Outrage over Iraqi prison torture (Combined)

[metallix]

.

[villain]

sick

[26SidedCube]

Edit: My bad, didn't notice the first link.

[KaBar2]

Do you guys remember way back when the invasion of Afghanistan started, and I said that any al-Quaida guerrillas captured would talk, one way or another? Do you remember when I said that that flight from Afghanistan to Guantanamo Bay in a C-130, chained to the deck, was a looong flight across the Atlantic? You don't suppose they "lost" any prisoners over the tailgate ramp, do ya?

Do you remember when I said that the CIA and Delta Force and the Special Forces were probably smoking al-Quaida guerrillas in cafe's and coffee shops in cities all over the world?

I'd say these guys are really fucking sorry they ever fucked with the United States. But at least they are still alive, and if they know what's good for them, they will sing like canaries. And if they won't, I hope they can swim, cause it's a long way back.

You guys are always talking about "gangsta this" and "gangsta that."

Well THIS is the real deal. Anybody that fucks with us will profoundly regret it. That's REAL gangsta, not some pretend bad ass poseur in a low-rider Buick.

You want to see "hard?" This ^^^ is hard. "NO MERCY." Believe it.

[TheoHuxtable]

I'm curious as to know how they went about doing this. Aren't there usually officers and high-ranking enlisted around to make sure shit doesn't get out of hand?

[PalestineOne]

KaBar is nothing more than a hobo, in all its definitions

[TheoHuxtable]

Originally posted by PalestineOne
KaBar is nothing more than a hobo, in all its definitions

Why are all of your posts one sentence? Maybe two if you're lucky. On one thread you even continued the second sentence on the next post. I guess you didn't want to jeapordize your one-sentence "traditon."

[PalestineOne]

shit I never noticed

[PalestineOne]

but youve got a point though!

[KaBar2]

He's always concise, though. And witty, too. Both are qualities I admire.

[PalestineOne]

oh now I remembered why... cause my computer for some reason doesnt recognize the edit link, so I cant edit my posts.

[PalestineOne]

I bet KaBar sells propane and propane accessories for a living haha

[imported_Tesseract]

Originally posted by KaBar2
Do you guys remember way back when the invasion of Afghanistan started, and I said that any al-Quaida guerrillas captured would talk, one way or another? Do you remember when I said that that flight from Afghanistan to Guantanamo Bay in a C-130, chained to the deck, was a looong flight across the Atlantic? You don't suppose they "lost" any prisoners over the tailgate ramp, do ya?

Do you remember when I said that the CIA and Delta Force and the Special Forces were probably smoking al-Quaida guerrillas in cafe's and coffee shops in cities all over the world?

I'd say these guys are really fucking sorry they ever fucked with the United States. But at least they are still alive, and if they know what's good for them, they will sing like canaries. And if they won't, I hope they can swim, cause it's a long way back.

You guys are always talking about "gangsta this" and "gangsta that."

Well THIS is the real deal. Anybody that fucks with us will profoundly regret it. That's REAL gangsta, not some pretend bad ass poseur in a low-rider Buick.

You want to see "hard?" This ^^^ is hard. "NO MERCY." Believe it.

I never doubted this kind of shit was taking place and it definatelly doesnt surprise me that you're so fond of the whole thing.
So whats your bet? are these the masterminds behind terrorist attacks on US soil? Are these the people that refuse to have their country run by you guys? or are they a random pick from the hundreds of people that are locked up in these fine facilities for any reason whatsoever?

Anyway, so what makes the US troops any different than Saddam down there right now? Is this your idea of liberating a country and dont you find it funny how the US uses all the international human right treaties as an excuse to go to war so your troops can violate them?

[KaBar2]

My bet is that the female general in charge of this prison was a poor officer, and nobody under her command had any respect for the regulations about guarding prisoners. More than likely, the prisoners were difficult to manage as well as arrogant. And more than likely, that just fueled the desire on the part of the soldiers guarding them to break their will by whatever means.

You're wrong when you insinuate that I condone this sort of brutality. I do not condone it, and especially not if the Iraqis in these photographs were regular Iraqi troops. However, what is absolutely true, and what you will not or cannot acknowledge is that the Iraqi government, the Baath Party and the Sunni ruling class in general is composed of the moral equivalent of the Nazi Party.

So U.S. troops humiliated a bunch of S.S. guards and stormtroopers.

It's not right, and should not have happened. Maybe if they had surrendered immediately and 'fessed up during interrogation they would be back home with their families now. But instead, I suspect they copped an attitude, thinking that the Americans are all a bunch of weak, soft pussies incapable of beating the ever-loving shit out of some smart-ass Iraqi secret police agent, and that they could be disrespectful and oppositional and that "there ain't nothing you can do about it."

Guess again.

The guards should have known better than to risk prosecution for their stupid brutality, and were even stupider for allowing anybody to film it. On the other hand, the trials may just be for show, so the CIA can say they cleaned up the problem. Most likely, this brutality was a free-lance deal, because people who have been seriously interrogated by the CIA do not show up on CNN, or anywhere else, for that matter. These soldiers were stupid, and they will probably go to prison for it.

[HYDRO BILL]

Whatever Kabar2 you`re an asshole for defending this crap. They probably did nothing to deserve this abuse. Putting people in solitary is cruel enough. This is all about soldiers with small penises, that "woman" included. Imagine Iraq was the superpower and they were doing this to your son. America can expect years and years of tough Iraqis killing Americans for abuses like this. No it`s not Gangsta.This is weakness.

[HYDRO BILL]

I don`t condone it, I just justify it- Kabar2

[TheoHuxtable]

Originally posted by HYDRO BILL
Whatever Kabar2 you`re an asshole for defending this crap. They probably did nothing to deserve this abuse. Putting people in solitary is cruel enough. This is all about soldiers with small penises, that "woman" included. Imagine Iraq was the superpower and they were doing this to your son. America can expect years and years of tough Iraqis killing Americans for abuses like this. No it`s not Gangsta.This is weakness.


To Tesserect and HYDRO: Obviously this is wrong, but it isn't fair to accuse *America* or the US armed forces as a whole for this. This was not under any type of "order" or approval of the US Army. It was merely a few troops that took matters into their own hands. That's why the US was outraged and acted accordingly, as all of the troops involved will be court-martialed, lose all military benefits and will spend time in prison.

Also HYDRO, Iraqi insurgents as well as Iraqi conventional army have violated the Geneva Conventions as well as the treatment of US prisoners far worse than making men lay naked on each other.

Another thing, why do you say that putting prisoners in solitary confinement is "cruel". Do you fail to realize that these are prisoners? Many countries, Iraq included, use torture and even kill prisoners. It's just that there's higher expectations for the US, so when someone looks at somebody the wrong way all of a sudden you're outraged. But Iraq can maim prisoners and you just turn the other cheek.

[HYDRO BILL]

I said cruel enough (ie. appropriate). Fuck, I know it`s war but seriously, these are the idiots who photograph themselves. how many assholes do this shit without any punishment?

And Kabar2 saying that it was because the commander was female is bullshit too. Listen, the Canadian army made Somalians do push-ups into shit, wrote `nigger` on somalians backs`with shit, and killed a kid and posed with his dead body. Unfortunately, as I am sure you can attest to, a lot of loonies want to join the army so they can get shiny guns and kill people. (Thanks for your reply about why most people join the army in that other thread- very interseting). You are right, we do expect more of countries like the USA, and so we should. But if you launch an illegal invasion of another country you should expect guerrila warfare. No, that doesn`t justify using these same tactics. Yes, you should turn the other cheek. After all you are a Christian country right? You have to be squeaky clean, un-emotional and detached. I think that American soldiers are comitting war crimes out of frustration with their lying administration and bleak future in Iraq- understandable.
PS. If I `Looked at you the wrong way` aka. made you pretend to suck a cock and wrote shit on you, would you be happy about it? Remember, this is the shit that made it to film. Without the film, no scandal.
Whatever, all I am saying is this is extremely poorly timed and expect an Iraqi backlash.

[HYDRO BILL]

Sudan? North Korea? China? lots of human rights abuses out there. If we get to imitate the worst that another country does we will all be fucked. Human rights are immensely important. Props to you, though Theo. You are clearly not an unthinking soldier.

[Poop Man Bob]

Taken from kos (http://www.dailykos.com/story/2004/4/30/11017/6752):

We've lost the battle for hearts and minds (http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&cid=578&e=2&u=/nm/20040430/ts_nm/iraq_pictures_dc).
Photos of U.S. soldiers abusing Iraqi prisoners drew international condemnation on Friday, prompting the stark conclusion that the U.S. campaign to win the hearts and minds of Iraqis is a lost cause.

"This is the straw that broke the camel's back for America," said Abdel-Bari Atwan, editor of the Arab newspaper Al Quds Al Arabi. "The liberators are worse than the dictators."

"They have not just lost the hearts and minds of Iraqis but all the Third World and the Arab countries," he told Reuters.

The CBS News program "60 Minutes II" on Wednesday broadcast photos taken at the Abu Ghraib prison late last year showing American troops abusing some Iraqis held at what was once a notorious center of torture and executions under toppled President Saddam Hussein.

The pictures showed U.S. troops smiling, posing, laughing or giving the thumbs-up sign as naked, male Iraqi prisoners were stacked in a pyramid or positioned to simulate sex acts with one another.

Britain has been America's staunchest ally in Iraq (news - web sites) but alarm has spread over strong-arm U.S tactics, support for Prime Minister Tony Blair has plummeted and the pictures were widely condemned on Thursday.

"When it comes to winning hearts and minds, the U.S. Army hasn't got a clue," wrote the Daily Mirror tabloid, one of several British papers to splash the photos on its front page.

This is upsetting on so many levels. One, it smears every American in Iraq, where the vast majority of our men and women in uniform are noble, brave, kind-hearted people. They are not there because they choose to be there, they are there because Bush ordered them there. Yet their reputation is being besmirched by these lunatic asshole at the Abu Ghraib prison.

Two, it fuels Iraqi and worldwide perception that the US is no better than Saddam. That is NOT true. In theory. In practice, the Iraqi people have seen none of the "freedoms" promised by Bush's rhetoric. There is no Democracy. Their press gets shut down for criticizing the CPA. Their electricity is even less reliable now than under Saddam. Crime is up. Safety is down. The US is killing thousands of Shiites and Sunnis.

And now, we find out that work in Saddam's torture chambers continue unabated. It's revolting. There's one clear way we can show the world we are not like Saddam -- the perpetrators of these injustices need to be brought to trial quickly, and meted the sort of punishment that Saddam's torturers would never have gotten.

And finally, it's just yet another example that merceneraries are the scum of the planet. Indications are that mercs ran the prison and had a role in the abuses at the prison. Yet they cannot be punished under military law. Again, lawless mercenaries are complicating our occupation and attempts to rebuild Iraq. Anyone who defends mercenaries hates our troops. Plain and simple. The actions of those mercenaries have been getting our soldiers killed. And now, they have guaranteed the loss of our battle for the hearts and minds of Iraq's people.


---------------------------------------------------------------------

From the Guardian (http://www.guardian.co.uk/Iraq/Story/0,2763,1206725,00.html):

Graphic photographs showing the torture and sexual abuse of Iraqi prisoners in a US-run prison outside Baghdad emerged yesterday from a military inquiry which has left six soldiers facing a possible court martial and a general under investigation. The scandal has also brought to light the growing and largely unregulated role of private contractors in the interrogation of detainees.

According to lawyers for some of the soldiers, they claimed to be acting in part under the instruction of mercenary interrogators hired by the Pentagon.

[..snip..]

Lawyers for the soldiers argue they are being made scapegoats for a rogue military prison system in which mercenaries give orders without legal accountability.

A military report into the Abu Ghraib case - parts of which were made available to the Guardian - makes it clear that private contractors were supervising interrogations in the prison, which was notorious for torture and executions under Saddam Hussein.

One civilian contractor was accused of raping a young, male prisoner but has not been charged because military law has no jurisdiction over him.

[..snip..]

"It's insanity," said Robert Baer, a former CIA agent, who has examined the case, and is concerned about the private contractors' free-ranging role. "These are rank amateurs and there is no legally binding law on these guys as far as I could tell. Why did they let them in the prison?"





http://images.icnetwork.co.uk/upl/mirror/apr2004/5/0/000ECF93-F2DC-1091-8AB280C328EC0000.jpg'>
[i]The prisoner standing on the box was told that if he fell off he would be electrocuted.


[img]http://images.icnetwork.co.uk/upl/mirror/apr2004/8/0/000CE7A0-F303-1091-8AB280C328EC0000.jpg'>


[img]http://images.icnetwork.co.uk/upl/mirror/apr2004/6/0/000EE316-F2E5-1091-8AB280C328EC0000.jpg'>


[img]http://images.icnetwork.co.uk/upl/mirror/apr2004/4/0/000293C5-F29D-1091-8AB280C328EC0000.jpg'>

[Poop Man Bob]

While I'm sure a few will say, "fuck 'em .. they get what they deserve for fighting against us" ... remember that these pictures are going to be broadcast over Al Jazeera for a looong time. This is only going to raise the level of hatred the Iraqis hold for US troops, and will likely result in an increased number of US deaths.

While stating we are their liberators, we act no better than Saddam [in this situation]. We continue the horrors of torture and rape rooms and were supposed reasons we freed the Iraqis from their brutal dictator. As a guy in the first article I quoted stated, "[The US] have not just lost the hearts and minds of Iraqis but all the Third World and the Arab countries."

[Æ°]

Liberate Iraq.


This shit is disgusting...Who's uncivilized?

[<KEY3>]

holy shit.... it's like sending pro wrestlers to a diplomacy summit... entirely wrong!

grrr.... kind of gives a little justification to the John Walker Lindt types out there who fight against their own country.

[seeking]

i find it curious that kabar was defending mercinaries, and talking about how they were above the law, because they are not part of our military. but then he was condemning the iraqi's resisting us, claiming they are violating the geneva convention because they do not wear uniforms(!!!!). what's more of a violation, hiring a third party to do your dirty work for you, knowing they can't be punished, or only having one fucking set of clothes to live, sleep, and die in?

to be honest, i'm not even that outraged at the 'torture', most of which seems to be minor, which our troops carried out, but i am at the fact that they were so fucking stupid that they didnt realize the actions of a handful of people could possibly crippled this entire operation, and will undoubtedly cost hundreds, if nto possibly thousands more american lives because it will ignite a fire in anyone sitting on the fence of anti-american sentiment. it's easy for us to see the picture of lt. whatever his name is, and say 'oh, well it's bullshit, it's just photoshopped', but then we expect a whole region, that has absolutely no idea that photoshop even exists, that it's not true. they live in a world where they don't realize you can only believe half of what you see, so all they see is reinforcement of every bad thing being said about us. as punishment, those guys shouldnt be court marshalled, they should be forced to work in the morgue for the next 5 years, writing letters to the family members of those killed, explaining how actions like theres helped destroy the 'peace' process.

think about the american outrage when iraqi soldiers were pretending to surrender, then shot at our troops. every football playing senior in america was ready to enlist. now imagine if instead of shooting our soldiers, they stripped them naked and mocked them. humiliation is far worse than death to most people, especially to people over there, where dying is so common place.


sorry cilone, my conscience just wont let me keep it under a paragraph.

[EyeforAnEYE]

Yeah this wont sit so well if with iraqis it's being broadcast over Al Jeazeera. More americans have died in this month while the war is supposedly over, then the amount of deaths that occured during the actual war. And I can see many more American deaths coming

[Deist]

Im a little baffled that people are so suprised to hear that this was going on.. i mean come on, their american troops.

[imported_dowmagik]

it aint like the iraqis that capture american soldiers give them pillows and pop rocks. war is fucked, no matter what end youre on.

[Kr430n5_666]

[img]http://www.kak.ru/images/archive/13-14/japan/Sign/SJ42.jpg'>

[26SidedCube]

[img]http://www.ogrish.com/view_attachment.php?id=15855'>

Americans are such savages. Making them
simulate gay acts for photographs... cowards.

Hopefully this does enrage the Iraq people to
fight back that much harder. We saw contractors
murdered, burnt, and strung from bridges how
long ago? Are the American people up in arms
fanning the flames of hate for a few radical's
actions? I don't think so.

Hug a liberal.

[-J.Handsome-]

VIVA BUSH!

[Poop Man Bob]

Hush, Deto/J.Handsome, unless you want to bring something substantive to the table.

[DETO]

:rolleyes:
[img]http://www.georgewbush.com/images/BC04/headers/1bck.jpg'>
[img]http://www.spalding-group.com/gwb/images/dept_W_logo.jpg'>

[heavyLox]

this is fucking rediculous.

granted he majority of the US forces are young ignant americans I still have a hard time with the fact that someone trusted with guns and the task of defending US could be so stupid. This really solidifies my feeling that america sucks. These soldiers like most of non- careered folks are just doing a job they seem not to give a fuck about. And when you care about your job you do it like shit.

Has anyone noticed the severe decline in the quality of service, provided by the US service industry? You go to a supermarket the casheir doesnt give a fuck. Its like you even being there is getting int he way of her/him talking to a co-worker about bull shit.


anyway these soldiers should be brig bound pronto.


heavy/ outraged in seattle.

[villain]

Originally posted by heavyLox
I still have a hard time with the fact that someone trusted with guns and the task of defending US could be so stupid.

