"Ok, maybe the Americans weren't as bad as we let on..."
Recently, control of Abu Ghraib was returned back over to Iraqi authorities.
In part, due to security risks; but also in large part to incidents that swayed public world opinion against us, such as the following:
In the same article, it says that news that the American-run prison facility would be handed over to the Iraqis was "greeted with joy in Iraq". And now?
Oh, yeah and: "It's all Bush's fault."
Hat tip: Jen for emailing me the story.
In part, due to security risks; but also in large part to incidents that swayed public world opinion against us, such as the following:
footage of naked prisoners made to masturbate in front of the camera. There were also "many" pictures of two prison guards - Private Lynddie England and her lover Cpl Charles Graner, who are both currently serving prison sentences - having sexual intercourse.-Uk Telegraph, Feb 16, 2006The actions of a handful of American soldiers did enormous damage to the war effort.
The impact of those photographs, which were leaked to a US TV network by an American soldier, was seismic.
The affair became one of the defining points of the American occupation.
Eight soldiers, including Lynndie England, the 32-year-old former fast-food worker who was pictured holding the other end of the dog leash, were convicted for their involvement in the scandal, which undermined the moral authority of the Iraq invasion. The revelations dealt the operation a blow from which it is arguably yet to recover.
Many Iraqis who previously defended the US-led invasion turned against it.- Telegraph.co.UK March 10, 2006
In the same article, it says that news that the American-run prison facility would be handed over to the Iraqis was "greeted with joy in Iraq". And now?
Tortured screams ring out as Iraqis take over Abu GhraibThis reminds me of the disproportionate obsessing over criticizing and highlighting every negative that America has played a role in....from slavery of black Africans to genocide of Native-Americans; as if the rest of the world have clean hands in either of those two categories. I suppose Americans will also now be held responsible and be blamed by "world opinion", for the torture of Iraqi prisoners, including violent insurgents and terrorists, at the hands of Iraqis.
By Ali Saber in Baghdad and Gethin Chamberlain
(Filed: September 10, 2006)
Staff at the jail say the Iraqi authorities have moved dozens of terrorist suspects into Abu Ghraib from the controversial Interior Ministry detention centre in Jadriyah, where United States troops last year discovered 169 prisoners who had been tortured and starved.
An independent witness who went into Abu Ghraib this week told The Sunday Telegraph that screams were coming from the cell blocks housing the terrorist suspects. Prisoners released from the jail this week spoke of routine torture of terrorism suspects and on Wednesday, 27 prisoners were hanged in the first mass execution since the overthrow of Saddam Hussein's regime.
Conditions in the rest of the jail were grim, with an overwhelming stench of excrement, prisoners crammed into cells for all but 20 minutes a day, food rations cut to just rice and water and no air conditioning.
Some of the small number of prisoners who remained in the jail after the Americans left said they had pleaded to go with their departing captors, rather than be left in the hands of Iraqi guards.
"The Americans were better than the Iraqis. They treated us better," said Khalid Alaani, who was held on suspicion of involvement in Sunni terrorism.
Abu Ghraib became synonymous with abuse after shocking pictures were published in 2004 showing prisoners being tortured and humiliated, galvanising opposition to the US presence in Iraq.
Oh, yeah and: "It's all Bush's fault."
Hat tip: Jen for emailing me the story.
posted by The WordSmith from Nantucket at 9/11/2006 09:12:00 AM
21 Comments:
Please produce a link detailing the 'vast amounts of evidence' you claim points to CONSISTANT abuse of those the US has captured on the field of battle. I can produce a link to the Gitmo Cookbook
Since when has the US ceded its sovreignty to the UN? When did the we vote to put Kofi in power at the UN?? I can't believe I missed THAT election.
Do really believe that comments that you posted?
The article 5 bunchuk mentioned, I believe, is from the Geneva Convention which we've signed as a treaty and has force of law for us. It is OUR laws that say we won't torture.
http://www.hrw.org/english/docs/2004/05/24/
usint8614.htm
For the record.
