Blogcritics: Comments on What torture?

Comment by Natalie Davis

Fri, 7 May 2004 13:16:01 EDT

In all seriousness, you are exceedingly lucky, Jim.

Comment by Debbie

Fri, 7 May 2004 09:01:18 EDT

"Sorry, I forgot my place as a member of the United Special States Republic (USSR). I'll try not to do that again." Jim-Bob, you don't have one.

Comment by Debbie

Fri, 7 May 2004 08:42:40 EDT

"Is it just me, or is everybody in the States on compulsory stupid pills? The USA has run _the_ college for torture and abuse for 30 years. I forget what it's called now, because they keep changing the name, but the School for the Americas has trained and equipped more monsters than anything short of Stalin. Of course, it is only in South America, so you don't give a fuck about those wet-backs. Assholes. You should be ashamed, but you are probably too stupid to even know what that is." Jim, sweetie.... it's time to take your medication again..... then we'll wipe the foam off your lips and I want you to try to take a nap. You are obviously over stimulated.... sheesh, is your whole country filled with loons?

Comment by Jim Carruthers

Wed, 5 May 2004 19:28:52 EDT

But I thought you liked Golden Showers, at least that's what Rummie told me. Or at least he told me he was Rummie, or was it a rummy? It was all hazy. He was old and craxy, that's all I really remember.

Comment by TDavid

Wed, 5 May 2004 19:16:02 EDT

Jim, quit pissing on your neighbors :) There are things that suck about America and Canada. Neither place is perfect :)

Comment by Jim Carruthers

Wed, 5 May 2004 19:14:01 EDT

Sorry, I forgot my place as a member of the United Special States Republic (USSR). I'll try not to do that again.

Comment by Jim Carruthers

Wed, 5 May 2004 19:03:06 EDT

Last I looked Canada wasn't actively training, participating or sending troops into South America to torture, plant land-mines, send "special advisors", wage war or stage wholesale murder of civilians. Or try (and fail) to overthrow legally elected governments in Venezuela. And how's that secret war in Columbia going, by the way?

Comment by Mark Edward Manning

Wed, 5 May 2004 18:50:09 EDT

Jim Carruthers: "...the School for the Americas has trained and equipped more monsters than anything short of Stalin. Of course, it is only in South America, so you don't give a fuck about those wet-backs. Assholes. You should be ashamed, but you are probably too stupid to even know what that is." Tell me, Jim, why doesn't CANADA get involved in South America then? Your nation doesn't give a fuck either.

Comment by TDavid

Wed, 5 May 2004 18:21:09 EDT

It's just you, Jim. There is no "everybody" though some might want to paint things with that broad brush.

Comment by Jim Carruthers

Wed, 5 May 2004 18:09:41 EDT

Is it just me, or is everybody in the States on compulsory stupid pills? The USA has run _the_ college for torture and abuse for 30 years. I forget what it's called now, because they keep changing the name, but the School for the Americas has trained and equipped more monsters than anything short of Stalin. Of course, it is only in South America, so you don't give a fuck about those wet-backs. Assholes. You should be ashamed, but you are probably too stupid to even know what that is.

Comment by Hal Pawluk

Wed, 5 May 2004 17:58:57 EDT

Natalie, you da bomb!

Comment by Natalie Davis

Wed, 5 May 2004 16:36:43 EDT

Actually, it is not amazing at all. :(

Comment by Mark Edward Manning

Wed, 5 May 2004 16:27:13 EDT

Great post, Al. I must stress, for those who are curious, I wrote my own thoughts on the subject completely independent of your post. I wasn't even aware of your post until after I'd written mine. And I must say, it's amazing how close the conclusions we both came to are!

Comment by Hal Pawluk

Tue, 4 May 2004 20:22:56 EDT

What you say I "seem to think" has no connection to reality. And this was your post, not mine - it's you doing the "carrying on." I just brought some facts to the table.

