NWS!!New Abuse/Torture Photos from Iraq Possible NWS links.

[chomerics]

Originally posted by Brown 43

Before anyone jumps the gun with this, read below. This is most likely what happened. It's long but informative, it is also from Newsmax and I know some of you Libs out there will mention that! I believe Newsmax more than some of these Islamic sites out there!

ANY justification of what went on is just as bad as doing the action themselves. This is NOT a political debate, this is on morality and humane treatment for individuals, and to try to spin it as a media fed political event is just as atrocious. It's not suprising this came from Newsmax, just as it's not suprising Rush said the soldiers were just blowing off steam. Those defending the actions as interrogation techniques and trying to put a liberal media spin on these horrible and deplorable actions are just as bad as the soldiers who commited the crimes against humanity.

What will Newsmax say when the Taguba report is released? They'll try to discredit those involved as liberal loving commies, and they'll somehow put the blame on Clinton.

As far as Rumsfeld, he stood up and took his medicine like a man, but he is to blame. He is the person who denied prisioners of war would be given rights by the Geneva Convention and thus he removed a third party oversight from Abu Ghriab. The chain of command was violated under his watch, and although he was not initially aware this hapened, he should have been. Should he resign or be fired? That's not up to me, but i can't forsee him having the ability to run a military after the chain failed so miserably under his watch.

Also, comparing Waco this is just about as far fetched as you can get. They were a group of religious fanatics that comitted suicide and torched themselves, but we NEVER raped, tortured or beat any them. It did go horribly wrong, but we didn't plan for it to happen, unlike these events.

[Art]

Every legitimate picture I've seen of the Iraqi prisoner issue in Iraq certainly strikes me, as it does with all of you, as disgusting and disturbing. There's no question what we're seeing in the pictures we KNOW are factual are things our eyes do not like to see.

However, something else strikes me as well. The valid photos of the naked poses and various things of that sort strike me as something meant not to cause harm. I am of the mind that this was ordered and fairly standard behavior for the worst batch of criminals. Without beating them or causing them any actual damage, these prisoners suffered extreme humiliation.

I wonder how much, if any, info came out of this.

The reason I broach this here is because I want to pose this question. After seeing these pictures, my guess is 90 percent PLUS of Americans would say this is atrocious and totally unacceptable. Now, imagine these pictures do not exist. That the only thing we know of is that we stripped prisoners naked, made them simulate sexual poses, threatened to shoot them or beat them or electrocute them, but never did, merely used extreme intimidation and humiliation to extract information, what percentage of Americans would be find that unacceptable and atrocious?

I bring this up because many of us watch 24, where you see the great Jack Bauer torturing people to get what he wants, and we cheer him on as a hero. We'll watch Man on Fire and WANT Denzel to hurt the bad guys. These are fictional so our minds allow ourselves to cheer on the good guys over the bad guys even when the good guys do bad things.

Some of you don't like it, but many do.

What if you were to find out tomorrow that we caught Bin Laden and we were beating the holy hell out of him, causing him actual physical torture, to get what we want out of him? I'm guessing 90 percent of you would be completely pleased with that. Yet, if exposed to photos of the beatings, I imagine the tide would turn.

As disturbing as I find the legitimate pictures of the abuse of prisoners to be, I still find myself wondering if we got anything out of it and if these were really bad guys, if subjecting them to a little humiliation is all that bad a thing?

I realize there will also be other types of torture we'll know happened in this war. Rape certainly, though these photos here are fake from first glance and appeared to be porn site stuff just at a glance. Still, we know there have been rapes committed during this conflict. We know there will have been torture too extending beyond mental stuff and going to physical.

All of that will certainly add to this scandal. Yet, if we're to ever find out that the guys pictured were really bad guys who had information that such treatment -- mind you, treatment that the pictures don't suggest caused any actual physical harm, just embarrassment and humiliation -- garnered us information to save our troops, would you be against it?

Without the pictures, if you knew that stuff was going on and was actually helping us save lives of our soldiers and civilians in the area, would you really find it apalling? Or would you be glad Jack Bauer got the information he needed?

