WHO WAS HUMILIATED MORE, PARRIS ISLAND RECRUITS OR IRAQ PRISONERS? (Warning, strong lauguage/images)

self | 7-May-04 | RaceBannon

[RaceBannon]

All right.

That does it.

I am going to say it.

EVERYONE who ever went to boot camp was humiliated more than these people were in Baghdad.

And I mean EVERYONE!

[AlbionGirl]

Participating in these perversions would have been more demoralizing to us than to them.

And of course that's the difference: you guys were decent and these people aren't.

First, let me say that's it's easy for me to talk as I've never been to war, but my parents suffered during WWII in Abruzzi, Italy, and they relayed many of their experiences to me from the time I was a teenager.

They lived on the lam(sp?) for near a year when the Germans came into town demanding to garrison their soldiers in citizens' homes. My Mom was 11, my Dad 17. My Mom recalls finding all of their meagre furnishings burned to the ground by the fleeing German soldiers, but she says that while on the Lam, the German soldiers treated them fairly well. My Grandmother (Assunta) washed their clothes, my grandfather (Tomasso) cooked for them.

A bombing occured which occassioned the collapse of a buidling, the flying debris of which broke my grandmother's foot. My Mom said that the German soldiers took very good care of my grandmother and the rest of them.

Anyway, my point is that neither you nor the German soldiers who ruled over my parents during WW II are in anyway to be assoicated with the scum they've been reporting about recently.

[jpp113]

What is irrelevant is equating humiliation with atrocity. Yes , our people should not have done what they did. But that is being dealt with. The ones making the most noise about this are countries and hate-america types anyway.
Check out some Iraqi-blogs. Sounds like a lot of people there have accepted the apologies and respect that the leader of the free world would even think of apologizing. The ones that won't accept the apology hated us before and would still hate us no matter what.

[AndyJackson]

part of a system of ill-treatment and degradation used by special forces soldiers that is now being disseminated among ordinary troops and contractors who do not know what they are doing

Thank you for making my point. What was going on was a bunch of undisciplined pointless amateurish bs, and not the conduct of a professionally run intelligence collection effort.

[AndyJackson]

the idea of DISCIPLINE was completely foreign to them [the "pukes at Abu Ghraib"]

So are you agreeing with Race or are you arguing against him?

[Melas]

Sorry Race. I can honestly say that my boot camp experience wasn't nearly as dreadful.

[Melas]

That's worth repeating. Say it again.

[wtc911]

Explain then for me please how boot camp experience relates in any way to prisoner abuse (abuse, not atrocity but not just humiliation either).

To me efforts to find relevence diminishes our standing as adults. It sounds like my kids when they were teens and tried to rationalize some nonsense with statements like; "well, at least I didn't....". They're grown now and take responsibility for their actions.

[ex-snook]

"That's worth repeating. Say it again. "

OK thanks, here it is again. I think it represents the thoughts of front line men trained as soldiers in WW II.

Don't know about the Marines but I had 17 weeks of infantry replacement training in wartime WW II where we learned how to shoot and defend ourselves. GIs were taught how to kill. When we captured the enemy, we never got to taking their clothes off, piling them naked and looking at their c-cks. Participating in these perversions would have been more demoralizing to us than to them.

[Chieftain]

Race is right about Marine boot camp and harrassment, however I think things at the Iraqi prison don't fall into that class.

The reason this whole thing is a public issue is because the Democrats want to tie the Bush administration to this, and turn the American public's collective stomach against the GOP.

They (the DemonCraps), have no regard for the safety of the AMERICAN BOYS & GIRLS serving our country in Iraq.

They (the DemonCraps), have no regard for the future of our country.

They (the DemonCraps), care about one thing and one thing ONLY: POLITICAL POWER!

They will turn the American public against the GOP for the next 40 years, and have total control over all 3 branches of government IF WE LET THEM GET AWAY WITH IT.

[TexasCowboy]

Race, I agree with you to a point.

I went through boot at San Diego in 1958, made PFC, was right guide and honor man out of my platoon.
I took a lot of crap both physical and mental to do that.

In giving me the right guide job the Senior DI laid me at attention on the concrete floor, face down, and stood on my head until the blood from my nose covered the floor.
I stayed "squared away" the rest of the time in boot.

There was a PURPOSE for this abuse, and the lack of it today makes for softer and less dedicated Marines.
I thoroughly detest the PC crap that has become the norm in boot camp today!

