That picture shows a dead man, but does not point to how he died. If you think that flashing a picture of a dead arab is going to make anybody join AQ with you, you are fooling yourself.
I know that if this man died at the hands of his captors and through torture those responsible will be punished quickly and appropriately.
Get yourself up to speed
You do realize that there is a mountain of info concerning Abu-Ghraib, don't you?
Here is just one passage from the most famous of the articles (do you know where to find it?) written on these prisoners:
Quote:
In November, Frederick wrote, an Iraqi prisoner under the control of what the Abu Ghraib guards called ?O.G.A.,? or other government agencies?that is, the C.I.A. and its paramilitary employees?was brought to his unit for questioning. ?They stressed him out so bad that the man passed away. They put his body in a body bag and packed him in ice for approximately twenty-four hours in the shower. . . . The next day the medics came and put his body on a stretcher, placed a fake IV in his arm and took him away.? The dead Iraqi was never entered into the prison?s inmate-control system, Frederick recounted, ?and therefore never had a number.?
That's from Staff Sgt. Ivan L. Frederick's diary.
From an ABC story:
Quote:
The photographs show a 52-year-old former Baath Party official, Nadem Sadoon Hatab, who died at the detention center last June after a three-day period in which he was allegedly subjected to beatings and karate kicks to the chest and left to die naked in his own feces.
Abuse of Iraqi prisoners at Camp White Horse was allegedly carried out by U.S. Marine reservists. The accused reservists have told their lawyers they were given orders to "soften up" the men in their custody for interrogation by what were known as human exploitation teams from military intelligence.
...
According to testimony in the case, Hatab was targeted for especially harsh treatment because he was believed to be in possession of Jessica Lynch's 507th Army Battalion weapon and suspected of involvement in the ambush of her unit.
There is a ton of info out there about all of this. We are reading it. I suggest you do yourself a favor and read it as well before coming in here making clearly uninformed comments.
As you can see once again, your arguments here are clearly uninformed.
You do realize that there is a mountain of info concerning Abu-Ghraib, don't you?
Here is just one passage from the most famous of the articles (do you know where to find it?) written on these prisoners:
That's from Staff Sgt. Ivan L. Frederick's diary.
From an ABC story:
There is a ton of info out there about all of this. We are reading it. I suggest you do yourself a favor and read it as well before coming in here making clearly uninformed comments
As you can see once again, your arguments here are clearly uninformed.
The reason I ask is, you seem to be getting a totally different translation of what I am saying.
I specifically said I am not defending these actions. And yes these actions, helped those who want to harm us. I agree with you on that totally.
If any of these soldier's superiors were supporting these kinds of things, they should also be held to task, as far up as it goes. So, I think we can agree on that. Right?
How far up should it go? Let's assume, for the sake of argument, that all 6 of the accused soldiers are found guilty. Does it stop there or should it continue up the chain of command to Wolfowitz? To Rumsfeld? To Bush? I'm willing to entertain the notion that the soldiers aren't wholly responsible for their actions.
Further, I'm willing to entertain the possibility that these photos are, in fact, real. If you'll indulge me in that, I think you'll see the reason for the outrage. Up to this point, I think my reaction to your posts are that you're not willing to believe the nearly incontrovertible evidence that detainees have been abused. We don't know how far up the chain it goes - were the soldiers "just following orders"?, was it negligence on the part of the DoD?, were there political motives behind not providing the soldiers the support they needed (as a few soldiers have suggested)?, etc.
Quote:
I just don't see any benefit for anyone to presume the guilt of everyone all the way up the long chain of command, to the president. Which by the way, he has taken the responsibility that is his and apologized for these actions, to the world.
These days an apology and a buck and a half will buy you a small cup of coffee. Apologies need to ring true for them to mean anything. For the president to NOT come out immediately and say something himself, rather than through his staff, makes the apology seem a little contrived.
If America is not just about following process, but about results (as Bush said in the SOTU address), we need to see some. NOW. That means people need to held responsible for their actions AND those of their charges. (Did you see the last episode of "The Apprentice"? Kwame was fired not because he wasn't competent, but because he didn't fire Omarrosa, one of his employees. There's a lesson to be learned there.)
