I’m not sure how a citation showing either where “we’ve been advised to keep an open mind to the possibility that even worse than a “12 yo girl being tortured & raped” has happened,” or that “worse things are coming than the rape and torture of that 12 year-old girl,” could be qualitatively different from what I"ve already provided.
So,…
What exactly do you want here?
[list=a]
[li]An additional citation for the particular incident reported by ITV involving the beating of a girl?[/li]
[li]A citation showing where a US official uses the exact phrase, “even worse than a “12 yo girl being tortured & raped” has happened”?[/li]
[li]A citation showing where a US official uses the exact phrase, “Worse things are coming than the rape and torture of that 12 year-old girl”[/li]
[li]A citation for multiple rapes, murders and beatings combined being worse than a single rape and beating?[/li][/list]
Help me out and be incredibly specific, please.
Since we’ve already been informed of events worse than a “12 year-old raped and tortured,” how is this phrase a hyperbole?
I’m amazed that the girl’s rape stuck in your craw more than the seemingly snide “ovens” comment. If anything’s a hyperbole, it’s the reference to “ovens.”
By tagos: “There’s none so blind as those who won’t bother looking for easily available information just so they can hold the party line firm is there.”
Except, perhaps, those that don’t bother to read the entire thread so that they see their link has already been posted, and then later copied and pasted into this thread in full. No matter how many times it’s been posted, it seems that the troublesome disclaimer remains.
By ** SimonX**: “What exactly do you want here?”
How about something along the lines of: “It has been confirmed that Susie Smith, age 12, was raped and tortured by…”
At last! Something I agree with SimonX about: “Shouldn’t the accusers/prosecutors be the ones tasked with proving the validity of their accusations?”
Well, John, if it turns out she was 14, rather than 12, will you feel vindicated? Do you think Rumsfeld, et. al., are indulging themselves in a bit of anti-administration propaganda when they advise of “worse to come”?
How relieved are you going to be if it turns out that she was a boy? Or a grown man? What level of outrage are you willing to tolerate? “Well, of course, they raped and sodomized a grown woman, but she might have been an enemy combatant. Not the same thing as raping a 12-year-old girl, nosirree, not the same thing at all!”
You seem to have a capacity for parsing moral minituae that escapes some of the rest of us. You can have it, far as I’m concerned.
elucidator, my entire problem is with using an unsubstantiated, hysterical claim in the thread title.
Nobody likes what’s actually happened, or what may be revealed as having actually happened in the future. Any sane person should see rape and torment as immoral. Age and sex of the victim is not the big question.
What would your reaction be if I started a thread with say, “Kerry took money from Communists in return for war protest activities!”
Then I posted a link to a story that says such action by Kerry was not verified, then I continued by saying: “Well, let’s play like he was bribed by the VC.” You’d react, I’m pretty sure.
What I’m saying is there’s plenty of actual issues out there. Real things. It’s not necessary to pull a grandstand play by trying to make something seem to be even worse than it is, or before it can be confirmed.
You saw the damn cite and still you sicked up your repulsive nit-picking. That’s not high ground you’re standing on - it’s a cess pool. I did read the thread thank you - I just forgot as my next, immediate post said and you saw. Just more despicable wriggling to avoid the bloody awful truth.
And no - all the evidence, even the words of Rumsfeld, show that this is a deep sewer so I consider it up to those still seeking to minimise or deny the enormity of what’s gone on to disprove cites. Your attitude repulses me.
“Hysterical”? Well, perhaps, a bit. The facts as we know them are appalling, the suggestion of worse is difficult to grasp. Its not as if we could breathe a great sigh of relief if it turns out that this particular nugget of horror wasn’t real, or that there were some sort of modifying fact. “Unsubstantiated” is another matter. As I am sure you know, charges of rape, like charges of child abuse, are inherently difficult to substantiate, or at least to the “beyond a shadow” standard.
But, as I said, we have it from Rummy and others that the facts yet to be revealed are worse than what we have already seen. I believe him. Your focus on whether or not the OP is worded as succinctly correct as it might be rather buggers the question. I very much doubt anyone here is willing to place the whole issue of the Iraqi occupation/“liberation” on whether or not a particular sexual act took place. Those that might we can safely ignore.