I can see no PURPOSE to the abuse which the Iraqi prisoners were subjected, unless someone getting their jollys is a purpose.

[FreedomCalls]

There was a PURPOSE for this abuse [MC boot camp] ... I can see no PURPOSE to the abuse which the Iraqi prisoners were subjected ...

They claim it was to get them to talk more freely during their interrogations.

[TexasCowboy]

Well, I was never trained as an interrogator, but if this is a bona fide method of breaking an enemy's spirit to make him talk, I say, "Let them do their job".

I doubt seriously that sodomizing someone with a broomstick breaks their spirit.
Speaking for myself, it would make me so damn mad I'd kill the first person I could get my hands on.

[RaceBannon]

Their abuse was not done for jollys, it was done to break them for interrogation.

And making them talk about what terrorist groups they are from is more important than making us stand at attention better than the day before.

[TexasCowboy]

Race, I assume you've read the Pentagon reports of what took place so I won't reiterate it.

If those reports had said that they tied electrodes to their testicles to make them talk, I would have had no problem with that. That's what those vermin deserve.
I saw nothing there that indicated anything other than a sick sexual pleasure, and I do have a problem with that.

There is a fine line between the necessity of making Marines and sadistic pleasure, and I don't think any DI in the Corps ever inflicted punishment because they liked to do it - only because it was necessary to keep us alive someday.

I didn't get my nose smashed because I couldn't stand at attention.
It was due to a member of my squad being in the head when he was supposed to be on the grinder.
This leads into the responsibility of the chain of command all the way to Rumsfield.

[TexasCowboy]

I've never understood why we have all these prisoners in the first place!

I've never understood why our Marines "are chasing insurgents across the rooftops and arresting them"!

"Arrest", hell!
Let their families pick up the pieces after a couple of .50 calibers rip them apart!

[jpp113]

It seems that there is some confusion here. The point is not about the acts that were committed. The controversy is over the amount of negativity, doomsaying, and anger being fomented on account of the acts. This situation is being overplayed for POLITICAL purposes by the liberal press. Pure and Simple. Comparison to Boot Camp humiliation and abuse (I saw and experienced some) is just a way of illustrating the point. Maybe not a perfect analogy but one that some people can understand from personal experience.

The fact remains that the guilty parties are going to stand tall and answer for their crimes. Just the way it should be.

[RaceBannon]

I got this in an e-mail today, it explains it all I guess as to why the preparation for interrogation was sexual in nature:

The most accurate analysis so far.

The sexual humiliation of Iraqi prisoners at Abu Ghraib prison was not an invention of maverick guards, but part of a system of ill-treatment and degradation used by special forces soldiers that is now being disseminated among ordinary troops and contractors who do not know what they are doing, according to British military sources.
The techniques devised in the system, called R2I - resistance to interrogation - match the crude exploitation and abuse of prisoners at the Abu Ghraib jail in Baghdad.

One former British special forces officer who returned last week from Iraq, said: "It was clear from discussions with US private contractors in Iraq that the prison guards were using R2I techniques, but they didn't know what they were doing."

He said British and US military intelligence soldiers were trained in these techniques, which were taught at the joint services interrogation centre in Ashford, Kent, now transferred to the former US base at Chicksands.

"There is a reservoir of knowledge about these interrogation techniques which is retained by former special forces soldiers who are being rehired as private contractors in Iraq. Contractors are bringing in their old friends".

Using sexual jibes and degradation, along with stripping naked, is one of the methods taught on both sides of the Atlantic under the slogan "prolong the shock of capture", he said.

Female guards were used to taunt male prisoners sexually and at British training sessions when female candidates were undergoing resistance training they would be subject to lesbian jibes.

"Most people just laugh that off during mock training exercises, but the whole experience is horrible. Two of my colleagues couldn't cope with the training at the time. One walked out saying 'I've had enough', and the other had a breakdown. It's exceedingly disturbing," said the former Special Boat Squadron officer, who asked that his identity be withheld for security reasons.

Many British and US special forces soldiers learn about the degradation techniques because they are subjected to them to help them resist if captured. They include soldiers from the SAS, SBS, most air pilots, paratroopers and members of pathfinder platoons.

A number of commercial firms which have been supplying interrogators to the US army in Iraq boast of hiring former US special forces soldiers, such as Navy Seals.

