# US military in torture scandal **URL:** \ **Category:** The BBQ Pit\ **Created:** [April 30, 2004, 11:18am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/us-military-in-torture-scandal/242829 "2004-04-30T11:18:09Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 3
**Author:** ![UrbanChic](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/u/9dc877/32.png) [@UrbanChic](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/UrbanChic)\ **Post date:** [April 30, 2004, 1:59pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/us-military-in-torture-scandal/242829/41 "2004-04-30T13:59:35Z")
This came as no surprise to me. In fact, when I saw it on the news this morning, my husband and I were wondering what took so long to get the pictures to the media. If you’re shocked, you’re naive. Very naive. ---
**Author:** ![Desmostylus](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/c57346/32.png) [@Desmostylus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Desmostylus)\ **Post date:** [April 30, 2004, 2:06pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/us-military-in-torture-scandal/242829/42 "2004-04-30T14:06:23Z")
Some of the milder photographs can be found here, at [Mirror.co.uk](http://Mirror.co.uk): [http://www.mirror.co.uk/news/allnews/tm\_objectid=14195963&method=full&siteid=50143&headline=outrage-at-american-torture-of-iraqi-prisoners-name\_page.html](http://www.mirror.co.uk/news/allnews/tm_objectid=14195963&method=full&siteid=50143&headline=outrage-at-american-torture-of-iraqi-prisoners-name_page.html) ---
**Author:** ![Dead\_Badger](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/848f3c/32.png) [@Dead\_Badger](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dead_Badger)\ **Post date:** [April 30, 2004, 2:12pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/us-military-in-torture-scandal/242829/43 "2004-04-30T14:12:30Z")
> [@Futile Gesture](#): > > Sorry, but a reference to a page that is updated continuously doesn’t really prove anything. Does it? Did you count all 599\* listed? I certainly didn’t. I just noted a general difference at the time I looked this morning. If the reference is valid for you, it’s valid for Brutus. As it happens, Google news goes backwards chronologically so all the stories remain - the most recent 60 stories go back to the 28th, of which by my count, five have headlines like you suggest. This isn’t exactly surprising, since it’s only now that the families are starting to be interviewed, and of course they’re going to stand by their relatives. Regarding the actual topic, from a broader perspective it really doesn’t matter at this point whether the problems are endemic or isolated - as this thread somewhat indicates, people will believe what they’re most inclined to, anyway. This almost certainly fucks any chance we ever had of sustaining popular opinion (or even grudging opinion) amongst Iraqis long enough to stabilise Iraq. This is possibly the worst thing that could have happened at this point, in ways much more important than how it affects the US political equation. ☹ ---
**Author:** ![Eva\_Luna](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/e495f1/32.png) [@Eva\_Luna](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Eva_Luna)\ **Post date:** [April 30, 2004, 2:53pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/us-military-in-torture-scandal/242829/44 "2004-04-30T14:53:30Z")
> [@spooje](#): > > “I asked them for the rules and regs, man. But I didn’t get anything, so I sat on this guy an committed an indecent act.” Indeed, it boggles the mind. “My boss never specifically told me or gave me any printed rulebook that said I wasn’t supposed to beat people up and sexually assault them while they are defenseless, so I thought it was OK.” That’s what this schmuck is essentially saying. A properly raised four-year-old knows better than that. Anyone who is mentally developed enough to understand the impact of torture or the humiliation of sexual assault should know that. And if it’s true that soldiers are not specifically instructed that torture is wrong and illegal, then by all means they should be, and BEFORE they are sent into combat. But by no means does that excuse torture at any level of the chain of command. Anyone who is too stupid or sociopathic to know that torture is wrong does not belong in the military. ---
**Author:** ![Capt\_B.Phart](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/9fc29f/32.png) [@Capt\_B.Phart](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Capt_B.Phart)\ **Post date:** [April 30, 2004, 2:57pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/us-military-in-torture-scandal/242829/45 "2004-04-30T14:57:48Z")
Frankly it doesn’t matter how this is playing in the US media or how many excuses get made - what matters is how this plays in Iraq and the Muslim world in general - and I think we can all guess how much this makes the Iraqis love their “liberators” A British military spokesman is saying “this is the greatest recruiter the insurgents could possibly have” - a nasty nasty echo to me of how Bloody Sunday was the IRA’s great recruiter Look at the smug faces of those fucks in the photos they took of themselves - they are going to