Comment by Al Barger

Tue, 4 May 2004 20:12:14 EDT

Hal, none of these things are in evidence from the pictures that are causing such a stir. Some of the things in that paragraph sound pretty bad. If some of the worse sounding things have happened, then people should be appropriately punished- after a proper investigation. However, I'm not going to be dressing in sackcloth and covering myself in ashes over a few abuses. Our soldiers are human, and they're fallible. These alleged abuses are not policy, however, and we do take them seriously. Note that you're quoting from an internal military investigation rather than some al Jazeera undercover sting or something. That in itself is evidence that we take these things seriously, and are not sweeping them under the rug. Considering the number of Americans and Iraqis involved, and the fact that we're in a W-A-R to knock down some really bad people, a dozen questionable deaths in custody does not sound anything like systemic problems. Now, if there are US soldiers "murdering" prisoners in custody, just taking it on themselves to whack a prisoner, obviously that is totally unacceptable. We should look into it, as we are, and punish the handful of individuals responsible. Still, I'm not shedding crocodile tears over the kind of dirtbags who would be the likely recipients of such abuse. Also, note how you cited a 53 page report, as if it involved 53 pages of documented abuses. It does not. Indeed, skimming through most of it, I did not see the allegations of abuse. Not that they're not there, but the report is mostly about other things. It looks like an interesting report on what's actually going on. I definitely want to peruse it further. Before you carry on too much about US abuses though, note some of the attacks and disruptions it documents by the prisoners against the US soldiers. We've put a lot of US soldiers under serious pressure fighting a war in a far off land against some nasty customers. It is a messy business, and it isn't going to be perfect. There's no way for it to be. You seem to think that ANY abuses or falling short by any of our forces prove us all to be bad guys and wrong for being there. Even ONE individual sin by the lowliest ranked person, and we're invalidated. Obviously I reject this position. The choice is not between our imperfect performance versus the platonic liberal ideal, because it doesn't exist in the real world. We do the best we can, and go from there.

Comment by Hal Pawluk

Tue, 4 May 2004 19:39:49 EDT

Also, 25 Iraqis died in prison. 12 deaths were from natural causes, the others are being investigated further, and it looks like three murder charges are in the works already. Any thoughts on this?

Comment by Hal Pawluk

Tue, 4 May 2004 19:22:26 EDT

Would you call any of these torture, Al?

Breaking chemical lights and pouring the phosphoric liquid on detainees; pouring cold water on naked detainees; beating detainees with a broom handle and a chair; threatening male detainees with rape; allowing a military police guard to stitch the wound of a detainee who was injured after being slammed against the wall in his cell; sodomizing a detainee with a chemical light and perhaps a broom stick, and using military working dogs to frighten and intimidate detainees with threats of attack, and in one instance actually biting a detainee.

These are from a 53-page report by Major General Antonio M. Taguba. Here's the full report. I'd be interested in what you think after you've read it.

Comment by Al Barger

Tue, 4 May 2004 17:22:19 EDT

Couple of particularly good points in comment 21. The last sentence, "One thing is for sure, these pictures are causing/will cause much more harm towards the U.S. than any benefit gained from psyching new prisoners out." This reiterates part of my original point, perhaps better than I said it. Right before that, "it's unlikely that wrong behavior is a single occurrence. We should investigate to see how widespread it is and exactly what kind of torture is occurring." Excellent point. In the real world, I'm not going to be too bent out of shape if a prisoner gets slapped around a little from time to time, but it can get way out of line real quick if you treat it all with a wink and a nod. Our people definitely need to be careful to keep on top of abusive type behaviors before they get serious.

Comment by Shark

Tue, 4 May 2004 16:53:06 EDT

And Marc, you got anything to add besides a flaccid insult and some cutting and pasting from the thesaurus AND the dictionary? ~Good gawd, when we want to define a word by listing its synonyms, we'll call you.

Comment by boomcrashbaby

Tue, 4 May 2004 16:49:04 EDT

I was astounded to learn about the privatizing of military operations too. There is no way that can be a good thing. I'd consider it a pretty big deal and hope it gets a lot more news coverage. Terrorists can get into our society and blend, they could do so with our private businesses too, like Halliburton. Then they have a lot of military at their disposal. When is some good news going to come out of Iraq?

