Salon obtains 'all' photos, other evidence of Abu Ghraib abuses

[LoKnLoD]

http://blogs.usatoday.com/ondeadline/2006/02/salon_obtains_a.html

http://salon.com/news/feature/2006/02/16/abu_ghraib/

Someone leaked the whole set..wow!!

One day after an Australian TV network aired more photos of abuses that occurred in 2003 at the U.S.-run Abu Ghraib prison in Iraq, the online magazine Salon reveals it has obtained "more than 1,000 photographs, videos and supporting documents from the Army's probe, (which) may represent all of the photographic and video evidence" that the Army has collected during its ongoing internal investigation of the scandal.

According to Salon, "the files, from the Army's Criminal Investigation Command (CID), include hundreds of images that have never been publicly released." It says the evidence was obtained from "someone who spent time at Abu Ghraib as a uniformed member of the military and is familiar with the CID investigation.

[adigal]

1. Worst picture: a handcuffed man being sodomized

by an object. That is what the editor of Salon magazine said on NPR this morning.

[ingac70]

5. Nice!

He was assraped for liberty! :sarcasm:

[nolabels]

15. Worst and best is a subjective thing

Most degenerate, barbaric, truculent, mordacious item might occur to me. The U.S. is basically being run by pirates. This seems to be the case, as far as I can see anyway, so anything out of the ordinary or different from that is the only thing worth noting. That is of course if you are looking to figure out which direction things are traveling.

[Trevelyan]

64. Skull and Bones admires pirates and teaches the "best and brightest" at Ya

Yale to use pirates and their shrine to Hitler as role models.

Parascope -- Skull and Bones: Everything You Ever Wanted to Know But Were Afraid to Ask - focuses on the Bush Crime Family going back to Prescott Bush and FDR's DoD report about his financing Hitler.

http://www.SeventhFire.com has a more in-depth history of Skull and Bones before and after they targeted Yalies to suborn them into this sick, blackmailing secret society.

[Beausoir]

22. Are you kidding me?! There did that and took pictures of it?

Jesus. Sick, perverted monsters.

I can promise that image will never see the light of day in the Liberal Media.

[sui generis]

2. nice. I wonder who they're blackmailing, or who on their staff

will spontaneously "commit suicide".

:tinfoilhat:

[endarkenment]

3. Are these the pictures the ACLU has been demanding?

That is the only question that needs to be answered. Until we know that THOSE pictures are out in the open, we are not looking at the most damning evidence of the crimes that have been committed in our name.

[endarkenment]

4. Ah - nobody knows.

To answer my own question: "may be identical to the information that human rights and civil liberties groups have been seeking" - from the usatoday link in the OP.

Nobody knows. I want the ACLU pictures and I am not going to be satisfied until those are released.

Sick torturing fucks. They need to go to jail so bad it hurts to think about it.

[0007]

16. Some of the photos look like much of the first batch, or at least

the ones I seen on Solon.com

[LeftNYC]

6. How many pics are in the portfolio they put on line cause

I keep getting stuck on the same photo...

[janx]

7. Janice Karpinski, I'll bet!

;-)

[LoKnLoD]

11. That

was my thought exactly....or from one of the soldiers in jail for this already, from their private collection, paybacks are a bitch.

[zann725]

14. I'm just surprised it took so long. Given all the possible 'sources'...

it WAS inevitable these photos would be released someway, somehow.

[janx]

17. She wrote an excellent essay that was published in Harper's

recently. Look for a copy if you haven't already!

[littlebat]

36. karpinski interview

I heard an interview with her; apparently she's written a book. Sure, one would expect anyone in her position to try to deflect blame, but her case is very compelling.

[bpilgrim]

8. No Bravery (video)

http://nobravery.cf.huffingtonpost.com

It is an Anti-Iraq-War piece i put together after hearing this amazing song by a former UK solider

psst... pass the word ;->

peace

[JPZenger]

9. They Just Hate Us for Our Freedom

Those Muslim extremists just hate us for our freedom. It has nothing to do with our complete lack of respect for other cultures or religions or for human dignity.

