Sad News

[Lateralus]

turns out it was a passport mix up, the first man to onsite .14a lives!
if only the political/religious crap would die

[ScrmnPeeler]

If some nudity and embarrasement is all that happens to the terrorists that are incarcerated in Abu Ghairib then they should feel lucky. This is harrassment to break their will. To us at home the images immediately seem to be WRONG, but as a veteran I urge you to look at the images with a little perspective. If you think that the entire military command up to the Sec of Defense should hang for this you problably should climb out of your comfy ass life and get a good feel for what these terrorists are trying to do to you. Their purpose in Iraq is to squash the Liberation efforts of Iraqis by the US and return the country to Islamic Extremist control.

[jstokes]

It sad to think that in a Capital of a Country of all places that people are still being stoned to death for who or where they are from. It's not like a shooting where one person shoots and runs. In order to take down two people with stones you need a mob of people, the most violent and the hardest to be missed by authorities.

[Christian]

It is important that we don't jump and scream every time the media tells us the"ArabWorld" thinks we are mean.
We shouldn't react and run around with our head on fire because the news we get is always filtered so many ways.whether it Al Jazeera or NBC.
We are in Iraq. I don't think we can get out right now without a lot more innocent Iraqis being killed. We should not have gone there in my opinion but we have to stay for awhile. I don't agree with Wolfowitz(sp) and Cheney and Rumsfeld. I believe Bush lied to get us in there but now we are trapped and have to fight some and help others and win some and lose something else. It's sloppy and messy and when it is over maybe we can look back and honestly say that Iraq is better off than it was.. This makes me sad.

[tomdarch]

whats going on in the world right now pisses me off , our soldiers are being murderd , and when we take a few of embarassing pictures our govt. shits a brick , when are we gonna grow some balls and finish what we started instead of sitting back and doing nothing . anyone have a say on whats goin on ?

avery

The photos we have seen are only part of what was going on at one of many US run prisons in Iraq. There are many more prisons in Afghanistan and around the world.

Unfortuneately, this way of looking at those pictures is all to common. Some people look at them and think, "Gosh, it sucks that we have this annoying PR problem." This is certainly how our fine "two war" Secretary of Defense thinks about them.

In part, he thinks that becuase he knows that we are doing much worse things to other prisoners. Remeber, we have captured quite a few high-level al Qaeda leaders. This is going to sound like a crazy conspiracy theory, but the CIA has a network of secret prisons around the world. Who is held in the prisons is secret. They have no contact with their families. There are no trials to determine guilt. They are going to be held in these prisons as long as there is a 'war on terror', in other words, forever. No outside observers can check on them. "Special rules" regarding limits on torture apply to them, and the US government has declared that their rights under the Geneva Convention will not be recognized. One of the 'interrogation' techniques that has come to light is "water boarding", prisoners are repeatedly held underwater to the brink of drowning. (The problem with torture interrogation, is, of course, the obvious fact that the victims will make things up to stop the torture.)

Nightline recently did a story on these secret prisons:
http://abcnews.go.com/Sections/Nightline/

This sounds like Kafka. Americans have fought for decades against these practices by people like Stalin, or Pinochet, or Franco, or, ironicaly enough, Sadam. Now, this administration has reduced us to that level.

Remember, we set the standards for how we will be treated by others. If you believe that Americans who are captured should be treated this way, then say so. Otherwise, we need to do unto others as we would have them do unto us.

Also, remember that this treatment of our prisoners causes people around the world to be far less horrified by the recent beheading of that American, and less horrified by the future bad things that these folks will do. All around the world, people are saying to themselves, "Well, the Americans brought it on themselves. Oh well."

[tomdarch]

If some nudity and embarrasement is all that happens to the terrorists that are incarcerated in Abu Ghairib then they should feel lucky. This is harrassment to break their will. To us at home the images immediately seem to be WRONG, but as a veteran I urge you to look at the images with a little perspective. If you think that the entire military command up to the Sec of Defense should hang for this you problably should slither out of your comfy ass life and get a good feel for what these terrorists are trying to do to you. Their purpose in Iraq is to squash the Liberation efforts of Iraqis by the US and return the country to Islamic Extremist control.

Totally! Like, last time a dog bit a chunk out of my leg, I was, like, so TOTALLY embarrased! I was, like, so TOTALLY glad that I had a suffocating bag on my head! Oh, the shame!

You are presenting yourself has having a good idea about what is going on in Iraq. You might want to rethink that claim: the Ba'ath movement (of which Sadam was a major figure) was a radically secular* movement. (*In smaller words "radically secular" means that they were serious about minimizing the political influence of religion.) There is no "Islamic Exteremist" recent history to which to return in Iraq.

Plus the Red Cross reports on the US occupation prison system point out that 80% to 90% of the people 'arrested' were totally innocent. Wonder why Mustafa won't spill the beans even after being hypothermic for a few days and having a glow stick shoved up his ass? It's because he's a frickin' chicken farmer, not a militant. Just beat him more and he'll make something up. That wothless information should go a long way towards protecting our troops.

As a veteran, I'd like you to say that you believe that it would be perfectly appropriate for you to be raped and gnawed on by dogs in order to extract information from you if you were captured.

[meetVA]

If some nudity and embarrasement is all that happens to the terrorists that are incarcerated in Abu Ghairib then they should feel lucky.

The is a popular misconception and I think exposes the naivete of the American public. This is not what is only happening, this is just what we've seen. If you read the military's own investigation of the abuses of prisoners you'd also learn that they are being raped, beaten, deprived of food and water, as well as other pyschological torture.

Another misconception is that all of the people in that prison are terrorists or insurgents or have killed American lives. But I suppose part of the larger problem I see is that how can we expect Iraqi's to appreciate the liberty and democracy we've brought to the country and get them to appreciate fundamental human rights when we turn around and violate many of the tenants of a free and democratic society?

You are what you are, not what you say you are.

[meetVA]

Sorry, here's a link to the report.
http://www.npr.org/iraq/2004/prison_abuse_report.pdf

[Crankmas]

Same Crime- America > Felony Islamic Entity> Misdemenor Fuck Islam

[Yasmeen]

As a veteran, I'd like you to say that you believe that it would be perfectly appropriate for you to be raped and gnawed on by dogs in order to extract information from you if you were captured.

Excellent point. The shoe's not so comfortable when it's on the other foot, is it? It's so easy to sit there are rationalize this shit when the closest exposure you have to it is what you see on your TV or computer screen. I'm pretty sure you'd be screaming a different tune if you had a bag over your head and a wire attached to your penis. But hey, that's just speculation.

I suppose part of the larger problem I see is that how can we expect Iraqi's to appreciate the liberty and democracy we've brought to the country and get them to appreciate fundamental human rights when we turn around and violate many of the tenants of a free and democratic society?

Also an excellent point. "Do as I say, not as I do" isn't going to cut it. The people of Iraq are going to resent the US for this, and it's not going to make winning their hearts very easy. Just turn the tables, people. If another country (try for a moment to imagine another country who is powerful enough to stomp into our country and take over) brought war to our soil, killed our innocents, promised that they were doing it to save us from ourselves (however true it may be), and then did the things to US prisoners that we're doing to the Iraqis, how likely would you be to trust the future of our nation to them??