New Abu Ghraib Torture Video's Released

[A_Wanderer]

I will be more than willing to concede that there was involvement when I see the evidence, I don't know if the context of these meetings and reports, who they are in regard to and what groups they were meant to govern. Was it for CIA, MI or Standard Procedure, when the facts are on the table I will make up my own mind.

 

[Klaus]

I can see clearly a patern here.

The Administration fooled us for years:

They justified the treatment far away from all laws with the danger of these persons.

Mr. Rumsfeld:

"We are keeping them off the street and out of the airlines and out of nuclear power plants and out of ports across this country and across other countries,"

They clamed that people who criticized the new inhumane treatment of US prisinors are unpatriotic or even antiamericans.

Now we find out that the administration abused the patriotism and fear of their citicens. The current government betrayed the ideals of the USA and their version of justice is close to the justice spoken by emperors of the dark age.

http://www.nytimes.com/2004/06/21/politics/21GITM.html?th

In interviews, dozens of high-level military, intelligence and law-enforcement officials in the United States, Europe and the Middle East said that contrary to the repeated assertions of senior administration officials, none of the detainees at the United States Naval Base at Guant?namo Bay ranked as leaders or senior operatives of Al Qaeda. They said only a relative handful ? some put the number at about a dozen, others more than two dozen ? were sworn Qaeda members or other militants able to elucidate the organization's inner workings.

This article is 7 pages long and because it's the NYTimes it's only possible to read it the next days free of charge but i can encourage everyone to read it.

 

[A_Wanderer]

Remember that the US runs more secretive detention facilities all over the world from Kabul to Diego Garcia. It doesnt surprise me if there are not senior Al Qaeda leaders are not held there, they are more likely to be held in places where there isn't the oversight that stifles most high level interrogations. I again point to Khalid Shiek Mohammed as an example of somebody that knows a lot about the locations and plans of the top leadership who would only have been a truly viable source of information in the first few days of his capture while he was still in a high state of fear and would leak information easily if pressed in the right way.

The treatment would of course be non-leathal and would give us the information needed to crack the network to a degree thus preventing terrorist strikes. Guantanamo is a useful thing becauase it is a big obvious contentious thing where there is too much oversight for anything that bad to go on and it attracts the flak while the real operations go on covertly.

 

[Klaus]

It's a good thing that dangerous people are imprisoned but i can't see ANY reason why these people are treated outside the law.
Why have some of them no chance to consult an attorney? Why has the IRC no chance to visit some of them? Why are some punished before their guilt is proven in a legal courtroom?

Does the Administration and the military know who's bad and who's good so we don't need courtrooms at all?
If yes, that's excelent. If Administration + the Military are infallible let's treat all americans in this manner if they are not infallible give every human being - even the worst one a treatment which dosn't conflict with national and international standards of human rights and imprisonment.

 

[Dreadsox]

They clamed that people who criticized the new inhumane treatment of US prisinors are unpatriotic or even antiamericans.

Who is "THEY" and where are the quotes?

 

[U2Kitten]

Why are some punished before their guilt is proven in a legal courtroom?

How would you propose to achieve this? Who would be the witnesses, the other prisoners who would die a thousand times before they'd rat their comrade out to the infidel? Again, this is a situation with a different type of people and it requires a different set of rules. You can't have a normal American style trial with them!

 

[A_Wanderer]

They are the ones that told Karpinsky to ignore what was going on in the name of national security .

 

[Klaus]

U2Kitten:
Letting the IRC do their job would have bin a good 1st step

 

[U2Kitten]

But it's too late now. Like right now in my other browser, I'm fighting with my brother, he's putting me down for stuff in my personal life and saying how I should have done this or should not have done that years ago. Maybe that's true, but it's not doing me any good now. We have to go on from here. Same with this prisoner situation.

 

[Klaus]

Ok than let's learn from the mistakes we've done and give INDEPENDENT people and competent people like ai or other Human Rights groups the chance to bring light in that cases.
And let's learn from the mistakes and don't trust ANY government with closed eyes. Obviosely it's too much temptation to abuse power if there isn't enough control

 

[U2Kitten]

I don't trust my government, anyone's government, even my own family with closed eyes. But I do believe there are reasons for keeping those guys there, and I'm sure it has to do with security reasons they can't reveal publically. They can't be tried in a normal trial as I posted before, but they don't feel safe letting them go. We will find out the truth one day, good or bad.

 

[A_Wanderer]

Plus detentaion w/o trial for 5 years is bound to ammount to a multi billion dollar class action against the US government.

 

[A_Wanderer]

Provided they are innocent of course.

 

[U2girl]

*sigh* U2Kitten and Wanderer, I will not argue with you on this.