Quote:
I also am pretty sure it does not help the morale of soldiers to know that a huge chunk of this country has fallen into the trap of partisan politics and thinks they are all of that kind of people, that would do these things.
i personally like to believe that people are good and make the right decisions.
You can believe what you want.
Naples, I hope you really truly believe that. I mean for ALL people. The world isn't made up of "good guys" and "bad guys". And that's why the perpetrators of these crimes (war crimes, as Bush said a while back when asked about the treatment of prisoners. I wish I had a link...) deserve the outrage they're seeing. People's belief in the US of Benevolent Action has been shaken. I'm not sure there's anyway to regain the world's trust any time soon.
How far up should it go? Let's assume, for the sake of argument, that all 6 of the accused soldiers are found guilty. Does it stop there or should it continue up the chain of command to Wolfowitz? To Rumsfeld? To Bush? I'm willing to entertain the notion that the soldiers aren't wholly responsible for their actions.
Of course the whole chain is responsible in a variety of ways. Naples can't understand in what way each is responsible because he doesn't know what each one does.
For example, the line of responsibility goes straight through military intelligence, meaning Boykin, Mr Mission From God himself.
This thread is open for business again. Those who continue the poor form in here will be dealt with on an individual level, meaning lockouts from the AO forum for a period of time.
The topic is an important one, and people who can't behave like adults won't be allowed to ruin it for the rest of us. Please ignore the more obnoxious comments posted before this point, and consider it a fresh start.
What strikes me most about this is the sexual character of the abuses. Why is that?
I think it has to do with Arab culture.. where homesexuality is considered even a bigger taboo as in the western world.
For instance here in the netherlands was a big row about a book that was sold in Mosques. It said that it was considerd a good deed to kill homosexuals.... it also said how it had to be done..
"Take the homosexual person to a large building, go to the top floor and throw the person of the building... head first"
What strikes me most about this is the sexual character of the abuses. Why is that?
Yeah, that's the most disturbing part.
To almost anyone who grew up in a non-native environment, clothing protects personal intimacy. It is the division between self and the rest of the world. Stripping someone and ordering him to stand naked in front of clothed people deeply unsettles his mental balance, since he has no means of keeping up this protection (look at some of the pictures to see the men putting their hands over the genitals). It is meant as a degradation and it obviously works.
It is known that experienced tortures nearly always expose their victims to drive the point home that they are deprived of any protection - this can be traced back from south american dictatorships to witch hunts.
The next (and last) personal boundary is being able to decide who penetrates our body. Raping humans (no matter if with penises, hands, broomsticks or chemical lights) is a proven means to crush their will - pimps rape their whores to make them docile, violent husbands rape wifes to keep them humble. The one who is sexually "taken" is "owned" by the aggressor.
Obviously the guards knew about those mechanisms and used them without restraint or mercy. This points to deeply-ingrained (racial?) hatred towards their victims combined with insecurity. They don't know if they are welcome in Iraq, they see ambushes, demonstrations, hate, they feel unsure about themselves and the roles they play. To reassert themselves, they win power over the Iraqis at hand by reducing them. This is where the hoods come in handy too - a hooded person has no face and who has no face has a lot less abilities to express emotions.
Sexual abuse (or sexualized torture) by female guards is not completely new, but I fail to remember any case where it was so blatant and wide-spread. This leads me to believe that the female soldiers felt they had a bone to pick with what they see as a macho culture (not completely unfounded). They know that they are not regarded as equal to their male comrades and this presumably led to overcompensation.
also, for a "weak" woman to do this to a muslim man is very degrading in his eyes...this is why they do this to groups of men at a time or in front of other muslim men...a white, likely christian, woman doing these acts to a single muslim man in a cell would likely make him angry and deviant...a white, christian woman doing this to a muslim man or men in front of other muslim men would make him feel weak and helpless and shamed....
they knew their victims so well this way...possibly too well as they added the act of photographing them to further the humiliation...and i bet they wish they didn't do that now...
what is strange is that they know so well what harms these muslim people, but they have little clue what to do to make them like us or work with us...
i mean, who didn't see that once saddam was removed that the people of iraq would want us gone the next day?
what is strange is that they know so well what harms these muslim people, but they have little clue what to do to make them like us or work with us...
g
indeed, This is a common thread that has popped up a lot, in this instance, in the war in general, and in many different aspects of life.
and basically what it boils down to is that, it's a lot easier to make a mess than it is to clean it up.
