Iraqi Prisoner Details Abuse by Americans

Washington Times ^ | 5/02/04 | AP

[kattracks]

NAJAF, Iraq (AP) -- Dhia al-Shweiri spent several stints in Baghdad's notorious Abu Ghraib prison, twice under Saddam Hussein's rule and once under American. He prefers Saddam's torture to the humiliation of being stripped naked by his American guards, he said Sunday in an interview with The Associated Press.

[anniegetyourgun]

If it were that easy (humiliate Iraqi insurgents by making them strip naked), then perhaps the Coalition needs to issue flyers via airdrop that says if they are found to be involved, they will be stripped searched. This should cause fear and trembling on the part of the fighters.

[NewRomeTacitus]

Check him again to make sure he's not hiding an

[FreedomCalls]

Al-Shweiri said that while jailed by Saddam's regime, he was electrocuted, beaten and hung from the ceiling with his hands tied behind his back. "But that's better than the humiliation of being stripped naked," he said. "Shoot me here," he added, pointing between his eyes, "but don't do this to us."

He may just get his wish. Soldiers may be less likely to take prisoners now. Dead men tell no tales.

[muawiyah]

This one doesn't quite prove that "Don't ask, don't tell" isn't working, but it comes close.

Eventually we'll get a first hand accounting from the guy who was sodomized.

[Joe 6-pack]

"Mow that lawn early..it's cooler then besides.You can edge after the game..."

I GUESS I BETTER MAKE IT CLEAR WHO'S IN CHARGE 'ROUND HERE, SO I'M ONLY GOING TO SAY THIS ONCE...

...yes dear.

[MEG33]

That's much better!...;)

[Let's Roll]

And how sick is a culture that prefers torture - the real thing - to any kind of humiliation that has to do with sex?

In a truly just world, the NARAL and PP acolytes would have to show how liberal they really are and accept the rule of islam - because after all, all cultures are equal, right?

[MEG33]

That is what I hear from the multiculturists and lefty libs.

[Double_Plus_Good]

Any time I'm tempted to believe the story line that we went to Iraq to liberate people, I just come to this site and it sets me straight. Most of you don't give a rat's ass about the Iraqi people, so how could your claim to want to "liberate" them be taken seriously by anyone? Posts such as this: To: annyokie I'd say the REAL torture was being a GI in the presence of a bunch of stinky, nekkid Ar-abs. are a shot at the troops you pretend to support. God help the next one that is caught by the Iraqi resistance, that's all I can say. Torture by ANYONE - including US forces - needs to be denounced in the strongest possible terms by decent people everywhere. Their torture - physical and mental - does nothing except create more resentment against the US, which soon becomes that many more guns aimed at us. Wise up, idiots.

[monkeywrench]

Well, I guess you missed the fifty or so threads where "torture" was denounced, here! Take a hike, troll.

[MHGinTN]

Clean-up on isle 49 ... hanky needed for bleeding heart liberal visitor.

[MEG33]

I've pinged you to a thread of interest..

[MEG33]

I pinged him to the "voters find Bush more likable and compassionate" thread...;)

[Milligan]

I agree. They have the old play book from the North Vietnamese. Propaganda machine is working overtime to sway the American public and it will be vile. I think there is more to the story with the American guard abuse.

[daybreakcoming]

Shut up and get me another beer.

Thanks for the very "lite" moment in this mess. Like to fell out of my chair LOL'n

[daybreakcoming]

"They wanted us to feel as though we were women, the way women feel and this is the worst insult, to feel like a woman," al-Shweiri said"

And this is what we want to liberate..........sigh

[daybreakcoming]

picture looks a little "girly" to me along with the fabric shop

[daybreakcoming]

Can't speak for anyone else but something slightly changed in me after the Fallujah Four. NO, I don't believe in torture by anyone, but I am more cynical of the Iraqi people now, in part thanks to this whinny baby and the mediawho*e who made him a story. We can do nothing with much of this generation of Iraqis except save them from rape rooms and mass graves and try to make a better life for them - the children have to be the hope of Iraq.

"God help the next one that is caught by the Iraqi resistance, that's all I can say."

You missed the Fallujah Four and others who have been found with a bullet in the back of their heads after God-knows-what was done to them?? We don't have to wait for the "next one" - it's already been happening. CBS just didn't have film for you on 60 Minutes. I haven't seen anyone on FR condone what was done to those people - this thread is about one whineroo in particular. You saw what you wanted to see.

[FreedomCalls]

God help the next one that is caught by the Iraqi resistance, that's all I can say. Torture by ANYONE - including US forces - needs to be denounced in the strongest possible terms by decent people everywhere.

Can you name ONE instance where US soldiers were taken prisoner since 1945 and were treated with respect and the captors observed the terms of the Geneva Conventions? Name ONE. I sick and tired of our soldiers being denounced for what amounts to little more than a frat stunt when the rest of the world is free to kill, maim, and torture our soldiers without any repercussions -- much less a simple denunciation from you.

Muslims terrorists torturing western soldiers. WARNING EXTREMELY GRAPHIC!

[mtntop3]

Perspective on all this is overdue. The world would do well to consider just what did occur under Saddam's regime.

From: Republic of Fear, by Samir al-Khalil; Pantheon; 1990:

"The first chief of Internal State Security was Nadhim Kzar, a 1969 appointee of Saddam Husain's (traditional spelling)....He (Kzar) nurtured a reputation for ruthlessness and sadistic practices, which struck fear inside the (Bathist) party itself. For instance, he had a penchant for conducting interrogations personally and extinguishing his cigarette inside the eyeballs of his victims. Kzar invigorated an organization that was inefficient..." (p. 6).

"Torture and bizarre practices in Iraqi interogation centres have been going on systematically ever since 1968 with hardly a mention abroad. The activities of the Iranian SAVAK on the other hand, were covered by the international presss notwithstanding the Shah's close ties to Western governments. This does not highlight the deviousness of Western intentions as much as it points to how much closed, secretive, and terrrorized society in Iraq is than its Iranian counterpart under the Shah ever was. Iraqis in exile in the 1970's refused to go to organizations like Amnesty to publicize their plight because of almost paranoiac fear." (p. 65)

"Torture is the apex of (the Iraqi) system...The range of cruel institutional practices in contemporary Iraq - confession rituals, public hangings, corpse displays, excutions, and finally torture - are designed to breed and sustain widespread fear..." (p. 67)

"...the object of (Iraqi) torture is the erasure of difference; it is the business of surgically intervening in the biological fact of irreducible individuality so as to 'disprove' it in reality. The confession is proof of a deviancy that was not thought to exist before. Victims who survive are hardly ever the same as the persons who went in. No matter how well the scars heal, the memory of the bodily invasion is permanent according to the testimonies of victims...Torture goes about fashioning them anew, and if death is a frequent result, at least someone cared enough to try...(p.69)

We are speaking here of millions of lives (and this does not even go into other realms of Iraqi torture, such as the horrible mustard-gassing of hundreds of thousands of men, women and children). This does not make acceptable what the recent unfortunate photographs indicated - but it does provide perspective and the emphatic nullification of media sound/print clips from (selected) Iraqis who assert that Saddam was "bettter." That is an assertion that was, sadly, inserted through fear into their very being at an early age.