What strikes me is that the US government has lost all credibility in the world because of its lies and deceits. As a result, when a Muslim extremist group makes a claim against the US that is not true, no one believes the denials of the US. People are willing to believe the worst of the US government because so many of the past US denials were lies.

[Onlooker]

12. That's magnificent

Give it its own link. I think a lot of people will want to see it.

[Dhalgren]

27. That is the most moving, powerful video I have ever seen.

The song, the words, the voice, the images all combined to reduce me to tears. I am an old, grizzled man who doesn't cry easily - and this short piece just tore me to pieces. Thank you - sometimes being torn to pieces is all that is left...

[Danieljay]

32. Christ. I'm crying at work. Beyond words. n/t

[Onlooker]

10. Horrific

They can argue whether it was right of Salon to release the photos, but the fact is in this world that's the kind of thing the media does. The damage to our claims of being righteous will certainly be severe. To paraphrase Dick Durbin, looking at these photos makes one think of the Nazis or of Stalin. It's horrific that our country should be involved in things like this and that our President and Vice-President should want to legalize this kind of torture. This is the exact kind of material that we used to discredit Saddam and the Soviet regimes.

[LynnTheDem]

19. Except we didn't have proof in pics against them.

We had various ex-pats whose stories have since been debunked as being a pile of lies.

But the whole wide entire world knows WITHOUT DOUBT that the USA tortures, rapes, and murders innocent people. Not to mention concentration camp gulags with no due process whatsoever, kidnapping women & kids, and of course invasions & occupations of innocent nations and the slaughter of tens of thousands of innocent men, women & kids.

That's the America the entire world sees.

[converted_democrat]

13. Sad, sick, uneffing real. I can't believe what this nation has become.n/t

[RandomKoolzip]

18. The caption for the pic of the detainee sodomizing himself claims that...

He had "special needs" and was under "special supervision" because he was "mentally deranged."

Huh.

Clue me in here, guys; Weren't these assholes using torture to extract information form detainees? Exactly HOW MUCH LEGITIMATE INFORMATION can be gleaned from a "mentally deranged" prisoner?

This whole fucking thing is just sick. It's making me woozy with guilt and anger.

[Roland99]

24. FUBAR to the max!

[Flabbergasted]

61. And why was he even there?

[Kagemusha]

20. If the US government cares so much about these peoples' dignity,

then don't f*** them up the rear with a foreign object in the first place.

(in answer to cries of 'we don't want to humiliate these people' from the State Department yesterday)

[janx]

21. Slaughtered animals?

Oddly, the material also includes numerous photographs of slaughtered animals and mundane images of soldiers traveling around Iraq.

What kind of mentality...?

[Kagemusha]

23. Why do rappers talk about drugs and black on black crime?

They're memorializing in song what they see in their lives. If not an everyday occurence then certainly stuff they see over the course of their lives and is part of their environment. Soldiers in Iraq kill people and break things, and some of them recorded this because they could, because modern technology made it easy to do so, because that was (and is) their reality.

And to put it real bluntly, they compartmentalize and say to themselves, hey, if what we did was that bad, we wouldn't be doing it in the first place, right? They don't think of themselves as recording crimes, but as recording events, events that are the grim reality of fighting America's wars for American security. Never enters their minds that they could be doing something wrong. How could they? They're the good guys. If it was so wrong, why didn't someone stop it?

[rodeodance]

25. I wonder what Rummy's move will be?

[Roland99]

26. Ignore, evade, dismiss. (IED)

[littlebat]

35. family value

I've looked everywhere for the bumper sticker that says 'Torture is not a family value'. I've found variations, but this is the one I want. I want to put it next to Ghandi's quote on Christians and 'Beware of a president who says 'I feel good' on the eve of war...and then take a drive down to my Bible thumping parents' house. I feel so helpless.

