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This is an example how technology has changes perceptions. I am sure much worse things have happened in past wars - there just was not an easy mechanism to get the photos out. Now with digital cameras and the net information cannot be held back.
The Pentagon should have understood this and have been prepaired.
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Yeh, look how long they were able to keep Mei Lei covered up.... maybe they learned a lesson, but then again it is a political year..... which changes everything :-)
In the old days the military had control of cameras since it was all film based. I am sure tons of film was confiscated during WWII, Korea, Vietnam, etc....
It is amazing how stupid people are. Who in their right minds would POSE with photos like that?? Did they not think it would eventually get out? Hard to explain photos like that. Photshopped is not going to be a valid defense.
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The early 90's also brought "hazing" in the military to light, thanks to pportable handycams that never used to be so common.
Once again our Airborne guys paid the price for some seriously disturbing hazing incidents, and then a lot of USMC videos started making their way to local TV News stations.
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It is a shame that it happened. I agree it is probably more common than anyone thought. I think they should make examples of the people in the photos though. If your stupid enough to take pictures that you know will someday come out then you should be prepared to pay a high price.
Good sense tells us that if you want to get information from someone you will be using unpleasant methods. Proof that those methods where used is inexcusable.
War sucks. Interrogation methods probably REALLY suck. Photographic examples of the horrors of war is disturbing but its war. Photographic examples of the methods of interrogation in this case show crimes.
The soldiers in the photos should get the book thrown at them for being amazing stupid if nothing else.
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These people are living in 'an unreal world - where thay are exposed to death and suffering almost every day. I am sure they got caught up in something that is not imanginable to us. It sort of reminds me of the old AdultDex where once someone started pushing the envelope - everyone else tried to get one upmanship - like it was 'the thing to do. [i] - and was applauded by their peers.
Originally posted by Sharpie@May 10 2004, 01:08 PM These people are living in 'an unreal world - where thay are exposed to death and suffering almost every day. I am sure they got caught up in something that is not imanginable to us. It sort of reminds me of the old AdultDex where once someone started pushing the envelope - everyone else tried to get one upmanship - like it was 'the thing to do. [i] - and was applauded by their peers.
Exactly.
Bishop, I honestly have no idea how I would react in that situation nor do I ever want to find out.
I have some oceanfront property in Arizona available very cheap to anyone who thinks all of this is strictly due to the actions of a few rouge reservists who "lost their heads" because of poor training or reserve status.
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Originally posted by Colin@May 10 2004, 12:45 PM PD,
I have been interested in your opinion regarding this. Tell us more?
I will sum up PD's stance:
It's W's fault!
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Peaches, I think you are probably closest to the truth, and the problems involved run fairly far up the chain of command (although not to W, I don't think!).
Reservists shouldn't be in the positions they are in. There appears to be a failure to properly monitor and control reservist units in the field, and they are being faced with things they never expected to see in their lives. Their reactions are not "normal", but certain incidents are not out of the realm of possiblity.
Where the chain of command fails is that someone higher than "grunt" seemed to think this was okay, and signed off on this time of mental "warfare" (peeing on naked prisoners is torture, no two ways about it). It is certain without a doubt that people up the chain of command were aware of what was going on and decided to either let it slide or encouraged it as a way to "break" the prisoners.
Alas, there is a second side to this situation, and one side should not get confused with the other:
part 2 is "who in the whitehouse or pentagon knew about it, when did the know about it, and why wasn't anything being done until the pictures made the papers?". That isn't a question about "why did it happen", but rather "why wasn't the situation resolved earlier?".
The shame isn't just in the acts. The shame is in people not working to stop the acts from re-occuring.
Alex
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bottom line, these were grunts and grunts only do one thing: what they are told. They are told to follow orders. They aren't given the option to think, just do.
They will take a much harder fall than their superiors who if they didn't know what was going on, weren't doing their jobs.
Putting reservists in this position is like giving a newbie webmaster a complex set of scripts to automate everything..they'll just end up fucking everything up and making a bigger mess than before they started.