Obviously you have never been in the service....

[heavyLox]

never in the service. but the service is so flawed in its methods its scary.

[ASN]

This is so fucked up. We are doing worse then sadam did, of course there going to hate us. Bush and cheney are gonna bring more terrorists here on a much larger scale.

Anyone on here please do not re-elect Bush and force me to move to canada.

I heard that the military hires the CIA to hire a third party from the school of the americas(i believe thats the name it is a us funded school that trains assassins ect.) These guys torture the Iraqis for info. Half of the guys in that prison are in there because they're neighbor or someone they know told on them....not because they did anything wrong but becasue they didnt want to be tortured anymore. I also heard that so far some Iraqis have been killed during this torture.
Aside from this royally pissing off the Iraqi people what about us shooting at mosques for insurgents that might be in there? Imagine a terrorist blowing up a catholic church on sunday morning.


please excuse the spelling errors

[villain]

I knew some shit like this was going to go down from the moment Bush first went about trying to get immunity from international law for our soldiers when all this big bullshit first went down.
I thought we were supposed to be the good guys....

[villain]

They changed the name of the School of the Americas after 9-11 cause they didn't want to give people the wrong idea. I forget what the new name is sorry. Anyways I used to eat at a chow hall right next to the "School of the Americas" in Ft. Benning. I remember many a meal wondering how many of those guys sitting next to me would turn out to be tommorows dictators and rebel guerilla armies....
Mostly they train latin american people in the school of the americas, hence the name. But they do train them to be dictators or guerillas, or terrorists. This is how we maintain "U.S. interests" in our southern hemisphere.

[26SidedCube]

Originally posted by villain
I knew some shit like this was going to go down from the moment Bush first went about trying to get immunity from international law for our soldiers when all this big bullshit first went down.
I thought we were supposed to be the good guys....

There are no good guys, everyone's looking to cover their own best interests.

I still think I'm in no wrong when I say every
other country would be just as fucked up, greedy,
lazy and diluted as ours had they come to be
the world's most financially secure superpower.

Alas, people are still pulling the United States
card when it's really human nature that needs
to be picked apart and have it's ugly parts spit
on... but whatever, this gives ugliness a face,
or better yet a continent, so fuck it, everyone
gather around and toss those stones.

It's so much easier anyway.

[villain]

Originally posted by 26SidedCube
There are no good guys, everyone's looking to cover their own best interests.

I still think I'm in no wrong when I say every
other country would be just as fucked up, greedy,
lazy and diluted as ours had they come to be
the world's most financially secure superpower.

Alas, people are still pulling the United States
card when it's really human nature that needs
to be picked apart and have it's ugly parts spit
on... but whatever, this gives ugliness a face,
or better yet a continent, so fuck it, everyone
gather around and toss those stones.

It's so much easier anyway.

I would beg to differ. It is our culture that perpetuates this madness. We are much more empirical than many think. Even the term capitalism should ring alarms of warning. I suppose that Capitalism was bound to win out over Ideology (U.S. vs U.S.S.R.) in the Cold War because capitalism manifests the strengths of materialism, and materialism is what rules this world. I think the Bible was right in saying that the devil rules this world. And now I see this thread interlacing with the "a manifesto" thread and what I just posted there about the body vs the spirit. Capital knows no morality and ultimately will no longer be bound by it if it is allowed to continue to capitalize upon itself. It is a self interested master.

Perhaps you are right that any empirical culture would become such a travesty. But there are many tribes that never reach an empire class statehood because they have no desire to do so.

It is a major dilemma in this day and age that we have lost our morality. Though few are willing to recognize it for what it is. Science and empirical knowledge has debased religion and debunked myths and left us in a moral vacuum. Just take a look around you and you will know what I mean.

[Poop Man Bob]

Bump because I didn't see this before posting my thread on the same topic. And because villian speaks words of wisdom.

[26SidedCube]

Originally posted by villain
I would beg to differ. It is our culture that perpetuates this madness. We are much more empirical than many think. Even the term capitalism should ring alarms of warning. I suppose that Capitalism was bound to win out over Ideology (U.S. vs U.S.S.R.) in the Cold War because capitalism manifests the strengths of materialism, and materialism is what rules this world. I think the Bible was right in saying that the devil rules this world. And now I see this thread interlacing with the "a manifesto" thread and what I just posted there about the body vs the spirit. Capital knows no morality and ultimately will no longer be bound by it if it is allowed to continue to capitalize upon itself. It is a self interested master.


It is our culture that perpetuates the madness..
no doubt. None the less European nations
still have pop culture and sitcoms. Saddam
was listening to Brittney Spears and liking
Nike products. We're putting the garbage
out there en masse but we can't force it into
anyone's living room. These people are buying
into the comforts of western life as much as
you and I were born into it. I don't like it,
trust me.. I wish I could put up the gates
and seize satellite transmissions in order
to save people from demographics and
target markets but I can't. It's not only the
people of the US who buy into all the cushy
existance bullshit. Sad facts, but that is not
to say anything is beyond gradual change.

I'm not saying I'm right, that's just my take on 'things'.

Originally posted by villain
Perhaps you are right that any empirical culture would become such a travesty. But there are many tribes that never reach an empire class statehood because they have no desire to do so.

Understandable, but for each of those tribal
civilizations there are empires that want to
rise and conquer. The US has done it's fair
share of Manifesting Destinies, but let's not
forget it has also done it's fair share to stop
other empires who want much more than
capital gain (ala destroying entire races).

Then there's the reality that at some point
in time people are going to organize and
some are going to have to govern, this will
cause resentment, injustice, caste systems,
class wars, prejudice, hate and eventually
lead to the now. I know where you're coming
from, and I wish it like that just as much as
you... but you're putting too much faith in
man in large numbers.

Originally posted by villain
It is a major dilemma in this day and age that we have lost our morality. Though few are willing to recognize it for what it is. Science and empirical knowledge has debased religion and debunked myths and left us in a moral vacuum. Just take a look around you and you will know what I mean.

"I'd like to reach out and tap that fraction of monk value in all of men/
where honesty takes it's thrown then beside it conviction settles in"

Yeah, I think I know what you're saying.

[metallix]

[QUOTE]Originally posted by villain
[B]I would beg to differ. It is our culture that perpetuates this madness. We are much more empirical than many think. Even the term capitalism should ring alarms of warning. I suppose that Capitalism was bound to win out over Ideology (U.S. vs U.S.S.R.) in the Cold War because capitalism manifests the strengths of materialism, and materialism is what rules this world. I think the Bible was right in saying that the devil rules this world. And now I see this thread interlacing with the "a manifesto" thread and what I just posted there about the body vs the spirit. Capital knows no morality and ultimately will no longer be bound by it if it is allowed to continue to capitalize upon itself. It is a self interested master.

.

[heavyLox]

bush vetoing the UN in terms of standards for dealing with military justice, and troop prosecution when needed. this is the do as i say not as i do hill, and a slippery slop it is.

The fact of the matter is the moral right is what bush is relying on to get us through. But the moral right does not always justify the means to the end. Good intentions go only so far.

we know the end we want, the question is how best to get there, we are currently not on the right course. we are much like the block bully, who believes he is respected but really hes just feared and hated.

It was merely a few troops that took matters into their own hands
this is unacceptable. troops should not expand the mission to include humiliation, and sophmoric racism. The army has a history of covering its ass, so i dont buy the idea its just a "few" troops. I do think there are plenty of Good people in the service.

this is such a tuff issue, how do you relate to captured foes?

[villain]

Thx PMB and Metallix... though I must say I owe much to my favorite authors.

I'm afraid the road we are traveling down is a desire for absolute control and power. I'm getting a book on resource wars so after I read that I will be able to provide more insight into this field of study. You know that backstabbing is an inherent part of business. If you cannot get the upper hand over your competitors your business goes belly up. So business goes to great lengths to stay ahead of the competition as we have seen in our current rash of corporate scandals.

I guess capitalism will rape the earth. I suppose our only hope is another cultural movement of consciousness like that of the 60's. And as trends indicate we are vicariously representing 3rd world nations in protest of the likes of the FTAA, WTO, NAFTA, OAS etc.... So you see the movement has already begun, but it has not reached such critical mass as that of the 60's.... especially in our current climate of fear and a longing to suckle upon the bosom of uncle sam, be damned the consequences. I can only attribute this to the stranglehold on our media in this day and age. It happened with the newspapers during the 1900's when they all slowly became owned by the same companies and recently it's been happening now with the telecommunications deregulation in 1996... Now some 45% of major media is owned by the same company.

I suppose the only way to combat this is with old school samizdat and wheatpasting but it seems futile considering that with the volume of media present these days I recently read a statistic that it takes a 60 second ad on television to air 180 times to reach 80% of the population as opposed to something like 20 times fourty years ago. Perhaps it would be more feasible to develop satellite phreaking and airwave pirating. I don't know. There are many obstacles. But something must be done.

Solutions... solutions... solutions. It's so hard to organize people these days. If only Jerry Garcia were still around....


*Holy combined threads batman! I definately see the orwellian trends metallix. A global police-military-industial-prison-state is awful scary sounding for sure. But just as the Roman empire stretched too thin and couldn't take care of it's protectorates so will we. Why it's already happening. The FBI has been crying about a flood of information lately that it simply cannot handle. Our armed forces are stretched to the absolute limit. Our economy is going bust. I just hope this doesn't mean the fascists are going to blitzkreig us when we are down.

[PalestineOne]

I wonder if people where talkin like this during the vietnam war

the news calls it "conflict in Iraq" hahah conflict!

[PalestineOne]

futile?

[metallix]

Originally posted by PalestineOne
futile?

fu·tile ( P ) Pronunciation Key (fytl, fytl)
adj.
Having no useful result.
Trifling and frivolous; idle: the futile years after her artistic peak.

[metallix]

what fascists?

[villain]

Originally posted by metallix
what fascists?

It's this conspiracy theory. It makes alot of sense though. i heard about it on air america about this book called "the beast reawakens".

Here is a link:
http://free.freespeech.org/americanstatete...tReawakens.html (http://free.freespeech.org/americanstateterrorism/cia-nazis/TheBeastReawakens.html)

Essentially its about how after world war two fascists infiltrated key positions in russian and the US in order to one day take it over. This is fact. We even invited some scientists in. Same with Russia. Anyhow the nefarious plot is to secretly bankrupt the countries from within, I guess with this ridiculous arms race and military spending. It already broke Russia and it's breaking us now. So once both superpowers are broke down then the fascists can rise again. And there has been a rise in fascism in europe as well... Even some fascist parties taking power in certain countries. This is frighteningly real. But just speculation I GUESS!

P.S. Thanks for hanging out with me on a Friday night.... ya bunch of nerds! ;)

[mr.yuck]

Allah is gonna be so fuckin pissed when he finds out about this shit.

[TheoHuxtable]

Originally posted by mr.yuck
Allah is gonna be so fuckin pissed when he finds out about this shit.

^^Quote of the day.^^

[T.T Boy]

im sorry guys, but this is why america will be looking over its shoulder for terror attacks for the next 100 years. saddam isnt hitler, once he dies it doesent end.

[villain]

I've been talking about americas empirical overstretch resembling that of the roman empire and now I find a book on it!

After the Empire: The Breakdown of the American Order (European Perspectives: A Series in Social Thought and Cultural Ctiticism)
by Emmanuel Todd, C. Jon Delogu (Translator), Michael Lind


Amazingly, this author also wrote a book in 1979 predicting the fall of the Soviet empire entitled:

(The Final Fall: An Essay on the Decomposition of the Soviet Sphere)


Wow.

[yoink]

Its stupid, juvenile and irresponsible, should those soldiers and anyone involved be reprimanded....?...sure no doubt.
-do our soldiers in any engagement get treated with respect/or treated under the guidelines of the geneva convention...highly fucking unlikely. It is not just America...lighten up.
-pictures surface like this, we (the american public) get up in arms, fuck bush, fuck the war, etc...yeah its fucking stupid......but...
-news of an american soldier as a prisoner gets raped and killed and its like oh....well shit. awful.

repeat cycle. I repeat this was a pretty fucking stupid thing, even fucking dumber that they let this shit surface, it gives them a bad image, and they should be fucking punished, the acts of a few dont reflect an entire group. and again I repeat, you people think when an american soldier is taking prisoner hes put up in a suite with room service? I dont see us protesting the Iraqis or Afghanistan forces that have our soldiers in less than humane conditions.
double standard like fucking whoah.

[villain]

I remember when the first american POW's were taken in this war. They were in captivity and then released in what I believe was less than a month. When they returned they said they were treated well and even some of the injured were tended to by iraqis.

[yoink]

and.........so.
Im pretty sure that alot of the prisoners we have are gettin treated pretty fairly as well.

[TheoHuxtable]

Iraq Prisoner Images Anger Arabs, Bush

By NADIA ABOU EL-MAGD, Associated Press Writer

CAIRO, Egypt - Arab outrage flashed across the Middle East on Friday as TV stations showed graphic images of naked Iraqi prisoners being humiliated by smiling U.S. military police. President Bush condemned the mistreatment, saying he shared "a deep disgust that those prisoners were treated the way they were treated."

The photographs, shown on the Dubai-based Al-Arabiya and the Qatar-based Al-Jazeera, included pictures of prisoners naked except for the hoods that covered their heads. They were first broadcast Wednesday on CBS' "60 Minutes II" and have led to charges against six U.S. soldiers.

The Arab TV stations led news bulletins with the photos of hooded prisoners piled on top of each other in a human pyramid and simulating sex acts, with their genitals blurred. Two U.S. soldiers standing near the prisoners hammed it up for the camera.

At the White House, Bush said the mistreatment of prisoners "does not reflect the nature of the American people. That's not the way we do things in America. I didn't like it one bit."

But many in the Middle East saw the mistreatment as the latest example of American disregard for Arabs.

"They were ugly images. Is this the way the Americans treat prisoners?" asked Ahmad Taher, 24, a student at Baghdad's Mustansiriyah University. "Americans claim that they respect freedom and democracy — but only in their country."

Ayed al-Manna, columnist for the Kuwaiti Al-Watan daily, said the "barbaric" treatment of Iraqi soldiers will rally anti-U.S. sentiment among Islamic fundamentalists and Arab nationalists.

In Syria, Damascus merchant Sahban Alawi, 45, asked "what's the difference between them and Saddam Hussein? They are doing to Iraq more than what he did."

Nader Naqib, a 27-year-old student in Sidon, Lebanon, praised the media for "uncovering such an act so that the whole world will see what the Americans are committing in human rights violations."

Last month, the U.S. Army announced that six members of the 800th Military Police Brigade faced court martial for allegedly abusing about 20 prisoners at Abu Ghraib prison near Baghdad. The charges included dereliction of duty, cruelty and maltreatment, assault and indecent acts with another person.

Their boss, Brig. Gen. Janis Karpinski, commander of the 800th Military Police Brigade, and at least seven others have been "suspended" from their duties at Abu Ghraib prison.

In Baghdad, military spokesman Brig. Gen. Mark Kimmitt said the commander of the Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, detention facility, Maj. Gen. Geoffrey Miller, was being sent to Iraq to take over the coalition detention facilities.

Kimmitt said the Army is taking "very aggressive steps" to minimize the chances of such acts happening again, and "we are also taking a hard look at interrogation practices."

The photos, taken last year, were inflammatory in an Arab world already angry at the U.S. occupation of Iraq. Arabs consider public nudity dishonorable.

"I was disgusted and angered by those humiliating pictures," Egyptian insurance agent Omar Boghdady said. "The scenes were really ugly."

One of the photos showed a hooded prisoner standing on a box with wires attached to his hands. CBS reported the prisoner was told that if he fell off the box, he would be electrocuted, although the wires were not really connected to a power supply.

Bathsheba Crocker, an expert on Iraqi reconstruction at the Center for Strategic and International Studies in Washington, said the images are likely to "fuel the feeling of anti-American, anti-occupation sentiment among Iraqis."

"It doesn't help a situation in which the United States is already viewed very badly. From a public relations perspective, it is yet another image for Arabs to add to pictures of civilians being killed in Fallujah," she said.

Abu Ghraib was the most notorious of former Iraqi President Saddam Hussein's detention centers. Its jailers are alleged to have tortured and killed thousands of Iraqis; a cemetery outside has dozens of unmarked graves.

"This will increase the sense of dissatisfaction among Iraqis toward the Americans," said a member of the U.S.-appointed Iraqi Governing Council, Mahmoud Othman. "The resistance people will try to make use of such painful incidents."

"The Saddam era was full of executions and torture, and we want the new Iraq to be clean of such images," Othman added.

Part of the problem, said Hurst Hannum, a professor of international law at the Fletcher School at Tufts University outside Boston, is that Bush has "put this war on such a high moral plane that any moral deviance will be taken more seriously by critics, and will be interpreted as either being arrogance or hypocrisy."

Any investigation into the mistreatment of Iraqi prisoners should include not only the soldiers involved, but also their superiors, according to the New York-based Human Rights Watch.

"The brazenness with which these soldiers conducted themselves ... suggests they felt they had nothing to hide from their superiors," said Kenneth Roth, the group's executive director.

U.N. Secretary-General Kofi Annan welcomed "what appears to be a clear determination on the part of the U.S. military to bring those responsible to justice," U.N. spokesman Fred Eckhard said.