I do not blame US or the whole of the West for what happened, nor do I have a problem with American people. However I do have a problem with US administration's handling of the matters - especially since they lead the "coalition" which represents the West, so ultimately they ought to be accountable.

In fact, any government that allows this kind of events deserves nothing good.

Again, because we have annoying little thingies like Rule of law, innocent-until-proven-guilty and Geneva convention, we should NOT stoop to the lows. The terrorists may not have rules, but WE do, it does not excuse us of not following them. For those very reasons, any "we're better than them" or "there's a long way to go" arguments fall miserably.

Lindsay England was on CNN saying she was instructed to do that by the military intelligence. A New Yorker article said Rumsfeld personally approved the Abu Ghraib tactics. (and Commander in Chief himself is ultimately responsible)

PS: Red Cross, in its reports said 70-90% in Abu Ghraib were innocent. INNOCENT POWs, not hard line terrorists.

 

[Klaus]

A_Wanderer:
So what's the problem, if they were innocent and in detentaion w/o trial for 5 years, why shouldn't they have the right to sue the responsible persons?
The government stole 5 years of their life and maybe turned their life into a horror-trip for these years.
Why shouldn't they get compensation for it?

U2Kitten:
Ok you don't trust your government with closed eyes - so what reasons do you think they have? Why do you think you can trust them in that case also the IRC and many from the US army said that there are about 50%-90% innocent people which should be treated as POW's?

 

[BVS]

However, I still think it went too far and it was individuals to blame for that, not leadership. What about the guy who beat the Iraqi soldier to death? He was an asshole anyway. I saw his ex-wife interviewed on TV and she said she totally believed he did it and enjoyed it. She said he had a long history of violence and cruelty. He had beaten and threatened to kill her and the kids and that was why she left him. But you can't blame the entire US or US Military for a jerk like that.

And how do you think I man like that got put in that position? Pure coincidence? If you don't think leadership had anything to do with this then you're kidding yourself.

 

[BVS]

You can't have a normal American style trial with them!

So it works for serial killers, embezzlers, rapists, etc(unless you're a celebrity) but it won't work for these guys? Why, is our system flawed or is it because we have no evidence?

 

[U2Kitten]

So it works for serial killers, embezzlers, rapists, etc(unless you're a celebrity) but it won't work for these guys? Why, is our system flawed or is it because we have no evidence?

As I said, the only airtight evidence is probably just testimony of comrades who will not give them up to the infidel. All hardened criminals, crazy people, even Nazis and Communists could be made to turn evidence on someone they know to save their own ass. This is a different type of person here with a different set of standards. The American system is not going to work here. They would all be set free from lack of evidence though most of them are probably guilty. Are they guilty? I think so, I don't believe they would take all this heat for a whim? There are things we don't know and the press isn't going to know. I don't trust blindly or believe just anything, but I do believe there is something to this, some reason they should not be set free, we will find out.

 

[anitram]

But you see, if some terrorist army (like the Taliban) captures one of your boys, and then decides that this is a different breed of "infidel" and therefore Geneva is not in order, because we are fighting the great evil there, then they can just as easily decide to chop heads off.

The magnitude may be different, but you are setting an awfully dangerous precedent here for throwing international laws out the window. Why? Because you feel you are fighting a different war. Do you think they feel differently?

How do we preach to the Hutus and the Tutsis and the Bosnians about Geneva and the proper treatment of POWs and then we send them to international courts while we feel above the law? Believe me when a Bosnian watched his women get raped, he probably felt the Serb was a "different" breed of criminal here.

What's good for the hen...

 

[BVS]

As I said, the only airtight evidence is probably just testimony of comrades who will not give them up to the infidel. All hardened criminals, crazy people, even Nazis and Communists could be made to turn evidence on someone they know to save their own ass. This is a different type of person here with a different set of standards. The American system is not going to work here. They would all be set free from lack of evidence though most of them are probably guilty. Are they guilty? I think so, I don't believe they would take all this heat for a whim? There are things we don't know and the press isn't going to know. I don't trust blindly or believe just anything, but I do believe there is something to this, some reason they should not be set free, we will find out.

Ok so picking up people because they were at a certain place at a certain time and have the right skin color is enough to hold them then? You are saying the only "evidence" is to be told on by their peers, but then how the hell did they originally get picked up? Sorry but it's a load of crap. You don't hold people without evidence, and if you're going to play the whole better safe then sorry then might as well lock up anyone who looks at you wrong.

 

[A_Wanderer]

I said if they were innocent they could sue but I wouldnt want Hambali to sue us because he was in limbo for 5 years.

