[oceanview]

wow, they broke one guy's arm, terrible, just terrible.

[FairOpinion]

Yawn.

Stupid, but I think they are beating this story to death.

Why isn't it front page news that Muslim terrorists poisoned little 8 year old girls in Afghanistan, because they object to little girls going to school?

http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1128319/posts

I think that's a much bigger story than embarrassing some terrorists, with even their faces not being shown.

Frankly I couldn't care less, what anyone would do to the terrorists, because whatever they would do, isn't enough.

[Arpege92]

What took them so long in reporting this abuse?

[Hildy]

There's something fishy about this whole story.

[CindyDawg]

Funny how all this coming out at the same time.

[ikka]

Churchill's quote on the three traditions of the Royal Navy: "rum, buggery, and the lash".

However I do wonder how much of this is true. Could the photos have been staged, then shown to the other prisoners as examples of "what will happen" if they don't talk?

[RegT]

Notice that 'many' of the alleged photos were burnt at a checkpoint? How convenient.

[af_vet_1981]

I don't understand why they took these pictures. I don't understand their evil delight in abuse. My policy would be to simply medicate these folks and take their information, not to degrade and humiliate them.

[MrsPatriot]

I wonder how coalition prisoners, Matt Maupin and others, are being treated?

[bluefish]

Interesting that all this is coming out at about the same time that the corrupt "Food for Oil" UN scandal of the century was starting to gain serious traction. There is huge money in all this. It isn't just opposing political philophy or religion. Many powerful people are poised to be very embarrassed. This whole story could very well be just one of the pawns in a huge chess game.

[Mo1]

Sources close to the regiment claimed the rifle, hats and truck seen in the pictures did not match those issued to men in Iraq, and queried why there was no sign of sweat, dirt or injuries on the body of the victim of the alleged assault.

What's your take??

This story gets odder and odder

[Aeronaut]

Orbat.com analysis: There is a subtle subtext here and we wonder if the media realizes it. You cannot break a prisoner in a few hours by beating him. Motivated men can hold out for days or even weeks against such treatment. Certainly beating him can provide a promising start to the real pressure. US intel agencies specialize in breaking the mind of prisoners rather than their bodies, for obvious reasons. They have considerable expertise and their tactic is to use psychological profiles based specifically on the prisoner's background, region, nationality and so on. An American prisoner chained naked to a post and forced to wear women's panties or be forced to stimulate sex acts with other prisoners would not react the same way an Iraqi male would. For an Iraqi, the humiliation will be so extreme that he will break quickly.

That the prisoners involved were of interest to MI is no accident. MI needs up to date information and fast. In a conventional battle situation, the typical prisoner is just a cog in a giant machine and little will be learned by torture. In a guerilla war situation, the individual, no matter insignificant, can yield critical information - for example - about the next attack. The prisoners concerned, incidentally, had been captured while attacking US forces. These methods are used because they are needed to save lives. All armies use them. The problem becomes to apply the minimum force required to get the information. Persons involved in torturing others can with dismaying and frightening speed fall into enjoying something they previously might have thought revolting. They can, then, inflict gratuitous violence and humiliation. The looser the standard of training, the greater the problem. Its already clear the MP unit involved was inadequately trained for POW duty. For the MP general to blame US military intelligence is futile: you can break a prisoner and still avoid the thrills of taking pictures while you smile away and pantomime disgusting actions. That the MPs assumed they could do this and boast about it shows a serious laxity on the part of the overall commander. To our mind, the crime is not the interrogation techniques. It is wholly unsoldierly actions of the MPs after their work is done.

[kimosabe31]

Doubts were cast today on the authenticity of the photos, published in the Daily Mirror yesterday, which appeared to show the hooded man being struck with a rifle butt, urinated on and having a gun held to his head.

This entire bruhaha looks phoney to me. These photos could easily have been shot on a typical saturday night on any campus fraternity row in the US or any night of the week on capital hill. The hoods are probably to conceal the identities of congressmen and senators many of whom are right now pointing the finger of accusation and shouting the loudest in protest over this alleged abuse.