Big grief over some pictures coming to light of American soldiers "torturing" Iraqi prisoners.
Look at those pictures, though: There's no "torture" going on there. These pictures amount to variations on simply making them get naked and taking their pictures. This may be humiliating, but it is not torture- it doesn't involve the infliction of pain or really even the threat of it.
I would presume that such behavior is unwarranted and unacceptable, though there could be mitigating circumstances. One story has it that these things were done under orders for the purpose of "softening them up" for interrogation. If these were nasty Republican Guard members merely being humiliated and not physically molested but mentally broken down in advance of important questioning, that would mitigate if not excuse the US soldiers.
Still, people responsible for these pictures need to be removed from their positions, and possibly otherwise punished. As far as I'm concerned, though, it's punishment for STUPIDITY and bad judgment rather than faked up outrage over the non-injuries they did not inflict.
Doing stuff like this has obvious and predictable negative consequences, and no one not smart enough to have seen them has any business being in charge of anything. Humiliation games with prisoners are a bad idea even just practically. Allowing PICTURES of it to be taken is just inexcusable.
What? Al Jazeera is running these pictures 24/7? Duh! Who could have seen that coming? Of course, al Ja-frickin'-zeera will run these pictures ENDLESSLY, and they will be used in recruiting posters for al Qaeda and so on. Of course, the Arab media will talk crap about the US no matter what, but why give them ammo?
This will obviously cause US some diplomatic problems- though perhaps not that many. A lot of people are going to pontificate and shake their fingers, but mostly only because they are already hostile. This doesn't seem to change much, but it does give them an at least halfway legitimate excuse for complaining.
Article comments
— go to most recent comments1 - Al Barger
Mmm, torture dip. [Insert Homer drooling noise here.]
2 - mike
Al, reading your lame apologetics for this is torture.
3 - Doc
Gee, does the Iraqi beaten to death in the prison count at torture? Huh?
http://www.thememoryhole.org/war/iraqis_tortured/
See also The New Yorker:
http://www.newyorker.com/online/covers/?040510onco_covers_gallery
Unfortunately for the Iraqi's and us, the Bush admin has put too many people like our lugnut Al in charge and this is only the beginning of how this ill conceived war will finish...
4 - Shark
Al, the fact that pictures WERE taken suggests to me that these actions were:
1) under orders from someone;
2) INTENDED to be recorded for later use (to show incoming 'freshmen' photos of what they're in for)
"I was just following orders." --Hermann Goering and about 200 other top Nazis, 1945
BOTTOM LINE: We might as well pack up and leave the entire middle east; between Bush's Blunder, ie the ill-advised, under-planned invasion of Iraq -- and this graphic demo of what Americans do when left alone with imprisoned camel jockies/sand-niggers/towel-heads means we've pretty much lost the entire 21st century battle for 'hearts and minds'. (These people have LONG cultural memories.)
Add it all up, it means we'll never "WIN" the "war" on terror. We'll be lucky if we, as Americans, can even leave our shores within a few years.
Meanwhile, the Islamic terrorists are having a field day; recruitment offices filling up with youngsters wanting to kill the heathen westerners.
The good news: When we ask "Why do they hate us?" in the future, we can just look at these photos.
btw: THANKS AGAIN, GEORGE W! WAY TA GO!
5 - Shark
ALSO:
You can thank the "privatization" of military functions for this one. ("Privatization" is a neo-con euphemism for "enriching your friends and previous employers" -- see "Halliburton" for more)
We knew about civilians driving trucks, cooking, and cleaning for the troops; then when four non-military Americans were roasted and strung up in Fallujah, we learned that private contractors (aka 'mercenaries') were serving as personal bodyguards to U.S. officials and guards for government installations.
Now it turns out that interrogators in Iraqi prisons are working for private contractors "CACI International" and a company appropriately called "Titan".
Those four dead in Fallujah: American taxpayers didn't ask them to be there.
And the "Interrogators" currently under investigation --- did you, American taxpayer -- ask them to go 'serve' their country?
PS: We're fucked. Thanks, Rummy!
6 - Shark
And don't get me started on that lucky dimwit, Halliburton truckdriver Thomas Hamill -- who just made a "daring escape" from his 'captors'.
(He walked out of an empty mud hut and yelled "I'm an American"; unfortunately, he was later contacted by Jessica Lynch's lawyer and told to cease and desist from using the first three words of a line she trademarked a little over a year ago.)
Count the seconds before Thomas Hamill's book is published and ABC features Billy Bob Thornton playing Hamill in a Movie of the Week.
feh.
"Why do they hate us?"
Take a wild friggin' guess.
7 - bhw
Aside from the photos, Al, there have been reports of beatings and stuff like leaving the prisoners unclothed out in the sun to bake all day.
