New pics show Brit troops allegedly torturing POWs (link added)

[sjdnb]

Breaking on BBCNews website
http://news.bbc.co.uk/

Link http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk_politics/3675215.stm

[tinnypriv]

1. See

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=102x521858

[Eye and Monkey]

13. Not "See" - Pee.

Sick.

[Dookus]

2. where?

I don't see any such headline...

[Gold Metal Flake]

3. I don't see it. I see the story on the US torture report...

...Did I miss the link?

[happyending]

5. maybe so

try here

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk_politics/3675215.stm

You'll see a photo of a crouching guy with a bag on his head.
A soldier is pissing on him.

[DrWeird]

4. So what's this going to do to Mr. Blair?

Any UK DUers care to comment?

[LondonAmerican]

20. A military of soccer louts and drunken yob trash

I'm in the UK. Here's another link: http://www.sky.com/skynews/article/0,,30100-13075721,00.html

It's clear that it wasn't just the US who's been doing this kind of sh*t. The UK is complicitous as well. What's interesting is the fact that some of the soldiers in the regiment brought it to light and they did so because they said this pattern explained the resistance that UK and US tropps have been facing on the ground. No wonder... since it is highly unlikely that this is an isolated case!

As an American living in London, it was extremely annoying over teh course of teh past year to hear Brits wittering on and on about how much better they are at handling teh 'natives' tahn the brutish Americans -- another example of their old imperial midset that has lived on past the loss of their empire. At least now they can't go on about that any more and pretend to be 'better' imperialists...

This kind of behaviour on the part of their soldiers should come as no surprise to anyone who has run across british soccer louts or drunken yobs in the street -- and the military recuruits from exacly that mileu.

No wonder the Iraqis are fighting back.

[DrWeird]

23. Is that the general public opinion?

Boys will be boys?

[LondonAmerican]

26. I don't think so

and I hope that wasn't the sense in which my post was taken. 'Soccer louts and drunken yob trash' doesn't conjure up for me the image of innocent laddishness implied by 'boys will be boys.'

No, I think people here will be deeply embarassed -- certainly already in the press and the bbc the reaction is one of shame.

[maddezmom]

29. they should be embarrassed...they payed off a family

http://news.independent.co.uk/uk/politics/story.jsp?story=517063

[TNOE]

6. War is great ain't it????

sarcasm off -

When are people going to get that war is barbaric - and for animals and much lesser intelligent humans????????????????????????????? If we have not evolved further than this in the past what 3,000 years, is there no hope for us?

[LondonAmerican]

33. Well we haven't evolved

People know that war is 'barbaric' but that doesn't stop them from liking it. That's clear. People are animals -- always have been and always will be. There's nothing that gets the masses as hopped up as buring down their next door neighbor's house, stealing their goods and then claiming to be justified.

That's how it's always been and the 20th century is proof positive if any were needed. Millions on top of millions of people killed because of ideologies that talked about liberation and dignity -- whether those ideologies were communist, fascist, nazi, nationalist or managed-capitalist.

What's needed is to recognise that civilisation is a very thin veneer on top of an acquisitive, aggressive animal nature and that it needs to be protected. Politicians who stir people up to kill or steal are the scum of the earth because they know they are pandering to the absolute worst instincts that are in all of us.

[Tinoire]

7. Well... I guess it's now Bush's turn to say he's "shocked"

or whatever it was Blair said about the US pics.

[Dookus]

8. well

let's start prosecuting these people QUICKLY and PUBLICLY.

The only way to stop it is for soldiers to see their colleagues going to Leavenworth for 20 years.

[DoYouEverWonder]

9. Let's prosecute their Commander in Chief first

This is something that not only did he have to know about, but that he also condoned.

[Dookus]

11. Nonsense

You think Bush knows what every soldier is doing at any given time? You think somebody asked him "Is it OK to strip Iraqi prisoners naked, humiliate them and film it?" and he said "Sure!"?

I don't. I hate Bush as much as anyone, but I think it's ridiculous to presume that he condoned this, for the simple reason that it's an absolutely HORRIFIC thing to have happened to him personally and the war effort.

[2Design]

21. taking prisoners to undisclose locations or locations outside usa

When they took people from Afganistan, they took them to places outside the usa so they could interogate them....there were news stories on that.....

that is condoning using methods that would be unacceptable on usa soil.

[Dookus]

25. which has nothing to do with

the photographs in this instance.

[Tatiana]

35. I'm going to disagree with you Dookus.

I believe Bush condoned the torturing of captured Iraqis. Day-to-day management of the prisons was done by civilian contractors. Our soldiers took orders from civilian employees. Did Bush know of the exact form of tortured being employed by US/British forces in Iraq? Likely not. But there is a reason civilian contractors were given the job of managing the prison facilities instead of military personnel. Remember the debate some time ago whether torture should be allowed in order to gain intelligence? These instances in Iraq bear some similarity to operating procedure in Guantanamo.