I do, on one hand, feel sorry for these soldiers. Sure, they were stupid to do what they did and even more stupid to take pictures, but it seems they'll get a much harsher sentence than the guys who were in charge.
Rumsfield could lose his job and still make millions writing books and hitting the lecture circuit, but these soldiers are basically going to go back to their hometowns and pump gas the rest of their lives.
Not sure about the calls for Rumsfeld's resignation over this issue. I thought it was grossly premature until I listened to his testimony before both the Senate and House Friday (gotta love C-SPAN radio on the net). After listening to his testimony I went from strongly opposed to somewhat in favor. Yes, there are legal (Courts-Martial) issues about what flows up the chain of command. There are also military regulations that require notification of "god and everybody" when any sort of incident takes place that "reflects badly on the United States" - and there is no way in hell those photos didn't fall into that category. Something doesn't smell right about his explanations and excuses. BTW, I say that based on 10 years worth of experience with military regulations, the Uniform Code of Military Justice, and the flow of information up and down the chain of command, not as a political liberal.
I think the lid is just barely off this barrel. There are similar allegations in Afghanistan, and at other prisons in Iraq. Some pictures released yesterday morning apparently show a completely new cast of characters from a completely different unit. I don't think you can accept as absolute truth the excuses offered by the accused (that military intelligence (MI) WANTED them to do these things, including the photos) or by former Iraqi detainees (that MI functionaries used the pictures as part of interrogations) - but I don't think you can completely discount them, either.
Some of the problems here are completely and inherently military - multiple chains of commands with different missions don't always "work and play well with others" - and would have occurred regardless of when or where. Other problems (questions), however, relate specifically to Iraq. This may be in fact related to the fact that the Administration didn't have a fucking plan for what to do with Iraq once they got it. It is very likely that some of the chain of command problems are derived from the fact that inadequate boots have been and continue to be on the ground to properly occupy Iraq.
This is a big deal. There are some serious systemic problems that this exposes, IMHO. I don't think this is the actions of a few malcontents and incompetents. I think there already is and will continue to be is a deliberate attempt by the Administration (you can already hear their apologists echoing these sentiments, if not just repeating what they've said verbatim) to hang a bunch of privates and non-commissioned officers and consider themselves done.
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I believe that the treatment the prisoners received is probably closer to normal than not. I'm sure senior military knew it was going on. I'm sure it has always been a part of war. These are the things I'm sure the government does on a regular basis but doesn't ever let it see the light of day. If your going to do bad things have the good sense to keep it under wraps. I know thats sounds terrible but its true.
The soldiers/reservest where probably encouraged to do these things. My problem with the situation is that they didn't have the good sense to realize that what they where doing was not only wrong but should be documented or talked about at a later date.
I'm not nieve enough to assume that this is not the way the goverment does things. I believe it is the way things are done. The ends justifies the means as long as it is kept out of the public eye.
Whatever it takes in the name of freedom. Not to say that everyone is like this but I believe that short cuts can be taken in life and that those short cuts are not always pretty. I'm sure the powers that be take short cuts on a regular basis.
This has nothing to do with the person or party holding the highest offices in the land. I don't they worry about such things until they have no choice but to deal with them.
You are given an order. You have to decide that it is an unlawful order and be prepared to defend that position all the way through a court martial or follow the order, period.
I fully believe that when all of it falls into place we will find that the soldiers were merely following orders. We will also find that soldiers were placed under command of civilians in the field. We will see soldiers at the bottom end take a fall, officers in the middle get reprimanded and officers at the top and civilian overseers walk away scot free.
The worst part of it is that it will set a precedence that will require soldiers to question their orders which sets the stage for military disasters. Winning a battle is often contingent upon knowing that when an order is given, that it is immediately obeyed. By requiring the soldier to evaluate the order first and based upon their understanding of the lawfullness of the order to obey it or disobey it only invites chaos.