get a lot of people killed - Americans, Iraqis, Brits etc - thanks guys. A few bad apples? Yup that’s the whole point of the saying “it only takes one bad apple…” I’ve seen too many examples of bad apples in Iraq; The point at which I found myself thinking “Shit, this might actually be un-winnable” was watching footage of a commander who’d obviously based himself on the same guy who appears as “Col Kilgore” in Apocalypse Now. Big hat, big cigar, big balls, no fucking clue. He and his men routinely humiliated the local Iraqis during their operations. He said “I don’t believe in celebrity gunfire” (turned out he meant “celebratory gunfire”) so if he encountered Iraqis firing in the air in celebration - he ordered his men to shoot them. “They don’t do it twice” well no shit, fuckwit, but their brothers or friends are going to get RPGs and they won’t be firing them in the air. To all the shit-for-brains who say “::shrug:: this is war, this is the sort of thing that happens in any war” my answer is “pay attention, that is why so many of us were against _ **having** _ a war” > [@Desmostylus](#): > > But this is the first time the privatisation of interrogation and intelligence-gathering has come to light. The depths of stupidity this represents genuinley fucking frightens me ---
**Author:** ![ummm.yeahh](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/u/e9bcb4/32.png) [@ummm.yeahh](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ummm.yeahh)\ **Post date:** [April 30, 2004, 2:58pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/us-military-in-torture-scandal/242829/46 "2004-04-30T14:58:47Z")
> [@Balduran](#): > > We like the idea of the honorable soldier, but sometimes it just isn’t true. Those that aren’t honorable can cause a lot of damage. Here in Canada, our entire airborne unit was disbanded because, among other things, the torture and beating to death of a youth in Somalia. This can happen to any country. It sucks when people use it as an excuse the bash an entire nation’s military. Probably the most sensible thing I’ve read so far. These freakin’ dumbass soldiers are going to cause a lot of rage in the middle east (as if it wasn’t bad enough already). I hope these soldiers understand how much harm they have done. I hate jackasses… ---
**Author:** ![Liberal](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/848f3c/32.png) [@Liberal](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Liberal)\ **Post date:** [April 30, 2004, 3:02pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/us-military-in-torture-scandal/242829/47 "2004-04-30T15:02:13Z")
> [@EddyTeddyFreddy](#): > > A quick look online at quarter of 9:00 EDT: [cnn.com](http://cnn.com) has it at the top of the side stories. The Boston Globe - [boston.com](http://boston.com) - has local news at the top of the page but the story in its world news. Our fair and balanced [foxnews.com](http://foxnews.com) hasn’t any mention at all. Michael Jackson is SO much more important. What’s this, then, at the top of “Latest Headlines”? “ **Arab TV Shows Iraq Prisoner Photos** Al-Jazeera said pics demonstrate ‘immoral practices’ of U.S. forces” There’s no need to pile lies on something that is already dreadful enough just for the purpose of making a trivial and stupid political jab. ---
**Author:** ![Marley23](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/45deac/32.png) [@Marley23](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Marley23)\ **Post date:** [April 30, 2004, 3:10pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/us-military-in-torture-scandal/242829/48 "2004-04-30T15:10:52Z")
> [@](#): > > What’s this, then, at the top of “Latest Headlines”? **Lib** , he said he looked an hour ago. And at [FOXnews.com](http://www.foxnews.com), the picture of Jacko is absolutely huge, while the Iraq headline is, like all those other stories, much smaller. ---
**Author:** ![Diogenes\_the\_Cynic](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/e99b99/32.png) [@Diogenes\_the\_Cynic](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Diogenes_the_Cynic)\ **Post date:** [April 30, 2004, 3:15pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/us-military-in-torture-scandal/242829/49 "2004-04-30T15:15:14Z")
What really bothers me is all the other soldiers watching and laughing and jeering while this shit was going on. That shows that this was not a “few bad apples” but that these prisons fostered a culture where this was acceptable. The whiny little bitch who’s now trying to blame a “lack of training” wrote letters _bragging_ about how quickly they could “break” prisoners. This was an _institutional_ problem, not just a few isolated cases. Not one of those fucks who witnessed all that ever reported anything to command or seemed to see anything wrong with it. This is a situation where the utmost attention should have been paid to how the prisons were regulated and administrated. It’s critical to maintain a positive perception of US troops in Iraq and the US mission in general. It didn’t take a genius to know that our treatment of prisoners was going to be of paramount importance in this regard. Those soldiers should have had clear and unequivocal instructions about what was and was not acceptable before they ever set foot in those prisons. Has Rummy ever heard of the Stanford Prison Experiment, for fuck’s sake? You can’t just give a bunch of power to one random group of assholes over another one without regulating them up the ass and imposing severe sanctions for violating those regs. If there had been no pictures, I fear that the military never would have done anything about this and the Bushistas would have dismissed any “stories” as lies and propaganda…just like they do with Gitmo. ---