I ask simply because I think having the photos makes this "real" to the extent that we are all, rightfully, shocked and angered that it happened. But, upon reflection, I wonder how many of you would find it as terrible if you discovered it was done as a psycological method of loosening up prisoners designed to cause them NO pain, but designed to cause the men pictured -- Arab men in a very different culture -- the sort of embarrassment and humiliation that may be more effective against this culture than actual physical beatings.

I don't know if this behavior was ordered by higher ups and designed to produce talkative prisoners or not. My guess is given the pictures seem to depict little more than extreme humiliation rather than beatings to this point, that it might have been a tactic by at least a portion of the military to extract information.

If I ever discover it produced information that saved lives, I'll probably still be disturbed by what I'm seeing in these photos, but, I'll almost certainly be glad we did it. Go Jack.

[chomerics]

Art, I understand your viewpoint, and if it was just a couple of morons undressing Iraqis for fag pictures, I wouldn't be as vehemently opposed to the situation. Because of the other things, and the initial reporst coming out that there were severe beatings, rape and death, I feel extremely discouraged by our tactics. The CIA and Intel has to understand what it takes to get information out of people, and most often, ritiual torturing brings out more false information than good intel. People will usually end up saying what they think their captors want to hear just to stop the torture.

With that being said, the pictures didn't squelsh any animosity by any means, but I do think they were instumental in bringing the situation to light, so in some bizzare perverted way, they were a good thing. As for methods of extracting information out of detainees, there are other methods to use, and beating someone to death to extract information, no matter how vital, is morally wrong on so many different levels. I have no problem with things such as "truth serum" and other mental forms of interrogation, but when the severe beatings and humiliating acts are used as a form of interrogation, it's called torture and it's wrong. The Geneva Convention was put into effect to ensure crap like this doesn't happen and when we purposely state that we won't be following it and things like this come out, it shakes the whole military from the ground floor.

[webnarc]

Pissing on someone, stacking naked men five high, pointing at the genital area while smoking a butt are an unusual means to an end.

No, the smile on Lynndie England's face says these were trophy photos.

It's wrong, that's all, it doesn't matter what good came out of it, it's wrong.

[funnyperson1]

Originally posted by DCogan1820 saved my baby

I'm not going to work until 8. What is it a pic of?

Rape.

[VMAN911]

SOME OF THE WEAPONS THE GI IS HOLDING IS NOT US ISSUED AND THE UNIFORMS SOME OF THE SOLDIERS ARE WEARING APPEARS TO BE BRITISH OR SPANISH

[webnarc]

Originally posted by VMAN911

SOME OF THE WEAPONS THE GI IS HOLDING IS NOT US ISSUED AND THE UNIFORMS SOME OF THE SOLDIERS ARE WEARING APPEARS TO BE BRITISH OR SPANISH

The photos showing Lynndie England are of an American soldier.

[Art]

Originally posted by webnarc

Pissing on someone, stacking naked men five high, pointing at the genital area while smoking a butt are an unusual means to an end.

No, the smile on Lynndie England's face says these were trophy photos.

It's wrong, that's all, it doesn't matter what good came out of it, it's wrong.

Maybe so, Narc, but that still doesn't mean this wasn't ordered behavior designed to extract information. It may be that the soldiers wanted souveniers of what they were doing as well. Or, if this was designed behavior, it could be that the photos were taken to later show the prisoner during interrogation while making suggestions like, "What would your family think of this?"

This is a macho, male-driven society. Such photos would have a tremendous impact on the men of this society. Especially with a WOMAN taking part in many. I don't know how unusual the means to an end are to be totally honest. It simply could be that it was a handful of soldiers doing something completely on their own and they wanted to remember it.

It may have been done -- as many of us suspect -- simply as "fun" for them though it wouldn't be something fun for most. And if this is the case, the pictures and the behavior takes on an entirely different aspect. They are every bit as digusting and horrible as we believe they are if this is essentially a bunch of juveniles out there having fun with people with no end game at all.