Military newspaper blames Rumsfeld, Myers for "professional negligence"
Mon May 10,11:00 AM ET
WASHINGTON (AFP) - A leading military newspaper said that US Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld set the tone for the prisoner abuse scandal in Iraq (news - web sites) by refusing to give captives rights due prisoners of war under the Geneva Conventions.
"This was a failure that ran straight to the top," said the editorial appearing in the May 17 edition of the Military Times weeklies.
"Accountability here is essential -- even if that means relieving top leaders from duty in a time of war," it said.
Owned by Gannett, the Military Times publishes the Army, Navy and Air Force times, weeklies that are widely read by servicemembers and distributed on US military bases around the world.
The editorial said the soldiers caught in photographs and videos abusing prisoners at the Abu Ghraib prison are referred to around the Pentagon (news - web sites) as "the six morons who lost the war."
"But the folks in the Pentagon are talking about the wrong morons," it said.
Responsibility, it said, "extends all the way up the chain of command to the highest reaches of the military hierarchy and its civilian leadership."
"The entire affair is a failure of leadership from start to finish," it said.
"Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld set the tone early in this war by steadfastly refusing to give captives the rights accorded to prisoners of war under the Geneva Convention," it said.
"From the moment they are captured, prisoners are hooded, shackled and accorded no rights whatsoever. The message to the troops: Anything goes."
The editorial also faults General Richard Myers, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, for trying to persuade CBS television to refrain from airing the images while failing to read the army's own damning internal report detailing the abuses.
"On the battlefield, Myers' and Rumsfelds' errors would be called a lack of situational awareness -- a failure that amounts to professional negligence," it said.
Geneva Convention relative to the Treatment of Prisoners of War
Adopted on 12 August 1949 by the Diplomatic Conference for the Establishment of
International Conventions for the Protection of Victims of War, held in Geneva
from 21 April to 12 August, 1949
entry into force 21 October 1950
PART I
GENERAL PROVISIONS
Article 3 .........
1..........................
To this end the following acts are and shall remain prohibited at any time and in any place whatsoever with respect to the above-mentioned persons:
(a) Violence to life and person, in particular murder of all kinds, mutilation, cruel treatment and torture;
(d) The passing of sentences and the carrying out of executions without previous judgment pronounced by a regularly constituted court affording all the judicial guarantees which are recognized as indispensable by civilized peoples.
.................................................
PART II
GENERAL PROTECTION OF PRISONERS OF WAR
...............................................
Article 13
Prisoners of war must at all times be humanely treated. Any unlawful act or omission by the Detaining Power causing death or seriously endangering the health of a prisoner of war in its custody is prohibited, and will be regarded as a serious breach of the present Convention. In particular, no prisoner of war may be subjected to physical mutilation or to medical or scientific experiments of any kind which are not justified by the medical, dental or hospital treatment of the prisoner concerned and carried out in his interest.
Likewise, prisoners of war must at all times be protected, particularly against acts of violence or intimidation and against insults and public curiosity.
Measures of reprisal against prisoners of war are prohibited.
Article 14
Prisoners of war are entitled in all circumstances to respect for their persons and their honour. Women shall be treated with all the regard due to their sex and shall in all cases benefit by treatment as favourable as that granted to men. Prisoners of war shall retain the full civil capacity which they enjoyed at the time of their capture. The Detaining Power may not restrict the exercise, either within or without its own territory, of the rights such capacity confers except in so far as the captivity requires.
...............................................
PART III
CAPTIVITY
SECTION I
BEGINNING OF CAPTIVITY
Article 17
Every prisoner of war, when questioned on the subject, is bound to give only his surname, first names and rank, date of birth, and army, regimental, personal or serial number, or failing this, equivalent information. If he wilfully infringes this rule, he may render himself liable to a restriction of the privileges accorded to his rank or status.
............................................
