6 US Troops charged for maltreating Iraqi jail inmates

[Wernazuma III]

Originally posted by muxec
And seriously if those humiliated by US soldiers are terrorists US soldiers behaved almost right. The only wrong thing was a camera and US soldiers must be punished for filming, not for humiliating.

And why did US soldiers say that they did so? They'd better say that the photoes are fake and photoshoped.

You're really a great guy! :Puke:

[muxec]

Wernazuma III, you simply can not understand how great humanism is

[Wernazuma III]

Originally posted by Spiffor
Az:
This is actually a serious argument by quite a few Americans here. Imran has implied there was no freedom of speech in France because we punish incitement to hatred (or public hate speech). He has not yet said Germany was still nazi, because it can outlaw political parties, but I guess it'll come one day in a German thread

Hey, we in Austria are so Nazio that we have special Anti-Nazi laws, imprisoning people for Nazi-activity ("Wiederbetätigung")

[Dis]

Originally posted by Alexander's Horse
Interesting how the US posters are the last to see the photos - confirming something we've known for some time - their own mainstream media is heavily slanted and does not keep the public informed.

no, I just didn't get a chance to look at them until two nights ago.

[Dis]

so what are all your predictions?

What will happen to these people.

I fear only the enlisted men and women will get serious hard labor time. I suspect many of the officers may get off easy. Maybe one junior officer may get jail time, but I doubt it.

I'm beginning to suspect the CIA operatives and whatever other civilian interrogators were present. are behind all this. While I don't doubt bored soldiers from a hick town in western maryland (some lived in Virginia and W. Virginia), could come up with some of these ideas, I have my doubts they came up with all of them. I think the CIA operatives will get off completely, because no one knows who they are. They are working in secret, and aren't accountable to anyone. Yes they fall under federal juristiction, and can be tried in federal courts. But just sending them to trial will blow their undercover identity.

[Kuciwalker]

Originally posted by Spiffor
AH has a point though:

Not in that our actions were AQ's goal.

Bush managed to completely alienate most of the world. Right after Sept. 11, the whole world was behind the US.

I really doubt that they were that much more "behind" us, except in a "we'll say nice things about you" sort of way.

Obviously, 9/11 garnered support for Afghanistan, but Bush didn't mess that up (wrt foreign relations).

But his reckless policy made him alienate pretty much the whole Arab world, "Old Europe", most of "New Europe" who was with him out of self-interest, Russia, China, Muslim Asian countries.

In two years.

1) How did any of this piss China off? I don't believe I've ever heard about them complaining or even getting involved.

2) Iraq has been the major source of division, and that, as I mentioned, is unrelated to 9/11.

This is the main reason why so many Americans die in Iraq, and this is the reason why there aren't enough troops. The Bushies thought they could do the fighting nearly alone, and they gave the rest of the world the finger. Wow.

You also forget the fact that they didn't follow the Pentagon's recommendations wrt the number of troops.

---

Besides, the US is progressively sacrificing its freedoms it's so proud of, for the sake of fighting terrorism. Terrorism is a handy excuse to come up with bigoted policies, and bigoted ideological gap.

Except in a few, extremely limited circumstances, nothing of the sort has occured - and in those instances, it has had nothing to do with suppressing political opposition, but rather a genuine national security concern. While that isn't justification, the fact that even in those instances there is a lot of pressure from the courts means I'm not particularly worried about us becoming fascists

Plus, we're still WAY better than, for instance, France, where you admittedly prosecute people for political expression.

Afghanistan was a debacle for AQ's infrastructure. But they have won pretty much all political battles so far: "bigoting" the American population into crusaders, considerably raising their own support in the Arab world, letting the Americans destroy their diplomatic relations out of bigotry... If I was Ben Laden, I wouldn't say things are that bad, if only it wasn't for that wet cave

Except 9/11 was not the cause of any of these political victories, but rather policies Bush was already planning to implement. 9/11 was one of the stupidest things AQ could have done.

In a certain limited sense, though, it was an enormous success - it resulted in hundreds of billions or even trillions of dollars of damage to our economy.

(btw - where has there been a rise in "bigotry" where it wasn't already there?)

[Spiffor]

Originally posted by Kucinich
(btw - where has there been a rise in "bigotry" where it wasn't already there?)

Pretty much in all security / foreign policy aspects + the radicalization of the internal debate. And that's only the things my French self can see, I bet any Yank can see much more in his surroundings.

Look at the war in Iraq. Bush had trouble selling it to the American people, and had to invent all these lies so that the Americans would agree to send their boys die on the other side of the planet.

Look at the "security" programmes like the neighborhood watches. It doesn't correspond to the terrorist threat at all, yet it was passed under the guise of fighting terrorism. A great many freedom-reducing laws were passed under this false guise, to correspond with the conservative idea of a law and order society.

Look at all the critics of the president have been villified as traitors favorable to the terrorists. It still continues to this day, when I read arguments like "If you vote for Kerry, AQ wins" And this phenomenon explains the spectacular lack of mainstream criticism against Bush until Dean pumped up the volume. Even today, you will still hear many people saying all Yanks should stick with the president in these times of war.

And I suppose the Christian zealots of the Republican party have milked political profit from the current war against the infidels, by swaying more people to the idea that the US must show how devoutly christian it is.

[Wezil]

Kucinich - Do you really not believe GWB's actions post 9/11 have caused considerable alienation amongst America's 'friends'? Or did I misread your point...?

[Gibsie]

"1) How did any of this piss China off? I don't believe I've ever heard about them complaining or even getting involved."

His reckless policies with regards to the war on terror echo the policies taken on elsewhere that don't relate to the war, that do apply to China. I hear they're pretty annoyed over the way a GPS system being developed with Europe has been dumped due to US pressure, for example.

[Dis]

It hasn't been dumped, it's still going ahead

[Dis]

what kills me is the way the families are defending them saying they were only following orders.

http://apnews.myway.com/article/20040509/D82F714G0.html

The nazis were only following orders when they killed 4 million jews as well.

Soldiers are only supposed to obey lawful orders. Unlawful orders do not have to be obeyed.

[Gibsie]

Okay, it's not been dumped, but the US certainly isn't acting "diplomatically" in this regard.

[Az]

Dissident, it's 6 million.

[Wernazuma III]

Originally posted by Kucinich
2) Iraq has been the major source of division, and that, as I mentioned, is unrelated to 9/11.

Not in Bush's administration's argumentation, playing almost 100% on the terrorism flute, alleging links between the alleged WOMD and AQ. Which White House advisor spoke out that Bush had the fix idea to go to Iraq right after 9/11? Sure 9/11 had nothing to do with Iraq, but Bush established the link and thus the war had something to do with the WTC attack.

[Kuciwalker]

The admin argued that Iraq had WMD's, and thus was a threat - to my knowledge, there was never any direct connection made between those WMD's and AQ.

Moreover, Bush had already decided to go into Iraq before 9/11, so any connection made in the media is just the nice justification, not a cause.