The difference lies in the US not accepting the prisoners in Guantanamo as legally being PoWs. From here
And the similarities lie in that it is exploiting human beings, unconvicted of any crime, in a degrading manner for political purposes regardless of legalistic hair-splitting.
Or is this the usual case of “do as I say, not as i do”?
I have sseen all of the “Interview Videos” CBC Newsworld had been playing them in full minus the shots of the Dead soldiers which were in an Iraqi Morgue (thank goodness).
If no one wants the info on these clips please skip the rest of this.
I won’t give the names or home towns they mentioned for reasons of taste.
There were four interviews One Kid, Two men (one was injured but the wounds on a superfivcial look did not seem very serious though he was lying down) and a woman.
They gave their names ranks, the unit they were with and where they came from.
When asked why they were in Iraq they mostly answered “I was ordered to go.”
The Woman and the kid looked absolutely scared out of their wits and confused. The Kid said “I don’t fight nobody unless I’m fired on.”
The uninjured looking man gave Name rank and serial number and only reluctantly gave his home town. He had a defiant look on his face that was part fear and part determination.
The injured man was lying down but was sat up to answer. He had blood on his head and what looked like a leg injury. The hand shown “Helping him” wore the green uniform of an Iraqi soldier.
The fear in the faces of these people struck me, especially the kid who looked nineteen. It sounded like there were quite a few people in that room and a lot of commotion. The “interviewer” spoke poor English and had to repeat the question several times. Despite the injury there was no sign of abuse like in the previous war.
In looking at this tape again since my first post I do see some differences, but if I strip my emotional reaction, the differences are not too great.
It’s either against the Geneva rules to show them on TV or it isn’t. We’ve shown groups of Iraqis some soldiers others I believe are just civilians, on TV over and over again. The only difference here is that the government doesn’t want captured american soldiers shown on TV because it’s bad PR, but showing enemy soldiers is good PR and good propaganda. This clearly a double standard.
For a different view of the war, try this link:
It’s not the showing on TV that’s the convention problem, it’s the humiliating and degrading the convention forbids. The Iraq coverage definitely broke that. I haven’t seen any coverage of Iraq POW’s who were being degraded in any way.
I have. One excellent example is the same MSNBC report accurately described above by regnad kcin. The reporter was walking around, shining lights in the faces of prisoners who were sleeping or huddling under blankets. He even grabbed some piece of paper held by one of the prisoners to show it to the camera. The reporter and his camera crew were being escorted by at least one US soldier carrying an M16. It was disgusting, and I told my wife when it aired that it was a violation of the Geneva Convention. Mind you, this was about 12 hours before the American soldiers showed up on Al Jazeera. Imagine my surprise when I woke up the next morning and saw Rumsfeld blathering on about how terrible it was for the Iraqis to violate the Geneva Convention in this way.
I’ve also seen footage of Iraqi soldiers wearing those plastic handcuffs and kneeling against the inside walls of a warehouse in Umm Qasar, and some of the other footage is at least somewhat questionable in terms of “public curiosity.” None of it is near as bad as the Iraqi television footage, but we’re a long way from blameless in this regard.
I think the showing of the prisoners was poor taste but understand why the Iraqis, desperate for any good news, would do it (though I don’t condone it). However, on a scale of bad things happening in this war this rates a 1 (as long as the prisoners are cared for properly now), with killing of innocent civilians a 10.
Haven’t seen that but it doesn’t surprise or shock me. Agree though, it’s just a difference of degree, not scale. The treatment of the Afghan suspects was as bad though, petty legal hair-splitting notwithstanding.
Speaking purely for myself, if I had a missing loved one i’d be glad to see them paraded on TV, just to know they are alive.
Some prowar dopers (I won’t mention their name) are acting like a virgin maiden in their wedding night. Weren’t you all in favour for a war? Funny, you got your war and now you don’t want to see its results. Shame on your sensibility. You don’t want to face something the whole world has been screaming for the last couple of months: that war is barbaric, that is horrendous and that it ain’t a pretty sight.
The worst part is that Rumsfeld asks american news services not to show those images and they comply. Shame on the independence of America’s networks. I’ve seen those images, they are pretty strong but the worst part is that our media (and many others around the world, I checked) are advertising them as the “Images that are censored in america”.