Amnesty International, in a statement from its London headquarters Friday, warned the evidence of prisoner abuse "will exacerbate an already fragile situation."

"The prison was notorious under Saddam Hussein," it said. "It should not be allowed to become so again."

British military officials said they are investigating new allegations that their soldiers abused a prisoner in Iraq. The report followed confirmation from the Ministry of Defense in a separate case that military authorities are considering whether to prosecute eight soldiers for allegedly abusing prisoners.

[PalestineOne]

of course its gonna piss off the arabs.
arabs are good people

[HYDRO BILL]

Originally posted by yoink
and.........so.
Im pretty sure that alot of the prisoners we have are gettin treated pretty fairly as well.
Keep watching CNN. Yes there is a double standard when you invade two countires. The whole world is watching your ass, like duuuhhhhh.:confused:

[HYDRO BILL]

Its stupid, juvenile and irresponsible, should those soldiers and anyone involved be reprimanded....?...sure no doubt.
-do our soldiers in any engagement get treated with respect/or treated under the guidelines of the geneva convention...highly fucking unlikely. It is not just America...lighten up.
-doink
Lighten up? How `bout I electify your nutsack?
Stop trying to justify these actions. It`s disgusting. The end.

[PalestineOne]

i wonder how history will look back on the american empire?

[Nekro]

More information on the mercenaries we hire to do the dirty work for us:

http://www.20six.co.uk/weblogEntry/x8ww81cjf0fa

Check out the soldier's bullshit excuse:
Yesterday Frederick said he would deny abuse, claiming he was not shown Geneva Convention rules on how to treat captives.

http://www.mirror.co.uk/news/allnews/tm_ob...-name_page.html (http://www.mirror.co.uk/news/allnews/tm_objectid=14195963&method=full&siteid=50143&headline=outrage-at-american-torture-of-iraqi-prisoners-name_page.html)

Everyone should read www.dailykos.com (http://www.dailykos.com).

[Nekro]

http://www.guardian.co.uk/Iraq/Story/0,276...1206725,00.html (http://www.guardian.co.uk/Iraq/Story/0,2763,1206725,00.html)

US military in torture scandal

Use of private contractors in Iraqi jail interrogations highlighted by inquiry into abuse of prisoners

Julian Borger in Washington
Friday April 30, 2004
The Guardian

Graphic photographs showing the torture and sexual abuse of Iraqi prisoners in a US-run prison outside Baghdad emerged yesterday from a military inquiry which has left six soldiers facing a possible court martial and a general under investigation.
The scandal has also brought to light the growing and largely unregulated role of private contractors in the interrogation of detainees.

According to lawyers for some of the soldiers, they claimed to be acting in part under the instruction of mercenary interrogators hired by the Pentagon.

US military investigators discovered the photographs, which include images of a hooded prisoner with wires fixed to his body, and nude inmates piled in a human pyramid.

The pictures, which were obtained by an American TV network, also show a dog attacking a prisoner and other inmates being forced to simulate sex with each other. It is thought the abuses took place in November and December last year.

The pictures from Abu Ghraib prison have shocked the US army.

Brigadier General Mark Kimmitt, deputy director of operations for the US military in Iraq, expressed his embarrassment and regret for what had happened. He told the CBS current affairs programme 60 Minutes II: "If we can't hold ourselves up as an example of how to treat people with dignity and respect, we can't ask that other nations do that to our soldiers."

Gen Kimmitt said the investigation began in January when an American soldier reported the abuse and turned over evidence that included photographs. "That soldier said: 'There are some things going on here that I can't live with'."

The inquiry had centred on the 800th Brigade which is based in Uniondale, New York.

The US army confirmed that the general in charge of Abu Ghraib jail is facing disciplinary measures and that six low-ranking soldiers have been charged with abusing and sexually humiliating detainees.

Lawyers for the soldiers argue they are being made scapegoats for a rogue military prison system in which mercenaries give orders without legal accountability.

A military report into the Abu Ghraib case - parts of which were made available to the Guardian - makes it clear that private contractors were supervising interrogations in the prison, which was notorious for torture and executions under Saddam Hussein.

One civilian contractor was accused of raping a young male prisoner but has not been charged because military law has no jurisdiction over him.

Hired guns from a wide array of private security firms are playing a central role in the US-led occupation of Iraq.

The killing of four private contractors in Falluja on March 31 led to the current siege of the city.

But this is the first time the privatisation of interrogation and intelligence-gathering has come to light. The investigation names two US contractors, CACI International Inc and the Titan Corporation, for their involvement in Abu Ghraib.

Titan, based in San Diego, describes itself as a "a leading provider of comprehensive information and communications products, solutions and services for national security". It recently won a big contract for providing translation services to the US army.

CACI, which has headquarters in Virginia, claims on its website to "help America's intelligence community collect, analyse and share global information in the war on terrorism".

Neither responded to calls for comment yesterday.

According to the military report on Abu Ghraib, both played an important role at the prison.

At one point, the investigators say: "A CACI instructor was terminated because he al lowed and/or instructed MPs who were not trained in interrogation techniques to facilitate interrogations by setting conditions which were neither authorised [nor] in accordance with applicable regulations/policy."

Colonel Jill Morgenthaler, speaking for central command, told the Guardian: "One contractor was originally included with six soldiers, accused for his treatment of the prisoners, but we had no jurisdiction over him. It was left up to the contractor on how to deal with him."

She did not specify the accusation facing the contractor, but according to several sources with detailed knowledge of the case, he raped an Iraqi inmate in his mid-teens.

Col Morgenthaler said the charges against the six soldiers included "indecent acts, for ordering detainees to publicly masturbate; maltreatment, for non-physical abuse, piling inmates into nude pyramids and taking pictures of them nude; battery, for shoving and stepping on detainees; dereliction of duty; and conspiracy to maltreat detainees".

One of the soldiers, Staff Sgt Chip Frederick is accused of posing in a photograph sitting on top of a detainee, committing an indecent act and with assault for striking detainees - and ordering detainees to strike each other.

He told CBS: "We had no support, no training whatsoever. And I kept asking my chain of command for certain things ... like rules and regulations."

His lawyer, Gary Myers, told the Guardian that Sgt Frederick had not had the opportunity to read the Geneva Conventions before being put on guard duty, a task he was not trained to perform.

Mr Myers said the role of the private contractors in Abu Ghraib are central to the case.

"We know that CACI and Titan corporations have provided interrogators and that they have in fact conducted interrogations on behalf of the US and have interacted the military police guards at the prison," he said.

"I think it creates a laissez faire environment that is completely inappropriate. If these individuals engaged in crimes against an Iraq national - who has jurisdiction over such a crime?"

"It's insanity," said Robert Baer, a former CIA agent, who has examined the case, and is concerned about the private contractors' free-ranging role. "These are rank amateurs and there is no legally binding law on these guys as far as I could tell. Why did they let them in the prison?"

The Pentagon had no comment on the role of contractors at Abu Ghraib, saying that an inquiry was still in progress.

[yoink]

Originally posted by HYDRO BILL
...
Lighten up? How `bout I electify yur nutsack?
Stop trying to justify these actions. It`s disgusting. The end.

-this is pretty much why I avoid these threads, asides from the comments of a few most of you are so fucking one sided its not funny.
-how bout this, fuck off, dont come at me like I dont know anything.

-Im not justifying anything you douche, im pointing something out, everyone on this forum is so quick to jump the gun. read my entire post next time.
Now its the end. cause honestly its such a futile effort for me to be wasting my time on the Interweb arguing.

especially with a Canadien. ;) Ziiiiiing!

[villain]

Originally posted by yoink
-this is pretty much why I avoid these threads, asides from the comments of a few most of you are so fucking one sided its not funny.
-how bout this, fuck off, dont come at me like I dont know anything.

-Im not justifying anything you douche, im pointing something out, everyone on this forum is so quick to jump the gun. read my entire post next time.
Now its the end. cause honestly its such a futile effort for me to be wasting my time on the Interweb arguing.

especially with a Canadien. ;) Ziiiiiing!


It's true, abuses have been suffered on both sides, but the difference is the resistance is a loosely knit organization and we are representing a sovereign nation. Those Iraqis that capture our troops could be psychopaths, opportunists, terrorists, disgruntled, or just plain mad cause we blew up their fucking family.

Those soldiers are representing us as a country and our commander in cheif. We set the example. As for those contractors I really don't think they belong there in the first place. And they answer to some authority so they should be responsible. These are american civilians. They are subject to our law. If Iraq had law (interim government???) they would have to answer to Iraq's law as well. This is a severe breakdown of any kind of order we are trying to impose in Iraq and it will only steel the resistence to such a flawed order.
On the other hand by turning this situation over to the proper authorities we may have won some respect among the iraqi populus.

I just want to thank the brave soldier who used his better judgement to bring an end to these injustices.

[BROWNer]

hmm..now the brits are in on it (http://uk.news.yahoo.com/040430/325/esid9.html)

[Dick Quickwood]

"angers Bush", right

[KING BLING]

The media only does the right thing when popular sentiment sways that way - the wars declining home support has led to more war critical (in substance) reporting. This is one of millions of atrocities our country plays some part in. It is reported due to sensationalism. I care but it is nothing new, just getting more attention...

[GamblersGrin]

im tired of hearing about these iraqi prisoners being tortured. i believe it is being focused on bc these abuse practices are occurring on a global scale and the world is watching. my point is, is that prison abuse is a regular practice in america. i suppose it is legitimate when you torture/harrass your own citizens but ethically wrong when you do it to p.o.w.s.

[KaBar2]

Genuinely torturing prisoners is wrong. Fostering prison conditions that are brutal and dehumanizing and humiliating is wrong. But applying "psychological pressure" to soften prisoners up for interrogation is apparently okay. I have a neighbor, a former Marine lance corporal, who was wounded in the stomach and captured on a ground patrol outside the wire at Khe Sanh, and held as a POW in North Vietnam for six years. He was tortured in a variety of ways, including being hanged by his wrists, with his arms tied behind his back for hours, being suspended by the "parrot's perch", being beaten, especially on the bottoms of his feet, being kept in a very small cell covered with shit and piss and decaying food, being kept in the dark for weeks and so forth.

He survived it. Pretty much an okay guy, too, one of the nicest people I ever met. And a good Democrat.

Plenty of American POW's were simply tortured to death during Vietnam. And plenty of Viet Cong and North Vietnamese were tortured to death in interrogation in South Vietnam, too. The quest for information, the hatred of the enemy, the anger about one's friends and comrades being killed, all contribute to an atmosphere of brutality, revenge and physical punishment.
The Egyptians and other Middle Eastern countries are certainly nobody to criticize others about mistreating prisoners, they use torture as a routine even against their own citizens in criminal matters, not to mention in efforts to gain important military information from captured enemy soldiers. I think a lot of these loud protestations are actually face-saving nonsense. "Gambling! There is gambling going on in this establishment!" "Here's your winnings, sir." "Oh, thank you."

I DO NOT believe that actual torture of detainees is being conducted on a wide scale in Iraq, or in Guantanamo Bay. I DO believe, however, that they are leaning on them extremely hard to reveal information, names, dates, organizational structure and plans. Perhaps one's definition of "torture" is important. Permenant maiming or blinding; rape; application of electricity; severe, life-threatening beatings; burning or cutting, suffocating or immersing up to the point of drowning repeatedly--these types of things are more along the lines of what I believe to be torture. Making people stand on a box with a hood on? I'm not sure. Definately is maltreatment. Forcing people to stay awake? Maybe it's torture. It depends. Solitary confinement? No. Confinement in a "humiliating" enclosure? (like the dog cages at Guantanamo Bay) No. I do not see that as torture. Making people strip and make a dog pile for humiliation? Well, it's definately maltreatment. But torture? I'm unsure.

I think that attacking the United States and it's allies is a very, very stupid thing to do if you want to live a long and peaceful life.

And BTW, the British government uses these VERY SAME TECHNIQUES against the Irish Republican Army, and nobody seems too concerned. Maybe it depends on how close you are to the car bombs.

[KING BLING]

OSAMA (http://www.jabtv.com/binlotto.php)

*Edit for drunken mistakes...:burned:

[HYDRO BILL]

Maybe you should stop invading other countries!

Zoink-
this is pretty much why I avoid these threads, asides from the comments of a few most of you are so fucking one sided its not funny.
-how bout this, fuck off, dont come at me like I dont know anything.

-Im not justifying anything you douche, im pointing something out, everyone on this forum is so quick to jump the gun. read my entire post next time.
Now its the end. cause honestly its such a futile effort for me to be wasting my time on the Interweb arguing.

especially with a Canadien. Ziiiiiin

Canadian with an `a` I did read your ignorant post, I quoted the majority of it.
And tell me you won`t be running for our border when you get drafted, provided you`re not too old. You were trying to justify the torture, as was Kabar. You need to imagine that the tables were turned. Someone is invading your country. Do you fight fair? or do you everything in your power to defend your precious freedom?
Again and again I will say, Yes, it`s a double standard. Yes, it sucks. Yes, I understand the pressure that these people are under BUT you have to be the christian soldiers you claim to be. And I appreciate your comment about your opinion that this isn`t widespread, Kabar, but to what do you base it? These idiots photographed the act. it certainly suggests to most people that these abuses are happening often, and everyone admits that heaps of Iraqi civilians are getting killed. You will never "win the hearts and minds of the Iraqi people" with this shit and I am sorry to say that terrorism is going to become commonplace to my many friends in America.
And come on, pissing on someone`s face? I agree that leaning on detainees for information may be necessary but get creative. I would suggest playing them that eamon track on repeat for a week.

[PalestineOne]

yo bling bling whats with the link?

[adderall]

hahahah :lol:

[BROWNer]

Originally posted by BROWNer
hmm..now the brits are in on it (http://uk.news.yahoo.com/040430/325/esid9.html)

tip of the iceberg? (http://news.independent.co.uk/world/middle_east/story.jsp?story=517323)

[KaBar2]

There was no "precious freedom" in Iraq to start with. The people there lived under a brutal dictatorship, whose notorious murders of thousands of ordinary citizens, whose horrific GENUINE TORTURE by Saddam Hussein's secret police caused hundreds to be permenantly blinded, deafened, hands to be amputated as punishment and so forth. Saddam Hussein's sons maintained an entire facility dedicated to raping the wives and daughters of anyone who crossed them. Their evil, horrific practices rival those of the Nazis, and it was widespread throughout the entire country, except those areas favored by Saddam, where his family and tribe predominated.

Fallujah was a favored city. They profitted by the rest of Iraq's misfortune, which is one of the reasons they are trying to resist the authority of the interim government and the U.S. and Coalition forces.

As I have said before, it may be necessary to flatten the entire place. Ever seen a photo of Berlin after the fall of Nazi Germany? Well, whether they say so or not, the U.S. military forces in Iraq are prepared to surround Fallujah, and bomb it to rubble. The people of Fallujah would be very wise to stop fucking around and submit to the legitimate authority of the occupation forces and surrender. They might start by refusing to assist the terrorists there, and point them out so that they can be arrested.

I can't wait to see how the all-Iraqi "Fallujah Protection Army" deals with these idiots setting roadside bombs against the patrolling U.S. forces. Something tells me they won't ever make it to a courtroom.

I do not support the idea of torturing prisoners, even if it means missing out on important information about enemy positions, ambushes, etc. However, I do support the idea of removing them from Iraq and holding them in camps in Cuba for however long it takes to establish a functioning democratic form of a constitutional republic in Iraq.

There is always a concern that once they are released they will return to Iraq and to their terrorist practices of the past, so all in all, I think killing them on the battlefield is the best solution.

I bet that U.S. forces in Iraq who are being attacked by these people would have a rather more pragmatic viewpoint about torture and military intelligence. "If the choice is between us getting blown up by this guy's buddies, or him being tortured to tell us where they are, then I choose getting the goddammned information out of his ass any way that is necessary. Fuck him. He's a terrorist, not a soldier."

Of course, those of us safely here in the United States have the luxury of being concerned about the prisoners' human rights. But if they attacked Houston, I think my opinions about extreme interrogation methods would probably change. War is hell, and that is the truth.

The guerrillas fighting against the U.S. in Iraq are the moral equivalent of the Ku Klux Klan after the Civil War. They serve no government, and they are not under any legitimate government's command. Iraq surrendered. Anybody still fighting our forces now is "fair game." It is entirely possible for those individuals to choose to live peacefully. They are choosing to be murderers and terrorists, instead. When we capture them, they may expect to be treated harshly. But not tortured.

[T=E=A=S=E]

ABORT MISSION!!!

I say we -pull out- as if Iraq's a piece of pussy we've been fucking without a condom on!

[villain]

It is important to not let our personal feelings interfere with our professionalism.

There are other ways of making people talk other than torture. Truth serum. Hypnosis. Persuasion. A slew of verbal tactics (provided our translators are plentiful and fluent enough). Even bribery and cutting deals. I tend to view this barbarism as an underlying problem of misunderstanding the iraqi people in general. I saw on the news the other day that the L.A. police are adopting new tactics in fighting gangs. That is by being more involved in the communities. To get to know the people there better. It is a police officers job to know the community. To protect and serve. Not as it is now where most people view the police as to be avoided because they are seen as the enemy. How is this supposed to stop gang violence? If the police are seen as the enemy and not the peoples friend then the gangs will have more power and more recuits. There are uncanny parallels with iraq and what's happening there right now.

