The "Rotten Apple Soldiers" excuse is a lie.

I feel strongly that my initial subject line was inflammatory, so I have toned it down just a bit.

I am beyond frustrated that so many DUers are buying the media, and the president's, lie that the Abu Ghraib photos represent some kind of aberration. The New Yorker article, and Major General Antonio M. Taguba's 53-page report, clearly show that these infamous photographs represent something far more sinister, something far more routine, than it appears many DUers are willing to believe.

The president is anxious for Americans, and the rest of the world even more so, to shrug off these photographs as a random act committed by "rotten apple" soldiers. This is a filthy lie.

TORTURE AT ABU GHRAIB - New Yorker

Crucial excerpt:

As the international furor grew, senior military officers, and President Bush, insisted that the actions of a few did not reflect the conduct of the military as a whole. Taguba’s report, however, amounts to an unsparing study of collective wrongdoing and the failure of Army leadership at the highest levels. The picture he draws of Abu Ghraib is one in which Army regulations and the Geneva conventions were routinely violated, and in which much of the day-to-day management of the prisoners was abdicated to Army military-intelligence units and civilian contract employees. Interrogating prisoners and getting intelligence, including by intimidation and torture, was the priority.

Well said. This is not isolated. My cousin served in Oil War I and came back with stories (he of course thought them funny) of the mistreatment of citizens, the defacement of Mosques (they relieved themselves on the floors) and much more. It does have to end...now!

this is really BOTH. IT IS a few bad apples. It's ALSO a long term problem that needs to be addressed.

But please dont turn this into a "it happens all the time, its the rule not the exception" mantra.

I simply dont think thats the case. I do however think its something that should be examined, heads should roll in the leadership for letting it happen, and greater oversight from the Inspector General among other groups should occur.

Where does the buck stop here? Some Master Sergeant or some department head in Washington?

The ENTIRE system is rotten to the core.

From day one of Basic Training, you are taught to dehumanize the "enemy". Coons, Gooks, Sand Niggers and whatever derogatory names we can think of to keep from calling them anything but "human beings".

It may not happen all the time but the conditions are so that this type of behavior is permitted and not seen as abnormal.

The Nazis were experts at it. All armies that get anywhere are. How else do you think you get basically decent human beings to go half-way around the world to kill people with whom they have no personal quarrel?

You tell them they're animals. It's done all the time- here and elsewhere. For a live example, go hang out on the Israeli non-Leftist boards to hear how another great democracy with an army that has lost all moral compass talks about the Palestinians. "They're animals, cock-roaches." Sand niggers- right here- just listen to us! http://www.google.com/search?q=%27Sand+niggers%22&hl=en&lr=&ie=UTF-8&oe=UTF-8

It allowed by the TOP and well calculated.

could stay sane after just the training - let alone actual combat/field experience.

because it's so fast, so intense, and everyone knows the Army's playing a game of trying to break you down- level your mental playing field- the problem is the constant, daily reinforcement afterwards.

I could see a big difference between the people I trained with after Basic, who had basically been culled for their brains, didn't have that daily reinforcement because they were pursuing more intellectual studies and had no time for that and the training was too expensive to let the Army come mess it up, and people who got it.

Basic... plowing the mental field
AIT (Advanced Individual Traning)... sowing the seeds

Assignments... Cultivating the field

War... Harvest


It's all very sad. Take a bunch of kids who aren't old enough to legally drink in most states and give them to the Army.

What a mindfuck. A stroll on the more vile conservative boards (you know the ones where the arm-chair commandoes who have never seen a day of combat hang out) shows you how successful they are.

Years after having gotten out, we have pathethic creatures still sitting reminiscing for the musky odor of a freshly pitched tent on a Field Training Exercise, swapping boring war stories about how they "earned" this or that medal (since they have nothing else in life to define them), still trying to figure out how to evolve from Homo habilis to Neanderthal.

Evolution for them boils down to how to make a monkey out of themselves. The most slavishly devoted, unthinking Republicans come from that group. The mentally mind-fucked.

The troops who've seen combat usually have a totally different evoution. They usually come back with a lot of anger inside, never really the same.

All this to protect the money-lovers.