Bullshit - Dan. The 'treaty' is only binding when BOTH parties have signed on to the Convention.
Remind me, Dan...what nation is that of al-queda? What is their flag? What is their standard military uniform?
Oh..yes..and when did the nation of al-queda sign on to the Geneva Conventions?
------------------------------
Geneva Convention which we've signed as a treaty and has force of law for us
I wonder who the current prisoners of Abu Ghraib would rather have running the prison - the Americans or the Iraqis?
If you define torture as being questioned by a woman in a thong and a short skirt with her boobs hanging out of her shirt...
Well, then I guess we make it a practice.
No matter how much evidence we produce that the detainees have gained weight, behave atrociously towards their guards (throwing semen and fecal matter at them and verbally accosting them in addition to attempting to find opportunities to physically assault anyone they come in contact with), and are physically in better condition than they were when they arrived at Gitmo, those who think we can stop terrorism by "hugging the world" will scream that we are torturing innocents.
I'm totally offended by bunchuk's assertion that the United States is behaving like it's enemies. what utter bullshi**! Do we make it a practice to seize attractive girls off the street and take them to rape palaces, branding them when they are "used up?" Uday did.
Do we beat and rape the wives and children of dissidents in front of their eyes? It's the practice in many totalitarian regimes.
Do we cut off people's fingers, gouge out their eyes, or behead our enemies on camera while dancing and singing "Swing Low, Sweet Chariot"? The terrorists do that - except they sing their own cultural hymns.
No, and we never will. How DARE you compare mosquito bites to hemorhaegic fever!
How can anti-war protestors and those claiming torture expect to have any credibility if they themselves get hysterical when tofu dinners are the wrong temperature while Syria is known to use electric shock on men's genitals to get information... or to punish.
As for the UN, It never ceases to amaze me that people can expect an organization populated with dictators and totalitarian regimes to behave in a democratic manner.
"Lynndie England, the 32-year-old former fast-food worker."
I didn't know she was a "fast-food worker."
Though it all makes sense as everytime I go to a McDonald's drivethrough window I feel like I am being tortured.
Too funny about the near riot when the Americans left Abu Ghraib. I guess we weren't such mean, nasty people after all.
We also got the story today that the torture method used to break the terrorist Abu Zubada (spelling?) was to put him in a cold room and play the music of the "Red Hot Chili Peppers."
I wonder how many currently in Abu Ghraib now under Iraqi management would love to be "tortured" that way.
Yes, Red Hot Chili Peppers for Zubaydah, and Christina Aguilera at Gitmo.
It's just plain...evil and atrocious. We Americans should be ashamed of ourselves for such cruel and inhumane treatment of terrorist thugs.
Of course the prisoners had it better with American guards! If we want to get information out of them, all we need to do is turn them over to the Iraqis, or several other countries I can think of. That'll do it every time, and we don't have to take the heat for torturing people with The Red Hot Chili Peppers. (Sheesh! Give me a break! Now I've heard it all!)
I'd talk if I was forced to listen to Christina or RHCP! Bleck!
The Geneva convention only works when both parties abide by them. There is no country to sign on the dotted line for Al Qaeda, so that's a moot point. As for Gitmo, I believe there is more proof of abuse of the soldiers there then of the prisoners.
Oh, and let us not forget the main rule for Al Qaeda and other terrorist organization (i.e. Hezbollah, Hamas, etc) make sure you get the sympathy of the media as it will cause the American public's resolve to waver. And there are people falling for their media manipulation crap every day! It's sickening...taking the word of a terrorist over your own people!
I just found a Matt Lauer interview with President Bush that is a must see. I posted it on my page.
Remeber the line: "Terrorists. You can shoot 'em, you just can't play loud music."
Thank you bunchuk! I am so glad you have first hand knowledge of what is going on at Guantanamo,and your first hand knowledge of the other vast amounts of evidence that you must have full access to. I mean there is no reason for you to prove anything we'll jsut take your word for it. However I wonder why you forgot to mention that in a two and a half year period the guards reported over 440 attacks against themselves by those poor abused Guantanamo prisoners? I'm sure those poor prisoners were just defending themselves against the evil tyrants who abuse them.