[entanglement]

58. Welcome to DU!

I think you'll fit right in!
:hi:

[CrispyQ]

28. OMG! Some of the comments on the USA Today story are

truly mind boggling. I am stunned & ashamed at how many of my countrymen believe that these prisoners deserve this kind of treatment. The bullying, America-is-the-greatest attitude is sickening.

ProudAmerican writes, "Oh poor little prisoners!! Get over it!! They got what they deserved...This is America Jack!!! You mess with the bull, you get the horns!!" This attitude almost makes me want to resort to violence -- I'd like to smack that jackass across the face & hope I could slap some sense into his itty-bitty brain.

Tony writes, "While I detest what happened at Abu Ghraib, let's not make these detainees out to be angels either. It's too bad information peddlers are skewed either extremely right or extremely left, with most of us sick-and-tired Americans stuck in the middle. But I will say this: With a war on terror going on, I can say without a doubt that the extremely left viewpoint is endangering my kids a whole lot more than the other side." So the left viewpoint of peace, equality & treating people with humanity puts your kids at risk more than the current admins' policy of lying, pre-emptive war & torture? Pull your head out of your ass, you stupid fuck & maybe you could smell something besides shit.

Grrrrrr........



What the fuck happened to my country?

[WePurrsevere]

29. They're ignorant, horribly naive, they get their jollies off on this

stuff and/or they're employed by Rove and the WH to spin and spew this crap.

Sadly for most whack jobs like these there is no hope but perhaps with some DUers responding to this type of (Rovian?) BS with FACTS and TRUTH some of those who are reading and simply ignornat or naive will learn the truth, understand what's truly happening and join the fight to take America back from these criminals and bullies.

[ninkasi]

30. People like those letter writers

make me sick. They still can't understand that Iraq was no danger to us. They still can't comprehend that we invaded Iraq illegally, and have rounded up men and boys at random, and have tortured and killed them. They can't comprehend that these same Iraqis, before we invaded, were not trying to kill them and their families. They really can't comprehend much of anything, except how to locate Rush on the radio, and Fox on the TV, then let the frothing wingers there TELL them what to believe.

They are twisted, petty, small minded little people, who substitute knee-jerk responses to situations which require instead a demand that such abuses are wrong, and immoral, and must be stopped. Sadly, they seem to be completely unable to understand the connection between people resorting to terrorist tactics, and the offenses we have committed in their country.

They are Bush's hardcore base. These people who have not a shred of compassion for fellow humans being submitted to horrific abuses are some of the same ones who loudly and shrilly condemn homosexuality as being "against God's will." They invoke God, and applaud killing and degradation. For them, there is no amount of evidence, nothing, that will prevent them from following their leader to the pits of hell. They seem to be of the same sociopath's mind-set as Bush, but probably can't get away with indulging in killing and corruption on the same scale, because they are nameless nobodies.

With a different leadership, at least these pathetic, miserable excuses for humans would not be able to spout off quite so often, or rabidly...not because of any official censorship, but because more normal and compassionate people would drown out their messages of hate with disapproval.

I echo your question...what happened to our country?

[tanyev]

31. They would be FROTHING at the mouth if anyone had

done that to captured American soldiers. In fact, it could still happen.

[llmart]

37. Violence pervades our culture......

It has been insidious - sneaking into our everyday lives little by little through video games, glorification of war and violence in movies, the love affair with guns, etc. etc. etc. Nothing good can come of it. This is what our country has sunk to.

But there are still plenty of people like those of us on DU that are moved to tears by this and try our best to change things. We just have to make sure our voices are heard and don't let anything silence us.

Bush and his cronies are bastards.

[brooklynite]

33. Hey, we can't have people leaking government secrets...

After all, maybe the insurgents had forgotten about this...

