You and rjung seem to have very little pop-culture understanding. Liver is the appropriate meat to serve with fava beans and chianti. And alaricthegoth is deadly serious when he says “just bring yourself”.
Whoa! Nice shot.
So, nothing on-topic to contribute, eh? No interest in debating any of the people you disagree with?
Mighty cowardly of you.
Interesting link.
“Crude” forgeries had an influence on a recent SotU.
Can’t be too careful about these things, these days.
I’m sorry, this was the part of your statement I meant.
“Suppose the average American’s reaction to stories of torture was along the lines of ‘So? Damn wogs had it coming. We should give those guy medals and do more of it. Best thing for them, really. Teach them their place.’”
I submitted too quickly without deleting all the other stuff, but I thought you could figure out what I meant. and I didn’t know about the ad because I don’t see them. I know too many people who listen to Rush Limbaugh, and his influence shouldn’t be discounted,
Two points :
First, when the existence of this list has been disclosed by the medias, it seems to me (though I’m not absolutely sure) that one of the french individuals listed admitted to the practice. In any case, according to various experts in the field, the practice of the Iraki governement of handing “oil certificates” was reported to be real, whether this particular list actually exists, is real and accurate or not.
Second, I don’t believe for an instant in the theory acording to which this could have influenced the french position re. the Iraki war for many reasons :
-France had many reasons to oppose the US stance, that I have already listed in the past, so I don’t think there’s a need to search for obscure facts to explain it.
-Until two or three months before the beginning of the war, a french involvment in the war was still envisionned by the government, which wouldn’t have been the case if they had only some petty private interets in mind.
-That’s a personnal opinion, but as much as I dislike Chirac, he’s a stateman of some calibre. I can’t imagine him making a decision on such a major international issue on the basis, once again, of the mere private interests of a dozen individuals.
-More importantly, the french stance was generally considered as a loosing position from the financial/business point of view. It’s quite obvious than in order to protect its immediate interests in Irak (contracts, loans, whatever), France would have had to get along with the USA, not to oppose it. And more generally there has been some intense lobbying going on by various group of interests wanting the governement to soften its stance. This choice was political, and completely counter-productive from the financial point of view.
-Finally, concerning the list itself : the names of the people who have supposedly received said certificates have been published. Most of them were unknown to me, and there was only a couple politicians, none of them having held any power during the last 10 years or so. The most well-known one is a former minister of the interior from the early 90’s, who happens to be a political rival of Chirac. So, I wouldn’t know how their personnal interests could have influenced the current administration in its political decisions.
So, believing this could be the “smoking gun” appears plainly nonsensical to me. To give you an idea, the concept that Bush would have decided to wage war uniquely in order to be able to hand over a couple contracts to some friends in the soon-to-be occupied Irak seems to me highly credible by comparison.
Returning to the subject of responsibility for prisoner abuse for a moment, I wonder what responsibility Condoleezza Rice has for the mismanagement at Abu Ghraib. As mention in the NYT this morning, Condi was put in charge of the Iraq Stabilization Group last October.
Weren’t the abuses committed as part of our counterterrorism efforts? That would suggest Condi, rather than Rumsfeld may have been the controlling authority.
well, that would mean “no controlling authority…” wouldn’t it?
She’s the hands on manager who says “no one told me to do anything, so I did nothing, what’s your problem?”
(ickie confession:I’m still on the edge of my seat about the
“inappropriate activities with a corpse…”
might open a thread for speculation…)
Yes, “no no no”- where in your cite does it say that? 
Look- so far there are some substanciated charges. The very worst of which was “time off for good behavior” under Saddam ( “the lite stick in the butt”). Some of which (stripped naked) are really not that big of a deal altho I hate Rush, he isn’t far off when he says they are equivilant to hazing. He’s wrong of course, in that the victems of hazing volunteer for it, and KNOW that real torture won’t happen- but the actual “atrocities” perpetrated are indeed about as bad as Frat hazing. And remember- the guys on which this was done were hard-core violent criminals, who were rapsists themselves. They deserve a little 'tough love" (not to the extent done, of course, but I could condone a bit of humiliation, esp to dudes who were quoted as saying “they made us feel like women- which is the worst thing you could do” :rolleyes: " In other word, if all they had done was strip them and have a female soldier come in and point at their tiny (male chavinist & rapist) peni & laugh- I could condone that. (I wouldn’t authorize that, mind you, but…)
The perps have been apprehended, policies have changed, and appropriate punishments have been dealt out or are on their way. Don’t get me wrong, this is a scandal. But the 'atrocities" here are really not so bad. Illegal & immoral, however, and the perps should be punished and polices changed… and they are doing just that.