If we fight with hatred in our hearts and show no standards, how will they ever learn to trust us? If we level a city of people just because they were males of "fighting age" isn't that prejudice? This cannot help our relations. Our army is not designed for these types of police actions. Put us up against a better equipped and better organized ARMY and we fare better than this! Policing is about figuring out the exceptions to the rule. The deviants among the population. The iraqi people are not the enemy. But if we go there like an army and fight like an army we are going to find ourselves fighting an army against us. I think this whole situation is very fucked up.

[HYDRO BILL]

Word up villain
I agree
Also, to respond to Kabar...

Dude, America`s foreign policy doesn`t care about human rights. They love dictators! Who gave Iraq all the weapons they are using to kill your soldiers? And then sold weapons to Iran as well? Hmmmm?
Don`t even pretend to care about the Kurds if you support this war. The chemical weapons that Iraq used to kill the kurds were American. And come on Agent Orange is still killing Vietnamese. I was there recently. America and China are the only two countries in the world that won`t support a ban on landmines. Like I said before, China, Sudan,Saudi,North Korea etc. etc.. If you`re going to pretend that it is about caring for human rights you have a lot of doors to knock on. Oil pipeline through all the `Stans. Afghani Heroin. The NYSE needs the trillions of dollars these products make to survive. Your friend are dying for the fatcats to get fatter. your Moneys all that moneys to money- Homer

[!@#$%]

amnesty international has determined that the torture of iraqi civilians by u.s. and coalition forces is a systematic problem..

there is not a chance in hell for decent relations between the u.s. and the middle east now..

i read an iraqi discussing that the situation under saddam was preferable
because although he used torture
the americans try to detroy iraqi pride and self respect..


i hope all the bible thumping american christians in support of this war
burn in allah's special hell for the infidels.

i'm completely disgusted with the government and its terrorist military machines.

[imported_El Mamerro]

Seymour Hersh sheds further light. (http://www.cnn.com/2004/US/05/03/hersh/index.html)

[seeking]

it's always worse to be stabbed in the back, then punched in the mouth.

!@#$%,
this should maybe get it's own thread, but i'll just stick it here for now. my ex took this in cambodia. figured you might like it.
nothing like growing up, having land mines as bath toys, right?
guess where they got em?!

[BROWNer]

Originally posted by El Mamerro
Seymour Hersh sheds further light. (http://www.cnn.com/2004/US/05/03/hersh/index.html)

here's hershs actual piece..http://www.newyorker.com/fact/content/?040510fa_fact

[villain]

this sucks....

So much work to be done.....

[!@#$%]

damn seeking.
thanks, that photo is ...ill


that freaked me out a little so i found this stuff:

(free) CLICK TO HELP CLEAR LAND MINES
http://www.clearlandmines.com/

"Thank you.
Your click will clear 21 cm2 of mine infested terrain, paid for by:
CAW TCA Canada"


ADOPT A MINEFIELD
http://www.landmines.org/

[mental invalid]

PR 101


why has colin powel not been on every televsion station in the arab world, including that waste of news al jeezie?

[seeking]

!@#$%,
funny youd post that. for years i've been saying that i wanted to go to afghanistan and dig up landmines... originally kind of a joke, then as a half cocked idea of self destruction...now i'm actually working towards that very sort of thing.
strange how life works out.
my ex is trying to get me to go there and set up an ambulance service, since they don't have a single ambulance in the entire country apparently.
if it goes down, i'll get a hold of you. the pay will suck but who needs money when you can have a pet monkey?

the picture def. freaked me out at first too. something about those masks, and the horror of all the stuff, and their complete obliviousness to it is spooky as shit. she's told me the most insane stories about the place. she lives there during the summers, working with the government on microfinancing and all kinds of crazy things i dont understand.
last summer she was in some little village where foreigners never go, and someone, who'd probably never seen a white person before, was staring at her as he drove past. he accidentally ran into a fruit cart, so all of a sudden all the people run out and beat the guy to death for fucking up their fruit. one of a handful of people she saw killed over a 3 month period. the country is out of hand....they just have absolutely no concept of a world where life is worth anything.

of course that kind of thing tends to happen when 1/3rd of a countries population is murdered 30 years ago.

seeks/off topic and rambling.

[!@#$%]

i don't wanna derail the thread, so i'll just say lemme know what's up if it happens

[villain]

How very noble and selfless of you !@#$%.

I heard somewhere that the russians have this steamroller thing they can put on the front of their tanks to take out mines. That would be handy for something like that. :D

I wonder how metal detectors work. If we got satellites that can penetrate miles into the ground there should be some kind of super damn metal detector/mine detector.

*aha! I figured it was some kind of ELF. But they call it VLF (very low frequency). I love www.howstuffworks.com (http://www.howstuffworks.com)

There are metal detectors that can detect types of metal and depth.... Actually I started to realize that these metal detectors are based on electromagnetism and I thought about it and realized this could possibly trigger a mine. I looked into mine detectors and it's a whole other ball game. Unfortunately I can't find anything on the howstuffworks site about the mine detection theory. I'll keep looking maybe I'll find something. I'm willing to bet though that satellites could do this over large swaths of land at a time.

I retract that statement. Most mine detectors ARE various forms of electromagnetic pulse. It's just that those types of mine detectors can possibly trigger SOME types of mines.... Hmmm...


I'm not EOD obviously....

[VAunabomr]

u know what u gotta say big fuckin deal they would done the same to us if not worse an they hav done worse to the kurds like gassing them in there villages with women an chilerend so personaly i dont giv a fuck damm camel jockeys an im proud to say it :loopy: :loopy2: :spin: :shook: :scramble: :dazed: :gaga: :lick:

[villain]

Originally posted by VAunabomr
u know what u gotta say big fuckin deal they would done the same to us if not worse an they hav done worse to the kurds like gassing them in there villages with women an chilerend so personaly i dont giv a fuck damm camel jockeys an im proud to say it :loopy: :loopy2: :spin: :shook: :scramble: :dazed: :gaga: :lick:

Don't you care about peace?

[BROWNer]

even more scary shit, this time in brooklyn, usa (http://www.nytimes.com/2004/05/03/nyregion/03brooklyn.html?pagewanted=print&position=)

[villain]

I hate registering for all this shit....

Fucking hate crimes.

[BROWNer]

sorry.........is it that big a deal?

2 Men Charge Abuse in Arrests After 9/11 Terror Attack
By NINA BERNSTEIN

efore the World Trade Center attack, Javaid Iqbal was a Pakistani immigrant proud to be known as "the cable guy" to customers on Long Island, where he had lived for a decade and married an American. Ehab Elmaghraby, an Egyptian, had a weekend flea market stand at Aqueduct Raceway and a restaurant near Times Square where friendly police officers would joke, "Where's my shish kebab?"

But within weeks of Sept. 11, 2001, both had been picked up by federal agents in an anti-terror sweep. For 23 hours a day, they were locked in solitary confinement in the harsh maximum-security unit of a federal detention center in Brooklyn - the one cited by the Justice Department's inspector general last year for widespread physical abuse of its detainees.

The inspector general mentioned no specific names and cases, but now, in a federal lawsuit to be filed today and in telephone interviews from Pakistan and Egypt, the former cable technician and the former restaurateur have provided the most detailed personal accounts yet of the unit's brutality and the first to accuse specific corrections officers and wardens of abuse. The accusations are similar to those now being made against military officers guarding prisoners in Iraq.

The lawsuit charges that the men were repeatedly slammed into walls and dragged across the floor while shackled and manacled, kicked and punched until they bled, cursed as "terrorists" and "Muslim bastards," and subjected to multiple unnecessary body-cavity searches, including one during which correction officers inserted a flashlight into Mr. Elmaghraby's rectum, making him bleed.

At that point, the papers charge, he was confined without blankets, mattress or toilet paper to a tiny cell kept lighted 24 hours a day, and was denied adequate medical care or communication with his public defender. He said his attempts to pray or sleep were disrupted by guards banging on his door.

"I was in life and I went to hell," Mr. Elmaghraby, 37, said in the interview. He spent almost a year in the special unit of the Metropolitan Detention Center, where the detention and treatment of hundreds of Muslim immigrants have since become the focus of concerns about the constitutionality of the Justice Department's counterterrorism offensive.

Mr. Elmaghraby was picked up on Sept. 30, 2001, in his apartment in Maspeth, Queens, when federal agents were investigating his Muslim landlord, apparently because years earlier the landlord had applied for pilot training. Mr. Iqbal was arrested in his Long Island apartment on Nov. 2 by agents who were apparently following a tip about false identification cards. In his apartment they found a Time magazine showing the trade towers in flames and paperwork showing that he had been in Lower Manhattan on Sept. 11, picking up a work permit from immigration services. He was detained for nine months before the F.B.I. cleared him of any terrorist link.

Mr. Elmaghraby and Mr. Iqbal eventually pleaded guilty to minor federal criminal charges unrelated to terrorism - Mr. Elmaghraby to credit card fraud, Mr. Iqbal to having false papers and bogus checks - but they maintain now that they did so only to escape the abuse. They were deported after serving prison terms.

A spokeswoman for the Federal Bureau of Prisons, Traci Billingsley, said she could not comment on their lawsuit, which names as defendants Attorney General John Ashcroft; Kathleen Hawk Sawyer, the former head of the Bureau of Prisons; Michael Zenk, the warden of the detention center; more than a dozen correction officers and supervisors; and a jail doctor.

Ms. Billingsley added that the bureau recently began an investigation to follow up evidence compiled by the inspector general against as many as 20 staff members and was now "trying to build a case that will withstand scrutiny in an administrative hearing or judicial proceeding."

Though the lawsuit is not being filed as a class action, it is about more than redress for the mistreatment of two individuals singled out because of their race, religion and national origin, said Alexander Reinert, a lawyer for Koob & Magoolaghan, which joined with the Urban Justice Center, an advocacy organization, to prepare the papers.

"The case is about ensuring that in times of crisis we stand by the principles that are most important to our country, and those are principles of fairness and equality embodied in the Constitution," he said.

Mr. Iqbal, 37, who lost 40 pounds in detention, said he suffers from chronic digestive problems, pain and depression and is still struggling to reconcile the two sides of America he experienced.

In a telephone interview from Faisalabad, Pakistan, he spoke wistfully of his early, around-the-clock jobs as a 7-Eleven clerk and as a gas station attendant in Huntington, N.Y., where customers brought him Thanksgiving dinner and Christmas gifts. But he is so haunted by memories of the terror, pain and humiliation that the federal officers inflicted on him, he said, that he starts to shake at the sight of his own brother, a policeman, in uniform.

"Before I go to prison, the America that I know is a beautiful country and Americans are such beautiful, kind, humble people," he said. "When I go to prison, I see there a different face of the United States of America."

His introduction to the nation's new detention policy was abrupt. Unlike Mr. Elmaghraby, who spent his whole detention in the maximum-security unit, Mr. Iqbal was housed with the general inmate population for the first two months after his arrest. But on the evening of Jan. 8, 2002, he was told that he had a "legal visit" in a room on another floor.

Instead of a lawyer, he found more than a dozen federal officers waiting for him. As he and the lawsuit tell it, several officers picked him up and threw him against the wall. He said he heard one ask a senior person, "He's the one?" and when the reply was affirmative, an officer pressing Mr. Iqbal's head into the wall turned it around, looked him in the face and said, "Welcome to hell, buddy."

At that, he was dragged to the floor, kicked in the stomach with steel-toed shoes and punched in the face, he said, and the officers screamed death threats and curses as they beat him up. "Then the senior person said, 'Just take him out of my sight.' "

Hatred seemed to determine the rules on the unit in ways large and small, the men said. On cold days when it rained, Mr. Iqbal was left outside for hours without jacket or shoes. When he was returned to his cell drenched, officers turned on the air-conditioning, he said. At one point, the lawsuit said, Mr. Elmaghraby was mockingly displayed naked to a female staff member.

The inspector general's report said last June that Mr. Ashcroft's policy was to hold detainees on any legal pretext until the F.B.I. cleared them, even though such clearances turned out to take months, not days, because they were given low priority. It said little effort was made to distinguish between legitimate terrorism suspects and the many people picked up by chance during the investigation.

To the plaintiffs, the unit seemed to erase their American lives. Mr. Elmaghraby says his wife, Pilar Valerio, an American citizen of Dominican background, left him after being threatened with arrest by an F.B.I. agent when she arrived at his first court hearing. Mr. Iqbal had been separated after 41/2 years of marriage at the time he was detained but had three American stepchildren. The eldest, Paul Harrison, 22, said, "I never knew what happened," when contacted by a reporter. "I felt like he fell off the face of the earth."

When the inspector general's investigators interviewed corrections officers, all but one or two denied that any detainees were abused. But according to a supplemental report issued in December, investigators later recovered videotapes that showed some of the same officers engaging in abuse.

Ms. Billingsley, the Bureau of Prisons spokeswoman, said it had taken no disciplinary action while it waited for a decision about prosecution to be made by the Department of Justice's civil rights division and the United States attorney for the Eastern District of New York. "We were recently advised of the decision not to prosecute," she said.

Mr. Iqbal said he was not looking for revenge. "Then there will be no difference between them and us," he explained. "They should just apologize in front of all the people of the United States of America who love freedom and justice. And they should apologize to each of us personally."

[villain]

Not really. I registered but thanks anyways....

Maybe I'm just paranoid or lazy. I dunno. I always figure I can get a story from several other sources but sometimes not. I suppose I was due to register to the NYTimes. I've been putting it off far too long.

[metallix]

Originally posted by BROWNer
even more scary shit, this time in brooklyn, usa (http://www.nytimes.com/2004/05/03/nyregion/03brooklyn.html?pagewanted=print&position=)

[HYDRO BILL]

I DO NOT believe that actual torture of detainees is being conducted on a wide scale in Iraq, or in Guantanamo Bay. I DO believe, however, that they are leaning on them extremely hard to reveal information, names, dates, organizational structure and plans. Perhaps one's definition of "torture" is important. Permenant maiming or blinding; rape; application of electricity; severe, life-threatening beatings; burning or cutting, suffocating or immersing up to the point of drowning repeatedly--these types of things are more along the lines of what I believe to be torture. Making people stand on a box with a hood on? I'm not sure. Definately is maltreatment. Forcing people to stay awake? Maybe it's torture. It depends. Solitary confinement? No. Confinement in a "humiliating" enclosure? (like the dog cages at Guantanamo Bay) No. I do not see that as torture. Making people strip and make a dog pile for humiliation? Well, it's definately maltreatment. But torture? I'm unsure.

Now that the facts are coming out about the detention centres` abuses Kabar 2`s posts seem just stupid, sorry Kabar 2. They fucking killed some of those same " insurgents". Dead. Rationalize/ justify that. and don`t tell me that the Iraqis do that shit too. that`s true but it is hardly a good excuse. As well, just for the record, I am equally offended with any totrure of any prisoner anywhere.

[Poop Man Bob]

Originally posted by KaBar2
I DO NOT believe that actual torture of detainees is being conducted on a wide scale in Iraq, or in Guantanamo Bay. I DO believe, however, that they are leaning on them extremely hard to reveal information, names, dates, organizational structure and plans. Perhaps one's definition of "torture" is important. Permenant maiming or blinding; rape; application of electricity; severe, life-threatening beatings; burning or cutting, suffocating or immersing up to the point of drowning repeatedly--these types of things are more along the lines of what I believe to be torture. Making people stand on a box with a hood on? I'm not sure. Definately is maltreatment. Forcing people to stay awake? Maybe it's torture. It depends. Solitary confinement? No. Confinement in a "humiliating" enclosure? (like the dog cages at Guantanamo Bay) No. I do not see that as torture. Making people strip and make a dog pile for humiliation? Well, it's definately maltreatment. But torture? I'm unsure.

From the Taguba Report (http://www.newyorker.com/fact/content/?040510fa_fact): "Breaking chemical lights and pouring the phosphoric liquid on detainees; pouring cold water on naked detainees; beating detainees with a broom handle and a chair; threatening male detainees with rape; allowing a military police guard to stitch the wound of a detainee who was injured after being slammed against the wall in his cell; sodomizing a detainee with a chemical light and perhaps a broom stick, and using military working dogs to frighten and intimidate detainees with threats of attack, and in one instance actually biting a detainee."

The full text of the report can be found here (http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/4894001/).

[Poop Man Bob]

Oy vey.

[img]http://www.economist.com/images/20040508/20040508issuecovUS400.jpg'>

[villain]

Good zine. ^^^

[Poop Man Bob]

Josh Marshall (http://www.talkingpointsmemo.com/archives/week_2004_05_02.php#002922) discusses Rumsfeld's possible resignation:
... One thing that makes Rumsfeld more vulnerable is that he's already lost what was once a key pillar of support: hawks and neocons. Just recently, Bill Kristol and Bob Kagan wrote a piece in the Weekly Standard that all but called on Bush to fire Rumsfeld.

For all these reasons it's difficult for me to see where Rumsfeld's equilibrium comes from. Yet there's an added political question.

Let's say Rumsfeld resigns on Friday. The election is still six months away. And the nation is at war. So a new Defense Secretary would be needed more or less immediately. That would open up a very uncomfortable prospect for the administration.

