminals in the US government have no regrets they are dead. They killed them intentionally since they know that bombs, missiles and bullets kill. They knew all that before they gave the order to invade and hence to kill.

Please, not again that rethoric crap. The sheer arrogance displayed in this post is on itself enough to make me vomit.

Iraqis opposing the Good US invader Killers are “the bad guys” because they don’t want the US criminals in their country. I see. Completely logical indeed.

Sorry to bring the news: there is no IF. Also no “serious flaws”. There is a pile of steadily growing blatant crimes floating on a stinking pool of criminal lies.

I am very glad that in this criminal war waged by the USA this sort of abuses manage to surface while they are still comitting them.
It gives some little hope that the US population shall no longer ignorantly blindfolded buy into the cheap rethroic of 'we are the good guys" underscored by Hollywood fantasies dripping of US patriotism.

Brutus is simply a product of the US rethoric and exaggerated patriotism that was dripped in his mind since day 1 of his life. He is really no exception at all. (reference 1: US election results.)

Salaam. A

60

Sorry that I am this dumb, but can you explain in detail what you mean by this?
Do you mean they are fighting to secure your cheap oil? Yes they do. But how do you come to the idea that Iraqi oil is somehow “yours”?

Yes, who would not like to have some good pictures of being part of the criminal invasion of a sovereign nation, killing a few citizens on the way to The Great Goal.

And the resistance is there at home to kick the criminal invaders out. Do you have objections to that?

Correct. US soldiers in Iraq get payed to kill and while doing they can only expect to get killed themselves by people who have every right in the world to kill them.

Why do all those soldier’s relatives whine and cry when their son or daughter get killed? That’s what they get paid for, no?
(By the way: How much is the wage of a US soldier and how much earns a private killer hired by innocent companies like Haliburton in Iraq?)

Salaam. A