Doesn't anyone want tocomment ...

iVillage Member
Registered: 03-25-2003
Doesn't anyone want tocomment ...
18
Sat, 05-01-2004 - 8:54pm
It is now news all over the world that US soldiers and "contractors" have been torturing and humiliating Iraqis. What does this say about us? I heard one of those accused say he hadn't had training on how to handle POWs. How much training did he need to know that what was going on was wrong?

Is this yet another similarity between this war and the one in Vietnam?

Pages

iVillage Member
Registered: 03-23-2003
Sat, 05-01-2004 - 9:23pm

I heard that on the news last night and just hadn't had a chance to post yet...and I agree.


Avatar for independentgrrrl
iVillage Member
Registered: 03-26-2003
Sat, 05-01-2004 - 9:38pm
I read about it today and it sickened me. I also read from the BBC that questions have arisen regarding the veracity of the British pictures. They have alleged that some details on the photographs are wrong and that these pictures could be fakes. As for the US pictures, I think those could be real as people have come forward and have actually witnessed such tortures. This should be dealt with swiftly and those found guilty should be prosecuted to the fullest extent of the law. It is a shame that a renegade few are tainting the good works of the majority.
Avatar for car_al
iVillage Member
Registered: 03-25-2003
Sat, 05-01-2004 - 10:26pm
<>

Exactly! This is criminal and to have it revealed (not that it shouldn't be) during the same month that so many decent and courageous soldiers lost their lives in Iraq makes me heartsick. This tiny minority's behavior undermines the moral of the military far more than any criticism of the war ever could.

There seems to be another part to this story, which still doesn’t excuse the participants.

General Suggests Abuses at Iraq Jail Were Encouraged

http://nytimes.com/2004/05/02/international/middleeast/02ABUS.html?pagewanted=1


C


Edited 5/1/2004 11:26 pm ET ET by car_al

Avatar for independentgrrrl
iVillage Member
Registered: 03-26-2003
Sun, 05-02-2004 - 12:15am
Here's a link to the article I read:

Doubt cast on Iraq torture photos

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/3677311.stm



iVillage Member
Registered: 04-05-2004
Sun, 05-02-2004 - 10:05am
I agree with you. When I saw this I thought, show stupid and sickening.

I was watching Dennis Miller the other night. Do you ever watch is monologues? He noticed that the news media finds these acts from the stupid Americans MORE disgusting than the fact that these prisoners dragged four innocent American's naked dead bodies through the town and hung them on bridges. Though nobody condones this kind of stupid repulsive behavior, I have to say something IS out of whack when THIS behavior is deemed worse than the descecration of OUR SOLDIER'S bodies.

iVillage Member
Registered: 04-16-2003
Sun, 05-02-2004 - 10:37am
Officer Suggests Iraq Jail Abuse Was Encouraged

By PHILIP SHENON

Published: May 2, 2004


ASHINGTON, May 1 — An Army Reserve general whose soldiers were photographed as they abused Iraqi prisoners said Saturday that she knew nothing about the abuse until weeks after it occurred and that she was "sickened" by the pictures. She said the prison cellblock where the abuse occurred was under the tight control of Army military intelligence officers who may have encouraged the abuse.

The suggestion by Brig. Gen. Janis Karpinski that the reservists acted at the behest of military intelligence officers appears largely supported in a still-classified Army report on prison conditions in Iraq that documented many of the worst abuses at the Abu Ghraib prison, west of Baghdad, including the sexual humiliation of prisoners.

The New Yorker magazine said in its new edition that the report by Maj. Gen. Antonio M. Taguba found that reservist military police at the prison were urged by Army military officers and C.I.A. agents to "set physical and mental conditions for favorable interrogation of witnesses."

According to the New Yorker article, the Army report offered accounts of rampant and gruesome abuse from October to December of 2003 that included the sexual assault of an Iraqi detainee with a chemical light stick or broomstick.

While reports of abuse of Iraqi prisoners by American and British soldiers have come to light in the last several days, the report cited by The New Yorker indicates a far more wide-ranging and systematic pattern of cruelties than previously reported.

General Karpinski was formally admonished in January and "quietly suspended" from commanding the 800th Military Police Brigade, the New Yorker article reports. while under investigation.

In a phone interview from her home in South Carolina in which she offered her first public comments about the growing international furor over the abuse of the Iraq detainees, General Karpinski said the special high-security cellblock at Abu Ghraib had been under the direct control of Army intelligence officers, not the reservists under her command.

She said that while the reservists involved in the abuses were "bad people" who deserved punishment, she suspected that they were acting with the encouragement, if not at the direction, of military intelligence units that ran the special cellblock used for interrogation. She said that C.I.A. employees often joined in the interrogations at the prison, although she said she did not know if they had unrestricted access to the cellblock.

According to the New Yorker article, by the investigative journalist Seymour M. Hersh, one of the soldiers under investigation, Staff Sgt. Ivan L. Frederick II, an Army reservist who is a prison guard in civilian life, may have reinforced General Karpinski's contention in e-mails to family and friends while serving at the prison.

In a letter earlier this year, Sergeant Frederick wrote, "I questioned some of the things that I saw." He described "such things as leaving inmates in their cell with no clothes or in female underpants, handcuffing them to the door of their cell." He added, "The answer I got was, `This is how military intelligence wants it done.' "

Prisoners were beaten and threatened with rape, electrocution and dog attacks, witnesses told Army investigators, according to the report obtained by The New Yorker. Much of the abuse was sexual, with prisoners often kept naked and forced to perform simulated and real sex acts, witnesses testified. Mr. Hersh notes that such degradations, while deeply offensive in any culture, are particularly humiliating to Arabs because Islamic law and culture so strongly condemn nudity and homosexuality.

General Karpinski said she was speaking out because she believed that military commanders were trying to shift the blame exclusively to her and other reservists and away from intelligence officers still at work in Iraq.

full article

http://www.nytimes.com/2004/05/02/international/middleeast/02ABUS.html?hp

iVillage Member
Registered: 03-25-2003
Sun, 05-02-2004 - 12:17pm
Certainly I was sickened by the killing and mutilation of American contractors be the people in Iraq. The only way in which the torture and humiliation by American military could be described as "worse" is that we hold ourselves up as the saviors of the Iraqi people and should hold ourselves to a higher standard of behavior.

IMO we need to investigate how widespread this is and how long we have been doing this. Both the perpetrators and those who knew about and condoned this should be dealt with!

BTW, what authority does the US government have over the behavior of these high paid "contractors" that seem to be involved here? Do you know?

iVillage Member
Registered: 07-25-2003
Sun, 05-02-2004 - 12:31pm
What can anyone say except is disgusting and dispicable and those involved must be held responsible and punished with the full force of the UCMJ?

They treated their prisoners inhumanely, brought shame and embarrassment to all the people who are serving, have dishonored those who have given their lives doing what they believed was the right thing in Iraq, have disheartened everyone who supports the war, and have seriously damaged our image around the world and especially in Arab nations.

Renee

iVillage Member
Registered: 03-23-2003
Sun, 05-02-2004 - 1:55pm

He noticed that the news media finds these acts from the stupid Americans MORE disgusting than the fact that these prisoners dragged four innocent American's naked dead bodies through the town and hung them on bridges.


I haven't seen that around here.


iVillage Member
Registered: 03-31-2003
Sun, 05-02-2004 - 1:59pm
ITA!!!!

Pages