To be hated, you only need to do one heinous act, but to be loved you have to be nice all the time. And reversing damaged done is an incredibly difficult process.
Of course I'm sure there are exceptions, this isn't a rule or anything.
What strikes me most about this is the sexual character of the abuses. Why is that?
Coming from a middle eastern background, I could only imagine the reaction these images got over there. I can see my dad cursing the US for this indignity. I thought it was the worst that could happen.... But then I read there may be a photo of an Iraqi woman being raped by a soldier. THAT would be the worst thing that could happen. I can't imagine the reaction that type of photo would get.
Muslim men value their honor greatly but value the honor of their women even more.
what is strange is that they know so well what harms these muslim people, but they have little clue what to do to make them like us or work with us...
Another interesting motive is the dog thing. AFAIK dogs are considered impure by muslims (like pigs, only less). Degrading muslim men symbolically to being a dog (the infamous Lynndie England leash photo) or having Germand Shepherds attack prisoners should add insult to injury to a muslim much more than a christian (any muslim here care to comment ?).
I don't know if this was just diabolical instinct or cross-cultural training put to bad use...
Anyhow, I think we (as we in "all westeners") can stop worrying about pacifying the NE and/or bringing democracy there for some years - I doubt a lot of people are going to believe the talk about human rights and universal moral principles now.
I wonder what is going to happen to the victims. Will they receive psychological counceling on behalf of the US or will they receive just some money to appease the western press. Will Bremer or some higher-ranking official have the guts to confront them and shake their hands?
Another interesting motive is the dog thing. AFAIK dogs are considered impure by muslims (like pigs, only less). Degrading muslim men symbolically to being a dog (the infamous Lynndie England leash photo) or having Germand Shepherds attack prisoners should add insult to injury to a muslim much more than a christian (any muslim here care to comment ?).
You hit the nail on the head. There's nothing more to it, really. They believe dogs to be impure. I don't know where it comes from except that there's a saying of the prophet that says if there has been a dog in an area, you can't pray there until it is cleaned.
Quote:
I wonder what is going to happen to the victims. Will they receive psychological counceling on behalf of the US or will they receive just some money to appease the western press. Will Bremer or some higher-ranking official have the guts to confront them and shake their hands?
This is what a US Senator had to say this morning:
Quote:
I watch this outrage that everyone seems to have about the treatment of these prisoners I have to say and I'm probably not the only one up at this table that is more outraged by the outrage than we are by the treatment.
He's more outraged at being critical of torture than of torture itself. Huh. He then went on to say essentially "yeah but Saddam was even worse!" and then had this to say:
Quote:
I am also outraged that we have so many humanitarian do-gooders right now crawling all over these prisons, looking for human rights violations while our troops, our heroes, are fighting and dying.
I saw Senator McCain, who was sitting next to him, get up and walk out. Maybe he had to use the bathroom or something, but it was interesting that he got up and left right at that time.
Someone should catalog conservatives' responses to this. Another example, Limbaugh has said:
Quote:
I'm talking about people having a good time, these people, you ever heard of emotional release? You heard of need to blow some steam off?
Wow. The MPs were just trying to have some fun, and here we are trying to ruin their good times. Who would've known that Limbaugh's idea of a good time was to torture people.
Also, I would argue that homosexuality is less of a taboo in the Islamic/Arab world. One only has to read the first few pages of the 1001 Nights or research the exploits of Isherwood, Laurence etc in the hinterlands of Morocco and Arabia to glimpse the real Arab view on this matter.
Prejudice, where it does occur, is reserved for the passive partner in homosexual acts. In fact there are no different words for gay men in Arabic (excluding slang) but there are two words for the sexual activity as a whole which are generally applied - one, for the person on the receiving end (so to speak) is always perjorative (this is the insult that nearest approximates to 'gay' or 'queer' when used as a term of abuse in the west), the other is for the active partner and is 'heroic' in meaning regardless again of gender. Although this is still an unenlightened attitude, one might reasonably argue that it is less so than in the west where homosexuality is 'taboo' (where it is taboo) in both instances.