Welcome to DU Randers :toast:

Sorry this is such a sad time for us all.

From day one of Basic Training, you are taught to dehumanize the "enemy". Coons, Gooks, Sand Niggers and whatever derogatory names we can think of to keep from calling them anything but "human beings".


I understand that this is true. I remember men coming back from Vietnam vastly different from the men who left. I think it's training, but it's also the combat situation... being afraid for your life and being under attack. It would be so easy to give in to the depravity, just to keep going and try to stay alive.

I wonder, though, if the all-volunteer army doesn't exacerbate the whole thing. While certainly not all the volunteers planned on fighting, you have among them a self-selected group of men and women who feel gung-ho about fighting. Sometimes you hear some of them say that they can't wait to get in there. I wonder if we haven't gathered the meanest we have and let them loose on Iraq?

Worst part of it is that you can hear the same sorts of derogatory names in the grocery store line. Some Americans are sick.

I tend to agree with your thoughts on how the concept on an all-volunteer army exacerbates the entire thing but they did that on purpose.

They had so many problems after Vietnam with troops refusing to obey and asking too damn many questions that they came up with this brilliant strategy which allows them to select the most malleable, willing 'volunteers' for their mad game.

We have become sick.

It really makes me understand the madness that swept Germany a few decades ago. My mind could never understand that such a decent group of people could have been so depraved, so silent, so complicit. Now I understand.

The good news though is that, in this information age, they're finding it harder and harder to keep the truth hidden.

Courage LeahMira.

mistreatment of our people taken as prisoners won't mean ANYTHING!

I remember how upset everyone was when they showed Marines being dragged through the streets, and when they were shown hung from bridges in Iraq. I am very upset too, but could this have been vengence against the US for what we have been doing to the prisoners we captured? Maybe that was the Iraqi way of trying to tell the world what was really happening there.

I really believed that the US always abided by the Geneva convention agreement, and I'm ashamed to hear different.

I dont recall any marines being dragged through the streets. Unless this is a different incident.

:shrug:

n/t

He said Iraq.

Also, Somalia was Army. The "Blackhawk Down" incident happened after the Marines pulled out.

At any rate, I still think that's what the original poster was referring to. Of course, I shouldn't be putting words into anyone's mouth, as serious as this matter is...

The invasion itself was illegal, and no military occupation ever succeeds except by naked brutality. This is precisely what many of us have expected from the beginning, and no I don't buy the "rotten apples" argument. The military's own report suggests that mistreatment of civilian prisoners is systemic and institutionalized in Iraq.

It's not a fault and not their fault... I'm just grateful people are waking up to the fact that we were fed a packet of lies.

We really need to take the media back from the corporations.

The right would LOVE for the left to start in on the anti-soldier hysteria like they did in Vietnam. Just one time, just ONCE, could the left THINK and not give an issue to the right on a silver platter. This is bad enough on its face, there's no need to spin it and make it worse.

sandnsea, the right may equate this horrible fact with anti-soldier hysteria, but that does not make it so.

I'm not spinning anything. I'm also not making some kind of claim that soldiers are bad, bad, bad people. The point I'm trying to make is that this incident is more widespread and common than we may yet realize, and that's one helluva big problem that needs to be fixed.

I'm not advocating that we march on Washington with "Soldiers are Pigs" signs. I think you made a pretty ridiculous leap when you accused me of "playing into their hands."

For what it's worth, I think most DUers would consider me to be one of the more pro-military posters around...

That's what you said. I don't see how I could have misinterpreted it.

I live by the 3% rule, as I posted in another thread. 3% of any given demographic will fuck it up for the rest. 3% of 100,000 soldiers is 3,000. That's ALOT of soldiers who can do ALOT of damage. I am just saying that we cannot push the idea that these abhorrant acts are indicative of the military in general. Which is the impression I got from your post, since you say 7 soldiers aren't just "rotten apples". 3% of any demographic is "rotten apples" and that's what we're dealing with here.

You're right, I used the word "Rotten Apple" because that describes the mentality of the media, and the president, in their depiction of these soldiers.