 

[Diemen]

My problem with trotting out these torture tapes from Iraq as justification is that, Iraq is not the only one in the region acting like this. The simple fact that a government engaged in wicked, unimagineable cruel torture of some of it's citizens IN NO WAY justifies military action against them. Instead of just beheadings and limb removal just happening in prisons, it happens in public in Saudi Arabia, and I've yet to hear or see one official US statement against this behavior, and in fact the Bush team seem unusually close to Saudi Arabia.

I'm sick of this "but look how horrible they are!" justification. It doesn't hold. We can't (well, we are, but we shouldn't) claim to be liberating a people from oppression and then hold alliances with other countries guilty of some of the same oppression. It's hypocritical.

I'm also sick of hearing justifications of our torture with the "but they did it worse!" line. It's a weak excuse. If the American government is going to act so completely outraged at torture, then they should simply flat out not engage in anything that might be viewed as torture. Either that, or stop pretending to be so "horrified" and admit that they're guilty to a lesser degree as well. Whether it's beheading someone or punching someone as hard as you can in the chest and/or forcing them to masturbate naked in front of each other, it's a reprehensible act of torture that should not be condoned or excused, AT ALL. There is no moral justification.

 

[U2girl]

As I said, the only airtight evidence is probably just testimony of comrades who will not give them up to the infidel. All hardened criminals, crazy people, even Nazis and Communists could be made to turn evidence on someone they know to save their own ass. This is a different type of person here with a different set of standards. The American system is not going to work here. They would all be set free from lack of evidence though most of them are probably guilty. Are they guilty? I think so, I don't believe they would take all this heat for a whim? There are things we don't know and the press isn't going to know. I don't trust blindly or believe just anything, but I do believe there is something to this, some reason they should not be set free, we will find out.

If there's lack of evidence, how did they get in jail in the first place? I don't like this police state mentality of locking up without charges or evidence.
I don't know about you, but I'd rather see a guilty person being let go - if you can't prove he's guilty, that is - than an innocent person be charged.

If US doesn't have any proof or evidence to link them to any crimes, they should let them go. (in fact, hundreds of them were let go in Abu Ghraib after the scandal)
If they do, what's with all the creepy tactics? Charge them and trial them - and I mean a fair trial, with an unbiased jury and lawyers on both sides.
(But oops, forced confessions don't fly in the court. Did you consider that a tortured person often admits things they're NOT guilty of, simply to end the hurt?)

Outside guards should be in prisons, no Iraquis or US soldiers, because obviuosly they can't be objective.
If justice worked for Nazis and dictators, it will work for them too. I bet the "smaller fish" - assuming there are any - would turn in any information or the "big fish" they have to be out of jail. Then again, if they've been locked up for months I wonder how much they really know (AFIK no terrorist big shots were captured so far, and I don't think those would reveal anything anyway) and how accurate the info is.

You said earlier those soldiers said "they followed orders". That's no excuse for such behaviour, a soldier can refuse to follow orders that clearly go against international law and/or their conscience.

 

[A_Wanderer]

The opportunity to save anybody from a dictator should be siezed, just because a nation will not act unless its in the national interest does not make an action any less just. I want to see every man, woman and child free on earth but this just wont happen at once, we will have to fight for freedom wherever possible, if we suceed in Iraq and it becomes stable then we will be able to turn onto Saudi Arabia but we cannot expect to do them both at once. It will take time and effort but the smallest act can be the start of something global.

Viva La Liberal Revolution!!

 

[Diemen]

To borrow a GWB catchphrase, make no mistake, I'm just as against torture as you are, and I would love to see the world rid of oppressive and vicious dictators. However, the US has never been altruistic in it's actions, and that's why I get upset when the Bush administration harps on about how they liberated the people from oppression. Let's face it, the state of the Iraqi people was not anywhere near the top of the list of reasons we invaded Iraq. But a humanitarian goal sells a lot better, so that's where we get all these nice Operation Iraqi Freedom slogans everywhere, and shots of Iraqis cheering in the streets. (Of course, fast forward a few months and there's not so much cheering anymore...)

I can absolutely guarantee you that if Iraq were to become completely stable tomorrow, our government (as it stands today) would not turn on Saudi Arabia. Maybe if they weren't one of the world's top suppliers of oil we might eventually wag a finger and say "you guys really shouldn't do that stuff," but you can bet your ass we wouldn't threaten them with military force.

 

[A_Wanderer]

Humanitarian goals simply cannot motivate any nation to action, we didnt intervene in Rwanda because after Somalia it wasnt palatable and things haven't changed, you cannot go to war for altruistic motives because the public just wont have the willpower. I care about the strategic importance of Iraq in the war on terror but I also have very strong feelings about the good that it has done for the Iraqi people. I loath the Saudi regime but it is just not a viable thing to do right now, there will come a time when we have to face them down on a diplomatic front to fix their culture because it is a key problem in the war against islamism. When we have liberal democracy established the world over there will be a lot less terrorism and the world will be a much safer place.

