I was talking to a conservative buddy last night.

No concern on his part for the tortured. I didn't ask. But he wondered what idiots took pictures of themselves in incriminating positions.

Easy, dumbshits! The same idiots that make videos of themselves committing rape, car theft, vandalism, etc. for the prosecution to use against them in a court of law.

Obviously, these scumbags thought they were on some senior high school trip. They wanted souvenirs, much like Native Americans took scalps, and cowboys collected scrotums and vaginas of their victims.

The pictures we have seen are of parttime military. The real torturers are not taking pictures as souvenirs. They remember what they want to remember and leave no evidence.

"Well the abuse was horrible but after what these people did to us on 9/11"....

:shrug:

didn't attack us on 9/11.

Oh wait, that's just what the Bushies want us to forget...

I can only go so far with them before they stick their fingers in their ears and say "la la la la". They don't "like" Kerry and will never admit that they actually voted 'wrong' in 2000, and there's the end of that argument. The best I can get out of them is they may not vote this year although they would feel wrong about that too.

themselves.

believes that the photographs may have been part of the torture--threatening the prisoners with showing them to their families.

'proof'

Don't know if it's true, but I was told by an instructor that the French traders would kill Indians and take their scalps as a "trade" item for white settlers. Dunno...

n/t

the trading of red indian skins/scalps

including China. It goes way back before the arrival of Europeans in this country--here are some interesting articles:

http://www.china.org.cn/e-kaogu/2001/36.htm
http://www.smokymountainnews.com/issues/06_02/06_05_02/back_then.html
http://www.dickshovel.com/scalp.html

Having said that, Europeans definitely encouraged the practice by paying bounties. (Another interesting little factoid--during the Civil War, northern newspapers accused accused Cherokees fighting for the Confederacy of scalping Union troops.)

To show the other detainees what they were going to do to them. :(

my repig family don't even dare bring up a subject that the whole world is talking about.

I don't say one word because inside, I think they're very angry and don't know who to blame. I don't want them venting their anger at me.

full of Repugs. But my family won't shut up. Mom's starting to turn because I constantly run a "reductio ad absurdum" logic on the whole thing going completely over-the-top on the RW rhetoric. Unfortunately, my brother has been heavily brainwashed by the neocon media, and he treats it like it is a frat party incident. And he will not shut up about it. Of course, he's a pussy and a hypocrite, so I just laugh in his face. I wish I could say Momma didn't raise no fools.

These conservatives are so emotional and sensitive that it scares us to bring up things that might threaten their neat little view of reality. I've had the same experience with practically everyone I know.

But how to you collect a vagina? Scrotums, yeah, i can see that, but vaginas? The logisitics of the entire situation worries me. Are you saying Labia? Nipples? Those I can understand. Vaginas, I have no clue how they work that out.

vaginae and uteri were excised, dried, and used to adorn saddle horns and as purses. I am not making this up.

I imagine is was much like the process used to remove the intestines and anus of a deer during field dressing. Or like posthumous hysterectomies. You asked.

What are we doing that hasn't been photographed? The same and worse, you can bet.

Rummy said something to congress about the problem actually being the cameras!

Then in a CBS interview, an idiot woman on the street said that if they were POSING in the pictures, it couldn't have been that bad, really, and since we are doing so much good in Iraq, we should overlook this, like a lot of things . . .

Great logic. Well, Betty, our sons have played together so well all these years, and really, my son has been an overall good influence, so I guess you could just overlook a little brutal sodomy!

Under this reasoning, the Catholic priests should also be overlooked when they molest children, and Clinton's blow job definitely should have been overlooked.

edit: Addition -- I heard this morning (NPR, I think) that the photos were part of the torture. People could be threatened with distribution of the photos around their neighborhoods, which would be the ultimate humiliation for them.

http://www.wgoeshome.com

...let me give a bit of advice. I wouldn't leave this "buddy" of yours alone around your kids for even short periods of time. Better to be safe than sorry if you know what I mean?

Don

honestly, I would have to consider his lack of a sense of humanity a character defect.

but he's just spouting the neocon rhetoric because he is not willing to think about these things being done by so-called "good guys" i.e. Americans.