Confirmation hearings for a new Sec Def would, I think, inevitably turn into a national forum for discussing the management of the Pentagon, the planning for the war and the lack of planning for the occupation. The new nominee would be drawn into all sorts of uncomfortble public second-guessing of what's happened up until this point. Sure, that's stuff under Rumsfeld. But, really, it's stuff under Bush -- the civilian head of the United States military.

That, I have to imagine, is something the White House would like to avoid at any cost.

[Im Broke]

dont really care... but if they were in the pokie anyway for
terroristic(spl?) actions and what not (havent really looked that into it)
y not torture them?

[Poop Man Bob]

You win nothing.

[SWIMS]

Originally posted by BROWNer
sorry.........is it that big a deal?

2 Men Charge Abuse in Arrests After 9/11 Terror Attack
By NINA BERNSTEIN


my cousin was held in Salt Lake for 4 weeks after he was pulled over. The INS put a hold on him because he is a light skinned Kenyan and his middle name is, Usama. They said his pasport was not valid proof of ctizenship (my uncle is american), and held him an extra week because when the embasy was blown up in Nairobi all records were lost. There is also a law that kept my family from getting him out, saying that his bond had to paid by someone who had lived in the state for more than two years. Intolerable!

-About Iraq, torture is now more openly suppoerted than ever.
join the ranks-http://www.clearancejobs.com/index.php?action=show_all&who=1987

[BROWNer]

over at c-span you can watch the most
recent press conference with rumsfeld..
he gets pretty drilled, and in my view, falters
pretty bad on this whole thing.
also his testimony in front of the house and
senate committee is coming up this friday, and
i think you can catch it on there as well..
www.c-span.org (http://www.c-span.org)

[seeking]

red cross today admitted that it had known about the torture for months, had notified our govt. about it several times, but they did nothing. they didnt say (or i didnt hear) why they didnt go public before now, but either way, when it rains it pours.

[BROWNer]

whoa..check this shit: http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/a...article6149.htm (http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article6149.htm)

U.S. soldiers who detained an elderly Iraqi woman last year placed a harness on her, made her crawl on all fours and rode her like a donkey, Prime Minister Tony Blair 's personal human rights envoy to Iraq said Wednesday..."She was held for about six weeks without charge," the envoy told Wednesday's Evening Standard newspaper. "During that time she was insulted and told she was a donkey. A harness was put on her, and an American rode on her back."_

[Poop Man Bob]

Shit is about to get a WHOLE LOT more fucked.

Read this article from MSNBC (http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/4855930/):

... But Rumsfeld warned the committee that the worst was yet to come. He said he had looked at the full array of unedited photographs of the situation at Abu Ghraib for the first time Thursday night and found them “hard to believe.”

“There are other photos that depict incidents of physical violence towards prisoners, acts that can only be described as blatantly sadistic, cruel and inhumane," he said. “... It’s going to get a good deal more terrible, I’m afraid.”

Rumsfeld did not describe the photos, but U.S. military officials told NBC News that the unreleased images showed U.S. soldiers severely beating an Iraqi prisoner nearly to death, having sex with a female Iraqi female prisoner and “acting inappropriately with a dead body.” The officials said there was also a videotape, apparently shot by U.S. personnel, showing Iraqi guards raping young boys ...

[BROWNer]

yea, this shit is getting truly fucking insane.

[BROWNer]

you dudes heard what rush limbaugh said about this shit?

[CIPHER_one]

Originally posted by BROWNer
you dudes heard what rush limbaugh said about this shit?

No, I did not, Captain Suspense...

[Poop Man Bob]

Originally posted by CIPHER_one
No, I did not, Captain Suspense...

Link (http://www.talkingpointsmemo.com/archives/week_2004_05_02.php#002920) from TPM:

Rush Limbaugh from yesterday (http://mediamatters.org/items/200405050003) ...

This is no different than what happens at the Skull and Bones initiation and we're going to ruin people's lives over it and we're going to hamper our military effort, and then we are going to really hammer them because they had a good time. You know, these people are being fired at every day. I'm talking about people having a good time, these people, you ever heard of emotional release? You of heard of need to blow some steam off?
Another example of how a war for liberal democracy can't be run by the most illiberal people in our society.

And just what is Rush's idea of a 'good time'?

[HYDRO BILL]

Well, Rush Limburger is pretty hypocritical. He wants to put drug addicts in jail and then admits that he has been addicted to pills for years....Hmmmm. I guess it`s okay as long as they`re legal drugs, (Oxycontin?)
On another note, did anyone see when Rummy was shirking questions and he said "Oh, we left the files? Oh we, were working on them all night and we left them behind.." priceless. worst liar ever. Thanks for the links PMB, good reading.

Kabar?
`ello?

[Fugazi]

Peace is an unattainable ideal in this situation. There is always going to be a problem when contractors outside of the military are hired and then given control over military police. Prisons are going to be cut throat when interrogation is at hand. Thousands of cases will go unreported. That's life for you though. And sure, we can all be aghast and offended, but it won't stop, it can't be stopped, it's the juggernaut of war...

[BROWNer]

Originally posted by BROWNer
here's hershs actual piece..http://www.newyorker.com/fact/content/?040510fa_fact

and another.. (http://www.newyorker.com/fact/content/?040517fa_fact2)

read up^

[Poop Man Bob]

[img]http://www.newyorker.com/images/online/040517onslpo_r13198_p427.jpg'>

[Poop Man Bob]

Thanks for the heads up, Brown. Sad, disturbing article, but well worth the read. Hersh is the man.

Secrecy and wishful thinking, the Pentagon official said, are defining characteristics of Rumsfeld’s Pentagon, and shaped its response to the reports from Abu Ghraib. “They always want to delay the release of bad news—in the hope that something good will break,” he said. The habit of procrastination in the face of bad news led to disconnects between Rumsfeld and the Army staff officers who were assigned to planning for troop requirements in Iraq. A year ago, the Pentagon official told me, when it became clear that the Army would have to call up more reserve units to deal with the insurgency, “we had call-up orders that languished for thirty or forty days in the office of the Secretary of Defense.” Rumsfeld’s staff always seemed to be waiting for something to turn up—for the problem to take care of itself, without any additional troops. The official explained, “They were hoping that they wouldn’t have to make a decision.” The delay meant that soldiers in some units about to be deployed had only a few days to prepare wills and deal with other family and financial issues.

...snip...

No amount of apologetic testimony or political spin last week could mask the fact that, since the attacks of September 11th, President Bush and his top aides have seen themselves as engaged in a war against terrorism in which the old rules did not apply. In the privacy of his office, Rumsfeld chafed over what he saw as the reluctance of senior Pentagon generals and admirals to act aggressively. By mid-2002, he and his senior aides were exchanging secret memorandums on modifying the culture of the military leaders and finding ways to encourage them “to take greater risks.” One memo spoke derisively of the generals in the Pentagon, and said, “Our prerequisite of perfection for ‘actionable intelligence’ has paralyzed us. We must accept that we may have to take action before every question can be answered.” The Defense Secretary was told that he should “break the ‘belt-and-suspenders’ mindset within today’s military . . . we ‘over-plan’ for every contingency. . . . We must be willing to accept the risks.”

Resign, Rumsfeld.

[heavyLox]

well im gald WE must be able to accept the risks. although im sure the the shit hts the fan WE will be stuck upshit creak without a paddle and HE will be safely hidden away with GWB.

[Crimsøn]

This whole situation (Both the "war" and the torture)
is fucking disgusting. The way in which our country
has acted since 9/11 is fucking disgusting.

The worst part about this whole situation is that
I live in this country yet I'm so helpless to make
things right. Even worse is everyone I see who is
in charge/can make a difference cares more about
they're own selfish desires than actually improving
the quality of life of the people we're so called
"liberating".

I know for a fact that I'm not as knowledged
on this subject as most others in this thread,
but I feel like so far we haven't done jack shit
to actually help those poor people.

This whole situation just disgusts and angers me.

Grr :hatred:

[BROWNer]

Originally posted by Poop Man Bob
Hersh is the man.

^

[villain]

Saw Bush on TV today for a minute. He was defending Rumsfeld and asking for more money for Iraq in the same breath. I don't think he understands limits.

I expected them to be leaning on prisoners but this is the kind of shit I would expect some third world thugs to be doing. This whole situation is SNAFU, FUBAR and TARFU....

[xwibxonex]

Originally posted by KaBar2
Do you guys remember way back when the invasion of Afghanistan started, and I said that any al-Quaida guerrillas captured would talk, one way or another? Do you remember when I said that that flight from Afghanistan to Guantanamo Bay in a C-130, chained to the deck, was a looong flight across the Atlantic? You don't suppose they "lost" any prisoners over the tailgate ramp, do ya?

Do you remember when I said that the CIA and Delta Force and the Special Forces were probably smoking al-Quaida guerrillas in cafe's and coffee shops in cities all over the world?

I'd say these guys are really fucking sorry they ever fucked with the United States. But at least they are still alive, and if they know what's good for them, they will sing like canaries. And if they won't, I hope they can swim, cause it's a long way back.

You guys are always talking about "gangsta this" and "gangsta that."

Well THIS is the real deal. Anybody that fucks with us will profoundly regret it. That's REAL gangsta, not some pretend bad ass poseur in a low-rider Buick.

You want to see "hard?" This ^^^ is hard. "NO MERCY." Believe it.


considering half the people they interrogate have nothing to do with al-qaida.....

[HESHIANDET]

cry a river

[xwibxonex]

Originally posted by HESHIANDET
cry a river
word.

[seeking]

yeah, i'll bet al quaida is real upset with their 'failure'.... the world hates us more than ever, and we have virtually no foreign allies left. anyone willing to wage a guerilla war based on ideals knows that it's not about your life, it's about the life of the movement. throw 100 al quaida soldiers out the back of a plane, they're still 'winning' and we're still losing.

i'm constantly amazed at how short sighteded some people are, yet how they can maintain such an air of superiority and infallibility. the only real losers in life are those that think they've learned all their is to know.

[villain]

I'm sorely disappointed in this administration.
With all these failures I have to wonder how they even stay in power. Then again I don't believe Bush was elected in the first place. Now with these ambiguous electronic voting machines proliferating and with an entirely republican controlled government for the first time in history it looks as though Bush has a strong possibility of reelection!

I'm going to vote as a matter of principle but I cannot guaruntee anything beyond that. I cannot believe this mess.

[heavyLox]

Privatised wars 'need new laws'
----------------------------
By Stephen Evans
BBC North America business correspondent
------------------------------------------
The rules are blurred in Iraq in ways never seen before. It might be called the first privatised war of modern times.

Do Geneva Conventions protect contractors?

One academic study says the ratio of private contractors to US military personnel in the Gulf now is roughly one to ten, ten times the ratio during the 1991 war.

In Abu Ghraib prison - where contractors are reported to have run interrogations - that means unclear lines of legal responsibility.

Read the full article: (http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/middle_east/3699957.stm)

[seeking]

why exactly are we paying 'mercinaries' and 'contractors' $100,000 each, to do the job of the military?
are our soldiers that incompetent? if so, that sure doesn't say good things about our military as a whole. that we have to rely on PRIVATE CITIZENS to guard our MILITARY.


villian,
what does your average soldier make?

[imported_Tesseract]

Originally posted by seeking
yeah, i'll bet al quaida is real upset with their 'failure'.... the world hates us more than ever, and we have virtually no foreign allies left. anyone willing to wage a guerilla war based on ideals knows that it's not about your life, it's about the life of the movement. throw 100 al quaida soldiers out the back of a plane, they're still 'winning' and we're still losing.

i'm constantly amazed at how short sighteded some people are, yet how they can maintain such an air of superiority and infallibility. the only real losers in life are those that think they've learned all their is to know.


clear as a diamond.

[imported_Tesseract]

yup

[Dusty Lipschitz]

ok,
not to sound defeated...
i care, read up on things, have an opinion,
BUT
sometimes i wonder why.
nothing will change.

bush will get reelected, rumsfeld will remain, government gets bigger and fatter, and we beat up, humiliate prisoners of war. whats new? nothing. what will change this? nothing.
wait, you arent going to tell me to vote are you? are you going to tell me it matters? because after last elections debacle, its obvious it doesnt. dont get me wrong, i did vote, and will, but in the back of my head i cant rationalize why...

[imported_Tesseract]

Originally posted by Dusty Lipschitz
ok,
not to sound defeated...
i care, read up on things, have an opinion,
BUT
sometimes i wonder why.
nothing will change.

bush will get reelected, rumsfeld will remain, government gets bigger and fatter, and we beat up, humiliate prisoners of war. whats new? nothing. what will change this? nothing.
wait, you arent going to tell me to vote are you? are you going to tell me it matters? because after last elections debacle, its obvious it doesnt. dont get me wrong, i did vote, and will, but in the back of my head i cant rationalize why...

I dunno dusty, being not american i can tell you that kind of apathy is virtual....its a very pathetic stance i would never expect from you...what happens right now has a tremendous effect worldwide, you're the reciever with its pros and cons...the ball is on your court

[seeking]

cilone,
it was kind of a rhetorical question. i mean i know why 'we're' doing it, it's just such an unbelievable load of shit.
and it must make the average soldier feel like such a pawn. he's making a fraction of what this civillian is doing, yet he's risking far, far more, and when the shit hits the fan, it's going to fall on his head, not on the civillian. i can imagine you guys must be pretty furious over the whole thing. bush is cutting combat hazard pay, but paying yahoo's over a million dollars a dozen, to break the law. yeah for that.

im sure i could go on, but its quitting time.

[villain]

Seeking: The majority of the military is e-1 through e-4 so most of us are kids making mcdonalds wages as you can see from the pay scale.

edited for anger management

[BROWNer]

Originally posted by seeking
i mean i know why 'we're' doing it, it's just such an unbelievable load of shit.

which are you referring to..the propadanda why, or the real reasons for invading? or
both? if it's the latter, that would entail what specifically? (this is just general, to anybody).

if anyone could delineate the more believable reasons behind this war, or point me to a decent source of how this benefits the western, and more specifically american way of life, i'd be very grateful..
i've sort of been looking for a real good analysis that completely sidesteps the propaganda reasons, and how this war would/could actually benefit america in stark
economic terms..somethin' with some depth..we all know oil has something to do with it, but how exactly does it all translate to the markets and american primacy?

[villain]

Originally posted by BROWNer
which are you referring to..the propadanda why, or the real reasons for invading? or
both? if it's the latter, that would entail what specifically? (this is just general, to anybody).

if anyone could delineate the more believable reasons behind this war, or point me to a decent source of how this benefits the western, and more specifically american way of life, i'd be very grateful..
i've sort of been looking for a real good analysis that completely sidesteps the propaganda reasons, and how this war would/could actually benefit america in stark
economic terms..somethin' with some depth..we all know oil has something to do with it, but how exactly does it all translate to the markets and american primacy?


I've been finding an unbelievably awesome amount of information at www.globalresearch.ca (http://www.globalresearch.ca)

Check em out if you haven't.

[BROWNer]

chussodovsky or whatever seems pretty solid, but that
site makes my eyes sore. i will give it another try though..

in other news...
something that has bothered me a little bit since this
all broke is where did these images leak from? who is the
source and what is their motivation? was this specifically
a military leak, military intel leak like DIA or something, or a civilian intel leak...?
i was just perusing the gnn site..they have a forum that
sometimes has interesting threads..
anyhow, there is speculative talk that this could conceivably(*sp?)
be an 'intel coup' on the bush gangsters..peruse here. (http://www.guerrillanews.com/forum/showflat.pl?Cat=&Board=gnn&Number=295352&page=0&view=collapsed&sb=5&o=0&part=)

[Dusty Lipschitz]

Originally posted by Tesseract
I dunno dusty, being not american i can tell you that kind of apathy is virtual....its a very pathetic stance i would never expect from you...what happens right now has a tremendous effect worldwide, you're the reciever with its pros and cons...the ball is on your court

i agree wholeheartedly with all you said.
like i said, i still read up, vote, and try to do my part, but on the whole, as a citizen of this country, sometimes "doing my part" feels like im just goin thru the motions and has no real effect on what "my" country will do.
in the bigger, worldwide picture, i see how the US plays into it, and effects it, and it scares the SHIT out of me, but then i come around to...
what can i do?

i should hop my lil narrow white ass on AIM more often.

[imported_Tesseract]

Originally posted by Dusty Lipschitz

what can i do?

i should hop my lil narrow white ass on AIM more often.

definatelly aim,

Besides that, i understand you..however, please believe that people worldwide check whats going on in the states either they like it or not....your voice may not change shit as to how your country deals with shit but it gives hope to us foreigners to know that it exists.

[seeking]

villian,
it is shit pay, but also you can't forget that all your necessities are paid for, correct? so thats like being a civillian and after having your rent/food/ins paid for, you still have 1200-1600 a month just to waste. that's not bad at all. it's probably the civillian equiv. of making about 2500-3k a month.

browner,
i was saying i know why we hire the mercinaries, not why we're in the war in the first place. as for that question, i'm more than willing to accept that it's well beyond me, but i have a tendency to believe it's also a whole lot deeper than just iraq's oil. i think its probably part of a larger restructuring of the middle east, with some sort of zionist tie in. whatever the deal is, it's not to free iraq, and i have a sneaking suspicion that it's a whole lot more nefarious than any of us really imagine, or will be able to, until it's all over. and that's not conspiracy theory talking, it's the mirror of history reflecting into the future.