 

[U2Kitten]

Ok so picking up people because they were at a certain place at a certain time and have the right skin color is enough to hold them then? You are saying the only "evidence" is to be told on by their peers, but then how the hell did they originally get picked up? Sorry but it's a load of crap. You don't hold people without evidence, and if you're going to play the whole better safe then sorry then might as well lock up anyone who looks at you wrong.

That's extreme and ridiculous. If they did that there would be millions of them in there. I'm tired of fighting over this. I believe there must be good reasons those particular people are in there, but no one can prove it to you because it's not information that the public knows. Don't complain too much, some people would have just taken them out and shot them and dumped the bodies and nobody would ever have known. I am also becoming fed up with some of these people are being defended and taken up for by some of you. They wouldn't do the same for you. I'm sick of it all

 

[A_Wanderer]

Okay think about it, those in Guantanamo consist mostly of people captured in Afghanistan and Pakistan following the invasion in October 2001.

The ultimatum had been given to the Taliban weeks earlier to hand over Al Qaeda chiefs therefore it should not have come as a surprise to foreigners in there that trouble was brewing.

If you are a foreigner fighting for the Taliban then you are staying beind for good reason, you in all probability want to fight against the Americans when they invade.

The US army captures a lot of foreigners who were with the Taliban and have to determine who they are and if they are linked to Al Qaeda because a lot of terrorists go to Afghanistan for training, this is one month after 9/11 and no risks can be taken lest another attack hit US interests or civilians.

They decide to hold captured fighters away from the US mainland until they can acertaine their connections to Al Qaeda and other terrorist cells and decide if they are a threat or not.

Finding out information from men who lack identities or have very,very little details is a hard thing to do and it takes a lot of time and sucess is never guaranteed, if I remember properly a Taliban commander was released from Guantanamo after they decided he wasn't a threat and he went back to Afghanistan and began fighting the international forces.

Guantanamo is a holding pen for men who may be very, very dangerous and because of this cannot be given access to the outside world. If we give them laywers then it is trying to apply normal conditions to extrordinary circumstances and we will suffer for it. These men are not innocent civilians picked off any street they are either men arrested in the west who had very obvious connections to terrorism or men who should not have been in Afghanistan at all and were engaged with our enemies, they are just like POW's and will not be released until a) The war is over (not gonna happen anytime soon) or b) They are deemed not to be a threat or c) They are going to be charged.

Do not forget why Guantanamo exists, it was those tremendous explosions and thundering collapses that occured 3 years ago, they deserve fair trials and if guilty of working against our troops or working with Al Qaeda then they deserve to be punished but we cannot expect to let terrorists exploit our legal systems to their advantage and succeed in fighting against them, it is simply impossible. If mobsters or OJ can get away with obvious crimes then how do you expect courts will treat men charged with associations and nonevents?

 

[ThatGuy]

That's extreme and ridiculous. If they did that there would be millions of them in there. I'm tired of fighting over this. I believe there must be good reasons those particular people are in there, but no one can prove it to you because it's not information that the public knows. Don't complain too much, some people would have just taken them out and shot them and dumped the bodies and nobody would ever have known. I am also becoming fed up with some of these people are being defended and taken up for by some of you. They wouldn't do the same for you. I'm sick of it all

The fact is that the Red Cross has found that most people being held in these prisons don't belong in there anyway.

So we're arresting people, torturing some of them, and holding them indefinitely on "secret" evidence without a trial. Would you be so quick to defend these actions if they were done by another country? Or is it because you believe our cause to be just that you're willing to look the other way? What if this were going on inside the US? Would it stillbe okay?

I don't think anyone in this thread is defending the Iraqi prisoners because we think they're warm and fuzzy. Rather than defend them, what we're doing is to ask that the US apply the standards of justice that come with the democracy that we are supposedly trying to help establish in Iraq.

 

[U2Kitten]

Guantanamo is a holding pen for men who may be very, very dangerous and because of this cannot be given access to the outside world. If we give them laywers then it is trying to apply normal conditions to extrordinary circumstances and we will suffer for it.

If mobsters or OJ can get away with obvious crimes then how do you expect courts will treat men charged with associations and nonevents?

Exactly what I've been trying to say.

Don't forget that most of the 9-11 terrorists were here, were suspicious, but were never stopped because of 'nonevents'- in the US, no one can be charged until they actually do something, and by then it's too late, and everyone is screaming why didn't you stop it? How could you, they hadn't done anything yet, and it would only have been called stereotyping of Arabs not proven guilty of anything. Sorry, I'm sticking with the better safe than sorry thing.