I don't know if anyone's bothered to visit his blog. Here's part of his 9/11 post:
We haves seen Imperialism and Tyranny as the US and the UK launch a illegal war against Iraq; which has killed 46,307 people to date, and instead of destroying Al-Quaida has provided a self-haven and plenty of new Jihadi recruits. We have seen Brutality by America troops as they indiscriminately slaughter women and children. We have seen Torture; in Abu Ghraib and Guantanamo; where America, the crusader of human rights, so horrifically treats the inmates. We have seen Racial and Religious intolerance as muslims everywhere are now targets to be abused, physically, mentally and verbally.
And how he feels about Castro:
Fidel health is recovering at a reasonable rate and thus should be able to resume his presidential duties sometime in the near future. It looks like America will have to keep her greedy hands off Cuban interests just a little longer; Castro is great at annoying America!
Hasta La Victoria Siempre!
Bunchuks admitted "wild and rambling accusation" goes on to further rambling in his response.
I can hardly follow the disconnects.
I believe in the concept of the United Nations as it was founded Bunchuk. But by your own words describing the members of the Human Rights Commission you are admitting that the UN fails utterly to live up to the lofty ideals and principles of it's creed.
You cannot find a better example of that failure than the recent cease fire resolution in the Israel/Lebanon conflict.
The French initially worked with us to craft a strong resolution with teeth and the rights of UN peacekeepers to take a more active role in disarming Hezbollah and defending themselves.
Then, under pressure from the terrorist-enabling wing of UN Nations France surrendered and would only put forward a more watered down agreement with the difficult issues to be resolved later.
We're still waiting for that promised follow-on resolution. Want to take bets on whether we get one or not?
Here was the perfect opportunity for the UN to do what it was set up to do and solve problems. Instead we get buck passing, obstruction and denial.
I share your concern for human rights too. The mass graves in Iraq where the bodies of infants and small children were found with a bullet to the back of the head then bulldozed into a trench are about the most heinous things I can imagine.
And there are the everyday rights of people around the world trapped by oppressive governments like Cuba, Venezuela, Iran, North Korea and more.
Human Rights Watch, the liberals best friend when it is talking about Abu Ghraib has been sounding the warning on these and other human rights tragedies for years.
Not a peep from the left. In fact, you folks embrace Castro and Chavez.
And that includes your Green/Environmental friends who think ecologically and environmentally safe drilling for oil in Alaska is a crime against humanity but don't seem to have much to say about Hugo Chavez's plan to build a 5,000 km natural gas pipeline right through the heart of the holiest of holies, the Brazilian Rain Forest.
Whether it's the environment, world peace or human rights, the left continues to ignore the gaping hypocrisy that is so evident and transparent to those of us who think that results in advancing these causes mean more than words and phony moral posturing.
Bunchuk: Did you hear the story from one of the European inspectors sent to Guantanamo? He told President Bush that the prison puts most European prisons to shame.
And isn't it true that the UN agency which wrote the report you cite never sent inspectors to Gitmo?
We treat these terrorist scum better than they would be treated in their own countries.
It's a shame that the collective outrage and huffing and puffing from human rights advocates has become so morally debased.
To complain about Gitmo, when just across the fence in the rest of Cuba librarians are sent to real gulags for daring to lend books that aren't on the approved list.
Bunchuk,
The problem I have is in the perception that abuse and torture is widespread and endorsed. And there is no comparison between the U.S. and Soviet Gulags, as Senator Dick Durban would have you believe. Amnesty International hurts its own credibility with the same charge and comparison.