Then there are the ridiculous “porn shots” of dudes in bad uniforms “raping” an “iraqi” woman. Stills from a bad porn movie, not real abuse.
Then we have our Op, with a wild story- highly likely untrue- about a 12 yo girl being tortured & raped. And he says “lets not quibble about whether or not it’s true”. :rolleyes: Damn straight we are going to quibble about the truth of this! There is miles of differnce from humiliating hardened adult male violent offenders- to commiting violent felonies upon an innocent. The first can be excused as being over zealous, the second is a 'crime vs humanity". Don’t start this shit. It’s like showing that someone was guilty of drunk driving- then saying- “well, that means that charges of murder & rape are beliveable”. Wrong. That OP (not the poster, mind you- to keep within Lynns policy) is- IMHO- “trolling”. The Poster is simply flat out wrong.
It’s kind of a given that they will remain in power post-November.
When Bro’s the Gov of the state that fudged the last election and Daddy’s the ex-chief of the C.I.A., it’s kind of a no-brainer.
Look ahead 4 1/2 years. How will we be faring in Iraq, when Jeb Bush is “elected” the next President of the United States of America??
Cartooniverse
Dunno. At the time I posted, I cut/pasted the quote from the body of the article. Why the link now points to an entirely different article, I have no clue.
Beyond that, I find your interpretation of events to be extraordinarily generous, to say the least. Good luck with that. I can sincerely say that I hope that your view of a rambunctiousness just a wee bit over the top is shared by Iraqis in general. Despite the fact that I believe it is entirely untrue, let us hope it becomes the accepted interpretation in Baghdad, Fallujah, and elsewhere.
Otherwise, the prospects look rather grim, don’t you think? Or would you describe them as “somewhat shy of ideal.”
The New Yorker’s just come out with more details:
CHAIN OF COMMAND -How the Department of Defense mishandled the disaster at Abu Ghraib. (Seymour Hersch)
Time to do some reading…
Rumsfeld, senator tell of unreleased images that reveal “sadistic” acts in Iraq
By Ken Guggenheim
The Associated Press
Saturday, May 08, 2004
Rumsfeld said there are many more photographs and videos that have not been made public yet.
“It’s going to get still more terrible, I’m afraid,” he said.
Sen. Lindsey Graham, R-S.C., said he wants to “prepare the public: Apparently the worst is yet to come potentially in terms of disturbing events.”
He later told reporters,
“The American public needs to understand we’re talking about rape and murder here. We’re not just talking about giving people a humiliating experience.”
He did not elaborate, but a Senate aide, speaking on condition of anonymity, said senators have been told videotapes are believed to exist showing rape and the corpses of what are possibly murder victims.
The tapes were described in an additional part of an investigative report. The Pentagon has not yet submitted that additional part of the report to senators, the aide said.
Here’re two attempts at links to cached versions of the article:
**Rumsfeld apologizes to abused Iraqis
Defense secretary warns that worse photos, videos are yet to come **
NBC, MSNBC and news services
Updated: 07:00 PM PT May07, 2004
But Rumsfeld warned the committee that the worst was yet to come. He said he had looked at the full array of unedited photographs of the situation at Abu Ghraib for the first time Thursday night and found them “hard to believe.”
“There are other photos that depict incidents of physical violence towards prisoners, acts that can only be described as blatantly sadistic, cruel and inhumane," he said. “… It’s going to get a good deal more terrible, I’m afraid.”
Rumsfeld did not describe the photos, but U.S. military officials told NBC News that the unreleased images showed U.S. soldiers severely beating an Iraqi prisoner nearly to death, having sex with a female Iraqi female prisoner and “acting inappropriately with a dead body.” The officials said there was also a videotape, apparently shot by U.S. personnel, showing Iraqi guards raping young boys.
© 2004 MSNBC.com
Initially, I had thought that we were dealing with a handful of rogue MP who had slipped their disciplinary leash. MG Tabuga’s report had sort of reenforced that intuitive conclusion. Then I started thinking about it. It looks as if this stuff has been going on ever since the capture of Baghdad although the Ar 15-6 report of investigation covers the period October 2003 - February 2004. General Taguba says (page 15 of the report ) that he concludes, to paraphrase, that the 205th Military Intelligence Brigade, CIA operatives and civilian contractors directed the 800th PM Brigade to “soften up” the prisoners for interrogation. The MI Brigade was in charge of the prison. The MP Brigade provided the guard and security force.