I'm sorry, but you couldn't be more wrong. Many middle eastern parents would rather have their children die than be gay. I'm serious.
As for the Arabian Nights thing - they were just stories and that culture is long since gone.
Now -- oh, one other thing. All the idea about these pictures. I would suggest to you any pictures -- and I think maybe we should get direction from this committee, Mr. Chairman, that if pictures are authorized to be disseminated among the public, that for every picture of abuse or alleged abuse of prisoners, we have pictures of mass graves, pictures of children being executed, pictures of the four Americans in Baghdad that were burned and their bodies were mutilated and dismembered in public. Let's get the whole picture.
They did worse, so it's ok we do bad too. Sickening. Really.
So , if we re talking about soldiers using dogs and humiliating prisoners by sex acts.. someone told them what this would be more humiliating to these people as opposed to other things (beating in front of others, etc..).
All that saying that they weren't properly trained... is a BS.
They did worse, so it's ok we do bad too. Sickening. Really.
It is sickening. People are trying to justify this in response to the outrage because it has reflected poorly on the Bush Administration... but there really is no defending this.
With respect, his doesn't make sense. The question was about why the US troops abuse manifested in a sexual way - if this has to do with Arab culture, are you saying that the abuse was consciously sexual because the troops new of this (alleged) attitude of the Arabs ?
That's certainly one theory, and I think it's probably why New brought it up. Remember, the allegation here is that MPs were brought into the interrogation process when they shouldn't have been. They were softening up the prisoners. One theory is that the military intelligence officers performing the interrogations knew enough about Arab culture to know that this would be a pretty severe form of torture, and so, at least in their view, it would help them with the interrogation. It also could be the reason women were involved in the torture, and why they were taking pictures - both would increase the humiliation.
It could be that these MPs were totally acting on their own and came up with this just to have some fun, as Limbaugh would say. They were taking pictures just for souvenirs. I personally doubt it, but who knows.
Comments
Originally posted by NaplesX
I actually prefer it that way.
I'm sure you do.
Originally posted by NaplesX
That picture shows a dead man, but does not point to how he died. If you think that flashing a picture of a dead arab is going to make anybody join AQ with you, you are fooling yourself.
I know that if this man died at the hands of his captors and through torture those responsible will be punished quickly and appropriately.
Get yourself up to speed
You do realize that there is a mountain of info concerning Abu-Ghraib, don't you?
Here is just one passage from the most famous of the articles (do you know where to find it?) written on these prisoners:
In November, Frederick wrote, an Iraqi prisoner under the control of what the Abu Ghraib guards called ?O.G.A.,? or other government agencies?that is, the C.I.A. and its paramilitary employees?was brought to his unit for questioning. ?They stressed him out so bad that the man passed away. They put his body in a body bag and packed him in ice for approximately twenty-four hours in the shower. . . . The next day the medics came and put his body on a stretcher, placed a fake IV in his arm and took him away.? The dead Iraqi was never entered into the prison?s inmate-control system, Frederick recounted, ?and therefore never had a number.?
That's from Staff Sgt. Ivan L. Frederick's diary.
From an ABC story:
The photographs show a 52-year-old former Baath Party official, Nadem Sadoon Hatab, who died at the detention center last June after a three-day period in which he was allegedly subjected to beatings and karate kicks to the chest and left to die naked in his own feces.
Abuse of Iraqi prisoners at Camp White Horse was allegedly carried out by U.S. Marine reservists. The accused reservists have told their lawyers they were given orders to "soften up" the men in their custody for interrogation by what were known as human exploitation teams from military intelligence.
...
According to testimony in the case, Hatab was targeted for especially harsh treatment because he was believed to be in possession of Jessica Lynch's 507th Army Battalion weapon and suspected of involvement in the ambush of her unit.
There is a ton of info out there about all of this. We are reading it. I suggest you do yourself a favor and read it as well before coming in here making clearly uninformed comments.
As you can see once again, your arguments here are clearly uninformed.
Originally posted by giant
I'm sure you do.
Get yourself up to speed
You do realize that there is a mountain of info concerning Abu-Ghraib, don't you?
Here is just one passage from the most famous of the articles (do you know where to find it?) written on these prisoners:
That's from Staff Sgt. Ivan L. Frederick's diary.