No physical or mental torture, nor any other form of coercion, may be inflicted on prisoners of war to secure from them information of any kind whatever. Prisoners of war who refuse to answer may not be threatened, insulted, or exposed to any unpleasant or disadvantageous treatment of any kind.
Originally posted by sarettah@May 10 2004, 03:13 PM Prisoners of war who refuse to answer may not be threatened, insulted, or exposed to any unpleasant or disadvantageous treatment of any kind.
I know it says it.. but we all know that isn't the way it is.
"Tell me or I'll hurt you" <-- against the rules
"Your ugly and your momma dresses you funny"<-- against the rules
"Tell me or the kitten gets it"<-- against the rules
i don't find it too surprising some people took photos like that. and of course they aren't going to wait for 5 years to show em to their friends.
no big surprise, too bad they really fucked things up with the muslims. anyway last i heard worse things have happened in that prison under saddams rule.
now we kinda have to give em a stiff sentence for publicity reasons.
Last year's US-led war in Iraq presented a showcase for the Pentagon's superior military technology - but as the occupation drags on, gadgetry is increasingly showing another side of the American armed forces.
When the shocking images depicting the abuse of Iraqi prisoners by US troops began to surface, it became clear that many of them were amateur pictures, apparently taken by soldiers using their own private digital cameras.
The internet also played a role in the distribution of the photographs, highlighting the ease with which troops serving in Iraq can now send pictures to friends and relatives back home.
Many of these are quite innocuous, the equivalent of the snaps taken by tourists abroad. But whatever the content, the images are not subject to any kind of military censorship and are transmitted freely back to the US.
In his testimony to congressional committees, Defence Secretary Donald Rumsfeld indicated that the flood of pictures was now beyond the US authorities' control.
"There are a lot more photographs and videos that exist," he said. "If these are released to the public, obviously it is going to make matters worse... I looked at them last night and they are hard to believe."
Unapproved footage
Mr Rumsfeld was indignant at the publication of such images: "We're functioning with peacetime constraints, with legal requirements, in a wartime situation in the Information Age, where people are running around with digital cameras and taking these unbelievable photographs and then passing them off, against the law, to the media, to our surprise."
However, he admitted that he had not realised the seriousness of the allegations until the pictures were leaked to the media.
The internet has been acting as an unofficial clearing-house for all sorts of unapproved images of conflict in Iraq.
The Pentagon wanted to ban the pictures to protect soldiers' families
Photographs of the coffins of dead American soldiers repatriated from Iraq were published on the web, but only after activists successfully filed a Freedom of Information Act request to overcome the Pentagon's objections.
And at least one website is showing a video report containing footage apparently shot from the cockpit of a US military helicopter and showing the killing of a wounded insurgent in cold blood.
The film is said to have come from a European working as a sub-contractor for the US Army who left Iraq last month.
Despite Mr Rumsfeld's concerns, the American military does not have any centrally determined policy on the use of digital cameras by soldiers. That is left to commanding officers in the field.
In the old days, letters got censored... Now it's different
A spokesman for US Central Command in Iraq, Lt Cdr Nick Balice, told BBC News Online: "Certainly the use of digital cameras and the internet provides methods of communicating that did not exist prior.
"As far as I know, there is not a policy that covers theatre-wide with regards to digital cameras. It depends on what area they are in - there may be restrictions, such as along flight lines or within secure areas."
Internet links
BBC Defence Correspondent Jonathan Marcus points out that frontline soldiers in combat zones are normally too busy to take pictures and that this is more of an issue for what are called "rear area support troops".
"The US military have reasonably sophisticated camps for their troops," he says.
"In those places, they're often linked to the internet and it's a legitimate means of allowing soldiers to communicate with their families. It's hard to control the content of what they're saying."
Jonathan Marcus argues that social change, just as much as technological change, is responsible for the climate that allows these images of abuse to circulate.
"In World War I, the only means of communication was by letter, and military mail was heavily censored. Even when soldiers returned home, social pressures probably led them not to talk at length about the issues they faced.
"Now it's different - you have a professional army and people have a different attitude to authority."