Those sound like torture to me. We'll see if it actually happened.
So I guess you'd understand and "excuse" similar behavior perpetrated on American prisoners, right? [Except for the photo taking, of course.]
8 - Shark
bhw, when Iraqis torture captured Americans, they pry open their eyelids and force them to watch a videotape of a Bush Press Conference.
9 - bhw
LOL, Shark. Too bad nobody taped the 9/11 commission interview. They could probably use that, too. Besides, I've always wanted to see if Cheney could drink a glass of water while Bush talked.
10 - Eric Olsen
As bhw said, we'll have to see what the actual abuse was to the prisoners, which is obviously relevant to the discussion, but IF the abuse is limited to "humiliation" then Al is right that the greatest crime here is stupidity and the inevitable casting of one's country in a very bad light at the worst possible time.
What I have yet to comprehend about our friend Shark is just WHY he views the actions of his own country with such bitter contempt. Do you hold your own country to a higher standard than the rest of the world? Why is EVERYTHING so much worse when we do it, whatever IT may be? This strikes me as masochistic.
11 - Marc
Shark, go the fuck away, nothing you have posted will resonate beyond your hollow head. You have an address to go to, the Democratic Underground, now get there.
As for you Al Barger here are just some of the synonyms listed in Roget's Thesaurus for torture.
"abuse, afflict, agonize, annoy, beat, bother, crucify, distress, disturb, excruciate, grill, harrow, impale, injure, irritate, lacerate, maim, mangle, martyr, martyrize, mistreat, mutilate, oppress, pain, persecute, rack, smite, torment, try, upset, whip, wound, wring, wrong"
You'll note not all of them involve physical injuries.
And here is the dictionary definition:
"intense feelings of suffering; acute mental or physical pain; "an agony of doubt"; "the torments of the damned"
And what the hell is this:
"I would presume that such behavior is unwarranted and unacceptable, though there could be mitigating circumstances. One story has it that these things were done under orders for the purpose of "softening them up" for interrogation."
There is NO MITIGATION, under any circumstances.
Sorry Al your way off base.
12 - Mark Saleski
Do you hold your own country to a higher standard than the rest of the world?
but why shouldn't we?
we go around bellowing to all who will hear about how we're the greatest country in the world...then, when some of our actions (and i did say some) sink to the level of a 3rd-rate dictator, we make up excuses.
...and then we wonder why people hate us.
13 - Craig Lyndall
Shark you are very funny, but doesn't this get a bit old for you? I mean you say the same things over and over. By the way, those cats might hate us more now, but they weren't exactly fans in the first place. They wanted to kill us before. Now they just want to kill us more. Big effing deal.
I don't really have anything to add to this conversation as far as the torture, humiliation, abuse or whatever it is/was, other than it is not the way humans should act.
14 - Eric Olsen
I agree that we should AIM for a higher standard as we do often represent ourselves as the apex of human development. But my question is really, why react in such a self-flagellating manner when we dont always live up to those standards, which, being that we are human and far from perfect, is inevitable?
15 - Eric Olsen
Also, we (Americans) are about as far from monolithic as you can get, so why judge us by the behavior of our worst and everyone else by their best? Since we are human we are guaranteed to fuck up, but in the big picture, it seems to me we fuck up less than any other country that has been in our position. We didn't ask to be the sole superpower in the world, we sort of fell into the role when everyone else bugged out.
16 - dawn
So, how far does someone need to go to torture someone, in your opinion?
I can't believe people are actually rationalizing this. "We aren't as bad as Saddam." Gee, is he someone who we hold as a standard?
And yes, we should hold ourselves to a higher standard than other countries, especially countries that distinguish themselves by their human rights abuses.
We pride ourselves as being the leader of the free world, spreading democracy and what not. We pride ourselves on treating others humanely (or, at least we should). So, sorry, you are damn right that I hold the U.S. to a higher standard than the repressive regimes of Saddam's, NK, China, Myanmar, (insert country here.)
Sick, sick.
17 - Eric Olsen
There are two subjects here and dawn is confusing them: I am not rationalizing anything. Regardless of what happened, it's serious and needs to be addressed seriously depending upon the level of abuse.
My most recent comments are trying to get at why many, including Shark, are so outraged when Americans make mistakes - it's all or nothing, seemingly, either we are all good or all bad, and since we are human and doomed to screw up, it's always all bad.
I am not talking about the behavior of governments and regimes; of course we should hold our "offical" behavior to the highest standards, but I am talking about individual behavior: why are some of us so surprised that Americans can behave as badly as anyone?
18 - mike
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.
19 - jack e. jett
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
20 - Al Barger
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?
21 - boomcrashbaby
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.
22 - Shark
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.
23 - boomcrashbaby
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?
24 - Shark
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.
25 - Al Barger
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.