From an ABC story:
There is a ton of info out there about all of this. We are reading it. I suggest you do yourself a favor and read it as well before coming in here making clearly uninformed comments
As you can see once again, your arguments here are clearly uninformed.
Clearly.
Originally posted by NaplesX
Is english your first language?
The reason I ask is, you seem to be getting a totally different translation of what I am saying.
I specifically said I am not defending these actions. And yes these actions, helped those who want to harm us. I agree with you on that totally.
If any of these soldier's superiors were supporting these kinds of things, they should also be held to task, as far up as it goes. So, I think we can agree on that. Right?
How far up should it go? Let's assume, for the sake of argument, that all 6 of the accused soldiers are found guilty. Does it stop there or should it continue up the chain of command to Wolfowitz? To Rumsfeld? To Bush? I'm willing to entertain the notion that the soldiers aren't wholly responsible for their actions.
Further, I'm willing to entertain the possibility that these photos are, in fact, real. If you'll indulge me in that, I think you'll see the reason for the outrage. Up to this point, I think my reaction to your posts are that you're not willing to believe the nearly incontrovertible evidence that detainees have been abused. We don't know how far up the chain it goes - were the soldiers "just following orders"?, was it negligence on the part of the DoD?, were there political motives behind not providing the soldiers the support they needed (as a few soldiers have suggested)?, etc.
I just don't see any benefit for anyone to presume the guilt of everyone all the way up the long chain of command, to the president. Which by the way, he has taken the responsibility that is his and apologized for these actions, to the world.
These days an apology and a buck and a half will buy you a small cup of coffee. Apologies need to ring true for them to mean anything. For the president to NOT come out immediately and say something himself, rather than through his staff, makes the apology seem a little contrived.
If America is not just about following process, but about results (as Bush said in the SOTU address), we need to see some. NOW. That means people need to held responsible for their actions AND those of their charges. (Did you see the last episode of "The Apprentice"? Kwame was fired not because he wasn't competent, but because he didn't fire Omarrosa, one of his employees. There's a lesson to be learned there.)
I also am pretty sure it does not help the morale of soldiers to know that a huge chunk of this country has fallen into the trap of partisan politics and thinks they are all of that kind of people, that would do these things.
i personally like to believe that people are good and make the right decisions.
You can believe what you want.
Naples, I hope you really truly believe that. I mean for ALL people. The world isn't made up of "good guys" and "bad guys". And that's why the perpetrators of these crimes (war crimes, as Bush said a while back when asked about the treatment of prisoners. I wish I had a link...) deserve the outrage they're seeing. People's belief in the US of Benevolent Action has been shaken. I'm not sure there's anyway to regain the world's trust any time soon.
Originally posted by torifile
How far up should it go? Let's assume, for the sake of argument, that all 6 of the accused soldiers are found guilty. Does it stop there or should it continue up the chain of command to Wolfowitz? To Rumsfeld? To Bush? I'm willing to entertain the notion that the soldiers aren't wholly responsible for their actions.
Of course the whole chain is responsible in a variety of ways. Naples can't understand in what way each is responsible because he doesn't know what each one does.
For example, the line of responsibility goes straight through military intelligence, meaning Boykin, Mr Mission From God himself.
This thread is open for business again. Those who continue the poor form in here will be dealt with on an individual level, meaning lockouts from the AO forum for a period of time.
The topic is an important one, and people who can't behave like adults won't be allowed to ruin it for the rest of us. Please ignore the more obnoxious comments posted before this point, and consider it a fresh start.
What strikes me most about this is the sexual character of the abuses. Why is that?
Originally posted by New
Thanks. It's an important topic.
What strikes me most about this is the sexual character of the abuses. Why is that?
I think it has to do with Arab culture.. where homesexuality is considered even a bigger taboo as in the western world.
For instance here in the netherlands was a big row about a book that was sold in Mosques. It said that it was considerd a good deed to kill homosexuals.... it also said how it had to be done..
"Take the homosexual person to a large building, go to the top floor and throw the person of the building... head first"
Originally posted by New
Thanks. It's an important topic.
What strikes me most about this is the sexual character of the abuses. Why is that?
Yeah, that's the most disturbing part.
