Times of India: Iraqi torture pics shock world

[NewHampshireDem]

http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/articleshow/651464.cms

<snip>
Arab television stations led their newscasts on Friday with photographs of Iraqi prisoners being humiliated by US military police, with Al-Jazeera saying the pictures were evidence of the "immoral practices" of American forces.

<snip>

The images were potentially inflammatory in an Arab world already angry at the US occupation of Iraq. Arabs consider public nudity as dishonorable.

Saudi Arabia's English-language Arab News daily said: "The greatest loss the Americans face is to their reputation, not simply in the Middle East but in the world at large. US military power will be seen for what it is, a behemoth with the response speed of a muscle-bound ox and the limited understanding of a mouse."

<snip>

Amnesty International said: "There is a real crisis of leadership in Iraq with double standards and double speak on human rights. This is not an isolated incident. Detainees have reported being routinely subjected to cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment during arrest and detention.

"The prison was notorious under Saddam Hussein -- it should not be allowed to become so again," said the human rights pressure group.

<more>

[mouse7]

1. Hey... what do they mean "limited understanding of a mouse?"

Cut that out. I take that personally.

[saigon68]

32. I have a few in my shed

Fine grain eating animals. My cat however doesn't share my opinion and from what I know mice--- are pretty bright LOL

[The_Casual_Observer]

2. The prison was notorious under Saddam Hussein

So far they have recycled the palaces as palaces, the prisons as prisons and now Saddam's military as the police. So what has changed?
No more statues of Saddam I guess.

[Canuckistanian]

3. Rape rooms indeed.

Can you say 'hypocrisy', boys and girls? Sure. I knew you could.

[frankieT]

4. good observation

Mr Observer (and nice avatar)

[NewHampshireDem]

5. Yeah ...

All I could think of was *'s quote--today no less--that the invasion shut down the torture chambers and rape rooms. How he could say that with a straight face is beyond me ... the man has no soul.

[kwyjibo]

6. don't misunderestimate the power of denial

especially on the conservative side.

[Iceburg]

14. Just a "change of management" and nothing more

[yardwork]

21. The only change is who has the money.

Before, Saddam and his buddies had the oil money. Now, Chimpy, Cheney, and their friends have the money. Otherwise, business continues as usual, except there are more bombings under the new regime, and less infrastructure.

[WillParkinson]

7. Did anyone see these pictures?

I just read the article and it sounded very similar to the British soldiers who took pictures and then tried to get them developed at home.

This story sounds very familiar. Or maybe it's just my imagination.

[pebbles1]

8. can we have our jobs back

please

[htuttle]

10. Nope

Finders keepers.

[DrWeird]

9. I've been wondering how this is going over overseas.

Has anybody heard/know about how this is playing? There were several countries already considering pulling out of Iraq, like Guatemala and Poland. And this was before the photos got out.

As there been any talk in the British Parliament?

[NewHampshireDem]

12. Go to google news

http://news.google.com/news?hl=en&edition=us&ie=ascii&q=iraqi+torture&btnG=Search+News

You'll find many international papers there ...

You could also visit http://www.world-newspapers.com/

[yardwork]

23. Interesting to bring up Guatamala....

American troops taught similar behavior during our war in Guatamala in the 1980s under Reagan-Bush. Now we have Guatemalan mercenaries working for us in Iraq.

edit for spelling.

[Tinoire]

11. Expect more of these pictures to surface / BAD news from Arab world

((with thanks to Chookie))

<snip>

The real facts are that there is report after report of US abuses; on the internet, in the back pages of our newspapers, in personal accounts that with a little luck will now make their way to mainstream press. This is not an isolated few – this is business as usual for the US military and their collaborating band of thugs in Iraq. Is it any wonder that bodies of US soldiers who fall into Iraqi hands are mutilated and displayed?

The pictures of US soldiers dishonoring Iraqi detainees came as no surprise to JUS (Jihad Unspun). We have been reporting alleged abuses since shortly after the fall of Baghdad. We received several reports over the past months of US soldiers raping Iraqi woman, only to find these photos posted to US porn sites. While these photos and reports were put down to “loose” Iraqi women (which shows a fundamental understanding of Iraq’s religion and culture) we discovered later that those who were detained, some at Abu Ghraib prison, who refused to provide US officials with intelligence where given a prod to garner “cooperation” by rounding up the female relatives, forcing then into sexual acts that were filmed and then shown to their husbands, fathers and brothers and to the general public through porn sites. Now the CBS 60 Minutes II report legitimizes the incidents we have been reporting all along.