The methods used look like fairly sophisticated methods and not the sort of thing that some MP SP4 would think up on his own. A little broom stick sodomy, maybe, but not an integrated regime of hood-winking, binding, nakedness, deprivation of sleep, warmth, personal security and personal insult and compulsion to personally abhorrent behavior. That has all the ear marks of a thought out and consolidated plan of setting up for interrogation and destruction of the will to resist interrogation. Again not the sort of thing that is likely to be dreamed up on the spur of the moment by reservist MPS. The reports out of the UK only substantiate my concerns.
There was an imperative to have a satisfactory interrogation. The war had been precipitated on the rational that Iraq had dangerous chemical and biological weapons ready to go and was cranking up nuclear weapons which it was ready to turn over to its buddies the BenLaden Jahadists. A ransack search of the country has turned up no trace, not even a forensic trace, of weapons of mass destruction or of a connection between Saddam and BenLaden. Yet, as recently as last month the Vice-President and the Secretary of Defense were acting as if they were confident that WMDs would still turn up. The pressure to extract information that would confirm, suggest or imply WMDs and a BenLaden connection had to be pretty terrific. Especially after Saddam’s capture and the weapons of mass destruction team’s lack of success
I am becoming more concerned that we are dealing not with rogue cops but with covert policy. You will remember that following 9/11 some renowned legal scholars were seriously discussing the permissibility of mild torture. It may well be that what was going on in Abu Ghraid Prison was just what was supposed to happen. If not, then why did the MI Brigade, the people in control of the prison and the beneficiaries of the “softening up,” not stop it? Did they not stop it because they had directed it and it served their purposes? If it was not tacitly approved why were soldiers taking pictures that preserved evidence of wrong doing?
The “rogue cop” theory is bad enough but I fear its going to get worse.
Be careful what you read into my words. What I say is that the least of the acts (stripping, humiliations) aren’t so bad (in context), and can be excused as over zealousness. I can understand why a woman placed in charge of sexist rapists who despise her, and think they are superious to her might go “a wee bit over the top”. But some of the actions slid from “humiliation” into “light torture”, and there is no excuse for them. IF the only thing that woman & her co-workers did was sexually humiliate those criminals, that is one thing- not acceptable but understandable. There would still need to be punishments & changes made, but I wouldn’t be shocked or horrified.
Still, this has generated more newsprint that the truely horrible, subhuman & authorized from the top physical mass tortures that were a daily part of “Iraq under Saddam”.
And, I still dispute the Op bringing in a very doubtful story and asking us to just accept it. The humiliation of hardened criminals by their jailers is WAY different than the rape & torture of 14 yo innocent civilians.
clairobscur: Thank you for going to the trouble of posting an informative message with some actual facts and reasoning in it.
Considering what Hussein practiced was documented over a period of decades, this is just hyperole, yes?
Hidden in his OP was this point of debate:
"… is there anything that is so bad that even if it were done only by some in our uniform, it would force us to concede that no moral good can arise from our continued occupation?"
Further, he specifically, if somewhat awkwardly, states "assume (hypothetically, if you must) that it is true"
And then asks,
**
“Does not this rise to a level of atrocity where you will say, we must leave, all of us, yesterday, with no reservations and no excuses?”
**
So all that he’s asking anyone to do is to assume, hypothetically, ftsoa, that these charges were true.
No bfd.
Sen Graham’s has asked us to prepare ourselves for the “worst [which] is yet to come” specifically differentiating between humiliation and “rape and murder.”
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.
While I’d genuinely enjoy finding the story to be a “wild story- highly likely untrue” story, I’ve already swallowed several camels like Rumsfeld’s comments- “physical violence towards prisoners, acts that can only be described as blatantly sadistic, cruel and inhumane”- excerpts from the Taguba report, up to and including the intentional concealment and subsequent surreptitious removal of a corpse, (who wasn’t even entered into the record keeping system), and the comments of others closer to the case, regarding, rapes and brutal beatings, and cannot now bring myself to strain at the gnat of the story about this one girl.
“The American public needs to understand we’re talking about rape and murder here.”
There’s not a lot of certianty that only “hardened criminals” were “punished.”
Thousands of detainees are due to be released because they’re being held w/o sufficient reason.
Chew on that a minute.
Whence comes this thought, SimonX ? “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.”
We’ve been advised of no such thing. We’ve been advised that there are possibly worse things to come than the pictures already released.
The 12 year-old girl thing is totally unsubstantiated and is not referenced by any official source that I know of.
If some US official stated: " Worse things are coming than the rape and torture of that 12 year-old girl", would you mind providing a cite?
Ok, John, fair enough. The “12-year-old girl thing” is only an allegation as yet and the OP was wrong to lead with it, as it’s the weakest part of his case.
However, there are quotes from official sources talking about rape, murder and paedophilia. Stop attacking a badly phrased OP and talk about the substantive issues.