I'm not the one making the claim that these incidents are more widespread than 7 soldiers. Major General Antonio M. Taguba is the one making this claim; in fact, it would appear that this is the actual thrust of his investigation... to discover how widespread the mistreatment of prisoners is, and to determine which, and how many, commanding officers and private contractors encouraged this kind of treatment among the soldiers.

Did you read the New Yorker article? How can we expect to bury the information in that report? It saddens me, but I think your 3% number, in this case, is quite a bit low.

That 3% is what I've observed personally in my life. It's just my way of coping with the absurd behavior in business dealings, etc. 3% of your clients can make you want to dump them all.

It probably is more widespread. But even using my own little 3% rule, 3,000 troops is ALOT. Can you imagine 2-300 stories like this coming out? It would make it SEEM like it was the whole military. And yet, it might well be only 3%. I just don't want the majority of what I hope are decent soliders trying to do the right thing to end up tarnished by those who aren't. Not that this whole thing isn't a major FUBAR in the first place, but I don't know what else those kids who are there are supposed to do under the circumstances. Except try to keep order without killing innocents and without getting killed and I think the vast majority are trying to do just that.

Sandsea, did you ever spend a day in the military? Do you not realize the disparity in the ranks of the "culprits"? There is NO way the problem was 1 NCO and 5 of the lowest ranks in the Army. It takes quite a stunning leap of logic for the Army to jump from a poor Staff Sergeant straight to a Brigadier General.

Where are the officers and Senior NCOs who were supervising when this took place:


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.

http://www.newyorker.com/fact/content/?040510fa_fact

Note the names of the sacrificial lambs:

Six suspects— ALL low on the totem pole! VERY LOW.

- Staff Sergeant Ivan L. Frederick II
- Specialist Charles A. Graner
- Sergeant Javal Davis
- Specialist Megan Ambuhl
- Specialist Sabrina Harman
- Private Jeremy Sivits
- Private Lynndie England

http://www.newyorker.com/fact/content/?040510fa_fact

Ask yourself where these people are:

SFC Snider grabbed my prisoner and threw him into a pile.

The military-intelligence officers have “encouraged and told us, ‘Great job,’ <<NAMES PLEASE>>

“CID has been present when the military working dogs were used to intimidate prisoners at MI’s request.” <<NAMES PLEASE>>

At one point, Frederick told his family, he pulled aside his superior officer, Lieutenant Colonel Jerry Phillabaum, the commander of the 320th M.P. Battalion, and asked about the mistreatment of prisoners. “His reply was ‘Don’t worry about it.’”

“They stressed him out so bad that the man passed away. They put his body in a body bag and packed him in ice for approximately twenty-four hours in the shower. . . . The next day the medics came and put his body on a stretcher, placed a fake IV in his arm and took him away.” <<NAMES PLEASE>>

http://www.newyorker.com/fact/content/?040510fa_fact


I told the battalion commander that I didn't like the way it was going and his reply was 'Don't worry about it. I give you permission to do it'. Where is Lieutenant Colonel Jerry Phillabaum, the commander of the 320th M.P. Battalion?

From the report:
personnel assigned to the 372nd MP Company, 800th MP Brigade were directed to change facility procedures to ‘set the conditions’ for MI interrogations.” Army intelligence officers, C.I.A. agents, and private contractors “actively requested that MP guards set physical and mental conditions for favorable interrogation of witnesses.” <<NAMES PLEASE>>

“I witnessed prisoners in the MI hold section . . . being made to do various things that I would question morally. . . . We were told that they had different rules.” <<NAMES PLEASE>>


Colonel Thomas Pappas, the commander of one of the M.I. brigades
Lieutenant Colonel Steven Jordan, the former director of the Joint Interrogation and Debriefing Center,
civilian contractor, Steven Stephanowicz, of CACI International,
a second CACI employee, John Israel.

===========================

I am going to have to say BRAVO to Frederick's JAG officer & civilian attorney for summing it up beautifully.