It's the end that I wonder about if it is something more than a handful of soldiers and instead is something of a policy adopted by some segment of intelligence that felt it would be an effective way to get information. I have NO idea if that's the case and we are certainly presenting this as a rogue group of soldiers. I just wonder if that's the case. I think knowing what the end was really matters here.

I think knowing the end was just six or seven people being jerks makes it worse to consider than knowing the end was six or seven people carrying out psyops in an effort to gather information from very bad people.

Back to the television reference. In Season 1 of the Shield, which is the greatest show on television, a child molestor had a kid and wouldn't reveal where that kid was. The star of the show was sent into the room with a telephone book, alcohol and a knife and he beat a confession out of the guy though little was shown of it. Yet the girl was saved.

I was glad it was done.

Would you be? Would you be glad a little girl was saved if it meant a cop beat the prisoner so harshly he informed of her location? I think a majority of people would be all to forgiving of such a story if they were told it. And in the end, it is THAT end that I think will matter here. If the American public is shown lives saved from this sort of behavior, it might become something of that which you shake your head at when discussing at a party, but something you pump your fist at when thinking of it alone.

Right now it is just something you shake your head at. Without an end that seems to justify this behavior, it will remain that way. But to most, the end does justify the means, and in this case, the end seems to be juvenile behavior inspired by nothing more than little people on power trips. That makes it worse in my view.

It could also be better given a certain change in why we think this happened.

[Hooper]

Yeah, but in the Shield, neither Vic Mackey or his strike team took pictures of his interrogation techniques. If for nothing else, the offending soldiers should be jailed for stupidity.

[webnarc]

Originally posted by Art

Maybe so, Narc, but that still doesn't mean this wasn't ordered behavior designed to extract information. It may be that the soldiers wanted souveniers of what they were doing as well. Or, if this was designed behavior, it could be that the photos were taken to later show the prisoner during interrogation while making suggestions like, "What would your family think of this?"

...

It may have been done -- as many of us suspect -- simply as "fun" for them though it wouldn't be something fun for most. And if this is the case, the pictures and the behavior takes on an entirely different aspect. They are every bit as digusting and horrible as we believe they are if this is essentially a bunch of juveniles out there having fun with people with no end game at all. ...

The behavior is wrong. Up until now I had only considered the little people on a power trip reason, but your suggestion that this type of abuse is the mandate in the war plan does raise the bar considerably.

How far do you think it goes to the top? Does it stop at Rumsfeld or Dick? Do you think George approves of torturing prisoners?

Either way it's wrong Art. The choices aren't really that great. Is it scum on the bottom acting as individuals or is it scum at the top directing the collective?

[Art]

Narc,

My suggestion isn't, at all, that this type of abuse is the mandate in war. My suggest is it MAY be possible that this type of abuse -- abuse strictly designed to be humiliating and embarrassing rather than physically destructive -- could have been designed specifically to target certain types of prisoners for information, and it was designed so, specifically for this case as an extraction tool, rather than simply a circumstance of war. If we're right that this was just about stupid soldiers thinking they were having fun and taking pictures of it, that would be a circumstance of war.

At this moment in time we don't really know who the prisoners are. They could be guys who got busted for looting wood. Or they could be guys caught guarding houses with bomb-making gear in them. The point I was attempting to make is, if every prisoner in those photos were KNOWN to be killers or rapists or child molesting perverts, or ANYTHING else you would deem MORE horrible in nature than what was done to them, is what was done to them suddenly something less atrocious?

Right now we only know of the abuse. We don't know the why in terms of whether the people abused specifically were the types to provide life-saving information once humiliated enough to talk, or the why in terms of these people just being the total scum of the earth that the acts against them suddenly seem almost mild in comparison.

Depending on the why, this may be seen in a very different light. Personally, I'm not sure I could work up any real outrage if the "scum" at the top were to order these types of non-harmful (physically at least ) acts in order to extract valuable, life-saving information.

I doubt the direction comes from very high up, though I wouldn't be surprised if the direction of, "Do what it takes," has been mentioned from very high up, if this is indeed the case. If a SINGLE American life happened to have been saved due to the embarrassing, humiliating treatment given these prisoners, one could argue it was worth it.