The Pentagon admitted to about 5 instances of "Koran abuse". And if I remember, when you read the specifics, it is so preposterous that the guards should be punished for what happened. Yet in the name of political correctness and cultural sensitivity, they were. Out of something like 28,000 interrogations (I think this was around a year ago), only a handful of incidents occurred. And of these incidents that were investigated, again, they were pretty mild, and the kind that made you think "wtf?!" Our military and the U.S. is under such a tight microscope from the rest of the world. It is ridiculous, even if, as you say, the West should be "setting the example" of humane behavior. I think that's already obvious. Media hysteria and already present anti-American sentiments is what fuels molehills into mountains.
The prisoners at Guantanamo are no saints. The link you provided on the 14 being moved deserve no quarter; how is it that the detainees are better fed than inmates in our own federal prisons, as well as our soldiers? Mustard-Dill baked fish, Tandouri chicken, honey-glazed chicken and rice pilaf...how is this mistreatment? Were the Soviets passing out Bibles in their Gulags? How is it that we go above and beyond in providing Korans, handled with great reverence, provide prayer rugs, and arrows to indicate the direction of Mecca, and provide calls to prayer? Absolute religious freedom!
You cited,
Reports indicate that the treatment of detainees since their arrests, and the conditions of their confinement, have had profound effects on the mental health of many of them. 103 The treatment and conditions include the capture and transfer of detainees to an undisclosed overseas location, sensory deprivation and other abusive treatment during transfer; detention in cages without proper sanitation and exposure to extreme temperatures; minimal exercise and hygiene; systematic use of coercive interrogation techniques; long periods of solitary confinement; cultural and religious harassment; denial of or severely delayed communication with family; and the uncertainty generated by the indeterminate nature of confinement and denial of access to independent tribunals. 104 These conditions have led in some instances to serious mental illness, over 350 acts of self-harm in 2003 alone, individual and mass suicide attempts and widespread, prolonged hunger strikes. 105
I reject much of that. I've heard and read personal accounts that contradicts those "reports". And "serious mental illness"? As if these terrorist thugs were completely rational and sane to begin with. They are the worst of the worst. Most of the original 750 detainees have been released (some returning back to the battlefield).
That is my evidence, by a properly sanction UN report. America is bound to the UN and by the human rights convention. As many have you pointed out, its a lot worse in other place, but we must lead by example. We must show to the world that our fight is just and that they are evil; if we descend into their tactics the line become blurred and we will risk losing the international support we so desperately need in this fight.
The problem is, I reject the UN assessment, as surely ill-informed as Amnesty International and Newsweek, which ended up retracting a story that inflamed violent anti-American protests when they irresponsibly and slanderously reported that a Koran had been flushed down a toilet. Even if that had been a true story, how does the death of 17 (weren't they themselves Muslim?) innocent people equate to "avenging the indignity" suffered by a Koran? Is that a civilized response? Lashing out in violence?
I think the UN report is based upon "hearsay" and 3rd hand reports from groups like the ACLU and World Organization for Human Rights USA. I'll have to look into it, as I gave up on following it closely after 2005, but I think the US didn't submit it's own annual or 5 year report; so the UN resorted to outside groups.
We're in a state of war. With one hand tied behind our backs, apparently, by those concerned about the rights and well-being of murderers.
There's a huge difference between torture, as already described by others here, and such things as making our enemies listen to Christina Aguilera.
We must show to the world that our fight is just and that they are evil;
If you look, it's not too difficult to see that many Iraqis understand and appreciate the nobility and sacrifice of our military; that we are trying to help them build for a better future. The insurgents and terrorists are trying to sabotage that.
if we descend into their tactics the line become blurred and we will risk losing the international support we so desperately need in this fight.
We lose international support because they feed their own anti-American sentiments with biased reporting that inflames. CNN and Newsweek are like a 4th Estate, 5th column in many instances.
That "higher standard" you think we should live up to, we already do that a thousand times over!
Well here is what MSNBC had on the Army investigation of Abu Ghraib. Glad had bookmarked it. http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/4894001/
The Americans are guilty no doubt about it. By being culturally insensitive to head chopping, child detonating savages who like trying to throw scalding water on American guards.