Captain Robert Shuck, Frederick’s military attorney, closed his defense at the Article 32 hearing last month by saying that the Army was “attempting to have these six soldiers atone for its sins.” Similarly, Gary Myers, Frederick’s civilian attorney, told me that he would argue at the court-martial that culpability in the case extended far beyond his client. “I’m going to drag every involved intelligence officer and civilian contractor I can find into court,” he said. “Do you really believe the Army relieved a general officer because of six soldiers? Not a chance.”

http://www.newyorker.com/fact/content/?040510fa_fact



“Do you really think a group of kids from rural Virginia decided to do this on their own? Decided that the best way to embarrass Arabs and make them talk was to have them walk around nude?”

VolcanoJen is absolutely correct this whole bit about Rotten Apples is a ROTTEN LIE.

This is the equivalent of teaching 4 year olds how to operate lighters to torment animals, giggle as they do it, and then blame them for burning the house down.

Those Reservist lower enlisted soldiers and the token General are sacrificial lambs for a systemic problem nobody wants discussed and that very few have ANY intention of cleaning up.

As long as we're being brutally honest.. and I'm not talking about the soldiers, either. Br General Karpinski was a reservist, and clearly unqualified for the duty she was assigned...

Did Wolfowitz even think this thing out, before proposing it???

For months stories were circulating that Iraqi women were being released from that prison half-naked and forced to get home on their own like that. But tut, tut, couldn't be true. Our soldiers don't do things like that.

Well I'll tell you what Sandsea, our soldiers and officers DO do things like that but next time the Iraqis catch some of them, you can bury your head in the sand and wail "why do they hate us?".

Where are all the names of those bad apples? The ENTIRE barrel is rotten to the core

As a retired soldier, I WANT this discussed, I WANT the truth known because it doesn't help not to talk about it as more soldiers pursue the MAD course of occupation that BOTH candidates are supporting. Those soldiers need to come home NOW, NOW & NOW.

Your preference to NOT talk about it is a recipe for disaster and plays right into Bush's little game of keeping the truth from the American people so that the literal rape and slaughter of Iraq can continue.

How many Americans are you willing to sacrifice because of your paranoia of playing into other team's hand? Since when does "not playing into the other team's hand" mean accepting their neat little truths and pretending all is fine and dandy?



((with thanks to Chookie))

<snip>

The real facts are that there is report after report of US abuses; on the internet, in the back pages of our newspapers, in personal accounts that with a little luck will now make their way to mainstream press. This is not an isolated few - this is business as usual for the US military and their collaborating band of thugs in Iraq. Is it any wonder that bodies of US soldiers who fall into Iraqi hands are mutilated and displayed?

The pictures of US soldiers dishonoring Iraqi detainees came as no surprise to JUS (Jihad Unspun). We have been reporting alleged abuses since shortly after the fall of Baghdad. We received several reports over the past months of US soldiers raping Iraqi woman, only to find these photos posted to US porn sites. While these photos and reports were put down to "loose" Iraqi women (which shows a fundamental understanding of Iraq's religion and culture) we discovered later that those who were detained, some at Abu Ghraib prison, who refused to provide US officials with intelligence where given a prod to garner "cooperation" by rounding up the female relatives, forcing then into sexual acts that were filmed and then shown to their husbands, fathers and brothers and to the general public through porn sites. Now the CBS 60 Minutes II report legitimizes the incidents we have been reporting all along.

The Arab world is outrage. The Muslim Ummah is outraged. Iraqis are outraged and so are people of conscience everywhere. I pity the next soldiers that fall into Resistance hands. And contrary to its belief - America can be defeated and most likely will be defeated and dangled at the end of its own pathetic rope for all the world to see.

http://www.jihadunspun.com/intheatre_internal.php?article=2811&list=/home.php&

and he and staff just knew the weapons were there, they HAD to be, Bush and Tony said so.

The pressure was such it reached the prisoner level, they had to know, get them to talk. We NEED those WMDs like NOW.

and that just because these few people were busted doesn't mean the abuse will end with their arrest.

My fear would be that the investigations stop simply because the DoD have people in custody and now it's "all over with."


Calling it isolated suggest there is no more abuse happening. Saying these 14 soldiers are the "few rotten apples" preempts a thorough and much needed look at ALL soldier conduct...as well as any civilian contractors .

We can't just sit back and say "well, we solved that", or that "we took action; now it's done"..

