CIA Interrogator Crucifies Iraqi Prisoner

[Kuciwalker]

Originally posted by Elok
Well, they didn't nail him through the wrists, but otherwise that's pretty much crucifixion, yes. Holy crap, what a bunch of sickos...

[Elok]

Originally posted by Asmodean
Nice to know that a "modern, enlightened country" like the US actively tortures it's prisoners.

Asmodean

While I agree that this conduct is shameful, in case you haven't noticed, half of the U.S. voted against this nonsense altogether and at least a third wouldn't mind seeing the Prez get hit by a bus. And even the diehard Bush supporters who wholeheartedly support the Iraq war seem to be a trifle nauseated by this. It's a bit far to say "the U.S. is a country of torturers," seeing as most of us find the activity repulsive. Like observing, after Watergate, that we're "a nation of thieves and burglars."

Oerdin seems to have already given Laurentius some form of e-wedgie for his density, so I'll just offer my support for the gesture.

[Traianvs]

What else can be expected? This is war. War makes it easier for atrocities to happen. People will do anything if they are not held responsible, they'll even like torturing; remember Milgram's experiment...
There's not a single war of importance without atrocities so I'm not at all surprised or shocked, though I do feel sorry for the victims of course. Anyway why do we think the US army is different? Because the US is a 'democratic' country?... Nah they're just as bad as anyone else in the world


humans

[mrmitchell]

Now y'all see why "ghost prisoners" and war and torture is bad...

This cemented it for me. I would rather have not invaded Iraq. No matter what. In addition, the entire US defense and offense operation needs an unprecedentable look at itself. Every rock must be overturned.

[Straybow]

This cemented it for me. I would rather have not invaded Iraq. No matter what.

Yeah, after all it was only those "dirty arabs" killing each other under Saddam. With the US and Brits in charge the prisoner abuse and murder rate only went down by 99.9%. How outrageous! Our magic wand of Democracy should have made it all vanish, so obviously it is teh evil Bush doing it wrong.

Originally posted by techumseh
Torture of prisoners, invading of soveregn contries, threatening to attack other contries almost daily, unilaterally breaking international treaties, limiting the democratic rights of American citizens, ignoring those of non-citizens.... when will the dots connect for the American people?

Yeah, well when those "other countries" stop using terrorists to advance their objectives we'll stop threatening.

I don't see where any "democratic rights" of American citizens have been abridged. A few alleged US terrorists have been detained. The legal battles over the rights they are due have not concluded, and the legal battle itself is part and parcel of government recognition of rights.

I agree we should stop holding foreign non-uniformed combatants in Gitmo. Now that the few innocent men have been released we should give the rest of them decent burials after their summary executions in accordance with international treaties.

Would that make you happy?

[Mr. Harley]

I did not state that enlisted men were not the actual interrogators - it's not my point (read the post versus react to it). My point was where did they learn these techniques? Someone higher up trained these individuals. Some of these techniques are not used in the US prison system.

Oerdin, the dead prisoner's being assaulted by the Seals is why there has been one disciplinary action and two court martials - I'm doing this from memory so I may be incorrect as to which was which. However, we don't know if he resisted arrest, and I have more sympathy for Seals, who are not trained law enforcement officers, roughing up a suspect.

It's the same problem as using Marines for police duties. The traits that make an ideal elite military soldier are not the traits that make up ideal law enforcement personnel. Don't misunderstand me, they still need to be disciplined, if you don't the units get an attitude you do not want in your military. However, that is why you have MP's and trained occupation troops (or at least you are supposed to have those units when you occupy a country) - don't abuse your elites for missions that, not only are they not trained for, but actually degrade their combat status. Puh-lease.

My entire point is about who at a higher level authorized the interrogation techniques, CIA and contract interrogator/intelligence people operating there with no clear chain of command/responsibility, the conditions (i.e. food contract with rotten food, one of the best ways to have a very restive prison population - and the lack of proper detention facilities), and finally opening the US detention center at one of Saddam's hellholes - that last person should be relieved of all higher command functions, they are clearly incompetent to wage a counter-insurgency where appearances are critical, the entire heart's and mind's bit.

Reference the Palestinian hanging technique, did any of the posters who justified it try it out. Take your hands and clasp them behind you at the small of your back. The straightening out the arms, extend them as high as you can. Now feel the strain on the ribs. Have you ever had a broken rib - I have due to cycling accidents.

The easy, old fashioned way to check if a rib is broken. After the initial bruising is healed, a couple of days, try to sit straight up after lying prone on your back. If you get about 1/3 - 1/2 of the way up and it feels like somebody just stuck a knife in your ribs - they're broken (and older doctor taught me that - saved on the X-rays and ER room time). Now, if they hurt that badly with one broken rib and simply trying to sit up, imagine what that man was going through. That is why I am so critical of this hair-splitting over abuse versus torture. Even is the technique is just abuse, in this man's case it was torture. Plus, seperating the ends of broken ribs under tension is not a good way to maintain the integrity of his lungs. I know what the autopsy said, but as I commented the gushing blood from the mouth makes me suspicious.

Finally, and I've said this before. Saddam was a monster. As other posters commented, when saying Saddam was monstrous, or what the Russians and Chinese do, your point? The standards I hold the USA to have nothing to do with those other countries. The standards I hold it to are those espoused by the founding fathers, which by the way included an abhorrence of torture. Anytime we betray those standards, then I am going to speak out. And when people start justifying our actions by comparing us to Saddam, or Putin, or PRC - I am saddened. That is not the USA I believe in.

[Max Webster]

Originally posted by Oerdin
Lefties don't want to ***** about fellow leftie governments like China or Russia. They'd much rather whine about the evil US.

yeah yeah yeah, blah blah evil US, evil whoever

Lefties are no better than rightys.

