Iraqi prisoner abuse

[Zoom Rabbit]

Okay, here we go with a serious post in Aresen. I trust we can all discuss this maturely enough to avoid unpleasantness or thread closure. It is a serious matter, however, and I'm curious to see what the international community here at Lucasforums thinks. Thanks in advance for spamming joining the thread and responding to the poll.

 

Anyway. We've all seen by now the pictures of Iraqi war prisoners being humiliated by their smiling american captors--due to the offensive nature, I'm not posting a link. However, these images can be researched online by anyone with a search engine.

 

Myself, I'm truly appalled by this turn of events. Being a navy veteran, I had myself thought that the american armed forces was above this sort of thing. Historically, abuse and rape are often the fate of defeated combatants...but the men and women I served with did not seem the type to do so. To discover that some of these soldiers do indeed revert to such barbarity shouldn't surprise me (being something of a realist at heart) but it does concern me.

 

Strategically, the US was in a bad situation before this disaster struck; recent uprisings and a steady influx of foreign *freedom fighters* into Iraq have left us on precarious ground. Our allies were pulling up tent stakes and deserting the country even before this...and now several sick individuals with cameras and no common sense have given those left good reason to abandon this mad enterprise. What the sweet and precious holy mother *BLEEP* were they thinking?!?

 

What do you guys think? Is the US screwed, or is it all just so much bad press?

[Ray Jones]

i go for the eye for an eye principle. the prisoners should be allowed to do the same to their punishers.

 

i also do not consider this a "navi" problem. such things happen in most war scenarios.

 

obviously the human brain gets screwed just because of such special circumstances. i think it has something to do with fear and stress handling.

[Zoom Rabbit]

It's been said that war makes beasts of men, or something. Of course, war also makes grown men crap their drawers from fear (literally, and you have to be pretty freaking scared to do that) and go crazy from the horrors they've seen.

 

I guess the realist part of me can accept that these things will always happen, as one of the terrible benefits of war...but did these soldiers have to photograph themselves doing it? I mean, how retarded is that?

[edlib]

Unfortunately it doesn't surprise me in the least. In fact, I'm more surprised that the problem seems as isolated as it is, and took so long to come out,.. and on a sliding scale of human war atrocities, it's really pretty mild (although I'm sure humiliating to the victims.)

 

Placed beside the stories of what American soldiers were capable of in Vietnam, this appears to be a model study in restraint.

 

But I think such things are largely symptomatic of war: In order to get someone to kill a stranger from another completely different culture that your soldiers might know absolutely nothing about, you pretty much have to reduce the enemy combatants to something less than human in the minds of your own troops.

To then take soldiers with that mindset and then ask them to guard and care for captured enemy troops there will inevitably be problems.

[Kuuki]

well regaurdless what was going on its US Soldiers doing it, and if its anything wrong, they would need to be punished by military law

 

*shrugs*

 

they got to do their job regaurdless of grudges or anything

as much as anyone in the middleeast would hate the US, and US occupying over there, US soldiers have to do their job

[swphreak]

I thought I read that it was contracted mercs that did the torturing....

 

either way, it shouldn't have happened.

 

I myself wouldn't haven given a rat's about some tortured terrorists, but I Don't think they were all proven terrorists or whatever.

[Nitro]

Micheal Savage anyone?

 

Anyone?

 

No?

 

He thinks it was setup by the US military to scare the hell out of the Islamic fundamentalists... "You get captured, and we'll humiliate you."

 

And given the way these fundamentalists view women, having a woman treating their comrades in arms like that would be a real blow to their ego...

 

 

Far fetched, I know... And I'm not saying I buy it... But regardless of whether or not you agree with the guy (and more often then not I don't agree with him) he's still a fun listen.

[Zoom Rabbit]

Well, I listen to Rush Limbaugh and Sean Hannity on the radio. I rarely agree with them, but find them entertaining. Giving their side of issues a fair listen (as well as keeping tabs on the enemy conservatives) is important to me as well. I do find it intriguing that they don't seem to approve of Bush as well, albeit because they think he's too liberal. Yeah, whatever.

 

Rush brought up the same point, more or less--that the kind of humiliation we see is specifically designed to impact muslim males. I couldn't think of a more inflammatory way of doing that myself...but I would point out that the insult goes against any muslim, not just the extremists we are fighting.

 

Why not force the Iraqis the eat bacon instead? It would have the same effect...

[Rogue-for-Higher]

I say prosecute the Military personnel under the UCMJ and the civil intel boys under us civil law, however we can't proscute the civvies because of Executive Order 13303 that states Iraq is a lawless territory and that persons with any tie to the US can't be prosecuted for crimes.

[Zoom Rabbit]

Here in the states, a lot of liberals are calling for Secretary of Defense Rumsfeld's resignation. Personally, I think that's taking it a bit too far--how the accountability for this can be traced that far up the chain of command is logic that escapes me.

 

So, I guess I really am a moderate after all. Why then in these curious political times do I feel like a solid liberal...?

[edlib]

I think it's just wishful thinking for the most part.

 

Personally, I wouldn't really mind seeing a Rumsfeld or a Wolfowitz take the fall for this,.. but I'm way too much a realist to believe that would ever happen.

 

I've read a few of the transcripts of what Rush and a few of the other Neo-Consevative wags (or, if you prefer: "Bush Apologists") have had to say about it.

I wonder what they would be saying if the pictures were of American troops being abused in the same manner? What if some of those captives were female?

