General Suggests Abuses at Iraq Jail Were Encouraged

nytimes.com ^ | May 2, 2004 | PHILIP SHENON

[adam_az]

""We're disposable," she said of the military's attitude toward reservists. "Why would they want the active-duty people to take the blame? They want to put this on the M.P.'s and hope that this thing goes away. Well, it's not going to go away." "

So... are any intelligence officers in the photos? Or are they all YOUR troops?

[Thebaddog]

If you want a real story, find the dope who posted them on the internet and follow the money. Betcha at least some of the images are stage as well.

[sgtbono2002]

Seeing the way the Iraqui's have greeted American soldiers one could assume the prefer Saddam Hussein and Uday and Qusay, Maybe the GI';s were just trying to make them feel at home.

[Phosgood]

Should never had females over there in the first place.

If you take the average IQ of a group of young cops and divide it by the number of women involved, you will obtain the IQ of the total. It's the Pheromone factor and can be deadly in time of war..

The training of the MPs for the type of ops we knew we were going into is one of the sorriest aspects of this war. And it's not the fault of the reservist but the high Army brass that always wants to Rant to anyone who will listen that they need more boot numbers and tanks and ignore the constant threats to our warriors.

[Mad_Tom_Rackham]

But they don't have lawyers! Have you no humanity? Every detainee should be assigned at least a US taxpayer provided public defender, three UN observers, and $1M cash for their defense. I can't believe the attitudes of some on this forum. Really. It's just disgraceful. :O)

[hunter112]

But I'd like to ask the liberal critics whose prisoner they would rather be, ours or Saddam's?

The libs would reply that you're thinking like a Westerner. That link several posts up about what ragheads think about being naked in front of each other (something that happens to our troops from the day they're inducted) really explains what the issue is here for the Arabs.

I wish we'd have just shot the bastards instead.

[Thud]

ping

[FairOpinion]

"Betcha at least some of the images are stage as well."

===


Funny, you should say that.

Doubt cast on Iraq torture photos
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1128002/posts

"However the BBC's defence correspondent Paul Adams says sources close to The Queen's Lancashire Regiment believe many aspects of the photographs are extremely suspicious.

He says they believe the pictures may not have been taken in Iraq.

They believe the rifle is an SA80 mk 1 - which was not issued to troops in Iraq.

The paper claims British soldiers
handed over the photos

They say soldiers in Iraq wore berets or hard hats - and not floppy hats as in the photos.

They also believe the wrong type of Bedford truck is shown in the background - a type never deployed in Iraq. Mr Blair said if there had been any abuse it was "exceptional", and should not detract from the good work being done by UK armed forces in Iraq. "

---

People are just too eager to swallow everything the liberal media with an agenda is dishing out.

[McGavin999]

I can understand the prisoners being stripped naked with bags over their heads. I can also understand them being laughed at and taunted, I would imagine it is a fairly good technique. But these guys went a bit too far, and what is worse they took pictures.

[Verginius Rufus]

This attitude about being seen naked is very ancient in that part of the world--see Genesis 9.20-27 (story of Noah's drunkenness and cursing Canaan because Canaan's father Ham had seen Noah naked) and Herodotus, The Histories, Book I, Chapter 10.

Herodotus points out that in Lydia and other barbarian nations, it is a source of great shame even for a man to be seen naked--contrary to Greek practice, of course, since they engaged in athletic contests naked.

[backtothestreets]

Excuses won't fly. Regardless of who was behind these acts, they gave our enemies a powerful weapon. An extremely small group made the fight tougher for soldiers trying to establish order.

[Destro]

Yup

[txrangerette]

There are two different stories
of abuse - one British guards,
the other our guys. These quotes
about fake photos involve Brits.

[Nick Danger]

One of the problems I saw is that guards were laughing and full of joy. They were engaging in sadistic pleasures

In 1971, a psychology experiment was run at Stanford that has since become world famous. Things got so bad that the experiment had to be shut down after only 5 days. Long story short, they took perfectly normal people, flipped coins to see which would be guards and which would be prisoners, put them in a mock "prison," and then watched what happened. The so-called "normal people" who were given the role of guards very quickly turned into extremely sadistic people who did just these kinds of humiliating things, and they seemed to be having fun doing it. There is an article about it here.

This experiment is something almost all penologists know about. Many real-world examples of this phenomenon have occurred since. This is just another one. It is a known risk that perfectly good people can turn into animals when thrown into this kind of role. Nobody really knows why, but this is a kind of weakness in human beings that anyone managing a prison has to be aware of, and needs to watch out for.

[Nebr FAL owner]

I have no problem with the use of psychological pressure & intimidation/humiliation to get information from enemy prisoners ,I do however have a problem with non-professional conduct & what can only be described as FELONIOUS STUPIDITY on the part of the reservists & the intel types.

[91B]

Should never had females over there in the first place.

Be careful about speaking the truth too openly around here. You'll have the "girl power" brigade ready to claw your eyes out.

[Lessismore]

There are also the famous experiments of Stanley Milgram at Yale, which showed that 61% of experimental subjects were willing to kill someone they did not know in response to instructions from an authority figure.

For further reading, see the reviewer comments on the book "Obedience to Authority" by Stanley Milgram at http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/detail/-/006131983X/qid=1083463760/sr=1-2/ref=sr_1_2/103-8711593-0932663?v=glance&s=books

[Timmy]

Although I am disgusted by those pictures and believe someone needs to be held accountable, I really don't see why we should be so sensitive to Arab mores, when they condone things as suicide bombers, blood libel of the Jews, and:

"Ignoring the pleas of his 14-year-old daughter to spare her life, Mehmet Halitogullari pulled on a wire wrapped around her neck and strangled her--supposedly to restore the family's honor after she was kidnapped and raped."

This from an AP story discussed in Taranto's Best of the Web column. I thought we were going over there to redeem the culture, not appease it.