[spinbaby]

34. Dead silence in mainstream news

Never happened, nothing to see here.

[Flabbergasted]

38. Holy cow!!! 1,325 images of suspected detainee abuse

http://www.guardian.co.uk/Iraq/Story/0,,1711844,00.html


Abu Ghraib leaked report reveals full extent of abuse

· 1,325 images of suspected detainee abuse
· 93 video files of suspected detainee abuse
· 660 images of adult pornography
· 546 images of suspected dead Iraqi detainees
· 29 images of soldiers in simulated sexual acts

Suzanne Goldenberg in Washington
Friday February 17, 2006
The Guardian


Nearly two years after the first pictures of naked and humiliated Iraqi detainees emerged from Abu Ghraib prison, the full extent of the abuse became known for the first time yesterday with a leaked report from the US army's internal investigation into the scandal.
The catalogue of abuse, which was obtained by the online American magazine Salon, could not have arrived at a worse time for the Bush administration, coinciding with yesterday's United Nations report on abuse of detainees at Guantánamo, the release of a video showing British troops beating up Iraqi youths, and lingering anger in the Muslim world over cartoons of the prophet Muhammad.

Bush administration officials had already been fending off a new wave of anger about the torture of detainees - following the airing of graphic images from Abu Ghraib on Australian television - when Salon posted a story on its website yesterday saying it had obtained what appears to be the fullest photographic record to date of the abuse.

[Flabbergasted]

39. I love this line:

Iraq's prime minister, Ibrahim al-Jaafari, while condemning the abuse at Abu Ghraib, noted that US soldiers had already been punished for it.


Wow this small group of soldiers who wer punished did all this:

· 1,325 images of suspected detainee abuse
· 93 video files of suspected detainee abuse
· 660 images of adult pornography
· 546 images of suspected dead Iraqi detainees
· 29 images of soldiers in simulated sexual acts



:shrug:

[Up2Late]

45. It's true, and the Bush Cabal considers the case closed.

I'd say that's a LOT of wishful thinking.

[marmar]

40. I couldn't get through five of them....

on Salon.com. I can't even imagine leafing through 1,000+ images of that horror.

[0007]

42. ....yeah and that was the watered down version.

[Wrinkle_In_Time]

48. You're a braver person than me...

... I had enough from the first batch of publicly-released photos. The fact that there is more evidence is more than enough for me. I don't need to see it and I feel sorry for members of the {hopefully} future U.S. War Crimes tribunal who have to see it in order to put these criminals to justice.

/Kudos to Salon.com for doing this. I suspect it wasn't an easy decision.

[Broadslidin]

41. Now Its Time For fearless leader Bush to publicly say he is Deeply Sorry

When the retaliation attack comes,
we just might deserve it.

[LifeDuringWartime]

46. ...and resign n/t

[Lochloosa]

43. She did it!

All of it!

[WhiteTara]

44. this could only be done by a small handful

of people and they've been punished...yeah right. *co are bastards who were not born from mothers.

[Up2Late]

47. New Abu Ghraib images highlight worst of Iraq occupation (AFP)

(In this statment, "The Iraqi government strongly condemns the torture of Iraqi prisoners revealed in the images broadcast and insist that it is not repeated," Is he saying the broadcast of the Images should not be repeated? Or the Torture?)

New Abu Ghraib images highlight worst of Iraq occupation

17/02/2006 02h44

BAGHDAD (AFP) - Iraqis have expressed outrage after new exposure of prisoner abuse at Baghdad's notorious Abu Ghraib prison, warning the images could further increase already intense anti-Western tensions. The government, faced with the need to denounce such abuse but also avoid opposition calls for the immediate withdrawal of foreign forces, renewed its condemnation of the 2003 scandal.

"The Iraqi government strongly condemns the torture of Iraqi prisoners revealed in the images broadcast and insist that it is not repeated," the government said in a statement. An official in Prime Minister Ibrahim Jaafari's office said "this serious affair totally contradicts human rights and should not be repeated."