Arresting/charging solely the lower enlisted serves only to disallow a closer look at the system breakdown and willful disregard of the law of land warfare. Calling this incident isolated serves the same aim-it stops a much needed widespread investigation.

I'm the wife of a soldier..and what you have written is not anti-soldier. There is no way all the bad apples in the military just happened to end up at the same location...there are more...many more..and we are obligated to find them. Our humanity demands it.

You seem to have weeded through the politics, and I think you expressed what I intended to say far more eloquently than I ever could have. I was angry when I authored this thread, and in hindsight, I wish I never had clicked on the "submit" button. I should have realized my intentions would be twisted, miscontrued, politicized.

My heart aches for the vast, vast majority of soldiers and officers who were born with consciences and a sense of duty. My heart aches for those whose sacrifices have been diminished in this ugly, ugly war, due to the events in Abu Ghriab. I didn't state that well, and I'm guilty of being misunderstood, in a way.

Thank you for that.... thank you from the bottom of my bleeding heart. :-(

It's ingrained in these people. This attitude is instilled by the institution. It's a common recurring theme in the criminal act that is war - mistreating prisoners.

Message removed by moderator. Click here to review the message board rules.

This country has come to believe that it is above any law. Reading various message boards, I can well believe that these cases are not the exception, but the rule.

Many DU'ers have pointed out threads on the freeper's lunatic rantings and ravings, is it too much of a stretch to see that a certain percentage of our troops are just as bad? This is a prime example of what happens when we allow our government to be overtaken as it was in 2000.

The SCOTUS handed Bush a victory, and since he and his cabal have been in power, certain elements of our society feel that they have now been given permission to act with savagery, cruelty, and brutality. There are always a number of people in any society who are abusive and cruel, but normally they are kept in check by laws and pressure from the rest of society.

This group knows that with a President who glorifies war, shows no pity for, or consideration of, anybody else has given them approval to brutalize, torture, and humiliate anybody they consider the enemy. This seems to me a very strange way to spread democracy. This whole invasion has been a fiasco from the very beginning.

We need to get this gang of thugs out of power, and struggle to regain our own souls.

I'm not saying it isn't more horrible if it's widespread, I'm saying that the effect of the story is THAT IT HAPPENED AT ALL. Even in one place, with just this one group. Even if it was isolated, the fact that we have soldiers acting like thugs and disgracing their uniforms manages to shred what little credibility we had in the Arab world. Doesn't matter if we could PROVE that it was isolated, punished the jerks, and get Americans to believe it was "handled" - NO BLOODY WAY the Arab world ever will ever believe it.

All by itself, this one thing, dooms our efforts in Iraq for once and for all.

I've been one of those who has believed we broke it and we need to stay and fix it. No more. No way we can survive this. We must get out now.

eileen from OH

how atrocious and rampant the abuse against Iraq's people HAS BEEN FOR YEARS!!! FINALLY the photographic proof is on record. So many washed down their popcorn with beer while watching "Shock and Awe."
The bottom line is, is THIS what America is about? It's WAY PAST TIME to admit being a flammende ARSCLOCH and hop to the task of doing something about it. Job One: GET THE *MIC RAPIST OUT OF THE ROOM!

protestors in the '60's, such as, "they are all against America, or they are all violent."

That said, there does seem to be a lack of leadership, perhaps because of the overburdened force that often results in assigning inexperienced commanders to inexperienced troops. There is also the issue of the U.S. dodging accountability in the same international court that we would have convict Milosevic. We would be foolish to expect this administration and its war cheerleaders to put a stop to this. After all, what have they solved so far?

That doesn't make my thoughts or opinions any less valid, which is the saddest outcome possible. I never wanted to believe that we have learned nothing. I never wanted to believe the ancient, tired mantra of history repeating itself.

I'm just destroyed over the entire situation, bigtree. Just destroyed. I can't put it into words, and if I try, I'll make some kind of anger-motivated comment which will come back to haunt me, much in the way this thread likely will.

I feel a lot like matcom... just stumbling over words, just so drunken with shock that I can't think clearly, I can't summon up the eloquence needed to convey my point of view here.

I am without words.