The Arab world is outrage. The Muslim Ummah is outraged. Iraqis are outraged and so are people of conscience everywhere. I pity the next soldiers that fall into Resistance hands. And contrary to its belief – America can be defeated and most likely will be defeated and dangled at the end of its own pathetic rope for all the world to see.

http://www.jihadunspun.com/intheatre_internal.php?article=2811&list=/home.php&

[saigon68]

13. THIS IS HOW THE REPUKES ARE SPINNING IT

http://www.reuters.com/newsArticle.jhtml?type=domesticNews&storyID=5004215§ion=news

In contrast to media outlets in Europe and parts of the Middle East, where photographs of reported torture of Iraqi prisoners by U.S. forces were prominently displayed and decried, newspapers in the United States featured the images of the fallen -- which carried their own controversy.

This shows U.S. newspaper editors understand what kind of war coverage interests American readers, according to David D. Perlmutter, a historian of war and media at Louisiana State University in Baton Rouge.

"The torture pictures are absolutely irrelevant," Perlmutter said in a telephone interview. "Americans care about American soldiers, and only journalistic and political and academic elites fret about pictures of collateral damage ...

"If you start talking to the public, you'll find people sympathizing with the soldiers," he said.

[Tinoire]

16. Ah.... Now we understand why the Air Force SUDDENLY

released 631 photos of US caskets. :mad:

[Athame]

22. You hit that nail on the head

I had been trying to figure it out. This has obviously been brewing a while. Also, note that the 60 Minutes show was the night before shrub* and dick invited the 9-11 commission to the WH for tea. Pretty cynical of me, I know, but when I heard Dan Rather say that they had been sitting on the pictures for a while and the administration had just agreed to cooperate, I wondered why. Seems they thought the torture pix were less damaging than the 9-11 visit.

I sometimes wish I believed in hell...

[Tinoire]

34. I do. I do believe in hell...

Yesterday we were already realizing something stunk to high heaven. After everything we're finding out today... I am happy to believe in hell. When you have Rabbi Hertberg, former head of the former president of the American Jewish Congress, and former vice president of the World Jewish Congress, saying that Bush and Sharon are going to fry in hell for what they've done, you can only hope!

Excerpts from interview: On Bush and Sharon:

Both of them will fry in hell for what they did yesterday. And I want you to quote me on "fry in hell," because what they have done is that they have permanently put the United States at war with the Arab world. They have left no negotiating room. The only tactic that Arabs have left is to send in more suicide bombers.

<snip>

These people are essentially mindless bullies. It's not merely that they're bad for Arabs, or bad for America. They are also bad for Jews. They are involving us in a permanent war with the Arab world. They are making it much worse.

<snip>

http://www.larouchepub.com/other/interviews/2004/3116arthur_hertzberg.html

[seemslikeadream]

30. And why the coverage of the dead soldiers

on TV tonight

[ithacan]

17. So it's okay for Americans to torture but not Saddam??

Americans are sympathizing with the torturers, not the tortured?

That's what this guy is saying.

I think he may be right. These photos are a perfect image of what the US does to the world all the time, and the fact that the vast number of Americans don't give a shit about that damage, caring only about themselves.

This country is doomed.

[DrWeird]

19. How they spun it on CNN this morning...

President Bush said today that he was disgusted with the pictures of Iraqi detainees.

Media networks in Arab countries are showing the pictures of the alleged torture. But they probably won't discuss how President Bush says he was disgusted. So that shows you how the media works in those countries.

[yardwork]

29. What's to discuss?

The American president is responsible for these atrocities, whether he says that he is disgusted or not. We invaded Iraq under false pretenses. There are no weapons of mass destruction. Saddam had no connection to 9/11. We invaded Iraq because Dick Cheney wanted to get lucrative deals for this companies.

When the lies about WMD and 9/11 connections were revealed, this administration fell back on the argument that we were "freeing" the Iraqi people, that we were giving them democracy.

This is democracy? American troops shut down their newspapers and shoot them in their homes, streets, hospitals, and houses of worship.

We did this. We invaded Iraq. We occupy Iraq. For no good reason. As the commander in chief, Bush is responsible for every single death, every single wound, every single atrocity.

[Tinoire]

35. They have no shame. What whores. Real whores.

with no disrespect meant to honest women who make their living that way.

[Just Me]

20. Goebbels secret brother, I guess.

That's the only explanation I can come up with on this wacko, Perlmutter. This guy scares the shit out of me.

[yardwork]

25. Wrong. This guy is totally wrong.

I remember the pictures of My Lai. Anyone alive at the time remembers the impact that those photos had on the American public.