Rumsfeld is a clown with an agenda, you have all seen images of prisioners at Guantanamo, you have also seen images of captured Irakies. The funniest thing is that guy and his administration has violated international law in several occasions. Now he is complaining.
All of you have the responsability of seeing that images (specially the pro-war faction). For months they have been feeding that crap of shock and awe, and easy victory, surgical strikes, etc. This is your chance to see what is the reality of war, not bullshit Fox news care to show (thank allah for Al- Jazeera).
Why do all of us have this responsibility? Why should we let the media that will show this know that they have an audience?
Also, do you think that we have never seen images of war and its aftermath? We have. In photographs going back to our Civil War. In images from the two World Wars. I’d be willing to bet that every American has seen the photograph of the Viet Cong man’s impromptu execution by a South Vietnamese officer, along with the image of the girl running from the napalm blast that had just hit.
I think that we know war is ugly. Certainly, those who’ve been there know it better than the rest of us. That doesn’t mean we should encourage media to publish images of illegal conduct towards POWs, regardless of who is doing it.
Why don’t we have a couple Iraqi dissidents give you the Saddam treatment for a few minutes, let’s see what you blabber about?
Man I hate it when people pass judgment on POWs. I would open a pit thread, but let me just say…
[Nelson]Ha, ha You don’t know what you are talking about![/Nelson] Get back with me after you have some real world experience in the coercion department.
They gave no information that could be used against the Forces in the field. I will not knock these people.
As I said there is no sign they were tortured or mistreated.
Except for the bullet holes square in the middle of the dead soldiers’ heads. Other than that, I’m sure they’re all being treated as honored guests of President Hussein and the Iraqi people.
I have no evidence this actually occurred. After the prisoners are captured, let’s say one of the Iraqis took off his belt and whipped them extensively all over their legs? What signs would there be? Spin off all the different sick permutations of this in your mind–Saddam’s thugs have–and you have some idea of what we are up against. Rubber hose? We have no idea what these people are going through. Well, yes we do. Prisoners are beaten and tortured as a matter of course by the Iraqis. It is institutionalized from top to bottom.
Why would Iraqi dissidents want to torture me? I thought they were against Saddam Hussein.
Maybe we should hear about your real world experience first.
Thanks for this, minty.
It seems to me that everyone is talking around the very large elephant in the room.
When people who have seen the tape say it is “disgusting,” I do not think that they are talking about the interviews. I think they are talking, “in code” if you like, about the status of American soldiers who left the field of battle alive.
My question is, what constitutes “humiliating”?
The clips I’ve seen of the captured POWs being interviewed do not strike me as particularly humilating – they were scared, yes, but they weren’t being urinated upon, or forced at gunpoint to denounce the United States, or what-have-you. Sure, it’s an embarassment to the Administration, but that doesn’t count as humiliating IMO.
The stills of the dead servicemen… well, “graphic” definitely fits. But is that the same as “humiliating”? Yeah, there’s one photo of a smirking Iraqi soldier standing over a body, but that’s just one grunt being a tacky jerk (and IMO, no more ridiculous like the smirking pro-war guy holding up “Continue Bombing Saddam” signs at basketball games). Where, exactly, are we defining “humiliating” as?
I don’t know how Rumsfeld defines “humiliating”, but that doesn’t seem to be the relevant standard. Article 13 of the Geneva Convention prohibits, in part:
It appears that the Iraqis (and maybe even some US news crews) are turning POWs into objects of curiosity.
Maybe you are watching different basketball games than I am, but I haven’t seen any POWs at the games. That seems quite a bit different from me than standing over a human body as if it were a trophy.
Please tell me why do you consider it would be a bad thing for the media to show those images. Of course I would cover the dead soldiers dead but except that, why shouldn’t they show them? What is wrong with them?
Did anyone else catch this, because I haven’t noticed anyone talking about it: Rumsfeld appeared on CNN the other day and said that not only was the footage of captured U.S. soldiers humilating, but he ALSO said it was wrong for the networks to show the footage. But then, when pressed on the issue, he completely backpedalled and just repeated that it was humiliation, pretending like he hadn’t said the part about the networks not showing it.