Australian television earlier this week broadcast a new batch of photos linked to the abuse of Iraqi detainees at the US-run Abu Ghraib prison outside Baghdad. The pictures showed one man covered in what appeared to be excrement, another with a gash in his throat, and an alleged interrogation room covered in blood. Video footage showed a row of naked men apparently masturbating.

For many Iraqis the images, which follow the publication in 2004 of a first series of such pictures, drove home the wrongs of the occupation of their country. "I felt disgusted when I saw those pictures and I felt at the same time how weak our government is that it can't help its own people," said Sadun Mohammed, sitting in his shop reading an article in the newspaper.

(more at link below, and this does have some of the mild pictures)

<http://www.afp.com/english/news/stories/060217023653.ie560w6e.html>

[rodeodance]

49. the media has said very very little about this. Like it does not exist.

[Up2Late]

55. See, that's probably what bugs me the most, the U.S. Media pretends...

...that all this negative stuff isn't out there, BUT IT IS!
:rant: All the NON-U.S. News media cover this stuff, so the rest of the world knows what a bunch of Bastards our government is, but the U.S. Media keep most Americans completely ignorant about it all!

So when we go over seas or talk to someone from another county, we all look completely ignorant!

That's one of the main reasons I love the internet and the RSS readers we have now, because it's only gotten worst, with all these pseudo "news" channels like Fox "news." :rant:

O.K. I feel a little better now.

Speaking of the "news," The Daily Show just did something on them.

[Harper_is_Bush]

50. Publish them all. BRING IT ON!!!!!!!! Just like the Mohamed cartoons...

the world has a right to know what all the fuss is about, right?

WHY ARE THEY HOLDING BACK? FREEDOM OF SPEECH IS TAKING A TERRIBLE HIT!!

[Poll_Blind]

62. Yes, why are they holding back the release of all?!?! n/t

PB

[mopinko]

51. like the nazis, documenting their misdeeds

let's hope they can be hung by them, just like the nazis were.

[alarcojon]

52. Just a few bad apples

Nothing to see here, move along.

[rucky]

53. They must be very proud. n/t

[CoffeeCat]

54. And I wonder where these tortured, humiliated detainees are now?

And we wonder why the insurgency is growing.

We are breeding terrorists.

This is so despicable and so awful.

I looked at all of the pics on Salon. There are no words.

What's most frightening....is the pictures that we have not yet seen.

[mirandapriestly]

56. I know, what haven't we seen? and bush has seen them and

no higher rank heads have rolled.

[Nothing Without Hope]

59. ***3 threads from earlier stage of this revelation of new photos - LINKS:

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=364x413946
thread title (2-14-06 GD): 60 Previously Unpublished Photos From Abu Ghraib To be Broadcast
Comment/excerpt: “Tonight the SBS Dateline program plans to broadcast about 60 previously unpublished photographs that the US Government has been fighting to keep secret in a court case with the American Civil Liberties Union.”

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=102x2109108
thread title (2-14-06 LBN): The photos America doesn't want seen (60 new Abu Ghraib pics, Aussie TV)
Comment/excerpt: “Some of the photos are similar to those published in 2004, others are different. They include photographs of six corpses, although the circumstances of their deaths are not clear. There are also pictures of what appear to be burns and wounds from shotgun pellets.”

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=364x424489
thread title (2-14-06 GD): feature prisoners in sexually humiliating acts that are deemed too graphic
Comment/excerpt: “Executive producer Mike Carey says Dateline obtained a file of hundreds of pictures, some that have been seen before and others that show new abuses.”

[Harper_is_Bush]

57. Why don't they publish it all?

Without every last sordid image and video we can't appreciate the full extent of this story.

[entanglement]

60. K & R

:kick:

[Poll_Blind]

63. K&R! n/t

PB