Comment by Shark

Tue, 4 May 2004 16:40:56 EDT

Funny, ya read what ya wanna read, eh? Just for the record, there was nothing I said that indicated that I hold "actions of [my] own country in bitter contempt..." nor did I ever indicate that I'm "outraged" that "Americans make mistakes." I said, 1) "...we've pretty much lost the entire 21st century battle for 'hearts and minds..." 2) the "torturers" were "under orders from someone" 3) "Terrorist recruiters are having a field day", ie. we've created many more terrorists than we've eliminated 4) I, (and millions of other Americans) am astounded to learn that we're 'privatizing' military intelligence functions, which, btw, possibly allows for less chain o' command oversight when it comes to this sort of thing. 5) Look for Hamill to turn to that Holy Grail of American Ingenuity, self-marketing via a book and movie. GOT A FUCKING PROBLEM WITH ANY OF THAT, BOYZ? : ) PS: What Mike said, ie. EVERY friggin' thing we 'pinko anti-war' types predicted HAS COME TRUE. We're not thrilled about that, but it's our patriotic duty to point it out to any pin-heads still in denial about the true effects of this ridiculous "war" in Iraq.

Comment by boomcrashbaby

Tue, 4 May 2004 16:25:49 EDT

The Geneva Convention has rules on the treatment of prisoners, doesn't it? I think we follow that, or are supposed to anyway. If it has rules against torture, surely it must also define torture? I don't know. I do think though, that these pictures do not show me what I would define torture as. But I do know that pictures wouldn't show me 'the whole picture'. If I catch my daughter getting in the cookie jar, then the candy drawer is now suspect too. Meaning it's unlikely that wrong behavior is a single occurrance. We should investigate to see how widespread it is and exactly what kind of torture is occurring. One thing is for sure, these pictures are causing/will cause much more harm towards the U.S. than any benefit gained from psyching new prisoners out.

Comment by Al Barger

Tue, 4 May 2004 16:12:24 EDT

I definitely believe we should and do hold ourselves to much higher standards than the likes of Saddam Hussein. But absolutely NOTHING in those pictures even BEGINS to get to 1% of that kind of behavior. Dawn, as to how far someone needs to go to "torture" someone, I'm probably going to say that it would have to involve administering physical pain, or at least a strong threat of it to meaningfully qualify as torture. Back up in comment 11, Marc just pretty much lays out the whole gamut of pussyfication. Why, if "annoy" and "disturb" count as torture, then there's some pinkos that won't be hanging around this joint for awhile, cause they'll be in prison for "torturing" me. (Start packing your stuff, Saleski!) BHW, back up in comment 7, you talked about actual beatings, which starts to get into something that might really be torture. Again, there might be mitigating circumstances- what kind of "beating" given to whom under what circumstances. Still, that would be a lot more serious. However, these pictures that are the point of controversy show nothing like that. I'm not going to just assume that our people are making abuses that are not in evidence. I wouldn't take that attitude even towards the other side. Show me names, dates and documentation of real torture, and I'll take it more seriously. As to thinking that it would be alright for American POWs to be treated similarly to these Iraqis, of course I wouldn't be happy with it. For starters, good American soldiers don't deserve the same treatment as, say, a member of Hussein's Republican Guard. However, I reiterate that this treatment as documented in these photos is not that bad. If I thought that minor embarrassment like this was the worst treatment they were facing, that'd be a relief. And yes, Marc, there are LOTS of mitigating circumstances. Lt Col Allen West, for example, fired off a pistol near a prisoner's head some months ago during an interrogation and threatened to blow his brains out. This is considerably more abusive than these photos, but the prisoner had been an insurgent involved with ambushing and killing US soldiers. The prisoner spilled his guts figuratively, and bad guys were caught. On one hand, this stopped this group of bad guys from killing more Americans. On the other hand, Lt Col West scared the crap out of a nasty thug to do it. You could half reasonably say that he "tortured" the guy. Lt Col West got run out of the military, and was doing good to keep his pension. He should have gotten a MEDAL for saving American lives. Did I mention that we're in a WAR?

Comment by jack e. jett

Tue, 4 May 2004 14:09:12 EDT

i think the irony of all this is that kerry is getting a bush bashing for talking about "human atrocities" in viet nam while these photographs are being circulated. anyone who attempts to rationalize this as okay has clearly been at the kool aid bowl a bit too long. jack e. jett

Comment by mike

Tue, 4 May 2004 13:25:39 EDT

The issue isn't the behavoir of "Americans" but of the American government in Iraq. And for those of us in the antiwar movement, it is the relentless spectacle of watching every bad thing we said was going to happen happen. And then we get attacked as "anti-American" for pointing it out.