**Author:** ![elucidator](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/8edcca/32.png) [@elucidator](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/elucidator)\ **Post date:** [April 30, 2004, 3:22pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/us-military-in-torture-scandal/242829/50 "2004-04-30T15:22:20Z")
It couldn’t be worse if we had tried. To add a little extra salt in the wounds, naked prisoners abused by _female_ American soldiers. To a _machismo_ infested society like one finds in the ME, this is a brilliant touch, almost genius, if it were in fact designed to inflame our enemies. The armed forces of the United States are very likely the best trained and most humane fighting force on the planet, or surely in the top five. I believe this. But noone is immune to the brutalizing effects of war, it is the best process known for converting decent human beings into monsters. Lets keep that in mind the next time they start pounding the drums, waving the flag, and talking about “glory”. Go to war if you have absolutely _no_ other choice. Any lesser standard is an abomination. ---
**Author:** ![yojimbo](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/yojimbo/32/232_2.png) [@yojimbo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/yojimbo)\ **Post date:** [April 30, 2004, 3:22pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/us-military-in-torture-scandal/242829/51 "2004-04-30T15:22:45Z")
> [@Diogenes the Cynic](#): > > It’s critical to maintain a positive perception of US troops in Iraq and the US mission in general. Not to do with the prison but it shows that this is not being done on many levels. > [@](#): > > [Eyewitness: On the ground in Falluja](http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/middle_east/3670587.stm) Mr Alani says that siege of the city and the shelling is just increasing support for the insurgents in the city. > > "It’s not a matter of whether I or anyone else in the city supports the ‘resistance’ to the Americans. > > “I don’t support them, but the way the Americans have dealt with and are dealing with this city makes me hate every American here, more and more.” > > “We are being driven to hate them - me and everyone else here.” ---
**Author:** ![Left\_Hand\_of\_Dorkness](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/left_hand_of_dorkness/32/7156_2.png) [@Left\_Hand\_of\_Dorkness](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Left_Hand_of_Dorkness)\ **Post date:** [April 30, 2004, 3:47pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/us-military-in-torture-scandal/242829/52 "2004-04-30T15:47:13Z")
I wonder if we can all agree that the US should take the following steps: 1. A quick, strong, unambiguous, and sustained denunciation of this behavior. 2. A sincere and unambiguous apology to the tortured detainees from the President. 3. Significant reparations paid to the detainees (or their families), in line with what they could expect if this were a domestic scandal. 4. Transparent trials for the accused soldiers and mercenaries. 5. A sincere and transparent review of our prison program in Iraq, making whatever changes necessary to bring it **at minimum** to the levels specified in the Geneva Conventions, and preferably to a higher level than that. My suggestions are based around the idea that we gotta stop giving recruitment propaganda to Al Qaeda. We have GOT to make it clear to the Arab street that we’re a country that cares about human rights and that we **will not tolerate** such behavior. What do y’all think of these five suggestions? Daniel ---
**Author:** ![jjimm](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/ba8739/32.png) [@jjimm](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/jjimm)\ **Post date:** [April 30, 2004, 3:52pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/us-military-in-torture-scandal/242829/53 "2004-04-30T15:52:43Z")
No prizes for guessing the most prominent news story over at [Al Jazeera](http://www.aljazeera.net/). What a fucking cockup. ---
**Author:** ![Merijeek](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/f05b48/32.png) [@Merijeek](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Merijeek)\ **Post date:** [April 30, 2004, 4:01pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/us-military-in-torture-scandal/242829/54 "2004-04-30T16:01:57Z")
> [@JuanitaTech](#): > > This came as no surprise to me. In fact, when I saw it on the news this morning, my husband and I were wondering what took so long to get the pictures to the media. > > If you’re shocked, you’re naive. Very naive. Juanita, you almost make it sound as if giving a bunch of people the power of life and death over inmates that have absolutely no rights would lead to a predictable conclusion! As has been said, the only surprise here is that someone to take photos of his own crimes - not that the crimes were happening. -Joe ---