I believe Rumsfeld, et. al thought they would gain some intelligence through torturing the prisoners. These aren't isolated incidents. This has been going on for some time, and as we now see, this is what is fueling the resistance and causing the Iraqis to fight back even harder. This is why the U.S. turned over Fallujah to the same people we supposedly came to topple. They needed a force to get even nastier than they were to crush the resistance.

This yet another example of the back-asswards thinking of the Bush administration. They still believe there are WMDs in Iraq. They still believe there is an Al-Quaeda/Iraq connection and I believe torture was authorized in order to gain "proof" that the neo-cons were right about their moronic assertions. I think it was left up to the contractors and personnel in Iraq as to what torture would be employed.

[saigon68]

10. Start Here

[DoYouEverWonder]

14. In the past, that would have been the place to start

but at the end of last year, Bu$h took direct control of the war in Iraq away from the Pentagon and put Condi in charge of it. Therefore, I believe that would make the WH directly responsible?

[TeeYiYi]

30. This whole fucking thing . . .

. . . is so fucking revolting :grr: I hope their whole fucking :grr: transparent house of fucking revolting cards comes tumbling down to fucking :grr: crush all of them. :grr:

TYY :argh: Motherfuckers. :grr: :grr: :grr:

eofr

[maddezmom]

12. the Brits have known about the abuse for over a year

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=102x520934

And like the US, only is coming clean because the media outted them.

[NJCher]

15. lead story on BBC Evening News

Cher

[phrenzy]

16. These Motherfuckers

These pieces of shit should be tried IN IRAQ by IRAQIS.

[Tinoire]

17. AMEN! n/t

[nadinbrzezinski]

18. I want their commanders to face the music as well

in military courts and let them rot in jail.

Or if not in military courts at the International Court

[54anickel]

28. Question on the International Court -

Is this true? :shrug:

Washington anticipated and prepared in advance for the war crimes now being committed against the Iraqi people. No criminal charges can be brought against a US soldier in Iraq because the puppet Iraqi Governing Council has given the American military a blanket amnesty from prosecution. Secondly, with the backing of Germany and a number of other countries, no US soldier or citizen can be prosecuted for war crimes in the International Criminal Court.


source: http://www.khilafah.com/home/category.php?DocumentID=9440&TagID=2

[FreakinDJ]

19. Most disturbing of all

After being beaten and urinated on, he was driven away and dumped from the back of a moving vehicle, the soldiers claimed.

They added they did not know whether he survived.

Maybe they need to add murder charges .......

The reason for making the photos public was, they said, to show why the US-UK coalition was encountering such fierce resistance in Iraq.

That is right ... We caused the resistence

[truth2power]

22. Ahem.......

"As the graphic pictures were beamed across the world, US President George W Bush vowed that those responsible would be "taken care of"."

Excuse me... but didn't the chimpster use those exact words in regard to, I think it was the Plame investigation. Anyway, he went before the press all shocked and everything and said those responsible would "be taken care of." Of course that was code for "We'll make sure they get a bonus in their next paycheck."

Yeah...don't hold your breath for anyone to be brought up on charges.

[maddezmom]

24. just like his NG files were "taken care of"

"poof" they're gone...no more problems.

[maddezmom]

27. more details - Ministry of Defence admitted to paying £8,100

~snip~

At least five cases of mistreatment of Iraqi prisoners by British soldiers are believed to have been investigated by the Royal Military Police.

Two months ago, the Ministry of Defence admitted to paying £8,100 to the families of three men who died in British custody but denied an admission that abuse had happened. The family of one of the men, Baha Dawud al-Maliki, claimed he had died due to internal injuries after his arrest by members of the Queen's Lancashire Regiment at the Ibn al-Haytham Hotel in Basra in September.

In addition to the September incident, the British Army is investigating the deaths of two men detained by the Black Watch during a search operation near Basra in May. One of the men, Abd al-Jabbar Mossa, 53, was said to have died of heart failure soon after his arrest. His family claimed he was hit on the head while being detained. The second, Rathy Namma, was said to have suffered a heart attack.

In a third incident, a trooper from the Royal Regiment of Fusiliers was alleged to have been found with photographs of an Iraqi PoW hanging from netting on a forklift truck driven by a British soldier. Other photographs show prisoners being forced to simulate sex acts.
http://news.independent.co.uk/uk/politics/story.jsp?story=517063

[maddezmom]

31. kick

[seemslikeadream]

32. I knew this story was here

couldn't find it a minute ago

[fedsron2us]

34. These troops probably learnt how to be abusers ......

long before the invasion of Iraq

http://www.warchildren.org/young_guns.html

The British army for far too long has tolerated a culture in which bullying, ritual humiliation and sexual harassment is rife. It is known that some units are reluctant to go on exercises with other regiments because they have a habit of torturing prisoners. If they do these things to each other at home it is not suprising that they repeat this behaviour when they are in a war zone. I expect we will hear the usual platitudes from the politicians and generals about a few "bad apples" etc. It will all be bullshit. The behaviour arises from the way the army is organised and managed as an institution. It is an inevitable by product of the way the soldiers are trained.