The bottom line issue is whether or not our credibility is so compromised that we are beyond any capacity to “do the right thing.” I am not sure. If I had to place a bet, make a judgement, I’d probably say yes, we’ve totally screwed the pooch, cutting our losses, however distasteful, is as close as we’re going to get to an “exit strategy” (ah! how optimistic that term seems today!).
What I am sure about is easier to ascertain: things couldn’t be much worse if Osama bin Ladin had written the scenario himself.
I’m not ignoring you, tagos. It’s simply that I don’t have any response to you that I haven’t already posted elsewhere in this thread.
By elucidator: “The bottom line issue is whether or not our credibility is so compromised that we are beyond any capacity to “do the right thing.” I am not sure. If I had to place a bet, make a judgement, I’d probably say yes, we’ve totally screwed the pooch, cutting our losses, however distasteful, is as close as we’re going to get to an “exit strategy” (ah! how optimistic that term seems today!).”
I don’t think we can abandon Iraq now without a blood-bath of a civil war. Maybe in five years or ten, or perhaps I’m wrong about civil war following our departure from there. Are you willing to chance it?
You pose your question as if you think I hadn’t considered it. “Well now, look here, 'Luc, old duck, you do realize that this could result in civil war? Now that I have enlightened your dim perception, surely you will recant!”
Yes, it very well may. Please note, I am talking about “cutting our losses”, and that implicitly suggests abandoning any pretense that we control the situation. Or, perhaps more to the point, abandoning the notion that we can control the situation.
How far are you willing to go in order to preserve the plan? If it were possible, would you be willing to undertake direct martial law, and behave as an occupying power without all the pretty window dressing, to rule by force and, if need be, terror? I am not even trying to imply that a “get the Hell out of Dodge” decision is anything but a shameful and humiliating defeat.
I am suggesting that we may not have any other option but rule by direct force. And I am not convinced we could do that even had we the will. If your options break down to a humiliating defeat and a perpetual humiliating defeat, its time to seize the bull by the tail and face the situation.
Without entering a fray that was rendered moot by my op, I will note that the introduction of a “raped” twelve year old girl was the product of someone’s fevered imagination, which person may perhaps wish to introspect upon the personal issues made manifest by this misinterpretation of the op.
That said, turning to the “worst of the worst”, today the ICRC quotes coalition intell officers to the effect that 70-90% of the prtisoners were guilty of nothing at all.(sweeps, ya’ know…)
Thanking Dr. Deth for his frank admission that no atrocity would suffice, I merely ask, if you plan to “stay the course”,
can these guys shoot straight? (Your “captain” that is…)
I mean, really. The level of incompetence is breathtaking, is it not?
…
Let me assure my martian colleague that had I known about the raped teenage boys when I formulated the OP, I would have referenced them before the stripping and beating of the 12 year old girl, which I presumed to call torture.
If you differ on the characterization, so be it. I have a daughter.
I’m hoping that all they’re talking about is that incident where they tried to pretend a dead guy was being moved for treatment, you know, the fake IV and all. Trouble is, we already knew about that.
(those that came as part of the “original equipment” as it were, and those created especially for the particular prisoner, custom created orifices, so to speak)
Then there are items and/or substances for introduction into the referenced orifices,
Skip the psychobabble. It was Dr. Deth. It prob’ly just means he puts rape, torture and beatings in the same category.
IIRC, “inappropriate behavior” could be as simple as taking trophy pictures. Of course the top end and the over the top end of the scale probably’s only limited by human ingenuity.
I would settle for the following, as a triumph of humanity reasserting itself in the midst of savagery.
No genital insertions by guard/perpetrator, either by or with his/her own, or into those of the corpse.
(with a respectful nod to partner Z over in the east bay, I will leave open the question whether anal insertion qualifies as genital when the anus in question is that of the corpse…)
No custom created orifices predating corpse status.
Especially, and particularly, no genital insertions into custom created orifices.
But considering that the people who have used this formula to describe the pix (I’m assuming graman actually SAW the photo) would have an interest against ambiguity if they could say:
a picture of someone desecrating a corpse
or
a picture of someone gloating over a corpse.
I fear that the key words here are “behavior” and “inappropriate”, where inappropriate segues into deviant…