 

Would it still be "No big deal" or justified by the fact that we are in a war situation?

 

I highly doubt it...

[SuicidalXWing]

You also have to keep in mind the rules of the Geneva Convention. There are certain guidelines and standards that must be followed. The Iraqis never signed this treaty, since they were relatively nonexistant, and we did. And since we signed it we must follow it, despite the fact that others do not.

[Zoom Rabbit]

Well, this thing is just getting uglier and uglier. Anyone catch the butchery job they did on that poor, lost american kid? That was no beheading--it was vicious, unnecessary cruelty! It serves to illustrate for me two things: just what kind of an enemy we are facing, and what kind of reprisal we can expect from our mistakes over there.

 

According to the ICRC, 70 to 90% of the prisoners we have in detention at Abu Ghraib are innocents rounded off the streets...and yes, I do believe in what the ICRC says over the Bush administration. As an american, I must ask if we really are the good guys in Iraq.

 

Also, it strikes me that the best end result for Iraq right now would be for them to come together and kick our ever-loving butts out of their country. Because anything we set up is going to be a puppet regime, and civil war bait.

 

What a mess.

[Dr Edison 007]

I really feel sorry for Bush, and I don't even like him. Look at all the things he got through his presidency, I'm sure he'd much rather be back in Texas sitting in the governor's office.

 

And I agree with Zoom, the best thing to do now is to just get out of Iraq, this war (which could be considered the president's pet project) was just a big failure spotted with a little sucess (capture of Saddam, etc.)

[Zoom Rabbit]

I felt sorry for Bush during that last press conference. I wanted to go up to the podium and take over for him. 'I'm sorry folks, but he really doesn't have any meaningful answers for you. You'll just have to wait for tomorrow's press releases. Good night, and thank you for coming.'

 

Look...whoever is actually behind the scenes, picking our presidents for us...could you get us a brighter one next time?

[edlib]

Why would they want to that?!? A brighter one just might question the actions of those pulling the strings... and a candidate who really thinks for himself is definately not what these folks want. Otherwise, John McCain would have never lost the nomination, and probably would have swept the election (let's face it: McCain over Gore isn't much of a contest; McCain is probably the most popular public official out there right now in either party) but integrity and thoughtfulness wasn't on the agenda.

[Zoom Rabbit]

John McCain

 

Colin Powell

 

Arnold Schwarzenegger

 

(Of course, that last one is unqualified for the presidency because he's french.)

[swphreak]

*shakes head*

 

I think we either need to pull out our forces and let them kill each oither and whatnot, or send in a stronger occupation liberation force...

[Zoom Rabbit]

I'm not sure that pulling out now would help. We've already opened the can of worms, and we're getting slimy...but we can't just drop the can in the river and take off running. Worms wouldn't fear us, and fishing would suddenly get much more difficult.

 

(How's that for pushing a methaphor?)

 

If the US were to withdraw all of its occupying forces before a stable government is established, the resulting three-way civil war would be a disaster...and all our fault. Sorry, but we're stuck in Iraq for the time being.

 

And anyone who believes a stable, sovereign government will be in place by June 30, raise your hand. *(Keeps his hand down.)*

[Dr Edison 007]

Yes, but it's best we do get out of there by the 30th because if we don't the Iraqis would be angry and the ones that do trust us will stop.

[Jared]

I say give them medals.

[Zoom Rabbit]

Hmm.

 

Look, we can't pull all of our troops out now. If we did, several million mujahedin would spring up out of holes in the ground and proclaim Iraq a shiite state, with Al Zarqawi as its president, and Al Sadr as VP. The kurds would say, 'Oh no you don't...we're proclaiming Kurdistan!' and precisely ten minutes after that, the entire sunni population would break out the hidden weapons to deal with both groups. Iranian and Syrian troops would pour in to fill the power vacuum, which would understandably make Israel twitchy. The political instability in the middle east, which we think is bad now...would get about five times worse. And it would be all. Our. Fault.

 

I'm not sure I want to get splattered with that, do you?

 

What we can do, realistically, is set up a new Iraqi government and then let the Iraqi people take that particular project over--hopefully by June 30, as promised, though I doubt it. We can then begin withdrawing troops slowly as the Iraqi military takes shape and gets strong enough to deal with the current insurgency. That military won't be proficient enough to keep the peace for quite some time, however.

 

Of course, if the new military joins the insurgents...we'll be in trouble.

[Nute Gunray]

The part that gets my goat is that I have yet to hear anything come out of one of these accusations of torture that I haven't also heard come out of frat hazings. Its not like they were tying them up to box springs hooked up to a car battery. I really don't understand a culture were humilation is worse than death.

 

PS: the one was they forced Iraqi prisoners to wear Maxi-Pads. Hell, they can drive over here and I'll walk around with one of those bastards in my drawers for ten cents an hour.

 

PPS: who thinks "hey, lets make them wear maxi-pads." I mean seriously. I know I'm out there and pretty creative, but **** man, that's some abstract thought.

[SuicidalXWing]

In the case of Nick Berg, (I just watched the video last night), I'm not sure how murder is justified by humiliation. They are two different ball parks, these rebels are some mentally retarded people. All they're doing is stirring up a hornet's nest more, and they don't have enough bug spray to get us all.

 

 

 

and btw Zoom, Arnold is Austrian, not French, if he were French he wouldn't be so popular.

[Nitro]

Zoom knows that. Zoom is being facetious. Zoom is a master of the facetious arts.