And many, many thanks to photographers like you, Saigon68, who made sure that the world saw some of what was happening.

Nobody can justify this other than sociopaths. Perlmutter is spinning like mad - note his mocking comment about "journalistic and political and academic elites" who "fret" about pictures of "collateral damage."

Bullshit. Americans know atrocities when they see them.

[htuttle]

15. I remember seeing some of those other pictures last year

There was one showing two soldiers apparently raping an Iraqi woman outside.

At the time, it seemed that many (here and elsewhere) found this 'unthinkable', and declared them to be fakes.

Guess not, huh?

[leftchick]

24. Was that the one with...

The soldier having the woman perform oral sex? I don't remember any others.

[htuttle]

26. That's the one

I also have a vague memory of something similar from Afghanistan, but I might be thinking of the same picture.

[Xithras]

33. Those WERE fakes

They were originally created by a company in Florida and were spammed across the Internet as an attempt to "cash in" on the war. Anything goes for a buck with some people.

[htuttle]

37. They may have been, but I'll tell you what...

After these photos showed up, I bet most people outside the US will assume that every rumor they'd ever heard about the treatment of prisoners by the US is true.

In other words, as far as most of the rest of the world is concerned, as of this week those earlier photos were true, even if they were fakes.

[Just Me]

18. The freon neocons are COMPLETELY responsible for this crisis!!!

Along with their so-called "base" of corporatists, fundamentalists and neo-nazis. Can't we ship them all off to the Middle East armoured with sticks and stones and make them fight this freakin' war they were all salivating over?

[54anickel]

27. This part makes me want to puke. You'd THINK we could hold ourselves

to higher standards than simply a smaller number of cases than Saddam. What an absolutley sickening argument in an attempt to defend these actions. And for this to be the stance of the person who claims to have brought it to the maladmin in the first place - WTF? :puke:

Clwyd said she had taken up the treatment of detainees at Abu Ghraib with officials in President George W. Bush's administration, but said they had denied there was a problem.

"I was told by a very senior person there 'We don't do this kind of thing,''' said Clwyd, a Labour MP. "Clearly the people in charge did not know this was going on."

Clwyd, however, rejected comparisons between the US treatment of prisoners and the actions of former dictator Saddam Hussein's regime.

"A small number of cases, horrible though they are, you cannot compare that with the tens of thousands of people Saddam Hussein was responsible for executing and torturing," she said.

[yardwork]

28. Not only is her comment morally bankrupt, it's not even factual.

American troops are responsible for the deaths of tens of thousands of Iraqi men, women, and children.

If bombing children's homes then killing those same wounded, refugee children as they arrive in Baghdad isn't torture, I don't know what is. We're killing them in their homes, in their streets, in their mosques. We're bombing their hospitals.

We're raping and torturing them. And the mercenaries we've hired to do these things are being treated as if they are immune from international law and oversight by our own military!

My God, what evil have we unleashed?

[54anickel]

31. Excellent point! Now I'll need to purge the rest of my lunch. n/t

[Tinoire]

36. We? WE did not unleash this. We fought this with every breath we had

took to the streets, faxed, phoned, prayed, pleaded, threatened/promised not to vote with people who enabled this.

That was "WE".

"WE" are innocent victims of right-wing madness.

"WE" are also the innocent victims of the DLC's collaboration with the Neo-cons & neo-liberals on this.

You my friend are one of the good guys. You didn't unleash this genie.

[saigon68]

38. I marched with these guys once

We are all still friends

I came here about the time this was heating up in 2002

A number of US called this Clusterfuck IRAQ-NAM in Feb 2003

I'm in many ways ashamed I was right. I take no pleasure in having forecast this-- nor credit either, because any sane person could have done the same thing

[Tinoire]

39. Cool. They are great guys

I don't know that particular group. I'm VFP.

Peace

[anarchy1999]

40. I have never been so sick in all of my life. I am just so sorry.

n/t

[NewHampshireDem]

41. What is going to be the fallout if ...

* wins in November? I predict its going to be shit that makes 9-11 look like a fucking Sunday school picnic ... and probably WWIII to follow.

[cliss]

42. Someone on Air America radio said today,

"The only difference between Saddam and Bush is a mustache".

The absolute worst part of this whole story is that this happened A YEAR AGO. Scott McClellan, Bush's press secretary said today, "Bush has known about this for quite some time".

So this is the same man who wanted "massive punishment" in Fallujah after the deaths of the mercenaries. And all this time, he's known what's been going on in the prisons.

This is not a man. This is a subhuman beast.