Iraqis tortured - truly despicable

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Actually according to the latest surveys over there, the majority want us out of there now. THough it is only a minority who want to forcibly make us to leave.

 

Put them in jail, for life, and I think that maybe even some Iraqians may be a bit happy about it.

Remember, I wrote some, not all. I do know that a lot of the Iraqians want them executed, and I understand them fully.

 

Not just soldiers. Civilian contractors were apparently running the show.

 

Yes I think in the broader picture this will do a lot more harm than people may think.It will be very difficult to gain the Iraqi people's trust now.I think this will also may great training video for Osama and his group.

All in all we have lost a tremendouse amount due the actions of such a small group of people.I am not sure any punishment that they get will be able to undo the public relations harm that they have done.

With all that being said I am even more appalled at the reaction I have heard on some talk radio in my local area.Some of these people are saying things like this was not torture but more like collage pranks.

I would like to see the collage prank where you're living quarters are only one yard by one yard and you are beaten degraded and sexualy attacked.

This sure is going to make things tough on the rest of the troops there.

 

I'm actually kinda curious what could be a proper "punishment" of torture. I bet they get ~10 years of jail, depending *what* they actually did there. Thus far, after the initial news flash, there hasn't been any more accurate descriptions of it.

It is to be seen in they even take them to court...

 

Nothing much to say about this debacle. I heard it could be fake photos, but the harm is done. However, Amnesty International has claimed a while ago that these 'college pranks' pulled by the occupation forces are far more common in Iraq than one might think. All sorts of humilations and mistreatments await iraqi prisoners. I am sure we will hear more like this in the future, when Iraq is free of occupation and terror - whenever that will be.

It makes me shudder what effects this will have on the arabians. The goals of the U.S. in that region have become even more unachieveable.

 

I can only add that this type of behaviour is a total disgrace for both the Americans and the British militairy forces. Aren't we westerners always full of the Geneva convention and stuff like that ? Isn't the reason why they went there in the first place, to stop barbaric acts like this ?

The little sympathy from the local population that may have been left, will now dissapear like snow in the sun.

They need to sort this out to the bottom, and all involved should be punished for warcrimes. Hell, if i were commander in chief, i'd put them all in front of a firingsquad, and pull the trigger myself. Some things simply cannot be tolerated, and this is one of them.

 

Notice how very quickly the "liberals" are to blame for Iraqis being tortured by "poorly trained" reserves. I'm still waiting for one of these guys to blame the ultimate - Bill Clinton.

Edit: BTW, the reserves I know, are getting 2.5 months of training before going to Iraq. How long did the soldiers that were drafted have before going to Vietnam? Maybe we lost that one also because of poorly trained "kids" fresh out of High School. Give me break, guys!

 

You have to qualify what I say in terms of political labels...from where I stand almost everyone is a liberal! Clinton falls more into the "pinko" category

No one is responsible for these actions but the men who actually performed the acts, and perhaps their immediate commanders. I only tried to shed light on what elements contributed to it happening in the first place.

[edit to Chandos' edit] I think the conscrition used in the Vietnam war, and the subsequent conduct of many soldiers, relates very well to the conduct of the non-professional soldiers in question here. Yes, these guards and reserves are volonteers, but they volonteered to go and play in the woods one weekend a month...not to be an occupying force in a disfuntional land.

 

HS - Yes, and Shrub showed us his "military credentials" with a trip to the dentist.

Edit: HS - I did not want to go too far off topic here. I agree in part with your post, but I think anyone who wears the uniform should understand the meaning and commitment of doing so. But I think there is a lot to be said for a professional army.

[ May 02, 2004, 19:30: Message edited by: Chandos the Red ]

 

Training doesnt matter, not much. Dont you think people already knew it wasnt ok to torture people without studying the Geneva convention? Put people in horrible situations and they will commit horrible acts. It is as simple as that. Especially since to be able to motivate your soldiers you have to demonize your opponents and remove their humanity, or else will your soldiers be able to kill the enemy soldiers in combat? A soldier must see a horrible monster coming to kill him, not another chap in a uniform and a mother fretting at home. If you are willing to send people into war things like this is a price you have to be willing to pay. Or else you are flaming hypocrits.

Thus you know my main reason for opposing war, even if it may appear like the right thing to do. Everyone becomes a victim. A large part of soldiers returning from WW1 and 2 and the Vietnam war wasnt traumatized by what had been done to them but what they had done to others.

 

Aww, come on... Soldiers are no longer exposed to propaganda like that used during the two world wars. I've been a soldier for more that two years now, and I've never seen anything like that. You might point out that I'm danish, but I can't imagine the american or british armies expose their soldiers to it either. So lets do away with these obsolete ideas.

There are no acceptable explaination to these incidents of torture though. As part of the coalition forces in Iraq, it personally infuriates me, as the actions of some few idiots are going to give the rest of us a bad reputation.

As for their claims regarding not being proper instructed: Bah! Im not trained at working with prisoners, but common sence dictates, that you don't put them on boxes with wires in their hands, telling them that they will be electrocuted if they step down.

