Bush: Iraqi prisoner abuse on Arab TV

iVillage Member
Registered: 03-18-2000
Bush: Iraqi prisoner abuse on Arab TV
281
Wed, 05-05-2004 - 10:17am
Should Bush apologize on Arab TV?
Bush to address Iraqi prisoner abuse on Arab TV.

President Bush will give interviews to two Arab television networks Wednesday about reports of U.S. military personnel abusing Iraqi prisoners, the White House said.


White House spokesman Scott McClellan said the 10-minute interviews with Al-Hurra, a U.S.-sponsored network, and Al Arabiya will take place about 10 a.m. ET (1400 GMT) in the Map Room at the White House.


"This is an opportunity for the president to speak directly to the people of Arab nations and let them know that the images that we all have seen are shameful and unacceptable," McClellan told reporters during a Bush campaign tour.


Referring to photographs that have surfaced showing Iraqi prisoners being abused McClellan said, "The images do not represent what America stands for, nor do they represent the high standards of conduct that the military is committed to uphold. The U.S. believes in treating all people with dignity and respect."


Asked why Bush would not meet with the Arab network Al-Jazeera, McClellan would only say the other two networks "reach a wide range of people in the Middle East."


McClellan said the actions of the accused soldiers at the Abu Ghraib prison in Iraq "do not represent what 99 percent of the men and women in the military stand for." (Full story)


Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld said Tuesday that he would take "all measures necessary" to ensure that abuse of detainees in Iraq "does not happen again."


Rumsfeld defended the Defense Department's handling of the matter in the face of congressional criticism, noting that a criminal investigation by the Army was under way and publicly disclosed three months before what he called "deeply disturbing" photographs were broadcast last week.


"This is a serious problem, and it's something the department is addressing," he said at a Pentagon news briefing. "The system works. The system works."


Rumsfeld said the criminal investigation was one of six launched since January.


More..............


http://www.cnn.com/2004/WORLD/meast/05/05/iraq.abuse.main/index.html

cl-Libraone~

 


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iVillage Member
Registered: 03-10-2004
Mon, 05-10-2004 - 8:52am
Hey...did u cry too when our soldiers were killed in Iraq? Did you cry when civilians and workers from America were abused, burned and drug thru the streets of Iraq? I surely hope so...and do we hear an outcry for the Iraq leaders to apologize to US? NO, we are not. Something is wrong here...although I do not condone abuse...I am just wondering why we arent crying out for our people that are being abused over there!!
iVillage Member
Registered: 03-18-2000
Mon, 05-10-2004 - 9:13am

Op-ed: Through Arab, And American, Eyes.


http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2004/05/10/opinion/fenton/main616422.shtml


A picture is worth more a thousand words. Words can be twisted, interpreted. They mean different things to different people. But a picture can speak for itself, and no amount of words will erase the images from Abu Gharib prison.

Of all the depraved digital photos of prisoner abuse at the hands of their American captors, the one that has burned itself into the archives of our collective memories is the hooded, cloaked, figure of a man with cables dangling from his outstretched arms. He has become an icon of the War in Iraq - like the naked Vietnamese girl with the napalm burns running down a road, who became an icon of the War in Vietnam.

I found myself looking at the picture of the Iraqi with the outstretched arms while reading a newspaper in a bus full of Arabs on the Persian Gulf. You could hardly open a newspaper in the Arab world without seeing it. But I felt ashamed, as if I were looking at pornography. What were the other people in the bus, the non-Westerners, thinking? They had all seen the same picture in their newspapers and on their televisions.

Their newspapers spoke of "shocking pictures of sadistic acts against hapless prisoners" and "violations of all human norms committed by a superpower on the people of a nation under its occupation." The editorial of one Saudi Arabian paper, Al Jazeera, insisted that "what the world has seen so far is just the tip of the iceberg."

Later in my hotel room, watching the televised testimony of Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld and the top military brass before the House and Senate committees, I listened to thousands of other words. The focus was sharply different.

Rumsfeld and his officers were talking not so much about what had been done to Iraqi prisoners, but what the pictures had done to the American army's image. The victims were the men and women of the armed forces. Their honor has been stained and their lives further endangered by the sordid acts of a small number of rogue soldiers.

The unspoken thought that seemed to run through the hearings was that what went on in Abu Gharib prison was not the problem. The problem was the pictures.

There has been a huge outpouring of anguished American editorial comment about what the revelations of prisoner abuse have done to America's image in the Arab world. The truth is that America's image in the Arab world was already so bad that it could hardly get any worse.

The Arab "street" reaction seems to be that the pictures only prove what they have been saying all along: American soldiers are not liberators and the Iraqi people are the victims of this war.

There is, however, another point of view in the Arab world. It was expressed in the Persian Gulf newspaper, Al Khaleej. An Arab analyst pointed to the muted response to the revelations from Arab governments and says that should not come as a surprise.