"The crucial difference from Iraq is that frontline soldiers who are made to experience R2I techniques themselves develop empathy. They realise the suffering they are causing. But people who haven't undergone this don't realise what they are doing to people. It's a shambles in Iraq".

The British former officer said the dissemination of R2I techniques inside Iraq was all the more dangerous because of the general mood among American troops.

"The feeling among US soldiers I've spoken to in the last week is also that 'the gloves are off'. Many of them still think they are dealing with people responsible for 9/11".

When the interrogation techniques are used on British soldiers for training purposes, they are subject to a strict 48-hour time limit, and a supervisor and a psychologist are always present. It is recognised that in inexperienced hands, prisoners can be plunged into psychosis.

The spectrum of R2I techniques also includes keeping prisoners naked most of the time. This is what the Abu Ghraib photographs show, along with inmates being forced to crawl on a leash; forced to masturbate in front of a female soldier; mimic oral sex with other male prisoners; and form piles of naked, hooded men.

The full battery of methods includes hooding, sleep deprivation, time disorientation and depriving prisoners not only of dignity, but of fundamental human needs, such as warmth, water and food.

The US commander in charge of military jails in Iraq, Major General Geoffrey Miller, has confirmed that a battery of 50-odd special "coercive techniques" can be used against enemy detainees. The general, who previously ran the prison camp at Guantánamo Bay, said his main role was to extract as much intelligence as possible.

Interrogation experts at Abu Ghraib prison were there to help make the prison staff "more able to garner intelligence as rapidly as possible".

Sleep deprivation and stripping naked were techniques that could now only be authorised at general officer level, he said.

ALL the above abuse is patty-cake, sandbox, child's play compared to the unspeakable torture in Evin and other Iranian Islamic prisons. Perpetrated mostly n their own people (like Saddam did to his) and on the occasional foreigner like the Canadian journalist Zahra Kazemi the mullahs killed during severe interrogation.

Their belated effort - after some 25-years - to officially ban torture in their prisons only serves to point out and acknowledge it was there all this time. And despite the edict torture is still currently in daily use. Probably under another "name". Similar to the head mullah of the iranian judiciary declaring Iran was holding NO politicial prisoners. Like Clinton's what "is, is" the mullah claims those held are detained for waging war against God (aposthasy) and not for political reasons!! The "sharia" or holy law of Islam is the governing political system in Iran.

The sole arbiter of God's will and consequent torture, death and injustice? The dictatorial, unelected mullahs. Only they can speak to God. And only they can hear what God replies and demands. And implement it as the direct orders of their deity. Good grief!

And the naysayers in the USA and "old Europe" appear to want to allow another similar regime to take over in Iraq with a Shia Islamic Iraqi Republic based on Khomeini's Islamic Iranian Republic. Iraqi, Moqtada Sadr, the Iranian backed renegade cleric as he is so mildly described, has that goal in mind. Iranian Revolutionary Guardsmen have openly multiplied the ranks of his Mehdi militia that is killing Amreican soldiers and contractors.

And we pussyfoot around with him and his ilk to avoid Arab criticism and sensitivities. As if anything we do, or any nicety we adopt will change their opinions. Other than avoid giving our internal, self-serving, partisan politicians - mostly but not solely of the liberal persuasion and no knowledge of the real world outside the USA , from having an excuse to attack and denigrate our country, our brave (as well as some misguided) soldiers.

We achieve little or nothing and risk everything.

Alan Peters

Orange County, USA

[TexasCowboy]

And our brilliant CIA actually believes that every one of those ragheaded idiots carrying an RPG knows anything?!
The people who know about terrorist organizations certainly are not going to be on the battlefield!

Sorry, I'm from the old school.
You capture an enemy on the battlefield, beat the crap out of him until he talks, then put a bullet in his head.

As Marines we weren't taught to take prisoners; we were taught to kill them before they became prisoners.
If we were fighting this war as we have been taught to fight a war, we wouldn't have any problem with prisoner abuse.

[TexasCowboy]

And I still think the R21 methods are sick.

[wtc911]

I fully understand the media and political agendae at work here. I also fully understand the attempt to analogize prisoner abuse and boot camp. I disagree that they are in any way analogous. The world will not see them as such. I see the attempt to draw parallels as unfortunate and non-productive, but that's what makes a horse race.