In a less deferential society, today's soldiers would be unlikely to tolerate the level of censorship that was considered routine in previous conflicts.
But of course, the real issue is not the depiction of the abuse, but the fact that it should have happened at all.
"Certainly one of the issues that might be looked into is the use of digital cameras and whether or not any policy might be desirable," says US Central Command's Lt Cdr Balice.
"But if there's some kind of thought that we might introduce a policy because we fear that wrongdoing might be exposed, then that is incorrect. In any case, the photographing of detainees is prohibited."
Ultimately, then, the only way that the coalition can prevent the spread of images depicting the abuse of Iraqi prisoners is to prevent the abuse itself.
Technology may change, but the morality of war will always pose the same dilemmas.
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The buck stops at the top, with Bush. This situation is yet another manifestation of the abject lack of preparation by the administration (as PD already pointed out). When Bush allowed a former Hussein general to take command of a legal militia and replace the marines around Fallujah, that was an absolutely incompetent decision. I wonder what the average Iraqi who was actually glad to have Hussein deposed thought when he saw us place that thug in power (over armed troops, no less)... I'm sure he thought to himself .oO (Well, I see who's going to be back in power once the Americans leave). Absolute insanity.
This war has been dicked up from the get go.
1. First Bush gave about a 1 year advance notice that we were going to go in -- sure, he went through the UN formalities, but we all knew what was coming. A full year or more for Hussein to plan and prepare -- and it's obvious he learned from the previous war.
2. Then we didn't put enough troops in country.
3. Then we allowed units to dissolve and mix back into the civilian populations during the conflict.
4. Then we allowed the Arab world to perpetuate the myth of "The Holy City" or "The Holy Place" -- what the fuck is a holy city? How can Fallujah be a holy city but not New Fucking York? And how holy a building can a mosque be if the arabs can launch an attack from it and cry "sanctuary?" If they aren't treating it as holy, why should we?
5. Then we allowed Al-Jazeera to continue spewing propaganda and covering the war from its one side -- anti-American. For instance, in all of the terrorist bombing attacks in Iraq, not ONCE did Al Jazeera show a picture of dead kids or even mention that any kids were killed (by the arab terrorists) -- yet their broadcasts and webpages are filled with every single child's death caused by the Americans. You have to shut down that kind of propaganda.
6. Now we've got an overabundance of untrained reservists and national guardspeople, including way too many females, pulling important assignments.
My only argument against this war before it was launched was my concern that strategy, objectives, and means would be dictated by politicians and political generals instead of warriors, and that such a situation, just as in Vietnam, would be the worse case scenario; unfortunately, it has to come to pass.
Now there is no possible exit strategy which will guarantee our objectives -- some are better than others and still have an outside shot, but I am not optimistic.
And throw in the fact that when the Iraqi pipelines are not being sabotagued, we're discovering that the wells have been dicked up to an incredible extent, just as in the former USSR, and that there's massive water seepage i.e. we overestimated Iraqi production capacities.
Originally posted by PornoDoggy@May 10 2004, 12:38 PM I have some oceanfront property in Arizona available very cheap to anyone who thinks all of this is strictly due to the actions of a few rouge reservists who "lost their heads" because of poor training or reserve status.
No shit. Sad part is I could see a majority of the country actually believeing that line of BS.
Originally posted by Evil Chris@May 10 2004, 08:17 AM The early 90's also brought "hazing" in the military to light, thanks to pportable handycams that never used to be so common.
Once again our Airborne guys paid the price for some seriously disturbing hazing incidents, and then a lot of USMC videos started making their way to local TV News stations.
Your right of course Chris that the 'handicam' definitely changed some perceptions about hazing in the military.
However, having acknowledged that, I will go on to say that I remember very clearly when the USMC tapes hit local stations. I was in VA Beach VA having recently been discharged from the Corps when that stuff came out and I was SHOCKED and a little bit OFFENDED.........not at the jarheads, but at the news reporters.
