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The American media thinks the Arab street is civilized enough to see the Abu Ghraib pictures. Oddly, the same American media thinks the American street (picture supersized mallwalkers, metrosexual businessmen, Oprahized Soccer Moms, a couple persecuted Toby Keith listening flag-wavers and sundry others who held up signs saying "Stop this Racist War" referring to America's military response in Afganistan after the atrocities of 9-11) is too hot-headed and militaristic to see the Nick Berg beheading tape. Of course, this is rational. Every time I hear the term Arab Street, I just naturally think it is a pacific street in Lake...

The revelations about the abuse of Iraqi prisoners by American soldiers at the Abu Ghureib prison in Iraq aroused many reactions in the Arab media. For the most part, the response was one of harsh condemnation, accusations of hypocrisy directed at the coalition countries, and equating the Abu Ghureib abuse with Nazi atrocities. Following these reactions, however, were several counter-reactions in the Arab press, that included criticism of the Arab media's double standard - i.e., exhaustive coverage of the misdeeds of American soldiers yet complete silence on the spread of the phenomenon of torture in prisons throughout the Arab world....

The news of Nicholas Berg's gruesome murder came urgently in mid-afternoon on Fox News Channel. Anchor Shepard Smith didn't -- couldn't -- show the video that had hit the Internet. He handled it gravely, correctly. He explained the deadly facts, how masked Muslim fanatics screamed praise to Allah as they savagely sawed off Berg's head -- the head of an American who came to Iraq to help it rebuild. How would this story grab the American news media? How would it change the media's obsession with much less graphic photos of sexual humiliation of prisoners? Many suggested that since the media...

May 18, 2004, 2:27 p.m. Left Eye’s View Seeing through the Abu Ghraib coverage. In World War II, a passer-by, lost in London's main official thoroughfare of Whitehall, stopped a military officer and asked him which side the Defense Department was on. The officer thought for a moment and then said: "Well, it's hard to be sure, but our side, I hope." In the last week the coverage of Iraq by the U.S. media has exhibited at least four separate failings: 1. Selective Agonizing. Ever since the Abu Ghraib photographs emerged, the media has shown them on every possible occasion,...

Army General Says U.S. Has 75 Prison Abuse Cases 47 minutes ago Add Top Stories - Reuters to My Yahoo! By Alan Elsner WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The U.S. military has investigated 75 cases of abuse of prisoners in Iraq (news - web sites) and Afghanistan (news - web sites) since late 2002, suggesting that mistreatment was more widespread than previously acknowledged, the head of the U.S. Central Command said on Wednesday. · Official: Abuse Troops May Face Charges AP - 4 minutes ago · U.S. Soldier Gets Year Jail Term for Prisoner Abuse Reuters - 17 minutes ago · US...

The International Criminal Court (ICC), which had receded into the shadows over the past few years, may soon be back in the limelight, propelled by sensational stories and photos indicating that some U.S. military personnel and civilian contractors grossly abused prisoners at Iraq’s Abu Ghraib prison. This is certain to fuel a campaign to bring international war crimes charges against U.S. citizens serving in Iraq. This, in turn, will reignite a full-scale campaign to empower the new ICC, which was launched at the UN’s 1998 Rome Conference on the Establishment of an International Criminal Court. One of the principal non-governmental...

What do we offer the world? -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Posted: May 19, 2004 1:00 a.m. Eastern "So, how do we advance the cause of female emancipation in the Muslim world?" asks Richard Perle in "An End to Evil." He replies, "We need to remind the women of Islam ceaselessly: Our enemies are the same as theirs; our victory will be theirs as well." Well, the neoconservative cause "of female emancipation in the Muslim world" was probably set back a bit by the photo shoot of Pfc. Lynndie England and the "Girls Gone Wild" of Abu Ghraib prison. Indeed, the filmed orgies among...

May 19, 2004PROCEDURESLegal Review Could Have Halted Abuse, Lawyer SaysBy ADAM LIPTAK ilitary lawyers, who had an active role in supervising interrogations in the first Gulf War, have been excluded from them in the current war in Iraq, a human rights lawyer who has studied the matter says.The lawyer, Scott Horton, a former chairman of the Committee on International Human Rights of the City Bar Association in New York, said this might have played a part in the abuse of detainees at the Abu Ghraib prison in Iraq."In the interrogation process," Mr. Horton said, "the fact that lawyers were...

May 19, 2004THE COMMANDEROfficers Say U.S. Colonel at Abu Ghraib Prison Felt Intense Pressure to Get Inmates to TalkBy DOUGLAS JEHL ASHINGTON, May 18 — As he took charge of interrogations at Abu Ghraib prison last September, Col. Thomas M. Pappas was under enormous pressure from his superiors to extract more information from prisoners there, according to senior Army officers."He likened it to a root canal without novocaine," a senior officer who knows Colonel Pappas said of his meetings with his superiors in Baghdad. Often, the officer said, Colonel Pappas would emerge from discussions with two of them, Maj....

May 19, 2004 Officer Says Army Tried to Curb Red Cross Visits to Prison in IraqBy DOUGLAS JEHL and ERIC SCHMITT ASHINGTON, May 18 — Army officials in Iraq responded late last year to a Red Cross report of abuses at Abu Ghraib prison by trying to curtail the international agency's spot inspections of the prison, a senior Army officer who served in Iraq said Monday.After the International Committee of the Red Cross observed abuses in one cellblock on two unannounced inspections in October and complained in writing on Nov. 6, the military responded that inspectors should make appointments...

"There's definitely a cover-up," the witness, Sgt. Samuel Provance, said. "People are either telling themselves or being told to be quiet." Provance, 30, was part of the 302nd Military Intelligence Battalion stationed at Abu Ghraib last September. He spoke to ABCNEWS despite orders from his commanders not to. "What I was surprised at was the silence," said Provance. "The collective silence by so many people that had to be involved, that had to have seen something or heard something."

A fish stinks from the head first Posted: May 18, 2004 1:00 a.m. Eastern Even members of the United States Congress – from Hillary Clinton to Roscoe Bartlett – neglected their sworn duty. Their congressional offices received written pleas from concerned soldiers or their families almost from the first atrocity through this past March, when retired Master Sgt. William Lawson blasted off 20 letters to a governor, senators and representatives (see sftt.org for the complete list). But these urgent pleas for help must have received either the routine rubber-stamp Beltway shuffle or were relegated into the old circular filing basket,...

The prisoner abuse in Iraq is a public-relations and foreign-policy disaster. It undermines, you see, our efforts to win over the hearts and minds of Muslims by introducing them to liberal democracy, which brings freedom, prosperity, and individual dignity to all people. Well, tragically, radical Islamists can now point to these photos as examples of what they have always charged: that is, that the West really brings decadence and moral decay. If I were recruiting terrorists, I’d show those lewd photos to everyone I met as proof of the West’s decadence and the need for a jihad. As I’ve tried...

BAGHDAD (Reuters) - U.S. forces beat three Iraqis working for Reuters and subjected them to sexual and religious taunts and humiliation during their detention last January in a military camp near Falluja, the three said Tuesday. The three first told Reuters of the ordeal after their release but only decided to make it public when the U.S. military said there was no evidence they had been abused, and following the exposure of similar mistreatment of detainees at Abu Ghraib prison near Baghdad. Two of the three said they had been forced to insert a finger into their anus and then...

Sorry, Sorry, Sorry! On Thursday, May 6, Pres. Bush publicly apologized to Jordan’s King Abdullah II for the abuse of Iraqi prisoners at Abu Ghraib. I wasn’t aware that Abdullah was the king of Iraq. Apparently, when America screws up, our leader must apologize to any and every Moslem in the world, to people who exuberantly support torture, as long as it is carried out by Moslems. I must have missed King Abdullah II’s apology for the butchering of four American civilians in Falluja. King Abdullah is a “moderate, pro-U.S.” Arab, which means that his statements in support of genocidal...

WASHINGTON - As details of prison abuses in Iraq surfaced, many Democrats on Capitol Hill demanded that Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld resign. But not Sen. Carl Levin. The top Senate Democrat on a key military committee said he is wary about who might be the post-Rumsfeld secretary. "If it would be his deputy, I don't see that that would represent a change at all in terms of the direction we should go," Levin told reporters this month. Rumsfeld's deputy is Paul Wolfowitz. If Democrats are dissatisfied with Rumsfeld, that doesn't compare to the disdain some feel for the man...

The prison scandal keeps getting worse for the Bush administration. The White House is about to get hit by the biggest tsunami since the Iran-Contra affair, maybe since Watergate. President George W. Bush is trapped inside the compound, immobilized by his own stay-the-course campaign strategy. Can he escape the massive tidal waves? Maybe. But at this point, it's not clear how. If today's investigative shockers—Seymour Hersh's latest article in The New Yorker and a three-part piece in Newsweek—are true, it's hard to avoid concluding that responsibility for the Abu Ghraib atrocities goes straight to the top, both in the Pentagon...

Reuters Staff Abused by U.S. Troops in Iraq BAGHDAD (Reuters) - U.S. forces beat three Iraqis working for Reuters and subjected them to sexual and religious taunts and humiliation during their detention last January in a military camp near Falluja, the three said Tuesday. The three first told Reuters of the ordeal after their release but only decided to make it public when the U.S. military said there was no evidence they had been abused, and following the exposure of similar mistreatment of detainees at Abu Ghraib prison near Baghdad. Two of the three said they had been forced...

New Rules for Reporters: 1. If we are ever to effect a "regime change" in Washington,DC,we've got to stop being so bashful about working the phrase "Abu Ghraib Prison" into our reports ! 2. From now on ( if you want to keep working at this Wire Service ) you are to refer to "Abu Ghraib Prison", or "Prison Scandal", or "Torture Scandal" in every report. Here are some examples: GAY MARRIAGE LICENSES ISSUED IN BOSTON Hundreds of same-sex couples: most struggling to put the Abu Ghraib Prison Torture Scandal out of their minds,flocked to City Hall to apply for...

WASHINGTON, May 18 (UPI) -- Efforts at the top level of the Bush administration and the civilian echelon of the Department of Defense to contain the Iraq prison torture scandal and limit the blame to a handful of enlisted soldiers and immediate senior officers have already failed: The scandal continues to metastasize by the day. Over the past weekend and into this week, devastating new allegations have emerged putting Stephen Cambone, the first Undersecretary of Defense for Intelligence, firmly in the crosshairs and bringing a new wave of allegations cascading down on the head of Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld, when...