In the early days of Gitmo the guards stripped out the MRE heater packs to prevent the prisoners from using them to heat up water and do this to the guards.
Actually I would think New Kids on the Block would be worse torture.
I was merely trying to arouse a discussion as to the overall situation and im afraid of few of your co-bloggers seem to have taken it a bit personally!
Well, I don't recall anyone being uncivil toward you and making ad hominems. Just, I'd say, exasperated at the belief that our military is anything other than noble and humane. The nature of the media, aside from liberal bias, is sensationalism and reporting the negative. So the few bad apples make the biggest stink. And in a time of war when we are trying to win hearts and minds, people like Lyndsie Englund, but also 60 Minutes and Newsweek who act like they have clean hands, are also doing much to prolong this war and sabotage our efforts. The soldiers on the frontlines are the ones who end up paying the hardest for it.
By any objective honest estimation and standard, there is no comparison between our military and those of other countries.
I suppose I should have done you the courtesy of providing relevant links. But then I'm a bit lazy to do the leg (or rather "finger")work right now.
I did take the UN Report more seriously than I let on, and am going through the pdf file from the BBC site.
Thanks for being courteous and not a troll or a moonbat. And you have most of us pegged right. We're pretty set in our ways. But I am willing to lend an ear if there's something I haven't heard before.
I found this to be a rather interesting perspective on the "religious tolerance" at Guantanamo:
Exquisite Religious Sensitivity at Gitmo
June 10, 2005
George P. Wood
In her Washington Times' column , Diana West details the excruciating lengths to which Gitmo guards go not to offend their prisoners' delicate religious sensibilities. In order to touch a detainee's Koran, for example, the guards don clean white gloves, pick up the Koran with both hands, and carry it in a clean towel owned by the detainee. Why?
"At first glance, this scene may seem to exemplify a bizarre excess of good manners, an absurdly obsequious respect for a largely foreign faith. Since when does the United States specifically direct its soldiers to show two-handed 'reverence' in the handling of any religious book? But it seems to me that there's more behind this charade. The 'clean gloves' and 'detainee' towels are the tip off. The fact is, under Islamic law, non-Muslims are deemed unfit to touch the Koran. That much is generally known. What is not usually considered is the reason: According to the Islamic law, we are unclean.
"The term is 'najis.' On the multilingual Web site of the Grand Ayatollah Ali al-Husseini al-Sistani, the leading Iraqi Shi'ite cleric, there is a catalogue of Islamic laws (www.sistani.org). This includes a list of 'najis things.' There are 10, beginning with an assortment of excretions and body fluids — obvious stuff that really shouldn't need special mention. On the 'najis' list with urine, feces, etc., are the pig, the dog and the 'kafir.' That means the Christian, the Jew, the unbeliever in Islam — and chances are, the Gitmo guard.
"In effect, then, with its official policy of clean gloves and detainee towels, the military is promoting, enabling and accepting the Islamic concept of najis — the unclean infidel — a barbarous notion that has helped fuel the blood lust of jihad and the non-Muslim subjugation of dhimmitude. Our soldiers are many things: self-sacrificing, bold, loyal and true. They are not unclean.
"Is this political correctness run amok? Not exactly. It's something else again, a new threat from within that needs vigilant redress. PC is about victimology, the elevation of perceived victim groups to the canonical pantheon. The Gitmo rules are more blatantly about surrender, a voluntary, self-extinguishment, a spreading condition of denial of what is right and worth standing for. Not what you expect from the United States Southern Command."
One wonders if Amnesty International took note of this excessive religious sensitivity and obsequiousness when its president referred to Gitmo as a "gulag."
Yes, we bend over backwards to the point of surrender to extreme Islamic beliefs to make sure we don't offend anyone. Not that it matters, the U.S. is still going to be pegged as evil for imprisoning these killers PERIOD!
I've already mentioned what happens to librarians in Cuba who dare to lend banned books.
I just add: try taking a bible into Saudi Arabia or China and see how well they treat our Holy Book.
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