I can't speak for any other branch of the military, but my experiences in the USMC and hazing came down to this.
You were hazed as a way of being initiated into a separate group of the Marines. Not every shaved head bright eyed boy got to
let me repeat that got to be hazed. It ranged from mild (pinning on ones blood stripes when you became an NCO) to mildly extreme (think jump wings/scuba mask 'pinned on' with the use of a helmet and a squad of guys doing the 'pinning') I was fortunate enough to have gone through the NCO and Jump Wings hazing. I also went through a few other things which might have made one or two people squeamish. But the end result was a very tight bond with my brothers in uniform owing to the fact that every member of the group went through the same thing.
I am sure it has softened somewhat, but I personally feel that hazing (within limits) should be encouraged
Pornodoggy: there is no shame in agreeing with Buff on this one, there is enough there for us all to agree.
What Buff posted is what I would think of as the "swing" voters finally figuring out that Bush fucked it up. Not intentionally, not planned, but that in the end, a lack of foresight and effectively military strategy has left the US and it's allies on the ground open to reprisals and setup for failure from the word go. The high point was the day that they took bahgdad, it has really been all downhill since.
Buff's opinion as expressed probably matches that of many of the people who were pro war a year or even six months ago, and have seen the bodies pile up and the inaction and excuses stacking up next to them. Without major change, this war (but it's not a war, its a liberation... you will be free, and we will force you to be free) will be Bush's major undoing in the polls.
Alex
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Originally posted by RawAlex@May 11 2004, 10:01 AM Pornodoggy: there is no shame in agreeing with Buff on this one, there is enough there for us all to agree.
What Buff posted is what I would think of as the "swing" voters finally figuring out that Bush fucked it up. Not intentionally, not planned, but that in the end, a lack of foresight and effectively military strategy has left the US and it's allies on the ground open to reprisals and setup for failure from the word go. The high point was the day that they took bahgdad, it has really been all downhill since.
Buff's opinion as expressed probably matches that of many of the people who were pro war a year or even six months ago, and have seen the bodies pile up and the inaction and excuses stacking up next to them. Without major change, this war (but it's not a war, its a liberation... you will be free, and we will force you to be free) will be Bush's major undoing in the polls.
Alex
Bodies pile up? There is no pile up of bodies. We've lost about 1000 soldiers. That's an unbelievably low casualty rate for a war, even more so considering it's an urban environment.
What I am lamenting is the lack of will to go for the kill and crush the insurgents without mercy -- to achieve victory by brutalizing those animals. 1000 deaths? That's less than 1/6 of the American body count of the Battle of Iwo Jima -- the battle for 1 island in the Pacific theatre of WWII.
Originally posted by RawAlex@May 11 2004, 10:01 AM Pornodoggy: there is no shame in agreeing with Buff on this one, there is enough there for us all to agree.
What Buff posted is what I would think of as the "swing" voters finally figuring out that Bush fucked it up. Not intentionally, not planned, but that in the end, a lack of foresight and effectively military strategy has left the US and it's allies on the ground open to reprisals and setup for failure from the word go. The high point was the day that they took bahgdad, it has really been all downhill since.
Buff's opinion as expressed probably matches that of many of the people who were pro war a year or even six months ago, and have seen the bodies pile up and the inaction and excuses stacking up next to them. Without major change, this war (but it's not a war, its a liberation... you will be free, and we will force you to be free) will be Bush's major undoing in the polls.
Alex
Bodies pile up? There is no pile up of bodies. We've lost about 1000 soldiers. That's an unbelievably low casualty rate for a war, even more so considering it's an urban environment.
What I am lamenting is the lack of will to go for the kill and crush the insurgents without mercy -- to achieve victory by brutalizing those animals. 1000 deaths? That's less than 1/6 of the American body count of the Battle of Iwo Jima -- the battle for 1 island in the Pacific theatre of WWII.
05-10-2004
Taking of hostages; 
Linear Mode
