Iraqis tortured - truly despicable

Remove all ads!

With all of the hoopla involved I'm sure that at least some soldiers will do time in military prison. However, many will probably just receive dishonorable discharges and move on with their lives.

 

Yeah, and that is just sick. As I said abovel, put 'em in jail for life, then we'll see if anyone tries to repeat their "deeds."

 

Any soldiers and their superiors involved need to be dishonorably discharged and publicly tried, by Iraqis, the Abu Graihb prison needs to be raised, and Donald Rumsfeld needs to be fired in disgrace. Anything less and we've proved Al Sadr, Osama and Saddam correct about us, at least in the eyes of the entire Arab world.

Any chance, if there ever was any, of a positive outcome in Iraq and a positive view of the United States in the Arab world is now gone forever.

I'll be staying out of any tall buildings or mass gatherings here at home for the next decade. The resolve of anti-Americanism now has the best recruitment tool it could ever ask for.

 

You might as well refrain from using public transportation then. Perhaps it's better to lock your doors and never leave the house again.

Come on dude, their hatred couldn't get any worse than it already was. This will change nothing. Just another black page in the historybooks, that's all.

 

That "buildings" comment was more metaphorical than literal, but I'm no less concerned. And It's not the "hatred" increasing that I'm worried about. It's their numbers. If you think this won't have a sharp effect either way on America's terrorism problem, all I can say is I wish I had your confidence. I for one and pretty damn worried.

 

The outrage. The sheer outrage. This once again proves the American president is too stubborn to pull his troops back to where they belong.

Not that I live in Belgium that I'm against the war like assumed, but this is indeed truly despicable. However, those are individualists so let us not generalise the situation. Nothing can be done to undo such things. The act as described in the article is just like terrorism itself. It cannot be stopped.

I like America, but I don't like it's president, that's all. No one here does. And a just point of view that is. He is just like Gaius (Caesar) who went to conquer our forefathers long ago. He used the argument of 'coming to aid' to attack our lands. Bush did just the same thing, using the so-called stored weapons which are not even there as a reason to start a war. That, my friend, is despicable, but that's another story, which is BTW history by now.

 

Harvard University law professor Alan Dershowitz thinks "...[we could use] a torture warrant..."
Read about it here and draw your own conclusions.

 

Pretty much sums it up IMO.

Let's turn it around a bit. Let's say that Saddam, in March 2003, was absolutely convinced that some American citizen on Iraqi soil had crucial information about an imminent attack by the U.S. on Iraq, and that information could be used to prevent the attack. If torture were OK under the circumstances described in the link, then Saddam would be perfectly justified in using torture in this situation. It doesn't matter that he'd do it anyway; the point is, nobody would have to right to object.

It works both ways, and that's way it should never be tolerated.

 

Whatever. Previous wars had far, far worse atrocities - Dresden, anyone? - and both sides found ways to get on with their lives afterward.

Like I wrote earlier, the only thing worse than an atrocity is a purposeless atrocity. These were purposeless and should be dealt with accordingly. They make the US' job in Iraq that much harder and reinforce pre-existing animosity against the occupation. These soldiers' evil will wring itself out in innocent blood.

But, c'mon. Hussein's Iraq and Assad's Syria made atrocity official policy. Palestinian suicide bombing - an atrocity even by UN and Amnesty International standards, even if justified as resistance to occupation - is culturally accepted, even praised. Compare that to the shock and horror washing across the US - both its people and government.

Clearly the region is capable of enduring atrocities and still having a "positive view" of the atrocious. Equally clearly, the US writ large is appalled by atrocities writ small. A positive outcome for Iraq is still very possible - for reasons less paladinic than pragmatic.

 

Except that they don't see their acts as being atrocious, whereas they do (along with the rest of the world) see the U.S. soldiers' acts as atricious. So in their mind, it's not apples-to-apples.

 

Actually Splunge, the problem is that we act like we are so much better than the rest of the world. We condemn Saddam and his torturing of prisoners. Then we do the same (though not as brutal but more humiliating, which in Arabic culture is much more offensive). We condemn Saddam killing his own people. But who supplied him with many of those weapons and WMD's. We Did. We call Sharon a man of peace but look at the numbers killed by both sides. Isrealies kill 2 Palastinians to every Isreali killed by suicide bombers. Arabs living in Isreal (sorry wrong sp but son is trying to type so cant look up correct sp right now) are second class citizens. Both sides have commited atrocities. And maybe we sshould admit we knew about and supported Saddam's murderous reign as long as he didnt bother us. Iraqi's understand that and know we are not there for thier liberation. They know they are occupied and belive we want to take over (I doubt that, but have no doubt we will install a US friendly government if possible, which looks more and more unlikely every day). And for those who think this is nothing like Vietnam, you are right. It took a few years for as many soldiers to die in Vietnam at the start compared to just the first year in Iraq. I just hate the fact that our sons and daughters are dying for a political agenda and not for the war on terrorism. They are being asked to die to make our country less safe. And that is truly despicable.

