[quote]hedo wrote:
100meters wrote:
hedo wrote:
Zap Branigan wrote:
vroom wrote:
The “torture” was the level of frat boy hazing.
I’ll respond to this. Bullshit. Sure, a lot of the officially described and allowed activity is of this nature.
Unfortunately, the fact that some of the prisoners don’t actually survive their hazing might indicate there is sometimes more to it.
Now, honestly, it is one thing to simply not care. I know some of you really don’t give a damn what type of treatment these people receive.
However, if you do actually have a shred of human decency you’ll realize that people in these prisons do not go through any type of process to determine innocence or guilt.
Savaging them, or letting them be savaged, because we can and it soothes our wounded pride gives the measure of America. Oops.
The “torture” was far below the levels under Saddam or any totalitarian regime.
It is below the levels frequently seen in prisons in America and across the world (including Canada).
This does not make it right, but it is the real world. Grow up.
This is politics pure and simple. If you are “against the war”, fine but it is too late, we are in it, let’s win it.
Zap
I agree with your position. This type of hazing is more about control then anything else. The guards are supposed to have control. Much worse happens in any prison for civilians.
As for these type of abuses not being acceptable in wartime. Please spare me. The troops see far more death, maiming and destruction after any firefight.
As anyone who has served in the military or a large organization can plainly see, it is highly improbable that anyone in authority knew what was going on. They would have stopped it so as not to be culpable and because it is wrong. If any senior officer should be held accountable, it stops at Karpinski for allowing it to happen in her command.
Hedo, Zap,
are you being totally honest, or are you being apologists? Surely, you should be able to see that the public perception of a christian nation sexually demoralizing muslims has a different reaction than a arabic leader torturing arabs? This only goes to show a lack of cultural respect, that is obviously counter-productive to our goals in Iraq and the middle-east. Also if the president tells the arab world that Iraqi POWs are protected by Geneva, and then we are torturing or “hazing” as you say, you should be able to see how that would also be counter-productive to our goals of building trust and credibility in the arab world (again its been pointed out time and time again that U.S. policy is the prime reason for terrorist attacks against us). It would seem to me that regardless of what side of the war you were on, we do have to win the war (on terror) and I would think you’d be going through leaps and bounds to make sure nothing questionable happened to POWs, especially considering the power of arabic media- you can only imagine how al-jaazera portrayed abu-ghraib, and how many young muslims have been inspired to hate us. Don’t you think part of the strategy of winning the war would be creating fewer people to fight a war against?
100-
I will agree that we should try and create less enemies to fight. I also think it would be better for all concerned if it didn’t happen. I just don’t think the top administration officials had anything to do with it. I don’t even think the general in charge knew about…although she should have.
Abu Gharib is a very minor incident in the scope of this war. It was siezed on by the media for a political reason rather then for any alutisitc feelings towards the Iraqi’s.
I am not apologizing for what happened. I don’t see it as being all that meaningful. If we got any information that saved an American life then it was worth it. That’s a personal opinion and I am sure I have a different set of morals then others.
I don’t think the Muslims in the Middle East will ever love the US. Not in this century. They will one day respect us and if necessary fear us. If that’s what it takes to live together so be it. I think we are all better of with the US being a superpower as opposed to Iran etc…
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I understand your POV. I would disagree that top admin officials had nothing to do with it, in fact, there is no doubt that at the very least they added to the confusion as to what was appropriate, that is spelled out rather clearly in the Schlesinger report. Also the fact that this treatment is not acceptable according to the admin leads one to believe that little information was gathered from the techniques used, what I mean to say is that, we’re probably gathering intel now and we’re not using the “unacceptable” techniques. So I would conclude it probably wasn’t worth it.(It would be nearly impossible to calculate, but figuring lives saved from said techniques, to lives lost for revenge of said techniques over time probably wouldn’t be in our favor.) Even if we agree on shit happens during war, I think how you handle the shit that happens plays a great part in winning wars. Like it or not P.R. is a huge part of this war, and I don’t think we won it on this “battle”. (This is not to say we aren’t winning other P.R. battles—certainly we are.) I meant to give an example earlier—after black hawk down incident—the sight of what the locals did to u.s. soldiers sickened and enraged all of us, everyone thought those responsible were sick bastards, and alot of us probably would have liked to have “gotten them back”. Now add that to all the events at abu ghraib and continue applying them to u.s. citizens—I would imagine there would be hell to pay, and most of us wouldn’t forget for a long, long time. Now take what you know of al jazerra t.v. and combine it with the mindset of the arab world…Regardless of the “meaningfulness” of the incidents, boy would that be poured into arabian t.v.s from here to eternity.