[villain]

Browner:
Yeah that site is not the prettiest, but there's alot of info there.
That's a good question. Where did these pics come from? Because it seems that in our society of the spectacle it has more of an influence than pages upon pages of reports. This is what the Majority Report was talking about last night. Red Cross has been reporting these abuses to the military since january. I believe MG Tacuba (sp?) also put this report out in January. There was a lower ranking enlisted person that seems to be getting the most attention though. Hopefully not as a scapegoat. My guess is that killers cannot help but brag about their crimes so they did themselves in. I mean these people look like they enjoy their jobs waaaay too much.
I heard that Rumsfeld is trying to ban email now?

Seeks: Yeah we get benefits like 3 hots and a cot. It's a great opportunity for losers like myself. It just sucks quite alot. Especially now with all this bullshit going on. I'm just thankful I'm still not over there in that quagmire....

[seeking]

actually, i think the red cross has been reporting on the abuses for almost a year, or atleast that's what i remember hearing. in jan. rumpsfeld claims we admitted that there had been 'allegations' of abuse, and that we were looking into it. he also said that he did not see the photos till last week, and that the president did not know anything about the abuses, or the photos, until he saw them on 60 minutes, which is either complete shit, or completely insane. the first set of photos (allegedly) came from a soldier who reported the abuses, and i believe through one avenue or another, got the pictures to 60 minutes, which were the first civillians to have copies. the flood of photos now, which i have not seen, but have heard are far worse than the originals, i would assume are probably just people trying to cash in. friends, relatives, photo developing clerks that stole copies for themselves, etc. that's just a complete guess, and maybe there is some underlying plot, but i think my take is just as likely. people are stupid and their desire for 'fame' is stronger than just about anything else. anyone that has a copy of a photo that has not been shown, is going to be sitting there thinking 'wow, i'll bet if i call cbs, i can get 10grand for this'.... also, obviously the soldiers were so brazen about the whole thing, and so careless, that it was like tap dancing on landmines...not a matter of if, just a matter of when. the fact that they didn't even hide it from the red cross, who are the worlds 'watch dogs' for shit like this, is all the proof. i honestly think they just never considered it would get out, or that people would care.
i think it will be a shame if the soldiers are the only ones who go down for this. i believe rumpsfeld has already hinted at the fact that there are no plans to put any contractors on trial for it, and you know the higher ups in the military will be safe and sound... crock of shit. a bunch of dumb ass soldiers will get fucked for being dumb, which they deserve, but it wont fix the problem.

[BROWNer]

well apparently it was put out there by Army Spc. Joe Darby..
i think generally speaking it's unlikely this was a formulated
press release pr type thing...but........there is/was alot of chatter
of current and ex-intel people being very unhappy with the way they were
manipulated, shut out, and generally walked all over for the run
up, the double blame and the outing of plame..and
the photos were encouraged by military intel..why would
you encourage photos of this shit, especially with the climate of
investigations etcetry?

[metallix]

http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=stor...d=540&ncid=1480 (http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&u=/ap/20040511/ap_on_re_mi_ea/iraq_american_beheaded&cid=540&ncid=1480)


Video Seems to Show Beheading of American

1 hour, 5 minutes ago


CAIRO, Egypt - A video posted Tuesday on an Islamic militant Web site appeared to show a group affiliated with al-Qaida beheading an American in Iraq (news - web sites), saying the death was revenge for the prisoner-abuse scandal.
The video showed five men wearing headscarves and black ski masks, standing over a bound man in an orange jumpsuit who identified himself as an American from Philadelphia.


After reading a statement, the men were seen pulling the man to his side and cutting off his head with a large knife. They then held the head out before the camera.

[villain]

It's ridiculous to me to condemn people for exposing the truth. Fact of the matter is they shouldn't have been doing this in the first place, let alone taking photographs of it and showing all their drunken buddies. I find it unlikely that Iraqis didn't know what was going on inside these prisons in the first place. They would have to keep all the prisoners in there for the rest of their lives for that to happen and even that would seem suspicious. Especially since it was reported that 90% of them where picked up by mistake and there are women AND children in there.

More importantly this is about right and wrong. Not secrecy and scandal.

This is more like a symbol of what they have been experiencing all along. This is an expose of what already is. Hopefully now that we are better informed we can make better decisions.

Anyone have any good news from Iraq?

[GamblersGrin]

what site is it that shows the beheading? anyone know?

[<KEY3>]

I'm sure the site is down.

they propably wernt ready for every news surfer in the world to hit them at once.

[GamblersGrin]

my girls parents are buggin about that. that guy who lost his head about this was there to kill them. shit man, thats war. funny how people only see things one way sometimes.

[villain]

Looks like they are hitting us where it really hurts now, below the economic waistline. Also word of more unrest among Iraq's majority the Shiite.

http://news.xinhuanet.com/english/2004-05/...ent_1462898.htm (http://news.xinhuanet.com/english/2004-05/11/content_1462898.htm)

one mo gain

http://news.scotsman.com/latest.cfm?id=2908767

looks like shit increases exponentially.

[GamblersGrin]

funny how sean hannity has a link on his site to the site of the "terrorists" video. heres the link, www.al-ansar.biz (http://www.al-ansar.biz) of course its not up now bc its being massively flooded

[Fr8Junkie]

www.ogrish.com (http://www.ogrish.com)
for whoever wants to see this guy get his head hacked off

[S@T@N]

Originally posted by GamblersGrin
my girls parents are buggin about that. that guy who lost his head about this was there to kill them. shit man, thats war. funny how people only see things one way sometimes.


Actually, he was there to repair radio towers. He was trying to come the
fuck home.

[GamblersGrin]

Originally posted by S@T@N
Actually, he was there to repair radio towers. He was trying to come the
fuck home.

hes there on behalf of the government of the united states. fucked up shit happens in war. he caught one. i dont mean to be a dick about it but black and white thats the facts.

how many iraqis are we killing over there a day anyways that we dont hear about bc yknow, the us isnt brutal or nothin. :rolleyes:

[S@T@N]

Let me just start by saying don't roll your eyes at me like I'm some
ignorant 15 year old "cronie" of yours. I made a valid point.


By your logic, every representative of a particular group detrimental to your
cause is a worthy target. Thanks for justifying the holocaust, Hitler.
I don't think the big problem is the death of the guy, it's the fact that
it was 1) a brutal death, 2) televised, and 3) intentionally identified.

[imported_Tesseract]

Iraqis concider foreign army as 'invaders' and it seems pretty legit they do so...its their home you know.

[GamblersGrin]

Originally posted by S@T@N
Let me just start by saying don't roll your eyes at me like I'm some
ignorant 15 year old "cronie" of yours. I made a valid point.


By your logic, every representative of a particular group detrimental to your
cause is a worthy target. Thanks for justifying the holocaust, Hitler.
I don't think the big problem is the death of the guy, it's the fact that
it was 1) a brutal death, 2) televised, and 3) intentionally identified.

as far as televised brutal deaths my friend, lets turn the page to the late 1960's and early 1970's to the vietnam war. this was a war that was on the evening news every day for 4 years showing american and vietnamese soldiers being shot, blown up, hacked up, etc. also lets not forget fox televisions rating boosters during the inaugural iraqi takeover they call operation desert storm and continued with last year in operation freedom (i think thats what the latest episode was called). its that little green nite vision a la paris hilton video that shows american helicopters and tanks bombarding targets. do you think there were people in those buildings? thats not brutal to you bc they dont show it close up. are those pictures that are out now showing american guards who are supposed to be liberating a 3rd world nation from a brutal dictator who tortured his own people not brutal to you? would you want to be piled onto 6 other naked men and have someone take a picture of you? i think not, sir.

war is just bad, period. im not saying the bush govt. is right or wrong or that the terrorists are right/wrong bc the bottom line is that both sides are fantatical religious people who will never ever meet in the middle to resolve their differences, and thats the sad part about it.

[MEROJUANA]

Originally posted by GamblersGrin
my girls parents are buggin about that. that guy who lost his head about this was there to kill them. shit man, thats war. funny how people only see things one way sometimes.

YEAH BUT THESE NIGGAS HAVE BEEN HACKING NIGGAS HEADS OFF & TAPING IT FOR A MINUTE NOW, THAT SHIT IS FUCKED UP, LIKE "YO YOU MADE MY MAN BANG HIS HEAD AGAINST A WALL, SO IM GONNA CHOP YOUR MANS HEAD OFF" COME ON, KILLING SOMEONE WHO'S LICKING SHOTS AT YOU IS ONE THING, AND TRUE WAR IS WAR, BUT GRABBING ONE NIGGA UP WHO ISN'T TRYING TO DIRECTLY MERK YOU AND CHOPPING HIS FUCKING HEAD OFF IS TOO MUCH. I DONT RESPECT THAT SHIT AT ALL.


M E R O E
MLBRT04.

[BROWNer]

Originally posted by Fr8Junkie
www.ogrish.com (http://www.ogrish.com)


just curious, how the fuck you found or even know about that site?
real quality there..."brutal rape"..."farm cum"...:rolleyes:

[Fr8Junkie]

^^^^ it was in an article about daniel pearl on yahoo. the site use to have the daniel pearl video but they took off.

[metallix]

Originally posted by BROWNer
just curious, how the fuck you found or even know about that site?
real quality there..."brutal rape"..."farm cum"...:rolleyes:


its a popular site for uncensored media

[T=E=A=S=E]

fucking US... this shits getting worse and worse by the day.

[GamblersGrin]

http://www.consumptionjunction.com/content...=1&page=1&fav=0 (http://www.consumptionjunction.com/content/detail.asp?ID=34947&type=1&page=1&fav=0)

heres the full video. its 90% arabic chanting. when the cuttin man comes, its fucking brutal. you here dude screaming and shit.

[SayOne]

Originally posted by MEROJUANA
YEAH BUT THESE NIGGAS HAVE BEEN HACKING NIGGAS HEADS OFF & TAPING IT FOR A MINUTE NOW, THAT SHIT IS FUCKED UP, LIKE "YO YOU MADE MY MAN BANG HIS HEAD AGAINST A WALL, SO IM GONNA CHOP YOUR MANS HEAD OFF" COME ON, KILLING SOMEONE WHO'S LICKING SHOTS AT YOU IS ONE THING, AND TRUE WAR IS WAR, BUT GRABBING ONE NIGGA UP WHO ISN'T TRYING TO DIRECTLY MERK YOU AND CHOPPING HIS FUCKING HEAD OFF IS TOO MUCH. I DONT RESPECT THAT SHIT AT ALL.


M E R O E
MLBRT04.
ebonics aside, this was the most true shit ive read...

[PAID:one]

shits fucked up.

By Sewell Chan and Ariana Eunjung Cha
Washington Post Foreign Service
Wednesday, May 12, 2004; Page A01

Berg was in restraints but appeared calm. "My name is Nick Berg, my father's name is Michael, my mother's name is Suzanne," the man says on the video. "I have a brother and sister, David and Sarah."

One of the men read a statement in Arabic, saying that they had offered to exchange Berg for several detainees at Abu Ghraib but that U.S. authorities had refused.
.................................................. .................................................. ....

For the rest of the article........
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/artic...-2004May11.html (http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A19048-2004May11.html)

[ClueTwo]

May have been said already but...

This just sounds like a ploy to get the American public fired up close to election time..This is the direct answer for all of the current liberal media claims.
-------------------------------------------------
Liberal accusations about conservative media vs. The absolute perfect timing of this horrid video to counteract such claims.

All conservatives focus on 9/11 and the truama surrounding.

Now they have someting new to fall back on gaining the "American" anger and aggresion towards the Middle East. Caskets with flags obviously had no effect, let's show off someones head getting cut off...

(I'm sick of typing, but I'm sure there are enough of you on here that could easily figure out the obvious pinpoint time this clip could have aroused. I highly doubt this is even the first tape they have received with such vulgar obscenities. Everything about the guy and the "evil doers" is exactly what the Joe Sixpack American needs to get fired up.)

FUCKING BULLSHIT! I have said some dumb shit in the past about supporting Bush, but lately after really gaining some knowledge of the current political situation I have fully geared my standpoint to the left.

That's enough for tonight, I'm going to bed,,,

[Crimsøn]

Originally posted by seeking
the only real losers in life are those that think they've learned all *their is to know.

*there. :lol:

Normally I wouldn't point out a misplaced 'there'
but the placement was just too funny.

[BROWNer]

fucking evil shit.

[BROWNer]

[img]http://www.regalweb.co.uk/loony/animated/bush1.gif'>
"bring 'em on!".

[HYDRO BILL]

war is just bad, period. im not saying the bush govt. is right or wrong or that the terrorists are right/wrong bc the bottom line is that both sides are fantatical religious people who will never ever meet in the middle to resolve their differences, and thats the sad part about it.-Gambler`s grin

Very true. Fuck religious fanaticism, actually fuck almost all religions. Fuck oil .Fuck the international drug trade.
Raise your kids tolerant, drive a hybrid (or don`t drive) and grow your own stone.(Or don`t get high)...
And vote. And if they steal the next election, bloody the streets

[DITDxCULT]

Does anyone else think it is relevant that the men behind the beheading were not from Iraq, but from but Turkey (correct me if I am wrong)

...regardless they were al queda

[HYDRO BILL]

Just watched that video, Homeboy looks a lot like me. Super fucked up, but don`t forget it is a DIRECT RESULT of Abu Ghirave (sp?) . His scream really gets to you. Violence begets violence. RIP Nick Berg

[S@T@N]

^

While you were typing that, you could've set 4 elected officials on fire.

For shame.

[Jackson]

Originally posted by T=E=A=S=E
ABORT MISSION!!!

I say we -pull out- as if Iraq's a piece of pussy we've been fucking without a condom on!
Before what?
You really are a dumb fucking idiot.

[Brownbread?]

the only thing really shocking about this is that those guys were dumb enough to pose for pictures. how dumb can you be???anyways shit like this happenes all time at prison camps it just seems very hypocritical when its Uncle"human rights"Sam whose doing it.
I'm not saying that it isn't wrong. Hell yeah its wrong but hey its war,you kinda expect shit like that in a war like this.Same as the way those Iraqis burned those US soldiers/civ and hung them from that brigde. Its human nature, you kinda throw out any type of morality or mercy for your enemy once you see your friends getting killed next to you.
...what sucks even more is these anti-american guys that are parading downtown with their micrphones screaming this and that about the war but yet they hop back into their supersized gas friendly SUV's and return to the safe comforts of surburbia. I hate Bush and this war as much as the next guy but if we bash the gov. at every angle it only adds more fuel to the fire and makes shit more difficult for those in Iraq . like 20% my of friends from highschool are out in iraq right now and from their accounts they keep getting moved back and forth. i'll admit at first i really wanted to see the US fall face flat just so that Bush would look bad, but now this war has gone beyond Bush and if we dont get our shit together, wipe out these extremist militias and get the fuck out of Iraq we might become the next Israel.

[ClueTwo]

Originally posted by DITDxCULT
Does anyone else think it is relevant that the men behind the beheading were not from Iraq, but from but Turkey (correct me if I am wrong)

...regardless they were al queda

Is this right? Do you have any source? I'm just curious and before I go parading the thought, I want to be certain..

[CIPHER_one]

Originally posted by CILONE/SK
But, instead of sitting on 12oz talking shit, are any of you doing anything?

I suppose I see what you're saying, but I also kind of see what is happening here on 12oz as doing something. I'm having a hell of a time figuring all this stuff out, and its really helpful reading waht others have to say, getting opinions from all different kinds of people, etc. etc.

I guess I could write a letter to my "elected official"...but I almost feel that's accomplishing less than what's going on right here.

Maybe I'm alone on this one, but whateV.

[villain]

Originally posted by CIPHER_one
I suppose I see what you're saying, but I also kind of see what is happening here on 12oz as doing something. I'm having a hell of a time figuring all this stuff out, and its really helpful reading waht others have to say, getting opinions from all different kinds of people, etc. etc.

I guess I could write a letter to my "elected official"...but I almost feel that's accomplishing less than what's going on right here.

Maybe I'm alone on this one, but whateV.

I would agree. I find these conversations stimulating and informative. The better our understanding of the issues the better our argumentive and persuasive power. I'm pretty much considered a "conspiracy nut" because I talk about this stuff so much. But if people were to research more into this stuff and not just get information from the mainstream media they would know what the hell I'm talking about.

You can email the government but more than likely the response you'll get will be from a bot. They often recommend you send snail mail because I guess that eliminates spam and whatnot.

[seeking]

you can also send faxes.
if you dont have a fax machine, i know there is software you can download to send fax's from your computer. if you look around, i'm sure you can find it for free.

i also agree that 'talking' about it here, in the manner we tend to, is doing something. this site gets over 10MILLION page views a month, and while most of those are from 'us' there are undoubtedly a whole lot of people that just browse without posting. i know that things i've said have had an effect on people, and things people have said have had a great effect me on. i've learned a ton from the links and things browner posts. same with !@#$%, and now villian and cilone. even if i never take a physical action outside of this, i know i have affected some kind of action, in some way. of course had i actually done something, i could have affected 100x's as much, but talking about politics in an effort to further educate yourself, is not wasted time.

i keep trying to write a big reply on my feelings about this torture thing, and now the beheading, but it never comes out quite right. i'm torn between col kurtz and ghandi, and i cant decide which is right... further still, i've begun blurring them into one person sometimes, and not finding too much hypocricy (if such a thing is possible). i dont know, i just know i cant be alone here. it's just like graffiti. on one hand i think it's wrong to write on churches and houses, and i dont practice such a thing, but on the other hand, i have to appreciate someone that does not give a fuck abotu morals and just detroys everything with no regard. in alot of ways, i see a divine beauty in that. there is no hypocricy, no talk, no bullshit, just action without prejudice. i've always refered to it as my 'zen butcher' problem, which anyone who's studied buddhism at all should understand. i dont know. just wanted to try and throw that out there for whatever. im fighting with my griflriend and trying to work and i hate it. i love the woman on the al franken show though.

[<KEY3>]

I saw the pics of the beheaded american's father and brother today.

This war IS going to change the world.
America has become the new Rome.
Nothing will be the same when it is over.

[HESHIANDET]

the rape photos gave me a raging boner!

[Dick Quickwood]

Originally posted by GamblersGrin
http://www.consumptionjunction.com/content...=1&page=1&fav=0 (http://www.consumptionjunction.com/content/detail.asp?ID=34947&type=1&page=1&fav=0)

heres the full video. its 90% arabic chanting. when the cuttin man comes, its fucking brutal. you here dude screaming and shit.

is there a way to save that video?

[Jackson]

The rape ones on ogrish with the guys in the green fatigues are so fake its funny.

[seeking]

wtf? (http://www.immigrantsforamerica.com/pres_bush.html)


*just fixed the link seeks

[fiberoptical]

This is a a PSYOP used to counter our public opinion of the american torturing the iraquis.They came out with it just in time...now we are pissed at the boogie men " al queda", instead of at our own treatment of iraqui prisoners. Conveniently it was released on May 11..
Nick bergs parents filed suit against the US govt. for holding him in detention,the released him, and then 1 day later he came up missing..
WW3....they want to get it started.

always have to look at who benefits...

[BROWNer]

re: 'doing something'..
kind of irrelevant now, but back when bush was warming everyone
up for the invasion, i posted a thread with contacts to US congress
officials and others. phone #'s and all that...i wonder if anyone actually
called..those were pissy days..
hey villain, you think you're a conspiracy nut, maybe cleansheets will
start posting more again. btw, cleansheets, could you elaborate on your
theory?
mainstream news..i understand what you mean in an overall sense, but keep in
mind that an absolute ton of information has come directly from the mainstream
news outlets. also so-called alternative news sources have an odd habit of
making it known they are 'alternative', but then their site either has a bunch
of links that they've selected from mainstream sources, or within articles they
source out or write themselves are major points and corroboration from..big news. i know you know all this already...but..just feel i have to point it out, becuz i hear alot of people flat out trash mainstream news. i think generally speaking, people get their
news from places that tend to reflect and reinforce their own assumptions and world view. i don't know if that's a good or bad thing or on the mark..but..

[fiberoptical]

The film was released with impecible timing-goal to counteract the damage caused by the release of the prison torture flix.now the people are only saying how horrible it was of "supposed al queda" members to do such a horrible thing..oh..and the prison stuff..well maybe it was justified since the did that to..gasp..an american. So now we have more traumas being caused to americans used to justify our crusade through the middle east. Iran is next..like Ihave said all along.watch.Anyhow..read this article..pay attention to pragraph 8 where it states he was held by us authorities and his parents were visited to this event, released, then suddeny captured...and executed.

http://www.pennlive.com/newsflash/pa/index...30077760820.xml (http://www.pennlive.com/newsflash/pa/index.ssf?/base/news-16/108430077760820.xml)

*** note the above article is mainstream***

Those hooded al quedas seem to have big beer bellies, don't they?...anyhow....oh yeah it is conveniently happens on May 11th too...march 11th....april 20th.......patterns anyone???.....back to our mind control operations here...

the search for osama continues..:lol: :lol: :lol:

wheres waldo?

[Nekro]

Here's a slew of dailykos articles that summed up how I feel:

I'm losing faith in my country.
by Mike S
Fri May 7th, 2004 at 13:58:26 EST

Recently I have found myself getting more and more depressed. I was raised by two people who taught me right from wrong with no mitigating circumstances. When I got in trouble there was never an excuse like, "he did it first," or "he is worse than me." What was wrong was wrong. Both of my parents had very hard childhoods. My fathers family was dirt poor and my mother came from an abusive home. Yet rather than wallow in self pity and taking the easy way out of blaming whatever they did on their childhoods, they strove to better themselves and those around them.
I was born in 1965. My father was an Air Force reservist and had top security clearance with the government. In the early 60's he was sent to Viet Namn as an "advisor." He spent much of my youth traveling the world with none of us knowing where he was, not even my mother. The rumor in my extended family was that he was CIA.

Ten years ago he and I took a road trip on Route 66 because it was something he had wanted to do his whole life. He had terminal cancer and the end was very near. We sat in a bar one night and discussed the good and bad things that had happened in our lives. I asked him what he did for all of those years, and he said all he could tell me was that he was not CIA. I asked him what he did in Viet Namn and he got a very grave look on his face. He said that it was all still classified, but he knew all of what had hapened there. There was pain in his voice and on his face. He had a deep love for this country and passed that on to me.

The love I have for this country is because of my parents and so many people I have met in my life. These people believe as I do. That we were given a gift by the people who founded this country and that is a gift that should be praised and shared. We have a duty to do what we can to help as many people as we can. When we see someone who is down, we should give them a hand to get themselves back up. And when we see someone do wrong, we should point it out and help it get corrected.

These days I keep hearing phrases like "Saddam was worse" and "They didn't appoligise to us." People have forgotten what we are and what we stand for. I don't want to be less bad than someone else. I don't want to excuse what I do because someone is worse. I want people to look at me and my country and say "That is the way it should be."

As much as I dislike and distrust Bush, the one thing I can say for him is he has not given these excuses. He has come out and said that what happened is wrong. Whether he means it and will do something about it is another matter that we will see in the future. But I can tell you this. It hurts like hell that a man I have so little respect for has come out with a better statement than a man I have defended for my entire year here at dKos. When someone from my party who rode with the freedom riders to correct an injustice comes out with the excuses I heard him use, I find myself losing faith even more.

-Mike S http://www.dailykos.com/story/2004/5/7/145826/5591

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A moment of peace
by kos
Mon May 10th, 2004 at 15:17:33 EST

Amidsts all the war, death and chaos our incompetent leader has perpetrated against the world, it was quite an experience to spend time in the Guatemalan national palace and its peace museum.
Guatemala experienced the bloodiest of the Central American civil wars, with an estimated 200-300,000 dead over three decades. That war ended in 1996 after a long and arduous peace process, one aided by the oft-maligned United Nations and the involvement of El Salvador, Nicaragua and Honduras -- all nations recovering from their own bloody conflicts.

For Americans not directly involved in a war (even Bush's War), war is an abstraction. We have become so desensitized to it thanks to Hollywood, video games and the nightly news. We hear things such as, "only one person died in the attack" and we think, "phew, it was just one." But every death is a tragedy of epic proportions, touching dozens if not hundreds or thousands. This country rightfully mourned 3,000 dead in the 9-11 attacks, yet doesn't consider the deaths of thousands of foreigners to be worth any consideration. But they hurt just as bad.

Bush's War has many casualties, but one of them has been the concept of "peace". It's seen as a matter of weakness, or appeasement, of anti-Americanism. So it was emotionally overwhelming for me to spend time in a place that celebrated peace. Various displays commemorated the ravages of war, others paid tribute to the nations of the world that lent their support in Guatemala's efforts for peace -- a true coalition of the willing.

Peace wasn't a weakness. It wasn't appeasement. It was a search for the highest ideal. A search that ultimately proved to be successful.

In Guatemala's national palace, the peace accords were commemorated with the following sculpture:

[img]http://www.dailykos.net/images/peace.JPG'>

Every day, a new white rose is placed on those two hands. The rose symbolizes another 24 hours of peace. Baby steps in a nation and region long ravaged by proxy wars and internal conflict.

I quietly wept as I gazed upon the sculputure. I wept for Guatemala, the pain for its losses and for hope for its future. I wept because it reminded me of the long path to peace in my own El Salvador. And I wept for my own United States, where peace is now a dirty word, where torture, death and human rights abuses are dismissed in a matter befitting Saddam Hussein, and where our leaders seek war and foment chaos.

http://www.dailykos.com/story/2004/5/10/161733/420

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Why Berg was murdered
by kos
Tue May 11th, 2004 at 23:16:37 EST

So what does the Berg murder tell us? That the prison torture scandal led to the killing? Not even close. Terrorists (and al-Zarqawi is undoubtedly one) don't need such excuses to do their dirty work.
The lesson is that not finishing the job in Afghanistan and invading Iraq with no good rationale gave Al Qaida and similar groups time to catch their breath, reorganize, and direct their efforts against a conveniently near target -- Iraq. This is the neocon "flypaper" theory in all its glory. It's working. The neocons WANTED it this way.

And they got it. Congratulations.

And in the process, the killing of thousands of innocent men, women and children by errant American bombs, artillery shells, mortars, and bullets have swelled the recruiting offices of every militia and terrorist organization in the Mideast, in and out of Iraq. Congrats with that as well. You can't have flypaper if you don't have an enemy shooting at you. So we energized our existing enemies and gave rise to new ones who didn't seem to understand that "collateral damage" is acceptable in war.

And the abuse of Iraqi prisoners -- up to 90 percent of which could be innocent according to the Red Cross -- just added fuel to the fire.

So no, the prison abuse didn't cause Berg's horrific murder. Bush's (inept) War, in all its glory, did. The Neocon agenda, in all its folly, did. The war cheerleaders now trying to use this for propaganda purposes, in all their idiocy, did.

Congrats. Your war spirals ever out of control. Good luck trying to wash the blood out of your hands.

http://www.dailykos.com/story/2004/5/12/01637/8395

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<span style='color:black'>It sickens me to see us lose our moral credibility. The only good reason for this war is now gone. We were going to go and overthrow this tyrant, end this oppression and torture and murder. Sure it was going to be hard, sure it was going to be costly, but in the end a net good was going to be done by ending this horrid oppression. All we did was take that tyranny and evil and put it under new management and that makes me sad and disappointed.

What makes me even more depressed is the way the republicans reacted to it. Basically they're all saying this: since brown people brought down the WTC and fight against americans, it's OK to bind brown people naked in cold dark rooms and humiliate them in ways that are the ultimate degradation in that culture, it's OK to have trained dogs attack brown people, and it's OK to convince someone that they're going to be electrocuted as long as they're brown, young, and male.

Rush Limbaugh says that this is like a frat stunt, that these guys needed to "blow off some steam" by beating and humiliating powerless prisoners who are probably innocent. Is he [still] on crack? I wonder how he would feel if I tied up him naked and threatened him with a pit bull, or told him I was going to have his mother and sister raped. I don't think he'd think it was funny if i took a 70 year old woman like his mother, strapped a harness on her, and rode her like a donkey.

Rush, this isn't funny. Abu Gharib is not a frat house, iraqis did not have anything to do with 9/11, and this kind of behavior is wrong. I don't give a shit what "they" did to us, this isn't about that. What happened in that prison was wrong, and we need to hold the people who perpetrated it responsible.

I think about the thousands of kids who joined the army so they could go to college and i'm sad. I think of all the dads, moms, brothers, sisters, sons, daughters, boyfriends, girlfriends, aunts, uncles, and friends that have died for a lie in iraq and i'm sad. I think of all the good people in the army who have to be associated with these assholes (not just the people in abu gharib, everyone who let that shit happen all the way up to rumsfeld and bush) and i'm sad. I think of all the innocent people in iraqi prisons and guantanamo bay and i'm sad (the red cross says that up to 90% of the people in abu gharib are innocent and wrongly imprisioned). I think of so many things that make me sad and angry and ashamed and I wish for one thing: Peace.

After all this I think the only solution is peace. Peace isn't an end that you reach through violence, peace is the means and the end. Peace is noble, peace is just, and peace is holy in the most basic human way.</span>

edit* the black text is me writing.

[Poop Man Bob]

Nice input, Nekro. Plus I'm glad there are other Kosians on here.

[T=E=A=S=E]

Originally posted by Nekro
I'm losing faith in my country.
by Mike S
Fri May 7th, 2004 at 13:58:26 EST


really liked what this guy had to say... very nice.

[BROWNer]

Originally posted by BROWNer
here's hershs actual piece..http://www.newyorker.com/fact/content/?040510fa_fact ...and another.. (http://www.newyorker.com/fact/content/?040517fa_fact2)

and the legendary hersh comes through yet again.. (http://newyorker.com/fact/content/?040524fa_fact)
this one purports the abuse was known and given the go ahead directly by
rumskull and cambone..

[Nekro]

Fucking ass, we're supposed to be better than this.

Edit: Up the 12oz kossacks!

[Poop Man Bob]

Originally posted by BROWNer
and the legendary hersh comes through yet again.. (http://newyorker.com/fact/content/?040524fa_fact)
this one purports the abuse was known and given the go ahead directly by rumskull and cambone..

Bump for the new Hersh article. Read it.

[Poop Man Bob]

From Kevin Drum (http://www.washingtonmonthly.com/archives/individual/2004_05/003930.php):
... So here's the summary:
The Pentagon, of course, says it was just a few bad apples. They are the only ones who seem to believe this.

Hersh says it was the Pentagon's idea and CIA resisted.

Newsweek says the Pentagon and the CIA were on board, but the State Department resisted.

A variety of sources say it was the Pentagon's idea and the JAG corps resisted.

Time says the Pentagon ran the program and Congress was kept out of the loop even when they asked about it.

The bottom line seems to be that everyone is claiming they either didn't know what was going on or else did their best to fight the harsh interrogation program at Abu Ghraib, but lost out in the end to Pentagon zealots and the White House. Either this is true or else the entire city of Washington DC is in full-blown CYA mode. At this point it's hard to tell which.

Still, one thing at least seems to be clear: this was clearly the Pentagon's baby. How far other agencies either resisted or cooperated with them remains to be seen.

[Nutonce]

this is just how war is.all parties are corrupt in some way shape or form. the media either is not informed, or they are informed and choose not to make it available to the public. but no matter what, our government knows whats going on, but they dont care because they are cold hearted and that is how the world is. this shit has been going on for a long time, and if you didnt know that, your disrespecting yourself, dont be so naive. this shit is not going to stop, its war, everything goes down, these pictures aint shit, imagine what they didnt flick. there are no rules in war, either you suck it up and accept it or complain and be bitter.and fuck being bitter.

nut.
no association.

[BROWNer]

another interesting piece: http://www.counterpunch.org/madsen05102004.html

The Israeli Torture Template

Rape, Feces and Urine-Dipped Cloth Sacks

By WAYNE MADSEN

With mounting evidence that a shadowy group of former Israeli Defense Force and General Security Service (Shin Bet) Arabic-speaking interrogators were hired by the Pentagon under a classified "carve out" sub-contract to brutally interrogate Iraqi prisoners at Baghdad's Abu Ghraib prison, one only needs to examine the record of abuse of Palestinian and Lebanese prisoners in Israel to understand what Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld meant, when referring to new, yet to be released photos and videos, he said, "if these images are released to the public, obviously its going to make matters worse."

According to a political appointee within the Bush administration and U.S. intelligence sources, the interrogators at Abu Ghraib included a number of Arabic-speaking Israelis who also helped U.S. interrogators develop the "R2I" (Resistance to Interrogation) techniques. Many of the torture methods were developed by the Israelis over many years of interrogating Arab prisoners on the occupied West Bank and in Israel itself.

Clues about worse photos and videos of abuse may be found in Israeli files about similar abuse of Palestinian and other Arab prisoners. In March 2000, a lawyer for a Lebanese prisoner kidnapped in 1994 by the Israelis in Lebanon claimed that his client had been subjected to torture, including rape. The type of compensation offered by Rumsfeld in his testimony has its roots in cases of Israeli torture of Arabs. In the case of the Lebanese man, said to have been raped by his Israeli captors, his lawyer demanded compensation of $1.47 million. The Public Committee Against Torture in Israel documented the types of torture meted out on Arab prisoners. Many of the tactics coincide with those contained in the Taguba report: beatings and prolonged periods handcuffed to furniture. In an article in the December 1998 issue of The Progressive, Rabbi Lynn Gottlieb reported on the treatment given to a 23-year old Palestinian held on "administrative detention." The prisoner was "cuffed behind a chair 17 hours a day for 120 days . . . [he] had his head covered with a sack, which was often dipped in urine or feces. Guards played loud music right next to his ears and frequently taunted him with threats of physical and sexual violence." If additional photos and videos document such practices, the Bush administration and the American people have, indeed, "seen nothing yet."

Although it is still largely undocumented if any of the contractor named in the report of General Antonio Taguba were associated with the Israeli military or intelligence services, it is noteworthy that one, John Israel, who was identified in the report as being employed by both CACI International of Arlington, Virginia, and Titan, Inc., of San Diego, may not have even been a U.S. citizen. The Taguba report states that Israel did not have a security clearance, a requirement for employment as an interrogator for CACI. According to CACI's web site, "a Top Secret Clearance (TS) that is current and US citizenship" are required for CACI interrogators working in Iraq. In addition, CACI requires that its interrogators "have at least two years experience as a military policeman or similar type of law enforcement/intelligence agency whereby the individual utilized interviewing techniques."

Speculation that "John Israel" may be an intelligence cover name has fueled speculation whether this individual could have been one of a number of Israeli interrogators hired under a classified contract. Because U.S. citizenship and documentation thereof are requirements for a U.S. security clearance, Israeli citizens would not be permitted to hold a Top Secret clearance. However, dual U.S.-Israeli citizens could have satisfied Pentagon requirements that interrogators hold U.S. citizenship and a Top Secret clearance. Although the Taguba report refers twice to Israel as an employee of Titan, the company claims he is one of their sub-contractors. CACI stated that one of the men listed in the report "is not and never has been a CACI employee" without providing more detail. A U.S. intelligence source revealed that in the world of intelligence "carve out" subcontracts such confusion is often thecase with "plausible deniability" being a foremost concern.

In fact, the Taguba report does reference the presence of non-U.S. and non-Iraqi interrogators at Abu Ghraib. The report states, "In general, US civilian contract personnel (Titan Corporation, CACI, etc), third country nationals, and local contractors do not appear to be properly supervised within the detention facility at Abu Ghraib."

The Pentagon is clearly concerned about the outing of the Taguba report and its references to CACI, Titan, and third country nationals, which could permanently damage U.S. relations with Arab and Islamic nations. The Pentagon's angst may explain why the Taguba report is classified Secret No Foreign Dissemination.

The leak of the Taguba report was so radioactive, Daniel R. Dunn, the Information Assurance Officer for Douglas Feith's Office of the Under Secretary of Defense, Policy (Policy Automation Services Security Team), sent a May 6, 2004, For Official Use Only Urgent E-mail to Pentagon staffers stating, "THE INFORMATION CONTAINED IN THIS REPORT IS CLASSIFIED; DO NOT GO TO FOX NEWS TO READ OR OBTAIN A COPY." Considering Feith's close ties to the Israelis, such a reaction by his top computer security officer, a Certified Information System Security Professional (CISSP), is understandable, although considering the fact that CISSPs are to act on behalf of the public good, it is also regrettable..

The reference to "third country nationals" in a report that restricts its dissemination to U.S. coalition partners (Great Britain, Poland, Italy, etc.) is another indication of the possible involvement of Israelis in the interrogation of Iraqi prisoners. Knowledge that the U.S. may have been using Israeli interrogators could have severely fractured the Bush administration's tenuous "coalition of the willing' in Iraq. General Taguba's findings were transmitted to the Coalition Forces Land Component Command on March 9, 2004, just six days before the Spanish general election, one that the opposition anti-Iraq war Socialists won. The Spanish ultimately withdrew their forces from Iraq.

During his testimony before the Senate Armed Service Committee, Rumsfeld was pressed upon by Senator John McCain about the role of the private contractors in the interrogations and abuse. McCain asked Rumsfeld four pertinent questions, ". . . who was in charge? What agency or private contractor was in charge of the interrogations? Did they have authority over the guards? And what were the instructions that they gave to the guards?"

When Rumsfeld had problems answering McCain's question, Lt. Gen. Lance Smith, the Deputy Commander of the U.S. Central Command, said there were 37 contract interrogators used in Abu Ghraib. The two named contractors, CACI and Titan, have close ties to the Israeli military and technology communities. Last January 14, after Provost Marshal General of the Army, Major General Donald Ryder, had already uncovered abuse at Abu Ghraib, CACI's President and CEO, Dr. J.P. (Jack) London was receiving the Jerusalem Fund of Aish HaTorah's Albert Einstein Technology award at the Jerusalem City Hall, with right-wing Likud politician Israeli Defense Minister Shaul Mofaz and ultra-Orthodox United Torah Judaism party Jerusalem Mayor Uri Lupolianski in attendance. Oddly, CACI waited until February 2 to publicly announce the award in a press release. CACI has also received grants from U.S.-Israeli bi-national foundations.

Titan also has had close connections to Israeli interests. After his stint as CIA Director, James Woolsey served as a Titan director. Woolsey is an architect of America's Iraq policy and the chief proponent of and lobbyist for Ahmad Chalabi of the Iraqi National Congress. An adviser to the neo-conservative Foundation for the Defense of Democracies, Jewish Institute of National Security Affairs, Project for the New American Century, Center for Security Policy, Freedom House, and Committee for the Liberation of Iraq, Woolsey is close to Stephen Cambone, the Undersecretary of Defense for Intelligence, a key person in the chain of command who would have not only known about the torture tactics used by U.S. and Israeli interrogators in Iraq but who would have also approved them. Cambone was associated with the Project for the New American Century and is viewed as a member of Rumsfeld's neo-conservative "cabal" within the Pentagon.

Another person considered by Pentagon insiders to have been knowledgeable about the treatment of Iraqi prisoners is U.S. Army Col. Steven Bucci, a Green Beret and Rumsfeld's military assistant and chief traffic cop for the information flow to the Defense Secretary. According to Pentagon insiders, Bucci was involved in the direction of a special covert operations unit composed of former U.S. special operations personnel who answered to the Pentagon rather than the CIA's Special Activities Division, the agency's own paramilitary group. The Pentagon group included Arabic linguists and former members of the Green Berets and Delta Force who operated covertly in Iraq, Afghanistan, Iran, Pakistan, and Uzbekistan. Titan also uses linguists trained in the languages (Arabic, Dari, Farsi, Pashto, Urdu, and Tajik) of those same countries. It is not known if a link exists between Rumsfeld's covert operations unit and Titan's covert operations linguists.

Another Titan employee named in the Taguba report is Adel L. Nakhla. Nakhla is a name common among Egypt's Coptic Christian community, however, it is not known if Adel Nakhla is either an Egyptian-American or a national of Egypt. A CACI employee identified in the report, Steven Stephanowicz, is referred to as "Stefanowicz" in a number of articles on the prison abuse. Stefanowicz is the spelling used by Joe Ryan, another CACI employee assigned with Stefanowicz to Abu Ghraib. Ryan is a radio personality on KSTP, a conservative radio station in Minneapolis, who maintained a daily log of his activities in Iraq on the radio's web site before it was taken down. Ryan indicated that Stefanowicz (or Stephanowicz) continued to hold his interrogation job in Iraq even though General Taguba recommended he lose his security clearance and be terminated for the abuses at Abu Ghraib.

In an even more bizarre twist, the Philadelphia Daily News identified a former expatriate public relations specialist for the government of South Australia in Adelaide named Steve Stefanowicz as possibly being the same person identified in the Taguba report. In 2000, Stefanowicz, who grew up in the Philadelphia and Allentown areas, left for Australia. On September 16, 2001, he was quoted by the Sunday Mail of Adelaide on the 911 attacks. He said of the attacks, "It was one of the most incredible and most devastating things I have ever seen. I have been in constant contact with my family and friends in the US and the mood was very solemn and quiet. But this is progressing into anger." Stefanowicz returned to the United States and volunteered for the Navy in a reserve status. His mother told the Allentown Morning Call in April 2002 that Stefanowicz was stationed somewhere in the Middle East but did not know where because of what Stefanowicz said was "security concerns." His mother told the Philadelphia Daily News that her son was in Iraq but she knew nothing about his current status.

Wayne Madsen is a Washington, DC-based investigative journalist and columnist. He served in the National Security Agency (NSA) during the Reagan administration and wrote the introduction to Forbidden Truth. He is the co-author, with John Stanton, of "America's Nightmare: The Presidency of George Bush II." His forthcoming book is titled: "Jaded Tasks: Big Oil, Black Ops, and Brass Plates."

[imported_Tesseract]

[img]http://www.turbanhead.com/iRaq.jpg'>

[Nekro]

I cannot wait until those pictures and video leak out, I figure it's only a matter of time. It's time for people to know what's going down over there and why. I heard that this whole scheme is part of a pentagon plan initiated by rumsfeld and those other scary fucks. Daily kos has more:

http://www.dailykos.com/story/2004/5/16/161220/753

[Nekro]

Apparently they started taking the kids, nephews, wives, and family of wanted suspects to them/use as leverage with their parents.



ttp://haloscan.com/tb/patriotboy/108468020362113570

Two young sons of Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, the suspected mastermind of the September 11 attacks, are being used by the CIA to force their father to talk.

Yousef al-Khalid, 9, and his brother, Abed al-Khalid, 7, were taken into custody in Pakistan in September when intelligence officers raided a flat in Karachi where their father had been hiding.

[link has about 5 more examples with sources]

Remember the part before the war when all those stories about torturing kids in front of their parents came out? Remember that? We're supposed to be better than this.

[img]http://webpages.charter.net/micah/repjesus10.gif'>

[villain]

Originally posted by Nekro


After all this I think the only solution is peace. Peace isn't an end that you reach through violence, peace is the means and the end. Peace is noble, peace is just, and peace is holy in the most basic human way.[/color]


This is very poetic.

[mental invalid]

ya know what we should do to khalid?



shoot him.

[Swiffer Jet]

Originally posted by Tesseract
[img]http://www.turbanhead.com/iRaq.jpg'>
saved.

[se_FOUR]

[img]http://www.bangedup.com/Current/Iraqibeheading.gif'>

[Brownbread?]

Originally posted by Nekro
I cannot wait until those pictures and video leak out, I figure it's only a matter of time. It's time for people to know what's going down over there and why.
http://www.dailykos.com/story/2004/5/16/161220/753
why would you want that?? i may be wrong but the way I see it that doesn't produce anything positive for iraq or the US. yea it'll show Americans as corrupt hypocrites and yadah yadah but it will also infuriate more Iraqis which isn't good for Iraqis or the US. The more unstable Iraq is the longer our soldiers have to stay over there. The longer they stay over there the more they get killed. They more they get killed the more desperate the gov becomes and the harder we retaliate. And that only produces more dead Iraqi civilians.

[mental invalid]

can all these blowhards for bush please fucking stop using the "well the people of iraq are still better off and our country is better the iran or the saudis, blah blah" defense...its driving me fucking crazy...for the love of god who in their right mind would even make a comparison...no one is making such claims, so their answer is nothing more then an end round of stating the obvious...

damn it...

[Poop Man Bob]

From Kevin Drum: (http://www.washingtonmonthly.com/archives/individual/2004_05/003949.php)

AS BIG AS WATERGATE?....In Slate, Fred Kaplan says Abu Ghraib may be the biggest scandal to hit Washington since Watergate: (http://slate.msn.com/id/2100683/)
Bush knew about it. Rumsfeld ordered it. His undersecretary of defense for intelligence, Steven Cambone, administered it. Cambone's deputy, Lt. Gen. William Boykin, instructed Maj. Gen. Geoffrey Miller, who had been executing the program involving al-Qaida suspects at Guantanamo, to go do the same at Abu Ghraib. Miller told Brig. Gen. Janis Karpinski, who was in charge of the 800th Military Brigade, that the prison would now be dedicated to gathering intelligence. Douglas Feith, the undersecretary of defense for policy, also seems to have hada hand in this sequence, as did William Haynes, the Pentagon's general counsel. Lt. Gen. Ricardo Sanchez, commander of U.S. forces in Iraq, learned about the improper interrogations—from the International Committee of the Red Cross, if not from anyone else—but said or did nothing about it for two months, until it was clear that photographs were coming out. Meanwhile, those involved in the interrogations included officers from military intelligence, the CIA, and private contractors, as well as the mysterious figures from the Pentagon's secret operation

That's a lot more people than the seven low-grade soldiers and reservists currently facing courts-martial..
And of course the investigation of the Valerie Plame affair may be winding up soon too. Sounds like it's going to be a hot summer in DC this year....

[mental invalid]

*KA-BOOOOM*

[BROWNer]

Originally posted by Poop Man Bob
Sounds like it's going to be a hot summer in DC this year....

yes!

*NO!

From the White House, a nightmare scenario

White House officials say they've got a "working premise" about terrorism and the presidential election: It's going to happen. "We assume," says a top administration official, "an attack will happen leading up to the election." And, he added, "it will happen here." There are two worst-case scenarios, the official says. The first posits an attack on Washington, possibly the Capitol, which was believed to be the target of the 9/11 jet that crashed in Pennsylvania. Theory 2: smaller but more frequent attacks in Washington and other major cities leading up to the election. To prepare, the administration has been holding secret antiterrorism drills to make sure top officials know what to do. "There was a sense," says one official involved in the drills, "of mass confusion on 9/11. Now we have a sense of order." Unclear is the political impact, though most Bushies think the nation would rally around the president. "I can tell you one thing," adds the official sternly, "we won't be like Spain," which tossed its government days after the Madrid train bombings.
http://www.usnews.com/usnews/issue/040524/...24whisplead.htm (http://www.usnews.com/usnews/issue/040524/whispers/24whisplead.htm)

[Poop Man Bob]

ABCNews: 'Definitely a cover-up' at Abu-Ghraib (http://abcnews.go.com/sections/WNT/Investigation/abu_ghraib_cover_up_040518-1.html)

http://a.abcnews.com/media/WNT/images/abc_wnt_witness_040518_nh.jpg'>
[i]Military intelligence analyst Sgt. Samuel Provance told ABCNEWS that the sexual humiliation of Iraqi prisoners at Abu Ghraib prison began as a technique ordered by military intelligence interrogators.


‘Definitely a Cover-Up’
Former Abu Ghraib Intel Staffer Says Army Concealed Involvement in Abuse Scandal

By Brian Ross and Alexandra Salomon

May 18, 2004 — Dozens of soldiers — other than the seven military police reservists who have been charged — were involved in the abuse at Iraq's Abu Ghraib prison, and there is an effort under way in the Army to hide it, a key witness in the investigation told ABCNEWS.

"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."

Provance, now stationed in Germany, ran the top secret computer network used by military intelligence at the prison. He said that while he did not see the actual abuse take place, the interrogators with whom he worked freely admitted they directed the MPs' rough treatment of prisoners.

"Anything [the MPs] were to do legally or otherwise, they were to take those commands from the interrogators," he said.

Top military officials have claimed the abuse seen in the photos at Abu Ghraib was limited to a few MPs, but Provance says the sexual humiliation of prisoners began as a technique ordered by the interrogators from military intelligence.

"One interrogator told me about how commonly the detainees were stripped naked, and in some occasions, wearing women's underwear," Provance said. "If it's your job to strip people naked, yell at them, scream at them, humiliate them, it's not going to be too hard to move from that to another level."

According to Provance, some of the physical abuse that took place at Abu Ghraib included U.S. soldiers "striking [prisoners] on the neck area somewhere and the person being knocked out. Then [the soldier] would go to the next detainee, who would be very fearful and voicing their fear, and the MP would calm him down and say, 'We're not going to do that. It's OK. Everything's fine,' and then do the exact same thing to him."

Provance also described an incident when two drunken interrogators took a female Iraqi prisoner from her cell in the middle of the night and stripped her naked to the waist. The men were later restrained by another MP.


Pentagon Sanctions Investigation

Maj. Gen. George Fay, the Army's deputy chief of staff for intelligence, was assigned by the Pentagon to investigate the role of military intelligence in the abuse at the Iraq prison.

Fay started his probe on April 23, but Provance said when Fay interviewed him, the general seemed interested only in the military police, not the interrogators, and seemed to discourage him from testifying.

Provance said Fay threatened to take action against him for failing to report what he saw sooner, and the sergeant fears he will be ostracized for speaking out.

"I feel like I'm being punished for being honest," Provance told ABCNEWS. "You know, it was almost as if I actually felt if all my statements were shredded and I said, like most everybody else, 'I didn't hear anything, I didn't see anything. I don't know what you're talking about,' then my life would be just fine right now."

In response, Army officials said it is "routine procedure to advise military personnel under investigative review" not to comment.

The officials said, however, that Fay and the military were committed to an honest, in-depth investigation of what happened at the prison. But Provance believes many involved may not be as forthcoming with information.

"I would say many people are probably hiding and wishing to God that this storm passes without them having to be investigated [or] personally looked at."

[ClueTwo]

It's about time one of the sheep leaves the herd.

[Dick Quickwood]

[img]http://us.news2.yimg.com/us.yimg.com/p/ap/20040520/capt.ny11805200003.prisoner_abuse_ny118.jpg'>

[BROWNer]

looks like chalabi is gettin' the biatch slapsz.

[BROWNer]

she looks like she's having a blast. for real.

[Poop Man Bob]

What the fuck was the point of that picture? He's dead - it's not like they were taking pictures in order to intimidate him or others, as I doubt the body was packed on ice with other inmates sitting there.

Then again, that wouldn't surprise me.

But it seems like the chick is all "hey! Dead bodies! Fun! Thumbs up!" Fucking bitch.



++++++++++++

Yahoo article: (http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&cid=2027&e=5&u=/chitribts/giboymistreatedtogetdadtotalk)
A military intelligence analyst who recently completed duty at Abu Ghraib prison in Iraq (news - web sites) said Wednesday that the 16-year-old son of a detainee there was abused by U.S. soldiers to break his father's resistance to interrogators.

The analyst said the teenager was stripped naked, thrown in the back of an open truck, driven around in the cold night air, splattered with mud and then presented to his father at Abu Ghraib, the prison at the center of the scandal over abuse of Iraqi detainees.

Upon seeing his frail and frightened son, the prisoner broke down and cried and told interrogators he would tell them whatever they wanted, the analyst said.