To almost anyone who grew up in a non-native environment, clothing protects personal intimacy. It is the division between self and the rest of the world. Stripping someone and ordering him to stand naked in front of clothed people deeply unsettles his mental balance, since he has no means of keeping up this protection (look at some of the pictures to see the men putting their hands over the genitals). It is meant as a degradation and it obviously works.
It is known that experienced tortures nearly always expose their victims to drive the point home that they are deprived of any protection - this can be traced back from south american dictatorships to witch hunts.
The next (and last) personal boundary is being able to decide who penetrates our body. Raping humans (no matter if with penises, hands, broomsticks or chemical lights) is a proven means to crush their will - pimps rape their whores to make them docile, violent husbands rape wifes to keep them humble. The one who is sexually "taken" is "owned" by the aggressor.
Obviously the guards knew about those mechanisms and used them without restraint or mercy. This points to deeply-ingrained (racial?) hatred towards their victims combined with insecurity. They don't know if they are welcome in Iraq, they see ambushes, demonstrations, hate, they feel unsure about themselves and the roles they play. To reassert themselves, they win power over the Iraqis at hand by reducing them. This is where the hoods come in handy too - a hooded person has no face and who has no face has a lot less abilities to express emotions.
Sexual abuse (or sexualized torture) by female guards is not completely new, but I fail to remember any case where it was so blatant and wide-spread. This leads me to believe that the female soldiers felt they had a bone to pick with what they see as a macho culture (not completely unfounded). They know that they are not regarded as equal to their male comrades and this presumably led to overcompensation.
also, for a "weak" woman to do this to a muslim man is very degrading in his eyes...this is why they do this to groups of men at a time or in front of other muslim men...a white, likely christian, woman doing these acts to a single muslim man in a cell would likely make him angry and deviant...a white, christian woman doing this to a muslim man or men in front of other muslim men would make him feel weak and helpless and shamed....
they knew their victims so well this way...possibly too well as they added the act of photographing them to further the humiliation...and i bet they wish they didn't do that now...
what is strange is that they know so well what harms these muslim people, but they have little clue what to do to make them like us or work with us...
i mean, who didn't see that once saddam was removed that the people of iraq would want us gone the next day?
g
Originally posted by thegelding
what is strange is that they know so well what harms these muslim people, but they have little clue what to do to make them like us or work with us...
g
indeed, This is a common thread that has popped up a lot, in this instance, in the war in general, and in many different aspects of life.
and basically what it boils down to is that, it's a lot easier to make a mess than it is to clean it up.
To be hated, you only need to do one heinous act, but to be loved you have to be nice all the time. And reversing damaged done is an incredibly difficult process.
Of course I'm sure there are exceptions, this isn't a rule or anything.
Originally posted by New
Thanks. It's an important topic.
What strikes me most about this is the sexual character of the abuses. Why is that?
Coming from a middle eastern background, I could only imagine the reaction these images got over there. I can see my dad cursing the US for this indignity. I thought it was the worst that could happen.... But then I read there may be a photo of an Iraqi woman being raped by a soldier. THAT would be the worst thing that could happen. I can't imagine the reaction that type of photo would get.
Muslim men value their honor greatly but value the honor of their women even more.
Originally posted by thegelding
what is strange is that they know so well what harms these muslim people, but they have little clue what to do to make them like us or work with us...
Another interesting motive is the dog thing. AFAIK dogs are considered impure by muslims (like pigs, only less). Degrading muslim men symbolically to being a dog (the infamous Lynndie England leash photo) or having Germand Shepherds attack prisoners should add insult to injury to a muslim much more than a christian (any muslim here care to comment ?).
I don't know if this was just diabolical instinct or cross-cultural training put to bad use...
Anyhow, I think we (as we in "all westeners") can stop worrying about pacifying the NE and/or bringing democracy there for some years - I doubt a lot of people are going to believe the talk about human rights and universal moral principles now.
I wonder what is going to happen to the victims. Will they receive psychological counceling on behalf of the US or will they receive just some money to appease the western press. Will Bremer or some higher-ranking official have the guts to confront them and shake their hands?
Originally posted by Smircle
Another interesting motive is the dog thing. AFAIK dogs are considered impure by muslims (like pigs, only less). Degrading muslim men symbolically to being a dog (the infamous Lynndie England leash photo) or having Germand Shepherds attack prisoners should add insult to injury to a muslim much more than a christian (any muslim here care to comment ?).
