We've seen the ridiculous pictures. We've read the outraged editorials, and heard the fuming congresspeople. We've seen the Pentagon start a furious spin cycle, attempting to blame it all on some small town reservists and a National Guard female general. So WTf was really going on? I heard the female general, Gen. Karpinski, on O'Reilly last night and a funny thing happened as she spoke. I began to believe her. Let's consider the known facts first. The prison was apparently used for interrogation by military intelligence (that well known oxymoron) and no doubt CIA operatives. The MP's were there to run things, provide security, herd the prisoners around, etc. Somehow the MP's aresnapping picutres of themselves mugging with naked Iraqi prisoners, often in suggestive poses. Now does it make any sense that a bunch of low level MP's are going to organize stripping dozens of Iraqi prisoners and posing them together in a prison crawling with military intelligence officers? What was to keep the Iraqi's from ratting them out the first time they were questioned? Weren't the MP's afraid of being discovered? Where did they get these ideas anyway? And significantly, how did they manage to order the Iraqis to do this stuff without Arabic language skills, which I am sure none of the MP's possessed? I think the questions answer themselves. The intel officers were stripping the Iraqis and doing stuff to humiliate them. Probably they were posing them in homosexual poses and taking pictures of them, then threatening to release the pictures to their families if they didn't play ball. The MP's were helping, then left to clean up the mess. They decided to get in on the fun, and took some pictures themselves when no one was looking. Now that the sh*t has hit the fan, they are left holding the bag. Not a pretty picture, but let's consider the bigger picture. These Iraqis were picked up for the most part as insurgents. They had timely information about forthcoming attacks or the location of explosives, weapons and other insurgents. I don't condone torture, but really, what was done to these guys seems pretty mild. None of them was killed, that we know, and probably the most that happened was that they got wired up and tasered. Not pretty, but what if it saved a few dozen of our troops from getting blown up? That is the tradeoff. To paraphrase Jack Nicholson, we are out there on the wall protecting you, but you don't really want to know how we are doing it. You can't handle the truth.
can you handle the truth that Saddam Hussein´s successor in office - Bush/Rumsfeld/Bremer - is using Saddam´s torture/rape rooms for the same purpose ... pretending to "liberate/democratize" Iraq ?
No one wants to address the hard question: is some physical coercion justifiable when there is a good chance the prisoner has potentially life saving information? Also, we don't know what exactly the interrogators were doing. All we have is some goofy pictures. It's easy to get on a high horse and spout off about how awful this is, but if you are a commander, would you rather have soldiers under your care killed or rough up a few insurgents?
Whatever it was it was it was dumb, dumb, dumb. What kind of a total doorknob wouldn't be able to predict the media and arab reaction to this? A complete no brainer. World's dumbest criminals look out, you've competition.
Not a new problem. Various 'peacekeeping' nations have a history of assaults against locals. http://www.apfn.net/messageboard/10-09-02/discussion.cgi.20.shtml As for the 'just trying to extract information' rationalization, really need to ask what other methods were used before resorting to tactics which lead to permanent psychological or physical damage to the victims.
DAMN! msfe just has this uncanny knack for stating the obvious. What I've found most appalling is the "private interrogations" provided by civilian contractors. One eyewitness has them 1)raping a prisoner; 2)killing another prisoner during interrogation who they'd randomly pulled off the street, jabbing an IV in his dead body, wheeling him out to an ambulance and dumping his body somewhere in the desert. Bush and the rest will no doubt swing for war crimes within the next 5 years. Mark my words.
AAA, there is no way you can put a positive spin on this, no matter how imaginative you get. THis is a big setback for the US, as it will outrage and disgust the very ones we are supposed to be winiing over, the Arabs in the street. You really think there is no doubt that some or many of these prisoners may be innocent civilians who were picked up in sweeps? The US intelligence over there is so bad, they don't know where the next round is coming from, or who fired it! The contractors get waylaid, the roads are booby trapped, but miraculously, you think only the criminal insurgents are arrested. Even if all those guys in the homo pileup are bad to the bone, this type of treatment is antipathetic to American values, and is a violation of the Geneva Convention. You live in a dream world if you think the leaders ought to excuse this. Like your pockmarked brained hero RWR, you invoke fiction to prove your point. But while you are running the video, go to the end, Nicholson's character was arrested and charged. Presumably, he went to prison. That was the truth of the film. Can you handle it? I was wondering how long it would be until you posted your defense of these actions. It wasn't too long. The military and civilian commanders have a responsibility to obey laws and check the worst instincts among the enlisted men and women, rather than encourage them.
I am trying to get beyond attacking or defending this. Obviously it is a political disaster for the administration. As for the "Arab street" and arab governments, they are outraged in the same way that the Congressional Black Caucus was outraged over the Trent Lott episode. In other words, they are thrilled and overjoyed they have something to complain about. Most of those governments routinely do far worse to their prisons full of political prisoners. I see two important issues here. One, the MP's are being hung out to dry for this, while those who are truly responsible in my view, the military intelligence people, are skating. Two, there is a difficult ethical question over how far to go in this sort of interrogation. People are acting like we shouldn't go beynd what a local police force in the US can do, but that view is very naive in my judgment. But, as pointed out, there no doubt are some totally innocent prisoners, plus the quality of information one receives from coercion can be spotty. And why is it the public is largely unconcerned if a plane kills 100 women and children with bombs but is outraged over a few stupid pictures? Have we totally lost a sense of proportion or is the prison scandal the absolute worst thing that has happened?