There are, he said, countless political prisoners in the Arab world, and he remarked that "what has happened in Abu Gharib is probably similar to what is taking place in Arab prisons. The only difference, of course, is that pictures are available in one case and not the other."

He went on to say that "Western democracy is to be admired. If it were not for democracy, such crimes would never have been exposed. Hats off to the American media as it pursued the policy of bringing out the truth." And the writer expressed the hope that some day, the media in the Arab world will be free to expose their own violations of human rights.

For Americans who are deeply distressed by these horrible pictures, that thought is a consolation, even if only a small one.

cl-Libraone~

 


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iVillage Member
Registered: 05-10-2004
Mon, 05-10-2004 - 10:19am
I'm a little confused. It's okay to go over there and kill people via bombs and missles, but it's not ok to abuse them? Bush should apologize for abusing them, but no apology required for those that were killed? Where is the sense here?
iVillage Member
Registered: 03-31-2003
Mon, 05-10-2004 - 10:35am
I am sick of what has become of American politics. Instead of identifying the problem and fixing it, we must first stop and lay blame. We must get someone's head on a stick. We can't blame the idiots that did such a stupid thing, we have go big game hunting. Why shoot a squirrel when you can get an elephant. Let's blame the Secretary of Defense or the President. They weren't there. Let's make them take responsibility for something they never gave orders for to be done. Given what has happened to our soldiers and civilians in Iraq, I can easily see how these prison guards wanted to humiliate their prisoners in retaliation. Bad idea, but nonetheless, I can see them getting mad enough. There are only a million ways to apologize. Just because those exact words didn't cross the President's lips in his news conference makes him not sorry. Give me a break. Maybe next time he can just call FTD and send flowers to the prisoners that have killed our soldiers and abused their fellow countrymen.

Why should the Secretary of Defense or our President take responsibility? If our children break the law as adults, should we go to jail?

iVillage Member
Registered: 09-05-2003
Mon, 05-10-2004 - 11:12am

Why should the Secretary of Defense or our President take responsibility? If our children break the law as adults, should we go to jail?


Because they knew about this for 5 months and nothing happened to any of the people involved until this hit the papers.

iVillage Member
Registered: 03-26-2003
Mon, 05-10-2004 - 11:16am

<<>>


YAY!

________________________________________________

"If you don't stand up for something, you'll lie down for anything." -- B

iVillage Member
Registered: 08-18-2003
Mon, 05-10-2004 - 11:26am
Add to this:

Because the US is holding prisoners in Guatanamo Bay, without trial, without due process of law, without the right to an attorney.

All in the name of "freedom and democracy".

It is not just a few soldiers responsible for what are, essentially, human rights abuses in Guatanamo Bay. (Holding people indefinitely without trial, access to attorney, without being charged with a crime, etc., is not only a violation of US Constitution, it is also a human rights abuse.)

THIS IS FROM THE TOP DOWN. Our LEADERSHIP has set this situation up in Guatanamo Bay.

They set the example as human rights violators from the top down.

iVillage Member
Registered: 12-18-2003
Mon, 05-10-2004 - 12:35pm
I have not read all the responses to this, but I'd like to express my

thoughts. While I think it's wrong of the few who were responsible for

the inhumane treatement of the Iraqi's, I do not paint everyone with the

same broad brush. I support all of our American troops, the majority of

whom are doing a wonderful job and risking their lives in the process,

for an Iraqi country whose people don't want us there, don't appreciate

anything we've done to liberate their country and have tortured our

own American soldiers. I am more concerned with hearing about the outrage

we all should be feeling over the way our men were tied to cars, hung

from bridges and treated inhumanely by some of these same Iraqi prisoners

that we all seem to be crying the blues about. I don't feel that anyone

should be treated inhumanely, but I think all of this press coverage about

the treatment by a few of our soldiers towards the Iraqis has been blown

out of proportion and has minimized the wonderful job that the majority

of our men/women are doing out there.
iVillage Member
Registered: 03-26-2003
Mon, 05-10-2004 - 12:51pm

<<the treatment by a few of our soldiers towards the Iraqis has been blown out of proportion and has minimized the wonderful job that the majority of our men/women are doing out there.>>>


First off, I agree that the MAJORITY of our men/women are putting an awful lot on the line over there, and on a day-to-day basis do a thankless job for the American people.


That said, I disagree about this being blown out of proportion.

________________________________________________

"If you don't stand up for something, you'll lie down for anything." -- B

iVillage Member
Registered: 12-18-2003
Mon, 05-10-2004 - 12:56pm
I'm curious if there was a question on this board about how everyone

felt about the inhumane treatment that ocurred to our American people

at the hands of the Iraqi's. Let's not forget that the majority of

our troops are going above and beyond - I don't think it's right to

let a few rotten apples spoil the bunch. Also, while I don't like

Bush and his administration, I don't necessarily think they should

be held responsible for the deeds of a very few.

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