I think the whole mess in Iraq is crumbling fast. I look at the dust and consider the heat and I feel awful for these soldiers who, most I am certain, would not purposely abuse anyone. I appreciate your anger and I am grateful that you didn't shred me for trying to stick up for the majority of good people who happen to serve.

I believe you are on the right track when you assert that these incidents represent an attitude that may be pervasive and even widely supported by ignorant commanders. But I would tend to doubt that because these troops come from here. They represent us.

To believe that most of the American soldiers there would abuse Iraqis I would have to believe that my neighbors, or most members of my community possesses the same lack of morality that these prison guards displayed. I don't.

Even if I did somehow come to believe that the majority of our nation's citizens had lost their moral compass, I would find it harder to believe that the majority of our soldiers would follow suit. I believe that most of our soldiers enlist with the highest love for our country and our citizens. There is an incredible level of sacrifice involved in giving a portion of your freedom to the military. The folks who serve represent some of our nation's finest and most conduct themselves with honor and dignity. Don't just take my word, go out and talk to some of these folks. Tell them how you feel.

There will of course be some who say the most awful things, and I don't doubt that there are some troops who are sadistic and cruel. I want to give our soldiers the same respect that I would give folks I meet here at home. I think we should judge these soldiers by their individual actions. If we are going to judge their actions over there collectively then we should focus on the system that encourages them to engage in these violent reprisals and ignores or facilitates the abuse with the commander's indifference or inaction.

Thanks for your love of humanity. Thank you for caring about these Iraqis. Thank you for helping all of us to repudiate the abuses with your expressions of outrage.

'Cause Jen tells the VolcanoTroof.

n/t

I have been looking with no luck so far. Thanks

http://www.newyorker.com/fact/content/?040510fa_fact

They don't have a complete copy of the 50+ page report from Maj Gen Taguba, but they get to the nitty-gritty of the results in the article.

and I am looking for the primary source.

Abraham Lincoln said to the troops he commanded during the American Civil War: "Men who take up arms against one another in public do not cease on this account to be moral human beings, responsible to one another and to God."

Who ever hired these contractors knew what they were doing to the prisoners. That is the reason they hired outside contractors to do their interrogations, so they could not be prosecuted. That is the reason they send prisoners to other third-world countries sometimes - so they will be tortured.

These young soldiers were under orders to cooperate with the contractors.

We may not know what is going on in Guantanamo Bay, but someone very high up in our government does. It is kept so secret because the same type of stuff is going on there. The shame of it all is that the American public is not crying out and demanding an investigation of Guantanamo Bay. We have all just become use to people being locked up in cages with no trial. We have become use to prisoners being paraded around with bags on their heads.

There are a few "rotten apples" and they are very high up in our government and military.

Why are we still calling them contractors?

Michael Moore posted an excellent rant on April 14:

"First, can we stop the Orwellian language and start using the proper names for things? Those are not "contractors" in Iraq. They are not there to fix a roof or to pour concrete in a driveway. They are MERCENARIES and SOLDIERS OF FORTUNE. they are there for the money, and the money is very good if you live long enough to spend it."

It's always about the money . . . or the oil.

Kukesa

at his trial. He will claim that he knew nothing and that the killing and torture was carried out by "a few bad apples".

PLEASE IGNORE THIS MESSAGE. I THOUGHT I WAS SENDING A PM AND AM FEELING REALLY STUPID. SO SORRY.

Don't apologize to me, sweetie. You didn't do anything wrong and your point is valid, very valid.

I read the entire "New Yorker" piece and am still reeling. I have the feeling that we're only seeing the tip of the iceburg.

Rock on, kiddo, rock on.

Mutti Loves Jen

to the top...

The bottom-line... No one in the chain of command cared what happened to any of the prisoners.

I "came of age" during the Vietnam era, and one thing that really affected me is that I learned, the hard way, that my country wasn't what I thought it was --what I was brought up to believe it was.