Again, I don't know if this is the case and I suspect it was simply a case of very stupid people doing very stupid things. That "why" of it causes the most discomfort with what happened. I can think of several things in answer to why that would probably not make me blink at it.

I don't know if we'll ever get that answer, but, if we do, I'd be interested to see how it turns out.

[Art]

Originally posted by Hooper

Yeah, but in the Shield, neither Vic Mackey or his strike team took pictures of his interrogation techniques. If for nothing else, the offending soldiers should be jailed for stupidity.

Hooper,

That's beside the point chief. You know what I'm talking about. You know, as I do, that when Vic went in there, you wanted that prisoner to pay. To suffer. And you know, as I do, that the rescue of the little girl was worth what was done to the prisoner in this fictional event.

Had Vic taken photos as a trinket, it would be sadistic, but would it really alter the fundamental GOOD you felt? Further, we still have the possible, though merely speculative theory that pictures were MORE than just the soldiers taking trinkets of their bad behavior. We have the theory that the photos may have been used during interrogations to remind the prisoners of what they went through, show them visual evidence, and threaten to send it to their families in an effort to get them to give up valuable information.

Again, that may not make it better. But it may be a possibility that makes it different.

[Brown 43]

Also, the photo's of the girl with the cigarette look fake!

[webnarc]

Art,

It goes one of two ways. One, young untrained amateur soldiers got their trophy shots because there is little or no leadership over there; most likely given that the photo were taken by soldiers. Two, they were acting based on orders.

Regardless, it's a failure of leadership. I have a problem with that and I am not surprised by it. What does surprise me are your words. Specifically:

"I'm not sure I could work up any real outrage if the "scum" at the top were to order these types of non-harmful (physically at least ) acts in order to extract valuable, life-saving information."

"I doubt the direction comes from very high up, though I wouldn't be surprised if the direction of, "Do what it takes," has been mentioned from very high up, if this is indeed the case. If a SINGLE American life happened to have been saved due to the embarrassing, humiliating treatment given these prisoners, one could argue it was worth it."

That's a huge loop hole to justify abuse - "we're just trying to save American lives". That trumps everything, even logic or thinking and you should be concerned about that. This war has done a lot of different things in the name of saving American lives, but many of these things are speculative and were incorrect. What surprises me is not that you would suggest this but that you may actually believe it.

[Prosperity]

Art don't you think it is a little disturbing that you are coming up with theories that have no backing to them what so ever? Just to try and make the soldiers look a little better (and make yourself feel better); maybe if there was any evidence to point out that it was an intelligence gathering tactic that would be a reasonable argument to make, but from what we can tell they were just trophy photos taken by a few sadistic prison guards.

[webnarc]

Originally posted by Brown 43

Also, the photo's of the girl with the cigarette look fake!

That's Lynndie England, her sister is claiming that she was just following orders ( http://www.cnn.com/2004/US/South/05/07/abuse.family.reax/index.html ).

The cigarette may be fake though.

[Prosperity]

Yet she doesn't say who ordered her to...

[twa]

What I have trouble with is why take pictures or video.Are you going to show your friends to showhow tough u r.There have always been abuses of power yet these freaks wish to preserve these acts to brag to others or relive.

[AJWatson3]

i thought being in the military was about taking orders? so she was doing her job, right?

and i don't know what is up with the cameras too. if you are going to **** up and don't want people to know about it, why document it? makes it sound less like these were just "getting them ready for interrogation" techniques and actually just humiliating them.

[Art]

Originally posted by Liberty

Art don't you think it is a little disturbing that you are coming up with theories that have no backing to them what so ever? Just to try and make the soldiers look a little better (and make yourself feel better); maybe if there was any evidence to point out that it was an intelligence gathering tactic that would be a reasonable argument to make, but from what we can tell they were just trophy photos taken by a few sadistic prison guards.

Liberty,

I think you've not paid close enough attention to what I've been saying.

Like you, I agree that the information we know of now, makes this sort of behavior worse. It appears to be frat boy cr@p and this makes us uncomfortable to see as we can't understand how that stuff could be considered all that fun.

Yet, I keep coming back to the other thing. Ordered behavior designed to bring about specific information from prisoners. Again, we do not know what sort of people are in these jails or those pictures. We don't know if they are very bad people or not. We don't know and I doubt we will know if this was conducted specifically to get very bad people to talk to us. This sort of humiliation can go further to get information in this society than beatings would.

What I do find disturbing is you, here, deciding not to consider these reasonable questions and how they might alter your point of view. I don't believe the whole story is just that these soldiers were having fun. I think that's the story we're putting out, but I don't think that's the end of it. And I find it disturbing you would so willingly swallow that story without even wondering if the reasonable questions brought up here could be in play.

Again, if you found out the Iraqis in those pictures were murderers or rapists or child molestors, would you be as upset? If you found out these were members of terrorist cells and the soldiers in those pictures were told to humiliate them and take pictures to use during interrogation, would you be as upset? I doubt we'll ever know more than we're being told now, and like you it is appalling to think this could be seen as fun for people.

I just think it could have been something substantially different and if we find that out, it might change how many of us view this.

[Art]

Originally posted by webnarc

Art,

It goes one of two ways. One, young untrained amateur soldiers got their trophy shots because there is little or no leadership over there; most likely given that the photo were taken by soldiers. Two, they were acting based on orders.

Regardless, it's a failure of leadership. I have a problem with that and I am not surprised by it. What does surprise me are your words. Specifically:

"I'm not sure I could work up any real outrage if the "scum" at the top were to order these types of non-harmful (physically at least ) acts in order to extract valuable, life-saving information."

"I doubt the direction comes from very high up, though I wouldn't be surprised if the direction of, "Do what it takes," has been mentioned from very high up, if this is indeed the case. If a SINGLE American life happened to have been saved due to the embarrassing, humiliating treatment given these prisoners, one could argue it was worth it."

That's a huge loop hole to justify abuse - "we're just trying to save American lives". That trumps everything, even logic or thinking and you should be concerned about that. This war has done a lot of different things in the name of saving American lives, but many of these things are speculative and were incorrect. What surprises me is not that you would suggest this but that you may actually believe it.

Narc,

Simply put, YES, saving American lives trumps embarrassing some Iraqi prisoners. We don't know if that happened here. We suspect it did not happen here. What I've asked in this thread is you to consider how you might feel if you found out the why behind this wasn't a group of frat boys acting very stupid but was instead intelligence gathering direction that saved lives.

Would largely non-physical tactics we've seen pictured then be as horrible to see? Would you mind so much if in those pictures were Bin Laden humping up against Saddam? If I'm ever told that our intelligence people designed these sorts of mind games to take place to save American lives, I think most Americans would be ok with it.

Most Americans are not ok with it now because it seems so childish and petty and so completely undirected and pointless. Americans won't tolerate this sort of behavior unless there's something tangible at the end that makes it understandable. Right now we can't understand it. Putting it into a different perspective may give you a different viewpoint.

What surprises me is you can't see where a change in context might make things appear a great deal differently in your own mind. The bottom line is, what we've seen pictured is unacceptable for the reasons we've been told caused the behavior, but, the behavior isn't as unacceptable if you knew it was producing information that saved innocent lives.

I'm as upset about what we've seen as you are. I just think I might be able to accept it quicker if some information came to light that altered the context and I'd actually be pleased if very bad criminals were embarrassed a little in an effort to improve our intelligence.

[Art]

Originally posted by AJWatson3

i thought being in the military was about taking orders? so she was doing her job, right?

and i don't know what is up with the cameras too. if you are going to **** up and don't want people to know about it, why document it? makes it sound less like these were just "getting them ready for interrogation" techniques and actually just humiliating them.

The military is about obeying MORAL orders. Each soldier has the obligation to report orders they deem immoral up the chain of command. The defense of "just following orders" probably won't even be allowed in a military court because it's invalid. No soldier is required to follow an illegal order.

That said, I think it's the photos here that seem the MOST out of place. I can't imagine intelligence would really want them, though there is some merit to showing the prisoners their embarrassment and threatening to show it around. Still, I think the photos here are more for personal memories and that's my biggest problem with it.