You hit the nail on the head. There's nothing more to it, really. They believe dogs to be impure. I don't know where it comes from except that there's a saying of the prophet that says if there has been a dog in an area, you can't pray there until it is cleaned.
I wonder what is going to happen to the victims. Will they receive psychological counceling on behalf of the US or will they receive just some money to appease the western press. Will Bremer or some higher-ranking official have the guts to confront them and shake their hands?
Middle eastern men don't do therapy.
I watch this outrage that everyone seems to have about the treatment of these prisoners I have to say and I'm probably not the only one up at this table that is more outraged by the outrage than we are by the treatment.
He's more outraged at being critical of torture than of torture itself. Huh. He then went on to say essentially "yeah but Saddam was even worse!" and then had this to say:
I am also outraged that we have so many humanitarian do-gooders right now crawling all over these prisons, looking for human rights violations while our troops, our heroes, are fighting and dying.
I saw Senator McCain, who was sitting next to him, get up and walk out. Maybe he had to use the bathroom or something, but it was interesting that he got up and left right at that time.
Someone should catalog conservatives' responses to this. Another example, Limbaugh has said:
I'm talking about people having a good time, these people, you ever heard of emotional release? You heard of need to blow some steam off?
Wow. The MPs were just trying to have some fun, and here we are trying to ruin their good times. Who would've known that Limbaugh's idea of a good time was to torture people.
Originally posted by segovius
Also, I would argue that homosexuality is less of a taboo in the Islamic/Arab world. One only has to read the first few pages of the 1001 Nights or research the exploits of Isherwood, Laurence etc in the hinterlands of Morocco and Arabia to glimpse the real Arab view on this matter.
Prejudice, where it does occur, is reserved for the passive partner in homosexual acts. In fact there are no different words for gay men in Arabic (excluding slang) but there are two words for the sexual activity as a whole which are generally applied - one, for the person on the receiving end (so to speak) is always perjorative (this is the insult that nearest approximates to 'gay' or 'queer' when used as a term of abuse in the west), the other is for the active partner and is 'heroic' in meaning regardless again of gender. Although this is still an unenlightened attitude, one might reasonably argue that it is less so than in the west where homosexuality is 'taboo' (where it is taboo) in both instances.
I'm sorry, but you couldn't be more wrong. Many middle eastern parents would rather have their children die than be gay. I'm serious.
As for the Arabian Nights thing - they were just stories and that culture is long since gone.
Now -- oh, one other thing. All the idea about these pictures. I would suggest to you any pictures -- and I think maybe we should get direction from this committee, Mr. Chairman, that if pictures are authorized to be disseminated among the public, that for every picture of abuse or alleged abuse of prisoners, we have pictures of mass graves, pictures of children being executed, pictures of the four Americans in Baghdad that were burned and their bodies were mutilated and dismembered in public. Let's get the whole picture.
They did worse, so it's ok we do bad too. Sickening. Really.
All that saying that they weren't properly trained... is a BS.
They were PROPERLY trained, oh they were....
Originally posted by torifile
From BRussell's link above:
They did worse, so it's ok we do bad too. Sickening. Really.
It is sickening. People are trying to justify this in response to the outrage because it has reflected poorly on the Bush Administration... but there really is no defending this.
Originally posted by segovius
With respect, his doesn't make sense. The question was about why the US troops abuse manifested in a sexual way - if this has to do with Arab culture, are you saying that the abuse was consciously sexual because the troops new of this (alleged) attitude of the Arabs ?
That's certainly one theory, and I think it's probably why New brought it up. Remember, the allegation here is that MPs were brought into the interrogation process when they shouldn't have been. They were softening up the prisoners. One theory is that the military intelligence officers performing the interrogations knew enough about Arab culture to know that this would be a pretty severe form of torture, and so, at least in their view, it would help them with the interrogation. It also could be the reason women were involved in the torture, and why they were taking pictures - both would increase the humiliation.
It could be that these MPs were totally acting on their own and came up with this just to have some fun, as Limbaugh would say. They were taking pictures just for souvenirs. I personally doubt it, but who knows.