This kind of awareness doesn't come easily, nor does it come all at once. Little by little, the truth chips away at the fog around our consciousness, and displays the dark side of the USian soul. Coming to terms with just how ugly this society can be is party of the grieving process, and the news of the atrocities committed by US troops is part of that process. Those o fus who have been through this grieve the ugliness of it, but we aren't surprised ---we've been here before. We wish we weren't here again, but it isn't upsetting our whole identity as USians. No doubt about it..... this coming to terms with reality of our country is very painful, as I well remember, and denial serves to cushion the blow for a while.

That denial takes many forms --- consoling ourselves that it's the "bad apples" is one facet of that denial.

In the end, though, facing the reality and grieving for our country will lead us to a healthier place, and enable us to better be a neighbor to the rest of the globe.

Kanary

The only proper convention of war anymore is that we take POW's. In a war launched illegaly by both of the parties of this state (fueled by Republican bullshit) you cannot really expcet better. We cannot expect adherence to the Geneva Convention or even humane values. The era of WW2 truely was the 'greatest generation'. They tried to established a love of diplomacy over the hatred of peace. But no one took notice, we've fallen back into the trap.

Ever since 9/11 anti-arabism has been nutured and provoked.

I agree that this probably is the norm. It is probably the same in most wars. The current system in the US follows an almost Nietzsche-ian/Hegelian philosophy in regards to peace. This really sickens me.

Fuck war, and fuck all of the sick motherfuckers who do this, seriously!

We're beyond this. "We" are the people.

I've always admired your screenname... what would FDR think about these photos???

To practice torture on whomever the government tells them to--including U.S. citizens in detention camps. Just ask Alex Jones (prisonplanet.com or infowars.com).

but welcome to DU :toast: Just in the nick of time.

Just last week someone was asking if DUers really thought US troops would turn their guns on US citizens if asked. Many people were horrified and said no, never, heaven forbid and blah, blah, crap.

This week should make it clear to everyone. US soldiers will follow orders. Orders to defend the United States <constitution, but everyone forgets that word except for Sen. Robert Byrd> against enemies, both foreign and domestic as the oath goes...

Seeing what a mess they're making with something as simple as the Geneva convention, I shudder to think of the confusion the constitution would cause, and with what ease any fool will be able to tell some of these people that certain US citizens are the enemy.

=======

Exporting democracy, step by step
From the New York Times:

FOREIGN DESK | September 17, 2003, Wednesday
THE STRUGGLE FOR IRAQ: PRISONERS; 6 Held in Iraq By U.S. Claim To Be American

By IAN FISHER (NYT) 1120 words
Late Edition - Final , Section A , Page 1 , Column 2

"HALDIYA, Iraq, Sept. 16 — Six people identifying themselves as Americans, and two others saying they are British, are being held prisoner in connection with guerrilla attacks in Iraq, a United States general said today.

Brig. Gen. Janis Karpinski, who is in charge of prisoners in Iraq, provided no details on the men, except to say they are among 4,400 "security detainees," a category distinct from prisoners of war or common criminals. She said the "security detainees" were suspected of carrying out or planning attacks on American or other troops in Iraq, Agence France-Presse reported.

Her reference to the men, the first mention of possible Westerners among some 10,000 prisoners, was made during a tour of Abu Ghraib prison, where they are being held. American forces took over the prison, just west of Baghdad, which was notorious during the Saddam Hussein government."

http://www.lowculture.com/archives/2003_09.html

ABSTRACT - Brig Gen Janis Karpinski says six people identifying selves as Americans and two saying they are British are among 4,400 'security detainees' being held in connection with guerrilla attacks on allied forces in Iraq; says classification means they have fewer rights than prisoners of war; makes remark during tour of Abu Ghraib prison, outside Baghdad, where they are among some 10,000 prisoners; Sec Donald Rumsfeld and other officials say there is little certainty about men's identities, nationalities or even what they were doing in Iraq; military reports scattered attacks on occupying forces; Khaldiya's small and beleaguered police department vows to stay on duty despite slaying of new chief Col Khudheir Mikhlif Ali.

http://www.nytimes.com/2003/09/17/international/middleeast/17IRAQ.html?hp

I meant detention camps in the U.S.

For once, maybe, just maybe, the bastards that pull the strings in the shadows (MI, CIA, Corporate Torture Inc.) will get what's coming to them.

I want them all to PAY. :mad: