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Torture of Iraqi prisoners

 
  

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Hieronymus
17:34 / 26.09.05
If this is in any way true....psychopathy doesn't even begin to describe it. I don't know whether to vomit or break down into tears.

(Please be warned. The images associated in these articles are gruesome and extremely graphic.)

US soldiers allegedly trading pictures of dead Iraqis & Afghanis for porn

If you want to see the true face of war, go to the amateur porn Web site NowThatsFuckedUp.com. For almost a year, American soldiers stationed in Iraq and Afghanistan have been taking photographs of dead bodies, many of them horribly mutilated or blown to pieces, and sending them to Web site administrator Chris Wilson. In return for letting him post these images, Wilson gives the soldiers free access to his site. American soldiers have been using the pictures of disfigured Iraqi corpses as currency to buy pornography.

At Wilson's Web site, you can see an Arab man's face sliced off and placed in a bowl filled with blood. Another man's head, his face crusted with dried blood and powder burns, lies on a bed of gravel. A man in a leather coat who apparently tried to run a military checkpoint lies slumped in the driver's seat of a car, his head obliterated by gunfire, the flaps of skin from his neck blooming open like rose petals. Six men in beige fatigues, identified as US Marines, laugh and smile for the camera while pointing at a burned, charcoal-black corpse lying at their feet.

The captions that accompany these images, which were apparently written by the soldiers who posted them, laugh and gloat over the bodies. The soldier who posted a picture of a corpse lying in a pool of his own brains and entrails wrote, "What every Iraqi should look like." The photograph of a corpse whose jaw has apparently rotted away, leaving a gaping set of upper teeth, bears the caption "bad day for this dude." One soldier posted three photographs of corpses lying in the street and titled his collection "DIE HAJI DIE." The soldiers take pride, even joy, in displaying the dead.


More here.
 
 
Jack Fear
18:34 / 26.09.05
CNN reporting that Lynndie England has been convicted on six counts. Breaking news, so no link yet.
 
 
sleazenation
20:13 / 26.09.05
which leaves her looking at a sentence of up to 10 years. And this week has seen further allegations of prisoner abuse perpetrated by members of the 82nd airborne...
 
 
A fall of geckos
12:10 / 30.09.05
Judge orders release of more pictures from Abu Ghraib. From the look of the article, these are the pictures Rumsfeld and others were referring to when they said there were worse pictures than what's been seen before.

Hopefully this will shine a light on the abuse and may make it harder to dismiss as being on a par with hazing.
 
 
sleazenation
12:28 / 30.09.05
So, heres a question;


Assuming that the images that have yet to come out star different servicemen and women than have already been implicated, do people think the images should be available to the public BEFORE any trial or court-martial or is it acceptable that the images should kept out of the public arena until after any trial/court martial has been concluded on the grounds that such images in the media would prejudice any juries...
 
 
A fall of geckos
13:39 / 30.09.05
"Assuming that the images that have yet to come out star different servicemen and women than have already been implicated, do people think the images should be available to the public BEFORE any trial or court-martial"

In purely practical terms, I believe the faces in the photos are being blurred specifically for this reason.
 
 
sleazenation
14:05 / 30.09.05
So, if convicted, does the public have the right to demand to blurring be lifted?
 
 
w1rebaby
14:52 / 30.09.05
Well, if they're convicted, it would be obvious from court proceedings who was who anyway. I'd say so, yes.
 
 
Jack Fear
15:54 / 30.09.05
Well, it'd be one thing if any of these servicemen were being tried in civilian courts. But they're not: this is all going on under the Uniform Military Code of Justice, and they've got their own way of doing things.
 
 
bjacques
17:35 / 30.09.05
So unblur the faces. I'm guessing the prisoners' faces aren't blurred. The military kangaroo courts will convict them in no time, then drop these goobers down a hole, thus cauterizing the wound before the infection can spread upward (as with Lynndie England et al). The family and neighbors ought to know what their good Christian boys (and odd girl) have been up to, and the public needs to see that these are indeed American faces holding the whips.

It's a bit harsh on the (presumed) torturers' nearest and dearest, but not on those of the torturees.
 
 
bjacques
22:50 / 30.09.05
At least one site blacks out the corpses and leaves in the smiling doughboys' faces.

More grist for al-Jazeera.
 
 
Slim
02:01 / 03.10.05
That's some sick shit.
 
 
sleazenation
10:42 / 15.02.06
Apparently some new photos from the Abu Ghraib prisoner abuse scandel have surfaced.

What with protests around the world against the Danish cartoons still ongoing and a film showing British troops beating Iraqi youths (which has lead to Iraqi forces now refusing to cooperate with British forces) this is looking bad...
 
 
STOATIE LIEKS CHOCOLATE MILK
10:50 / 15.02.06
WRT the beatings footage- I know this is hardly news to anyone, but Tony Parsons really is a prize cunt, isn't he?

Youths that chuck stones at British soldiers deserve a good hiding.
 
 
Evil Scientist
11:17 / 15.02.06
What an utter prick.

A recent Guardian printed some excerpts from a message board frequented by British soldiers. Some of the views on there were similar to this.

I can understand that having stones thrown at you is unpleasant (and could potentially do some serious harm), but does Parson's seriously believe that there's nothing wrong with laying into someone that has already been captured and restrained?

Fool.
 
 
Evil Scientist
11:18 / 15.02.06
Presumably he has no problems with police brutality either then.
 
 
STOATIE LIEKS CHOCOLATE MILK
11:21 / 15.02.06
I also like that it's specifically British soldiers you shouldn't chuck stones at.
 
 
Jawsus-son Starship
20:52 / 15.02.06
Anyone else think that this is nothing new, and while that shouldn't be a defense, why are people surprised that the American government does this kind of thing when they've been doing it since the cold war?

Heres fox news' opinion on the subject;


nothing.

But Dick Cheney's sorry.
http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,184957,00.html
 
 
sleazenation
21:30 / 15.02.06
Johnnny - the resaon that it is important and significant is that these three stories bouncing off each other and are increasingly being exploited politically by various factions that have strategic goals against not only rival factions within their own country, but also with various elements of the coalition...

- Just because many in the west are bored with these story, does not make it insignificant - these stories are continuing to reverberate around the Muslim world and are having an ongoing and evolving impact there.

Yes, these things should never have happened in the first place, (although there is a school of thought that some elements of abuse were inevitable as soon as troops were sent to Iraq), but I think it was a mistake on the Pentagon's part to have released on a fraction number of Abu Ghrab when this story first broke. It gives the story a whole fresh lease of life that it would not have had if the all the images had been realeased together...
 
 
STOATIE LIEKS CHOCOLATE MILK
21:40 / 15.02.06
The symbolism's also fairly hefty- Abu Ghraib, the very place where many of the atrocities "we" were supposed to be railing against took place, has become the place where "we" commit them. Can you imagine how that must feel? Is it any wonder a large section of the population hates "us"?

Without a withdrawal, I'd say the best thing for the coalition's PR would be to bulldoze the place- build another prison if they feel they must, but one without all the associations. It would, I feel, only be polite.
 
 
sleazenation
21:53 / 15.02.06
I believe that is already the plan Stoatie and the process of dismantling Abu Ghrab has already begun...
 
 
STOATIE LIEKS CHOCOLATE MILK
21:59 / 15.02.06
How do I manage to miss shit like this?

Cheers, sleaze.
 
 
sleazenation
22:13 / 15.02.06
Actually, no, it looks like I'm wrong - Bush suggested demolishiong it then, the next day, interim President Ghazi Mashal Ajil al-Yawer indicated that he opposed this decision, and on June 21 U.S. military judge Col. James Pohl ruled that the prison was a crime scene and could not be demolished.

So, not only is Abu Ghraib still around, it's not going to be demolished though it has been emptied of many of its prisoners... Details at on the wikipedia entry...
 
 
Jawsus-son Starship
07:35 / 16.02.06
Does anyone else wonder if the Bush Administration does this shit on purpose, not just the actual torturing, but then fucking the story for 2 years so it gets another lease of life, just so it inflames tensions in the muslim world, causes more young men to join fundementalist groups, precipitate more terrorism etc? Isn't this the kind of thing the American Government did against communist countries? I read that the Afganistan war against the soviets was actually initiated by CIA backed Afganis.
 
 
sleazenation
09:07 / 16.02.06
The conflict that culminated in a Soviet invasion of Afghanistan isn't really comparable - It had its origins in a Marxist coup. Resistence against that coup was backed to an extent by the US, but also backed by other states. I'd tend to characterize it as more of a proxy war between eventually Soviet forces and militias who were in part being trained and funded by the US... More details here...
 
 
Jawsus-son Starship
11:59 / 16.02.06
In Blum's book Rouge State, he quotes a member of Jimmy Carter's Cabinet (don't have the book on me, so will post the guy's name later) as stating that the Soviet Invasion of Afghanistan was initiated on the part of the US by the Islamic Guerrilas so that the Soviet would have to fight an expensive war in the ilk of Vietnam. I'll post the quote and guy's name when I get in.
 
 
Jawsus-son Starship
12:39 / 16.02.06
More Problems In Iraq - Death Squads discovered to be part of the Police Force

Best quote award has to go to General Peterson, who is incharge of training the Iraqi police Force with;

"The amazing thing is... they tell you exactly what they're going to do,"

Which begs the question - WHY DON'T YOU STOP THEM?
 
 
sleazenation
14:43 / 16.02.06
Johnny - I'd argue that the initial resistence was to the Marxist coup, the US merely used the resistence to their own ends of drawing the Soviet Union into an expensive confict on their doorstep - but that is largely by-the-by

What I'm not seeing is any corrolation beteween the US using foreign militias to help it achieve certain strategic goals with minimal deployment (and therefore risk to) American armed forces and any notion that inflamed opinion accross the arabic world doing anything to help the US's strategy in The War Against Terror...
 
 
sleazenation
14:52 / 16.02.06
"The amazing thing is... they tell you exactly what they're going to do,"

Which begs the question - WHY DON'T YOU STOP THEM?


I'm not sure Coalition forces CAN stop them. Particularly not if they want to get out of Iraq any time soon. As far as I can see, such killings are part of an ongoing power struggle-cum civil war, a conflict that I am increasingly inclined to view as inevitable at this point...
 
 
Jawsus-son Starship
19:50 / 16.02.06
The quote I was refering to is from Zbigniew Brzezinski, national security advisor to jimmy Carter. He stated that America began aiding the Muslim Fanatics six months before the Russians made a move on Afganistan, and informed Jimmy Carter that "This aid was going to induce a Soviet Military Itervention."

Asked if he regreted the decision he said:

Regret what? The secret operation was an excellent idea. It had the effect of drawing the Russians into the Afgani trap and you want me to regret it? The day the Russians crossed the border I wrote to Jimmy Carter ... We now have the oppotunity of giving the USSR its Vietnam War.

The link I'm making is between American Governments using situations that will cause anger/military action to further thier political goals. In this case - Using Fundementalists to induce a Russian Military response, compared to torturing Iraqi citizens, photographing it and having the photographs released in the Islamic world to cause "Moderate" Muslims to be discusted enough in America to view it as the enemy and join fundementalist groups, increase the amount of people in these groups, increase the size of the enemy they have to fight to allow them to justify the War on Terror previously, and now the Long War.

Is that slightly confused, or does that make a little sense? I'm not to good at articulating my Point of View of this, probably need to do more reading on the subject.
 
 
sleazenation
23:11 / 16.02.06
It makes sense if you mean that the current administration is deliberately attempting to provoke a clash of civilizations. But even if this is the case, I'm not seeing what the US would get out of provoking such a conflict. The Mujahideen resistence in Afghanistan were being utilised by US intelligence against a specific enemy, Soviet Russia, rather than a immensely diverse creed...
 
 
Jawsus-son Starship
07:49 / 17.02.06
ok, please don't take this as the ramblings of a conspiracy nut, but I think the worst thing, from an American Politician Point of View, that has ever happened was the fall of communism. Yeah you can cheer and say we won, but now you've got nothing to push against ideologically.

So then Islamic Fundementalism tips up, and they've got a new enemy who fufills the role left empty by communism, can act as an exact oposite to America. So the link between the Mujahideen being sponsered by the CIA, and Abu Ghraib inflaming tensions between the Islamic world and the west is that both allow the current global climate to continue in the way it is. And that way, all the laws being passed to create the police state America's dawdling towards, and increasing money on arms, becoming more isolated and alone in the world all makes sense to the American people, becuase they think a wars going on. Whenever I go to America it feels more and more like the people there are in a siege.
 
 
Dead Megatron
08:05 / 17.02.06
Americans always think there's a war going on. Manly because, when there's not, they/you start one (or the government does, whatever). Name me one decade in the last six them/you people didn't go to war?. America seiges itself. Guess it makes them/you feel like they are better than the rest of the world or somethin'. "Land of the free"? Are you sure?
 
 
Dead Megatron
08:10 / 17.02.06
It makes sense if you mean that the current administration is deliberately attempting to provoke a clash of civilizations. But even if this is the case, I'm not seeing what the US would get out of provoking such a conflict. The Mujahideen resistence in Afghanistan were being utilised by US intelligence against a specific enemy, Soviet Russia, rather than a immensely diverse creed...

I imagine this state of constant war is good for propaganda politics and big-corp economy (can anybody say "1984"?). It's hard for me, being a 3rd-worlder, to understand how Americans believe capitalism = freedom. It does not, you know...
 
 
Evil Scientist
12:26 / 17.02.06
being a 3rd-worlder,

Brazil's considered 3rd world?
 
  

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