**Author:** ![Liberal](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/848f3c/32.png) [@Liberal](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Liberal)\ **Post date:** [April 30, 2004, 4:36pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/us-military-in-torture-scandal/242829/55 "2004-04-30T16:36:55Z")
> [@Marley23](#): > > **Lib** , he said he looked an hour ago. And at [FOXnews.com](http://www.foxnews.com), the picture of Jacko is absolutely huge, while the Iraq headline is, like all those other stories, much smaller. But that’s the exact same situation that he described at CNN: “[cnn.com](http://cnn.com) has it at the top of the side stories”. So why blast Fox when it’s the same as CNN? ---
**Author:** ![World\_Eater](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/w/f04885/32.png) [@World\_Eater](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/World_Eater)\ **Post date:** [April 30, 2004, 4:38pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/us-military-in-torture-scandal/242829/56 "2004-04-30T16:38:45Z")
> [@Left Hand of Dorkness](#): > > I wonder if we can all agree that the US should take the following steps: > > 1. A quick, strong, unambiguous, and sustained denunciation of this behavior. > 2. A sincere and unambiguous apology to the tortured detainees from the President. > 3. Significant reparations paid to the detainees (or their families), in line with what they could expect if this were a domestic scandal. > 4. Transparent trials for the accused soldiers and mercenaries. > 5. A sincere and transparent review of our prison program in Iraq, making whatever changes necessary to bring it **at minimum** to the levels specified in the Geneva Conventions, and preferably to a higher level than that. > > My suggestions are based around the idea that we gotta stop giving recruitment propaganda to Al Qaeda. We have GOT to make it clear to the Arab street that we’re a country that cares about human rights and that we **will not tolerate** such behavior. > > What do y’all think of these five suggestions? > > Daniel Makes sense, so it’ll never happen. In fact, I predict almost the opposite will happen. ---
**Author:** ![Paul\_in\_Qatar](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/ccd318/32.png) [@Paul\_in\_Qatar](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Paul_in_Qatar)\ **Post date:** [April 30, 2004, 4:41pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/us-military-in-torture-scandal/242829/57 "2004-04-30T16:41:32Z")
This is sickening, just sickening. These soldiers should thank God I am retired and so will not serve on the Court-Martial. ---
**Author:** ![wireless](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/w/f14d63/32.png) [@wireless](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/wireless)\ **Post date:** [April 30, 2004, 4:59pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/us-military-in-torture-scandal/242829/58 "2004-04-30T16:59:10Z")
I’m so sickened by this - both the inhumanity and the sheer stupidity (from a strategic standpoint) - that I almost don’t want to know more. But that wouldn’t be responsible, would it. So I have MSNBC (only cable news channel I can get) on the TV while I work. Know what they’re covering today? **Michael Jackson**. It’s like the f’ing Michael Jackson channel. Nothing else. Not even on the 1/2 hour AFAICT. This just depresses me even more. It’s not unpatriotic to _talk_ about it, people! How can we address it, or find the truth (1 bad apple? systemic?) if it’s not even covered? I just don’t know anymore. ---
**Author:** ![legion](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/838e76/32.png) [@legion](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/legion)\ **Post date:** [April 30, 2004, 5:02pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/us-military-in-torture-scandal/242829/59 "2004-04-30T17:02:03Z")
> [@Rayne Man](#): > > The BBC is reporting an almost complete lack of reporting of this story in the US media , both print and broadcast, even though the original programme was shown two nights ago. The way I heard the BBC report it, they were reporting an almost complete lack of _outrage_ about the story in the US media. ---
**Author:** ![Catamount](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/catamount/32/2840_2.png) [@Catamount](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Catamount)\ **Post date:** [April 30, 2004, 5:58pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/us-military-in-torture-scandal/242829/60 "2004-04-30T17:58:10Z")
> [@yojimbo](#): > > It’s also on the front page of [http://www.washingtonpost.com/](http://www.washingtonpost.com/) …as a smallish link under a sidebar headline about Fallujah. Apparently Michael Jackson’s not guilty plea is more important than fucking **war crimes**. :mad: [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/us-military-in-torture-scandal/242829.md?page=2) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/us-military-in-torture-scandal/242829.md?page=4)