I whine about about other countries and their foreign policies. All you have to do is look at the history of all the superpowers in the past and the US is just doing whats natural but not necessary right. It just seems there are some Americans who think their country is perfect. They jump to its defense no matter what.

[mrmitchell]

Yeah, after all it was only those "dirty arabs" killing each other under Saddam. With the US and Brits in charge the prisoner abuse and murder rate only went down by 99.9%. How outrageous! Our magic wand of Democracy should have made it all vanish, so obviously it is teh evil Bush doing it wrong.

Well ****, obviously it hasn't stopped. I'd rather Saddam's name be sh*t than our own.

[Dinner]

Originally posted by Spiffor
That's funny, considering that most lefties will consider China and Russia to be non-lefty countries, and quite a few lefties would call these regimes murderous.

The US gets more highlight than these "lefty" countries on 'Poly, but I think it has strongly to do with the fact that the US or US-related topics make about 80% of the topics here (entertainment, sports, etc.). In the exceptional occurence that a thread opens about Russia or China, these countries certainly do not escape criticism.

I agree with you that the US dominates threads here at poly. I do not agree with you that China and Russia are not socialist states where the government dominates the economy (i.e. leftist governments) in China 40% of the economy continues to be government owned industries. True, this is much less then the 100% which occured in the 1960's but not even the most socialist of European countries would consider it unacceptable to have 40% of the national economy controled by the state.

Russia isn't much better with the nationalisation of Yukos and other large foreign exchange earners. True, these countries do not escape critism entirely here at poly, but, I cannot help but feel that the US recieves an inordinate amount of critism even when the US punishes the guilty parties.

[Spiffor]

Originally posted by Oerdin
I agree with you that the US dominates threads here at poly. I do not agree with you that China and Russia are not socialist states where the government dominates the economy (i.e. leftist governments) in China 40% of the economy continues to be government owned industries. True, this is much less then the 100% which occured in the 1960's but not even the most socialist of European countries would consider it unacceptable to have 40% of the national economy controled by the state.

Well, most leftists tend to dislike it when a rapidly expanding country engineers massive differences in income, and enforces abject poverty (I'm thinking about China's policies of forcing peasants to stay in the country, which is destitute). Most leftists also tend to dislike it when government-controlled companies only serve to fill the pockets of some fat cats in the government.

Government control is not the be-all end-all to find the favor of lefties. Actually, if you polled the lefties here, I think only a handful would have a favourable opinion of Chia's economic policies wrt to its "lefty" agenda.

[Provost Harrison]

Originally posted by Oerdin


I agree with you that the US dominates threads here at poly. I do not agree with you that China and Russia are not socialist states where the government dominates the economy (i.e. leftist governments) in China 40% of the economy continues to be government owned industries. True, this is much less then the 100% which occured in the 1960's but not even the most socialist of European countries would consider it unacceptable to have 40% of the national economy controled by the state.

Russia isn't much better with the nationalisation of Yukos and other large foreign exchange earners. True, these countries do not escape critism entirely here at poly, but, I cannot help but feel that the US recieves an inordinate amount of critism even when the US punishes the guilty parties.

The state owning a certain proportion of industry and running it by whatever capitalist means of the day is not equivalent to socialism, this is the point. The state ownership has not made them any less ruthless, hell, even more ruthless in China where they are able to take advantage of all the spoils the state can provide them with including essentially slave labour from political prisoners. It's amazingly convenient in fact.

[Pekka]

PLATO, Right. But there's the flip side to the coin what you feel strong. The one where it's always the fault of the country when individuals act out. As if this is a case where systematical torture is going on, approved by everyone and paid by tax money.

There are kind of two ways people think about soldiers. First one is the super smart, who never makes mistakes. What ever he does is OK because he knows best. He is in there, we are not, so he'smaking the judgement calls and is always right. The other kind of soldier we think about is stupid, doesn't know the laws and sholdn't be required to know the laws, because in real life there are now laws in war so that guy is just there to stay alive and implementing plan that is based on real life and not some imaginary world rules. He is there to act, but he has every right, as he doesn't know any better and we can't require anymore..

I feel these two images are most than often wrong. They are people just like us but at the same time in professional army. There's always the both sides to it. Say if a cop mistreats a citizen, is it the fault of the country? No, it's the fault of the cop. It doesn't mean there was a program to beat up citizens. There is always some sort of responsibility with the government, making decisions where these kind of acts can be carried out, but the flip side to that is to close down the army for good, so that an individual soldier wouldn't break any laws.

So, we must acknowledge these kind of things happens to everyone, the difference is how people react to it. When they take the case and prosecute the ones who are responsible, it is taking responsibility in itself to the case by the army itself and the gov. Some people tend to blame the whole country for what few people have done, and that's just anti-americanism.

What I'm saying is, there are people who get pissed off reading and hearing about cases like these, but they know the difference between individual and a whole bunch of people. Then there's the group who always finds anything and turns it against a whole bunch of people. But I'd still say that MOST people are the former ones.

[Drake Tungsten]

Man, promising crucifixion and then not delivering is bad form...

[mindseye]

"Palestinan hanging"? This sounds close to the medieval form of torture called strapado.

Deep in my heart I hope and wish this is a case of "one bad cop mistreating a citizen."

Unfortunately, there are a lot of dots lining up in an ugly row, and hoping this is a bad apple or six seems increasingly naive.

Every incident like this is another massive blow against US credibility on human rights discussions. And that's a loss for the world.

[DinoDoc]

Originally posted by mindseye
Every incident like this is another massive blow against US credibility on human rights discussions.

The fact we have normalized trade relations with China (even to the extent of allowing them into the WTO) and most of the Mideast shows how seriously we took those discussions to begin with.