 

But we are better than the rest of the world. The West truly is better. Forgive me if that sounds arrogant or self-righteous - and I'm not trying to hijack this thread - but if we can't distinguish between the institutionalized atrocities of Hussein, Assad, and Khomeini, compared to the spontaneous and structured revulsion that America is displaying...then, ack! Keep in mind that these American atrocities were carefully documented for judicial reasons by the very same institution, the Army, which was responsible for those atrocities. That shows a level of self-correction and institutional conscience that much of the non-Western world, to be blunt, lacks.

Yes, we supplied weaponry to Hussein...years after he sparked the war with Iran, and only when it looked like Iran might be able to overrun Iraq. We stopped supplying once Iraq appeared to gain the upper hand. Given that Iran's ruling ideology was steeped in hostagetaking, terrorism, and "Death to America", it was neither impolite nor impolitic to support Iran's enemies. The US certainly did not endorse Saddam killing his own people, especially with chemical weapons.

There is a qualitative difference between helping an enemy of your enemy and massacring your own subjects.

Israel has blood on its hands, to be sure. But there is a qualitative difference between a democratic Israel (which democratically votes down Sharon's proposal to unilaterally sacrifice Gaza) and a Palestine consumed by a love affair with suicide. Both societies are sick, but in different ways - and Palestine may be sick unto death, literally.

And the different death toll doesn't give Palestine bonus martyr points.

Not a fair comparison, given that the first several years of the US-Vietnam experience involved mostly military trainers and materiel supplies. Maybe we should start the Gulf War at '91 and include the intervening no-fly-zone years, just like the intermission-pocked British-French 100 Years' War.

To sum up: these American atrocities are evil, pointless, self-destructive, and completely counterproductive to American and Iraqi interests. But scummy Westerners don't invalidate the point that Western civilization is still qualitatively better, at least when it comes to dealing with atrocity - as poison, not policy.

 

Grey - Flame suit!

 

America the country is a better place to live than most of the world i will agree. America's actions around the world have killed hundreds of thousands for totally selfish reasons. Why does Iran hate us? We helped overthrow thier government. We supported the Contras who killed over 30,000 innocent people. We knew Saddam was killing his own people (because they opposed him - but what about Iraqi's who oppose us, i guess if they fight us we can kill them too, plus about an additional 10,000 civilians at least so far) and we didn't give a damn. Our policy's overseas are horrible and we cozy up to any dictator who does what we want him to do. If he tortures his people, who cares as long as we get what we want. Take a look at any of the hundreds of things our government has supported and you will see why so much of the world hates us. Our government treats our people well, its just that anyone overseas who disagrees with us or doesn't play the way we like that gets the shaft.

 

I'm with shev on this one. The west 'is' better.

A few people were tortured but the torturers acted on their own, it's wasn't an order from the leaders. You get an army, you get people like that - "I joined so I could shoot stuff with big guns." So it's not surprising a few see not problem with torturing Iraqi prisioners, I'm surprised there have been so few cases.

 

I see an inherant problem with this west "is" better argument. As long as Countries like America violate international law without any care or concern the rest of the world is going to view it with distaste. What am I talking about? Everyone seems to have forgotten about Guantanamo bay. It seems that the illegal confinement and torture of people here is acceptable, whereas similar actions in Iraq are not.
Am I the only one who sees this paradox? You have a government that says it is o.k to confine illegally and abuse the human rights of individuals in one place, but you cant elsewhere? The soldiers guilty of these atrocities in Iraq can look at guantanamo bay and say, Hey, we were just following your lead.

Here's another thing. Bush declared the prisoners in Guantanamo as POW's. That way he is allowed to hold them indefinately. He calls them POWs in the war on terror. Well, if they are POWs then they are bound by the Geneva convention. If, as they are doing, America disregard this, then they are breaking international law. As such, it could be argued that international law no longer protects America, since they have no regard for it. In the future, johnny terrorist can do whatever he wants to America and say it's no worse then they do to the rest of the world.

 

How dare you write something like this. You're claiming that "American people" see themselves as something better than everyone else. Well, you know NOTHING about America. Because if you did, you would know that the "majority of American people" have never thought of themselves as such, but, in fact, have built a country on continuous re-evaluation of what isn't right, with an effort to try to make it better.

I find your post to be inflammatory and highly insulting.

(And this post is in violation of the very things you have cited other people for as well.)

 

Tal, did you ever stop to think that the reason that "most Americans" couldn't imagine such horrific treatment of prisoners is because such behavior would never be tolerated in American jails? Go ahead, call me naive - you won't be the first. But to say that "most Americans" don't care about how Iraqi prisoners are treated beyond how it reflects on our international image is baseless and patently unfair.

Please remember that "most Americans" did NOT support the election of George Bush; he got in on a Constitutional technicality.