 

Grovflab, nor have you been in a war. IIRC you were a part of the peacekeeping forces in Kosovo right? You were not fighting against something but trying to keep peace and order. Even so I am quite sure that your and your fellows opinion of the locals were in many ways rather negative. Atleast that is what I have heard here about the Swedish troops in Kosovo. Not to mention the Norwegian soldiers who made a sport of driving around shooting dogs and filming it for further distribution. Perhaps not torture of humans but rather cruel nonetheless and a part of the same phenomena I have been talking about. Of course there are people who are able to resist this degrading influence but what does that matter? How many are willing to go against their friends and comrades for what is essentially the enemy?

That kind of propagande I spoke of need not be official, it is imbedded in the soldiers life, their talk, their life. It is a natural part of trying to motivate yourself both as to why you are there and to enable yourself to kill other human beings.

 

I'd put part of it down to education, or lack of it. Why do I say this? Well, put it this way. Wherever I've lived, be it Singapore, various parts of the UK etc. I have found that my less educated collegues and friends are generally the ones that start the fights, don't think things through, and generally for want of a better term, racist. My more educated friends on the other hand do not.

Example: And please excuse any offensive language here concerning racial names.

Less educated friend will use terms such as paki, a number of vulgarities and generally act relatively aggressive concerning the subject. He will most probably make a number of 'jokes' about how the asian people in the area have probably got shoe bombs or whatnot.

Educated friend will use the appropriate name for the country we're currently at war with (The UK is always at war with someone it seems) ie. Iraqis, Indian, French etc. They also tend to look at the situation from both sides. Yes, sure we're quite nationalistic in the sense that we support our country but whats to stop people approaching the situation diplomatically? Their minds are just not on totally ass kicking the opposition and they are pretty good to debate with various topics etc.

I might have lost myself now but my point is, that in my opinion, education is a power in itself. ... yep I've lost the rails, not quite sure what i'm trying to say anymore. Hope you understand what I'm trying to say.

 

Less educated people may be guilty of namecalling such as you describe, but it's the educated people who send them into war.

 

did everyone forget what hussein had done? developed all types of chemical weapons *THERE is your WMD* torturing his citizens, repressing religion then manipulating it to suit his own needs, murdering kurds, waging war on iran and kuwait.

this seems to be a trend now... villifying the united states. nothing but bandwagon jumpers.

if I remember correctly, during ww2, the vichy werent exactly nice to the french resistance. so what did the maquis do? they struck back with equal brutality against the nazis and their dogs.
in the pacific theater of ww2, the japanese didnt share sake or give bento boxes to their POWs.

this is war. you do not show mercy to the enemy.
to beat a brutal enemy, you have to be brutal yourself. spare me this drivel.

 

Well this phenomenon is common practice in all wars throughout history. The cruel and sometimes savage treatment of the prisoners. People do really need to feel that they control something or someone.

If one was clever enough he would not do something that maybe later would hinder his life. Furthermore if one could distinguish reality and illusions, he/she would knew that he/she is the one who is logicall to be attacked since his country invaded. Third i don't think that either you or anyone here is has the right to express such brutal statements as to who deserves what.
I want to tell you that when in a war brutallities are a second nature to anyone who fights for his life. They are a mean to reassure himself of his prowess and strength and ability to impose himself as a master of a situation.
People do not deserve to get tortured or get humiliated like this. And one more thing:

I fear that the soldiers who are proffecionals would do much worst than that because they would be more corrupted than these volunteers, with the power that their uniform gives them over a defeated country and its citizens.
USA has lost the war about a year ago when they not managed, to relinquish Iraq immediatelly to the other Arabian countries to rebuild and restabilise it.

Excuse me Hacken, but IIRC there were also accussations of mistreatment for the prisoners of Guatanamo. Ahh yeah.... i forgot Guatanamo is not exactly US soil and US justice does not apply there, not to mention that these guys are also about 7 years in there without even been trialed or getting a chance to get one in the near future. Nice respect of the Geneva Convictions. I feel sorry to say that but here too nothing will happen since this phenomenon is far more widespread than some of you may think and i fear that it will not stop even now.
I bet that the same night a couple of jailers went down to the cells (in the same or another prison or in many) and tortured some guys because they were nervous and furious.
I know though that this invasion has managed to do what many years of poverty and hunger have not done throughout the whole muslim society. Coiled the fundamentalists and brought more people in their clutches. And this is the worst thing USA managed to do, to fire a flame they wanted to smother.

Well did Husein really had any WMD? i don't think so as the facts show do not use the evil Husein lecture. He did attack the Kurds but not without acceptance and prior knowledge of this act from certain countries.Which these same countries provided him with the chemicals in order to use them against their vile fundamentalist enemy Iran, which was attacked after their consultations. And the same applies for the invasion of Kuweit. And all these were just used for the interests of those who approved it but not commited the crimes. So as for the

[ May 03, 2004, 01:11: Message edited by: Mithrantir ]

 

There's an old expression: Choose your enemies well, because that's who you'll become the most like.

 

If you look at it like that, then the Sept.11 attacks are totally justified too. It's war, anything goes, right ?

I thought we were better than that. Apparently i was wrong.

 

That's pretty ridiculous. We weren't at war in any sense with Osama when he decided to go kamikaze on September 11. While I don't agree with GabrielNYC in his... views, I think that the above comment is simply silly.

This torture thing is a horrible incident that is not at all indicative of how the Coalition forces act on a regular basis. Comparing these twisted individuals with any other Coalition soldier is akin to comparing Charles Manson to any other resident of the US, or Hitler to any German. An isolated incident of cruelty doesn't condemn the whole...