Iraqi Prisoners

Off Topic
1

Is it just me or was anybody else disgusted with the reports of mistreatment of Iraqi prisoners. I thought we were supposedly “better” that the enemy. While I realize this is just a handful of soldiers, and does not reflect the entire U.S. Army, it is disturbing. When this all hits the arab news stations it will just be adding fuel to an already raging fire. How are these 6 or 7 soldiers going to feel knowing that they are indirectly responsible for the deaths of even more of our men and women serving in Iraq? Their actions are only reinforcing beliefs that we are there for no good.

I find it even more disturbing that the one soldier who spoke out said it was because he wasn’t given a set of rules as to how to treat prisoners. I think common sense would prevail here. Would that treatment make you uncomfortable? Hell yes!!! Then, why inflict it on another human being. IF the roles were reversed, I bet he would be praying that his captors upheld the rules of the Geneva Convention.

That being said, I do not sympathise with anyone that would strap a bomb to themselves and blow up innocent civilians. I also understand that Iraqis may not be treating our prisoners in accordance to the rules of war. But, again I thought we were the better people.

With the increase in insurgency, what we really don’t need is to give the people that aren’t participating in the uprising, a reason to.

That’s my rant.

2

“IF the roles were reversed, I bet he would be praying that his captors upheld the rules of the Geneva Convention”
The Iraqi people have not nor will they ever go by the rules of the Geneva Convention…The U.S. and it’s close allies are the only ones in the whole world who even go by the rules even half way…
Before you start being critical of someones spontanious actions you need to know the whole story, which you will never get…

3

Yes, this is totally shameful. And now al-Jizeera doesn’t even have to spread lies!

For me, one weird thing about this court martial and the one in Guantanamo is that female soldiers were very involved in perpetrating this cruelty. In Guantanamo, the female CO orchestrated the beating up of a couple detainees.

4

redmeanie,

The only thing I was being critical of is that we march under the banner of being the “better people”. I am certain any of our men and women being held captive are not being treated under these guidelines. Also, the actions of a few don’t mean the military as a whole is terrible but it does give more ammo to arab telivision to say that it is.

5

Well I have always been a supporter of the war and still feel it was justified, however, I was sickened by the pictures I saw of the treatment of Iraqi prisoners.

How are we in the west meant to bring democracy and nation building to the middle east when the discipline in the military (in this instance) totally collapsed.

Actions like those carried out by the ‘guards’ in the pictures are totally disgusting. Those morons should be secure in the knowledge that any sense of superiority the ‘civilised’ west once had looks decidedly suspect.

Arabs need no excuse to hate America, as they always have, but now all the bleeding heart liberals will have yet another stick to beat people with.

6

I say tea bag the prisoners and take pics haha

I think they should have swept this one under the carpet. They could have prosacuted them without further endangering fellow troops. Ya also gotta remember some of these guys have lost touch with reality. The marines in Falujah are on their second tour there. I know alot of guys from my old unit and guys on the fire dept coming back are kinda messed up. Nothing obvious. One guy gets a headache if he plays a James Bond video game too long. I just heard about an SF guy that came back and has some medication that made him flip and they ended up locking him in jail.

It’s a messed up place, messed up stuff is going to happen.

Nathan

7

We will always be held to a higher standard. The role that we have chosen to play in the world demands that.

Me Solomon Grundy

8

“I say tea bag the prisoners and take pics haha”

classic!

yes its technically wrong to mis-treat soldiers but i dont really give a shit. the m-fers were at one point trying to kill you, and would if they had the chance.

in the midst of a war it is not easy to treat the enemy with respect, when you have seen your buddies get blown to shreads at the hands of these rebels.

its a freaken war, not a tupperware party!

9

“But again I thought we were the better people”

-What makes you say this? The rhetoric of your leaders? The Iraqis think they are the better people and Americans are evil. Who’s right, who’s wrong? One thing I can be sure of, the American networks probably aren’t anymore innocent at spreading rhetoric than the Aljazeera/foreign networks. It’s this “better than everyone else” attitude that gets Americans in trouble.

10

What makes us say that we are better people is that fact that these people cheered and took photographs when four of our citizens were mutilated, burned and hung from a bridge. These people cheered in the streets on 9/11 and reveled in the death of 2,000 Americans. That’s where the difference is. What happened here is an isolated incident that is not supported by most Americans. Whereas the incidents I’m referring to had many participants and would not be considered an aberration.

11

Good post supsayian…PDog and flashpoint! This is old Army news.
Nuff said…

12

This is an isolated incident that isn’t the business of the general public.

However,
The treatment of prisoners should be clearly defined and those regulations should be followed. Had those troops been given orders not to do the things they did before hand 9 times out of ten those things wouldn’t have happened.

But you know what guys and girls,

Fuck that.

Why isn’t anyone else outraged by the treatment of American prisoners who were fucking decapitated and left burning over a bridge? Who holds a candle for them?

Not ANY of you…

Our bretheren, our blood, was displayed on al Jazeera and nobody says a peep. Some piece of shit motherfucking god-damned terrorist gets a little humiliated and this forum lights up like “love song” being played at a Tesla concert.

Fuck that motherfucker.

Should our guys get captured, they’re guaranteed to get buttfucked with a blunt object, electrocuted, whipped, beaten about the face, pissed on, shit on, starved, then shown on TV to embarrass the US.

But we’re supposed to be “better…” Fuck that.

We ARE better, if we were worse we would have Slit Husseins throat on CNN.

You know how we won the Revolutionary War against England? By being sneaky little bastards and playing dirty pool. Using tactics considered to be “unethical” by the Redcoats bought us our freedom to begin with.

Truth is, our guys probably got a little extra intel out of those sessions and ended up SAVING AMERICAN AND ALLIED LIVES…

If there weren’t terrorists consistently trying to threaten our way of life we wouldn’t have to take them prisoner, would we? And all those guards looking after these prisoners wouldn’t be put in a position to make a bad decision.

Has anyone here ever made a bad decision in a situation they weren’t comfortable with? Has anyone here ever fucked up real bad because they were caught up in the moment?

Thats what happened to our soldiers. Will it happen again? Maybe. Are there steps being taken to make sure this won’t happen again? Absolutely.

Leave this issue alone, it’s isolated, adn going to be handled in the proper channels. Corrections will be made to ensure it doesn’t happen again.

B.

13

The difference between us and less-civilized societies is that the perpatrators will face severe penalties.

14

Unfortunately we went in with an ethical mission, so conducting it ‘unethically’ hurts the credibility of the mission a lot. I don’t know why this should get more publicity than Iraqis using women and children as human shields (a la Blackhawk Down), but it does, and soldiers all over the country will be assumed to be monsters cause of those 6 guys, which is the real problem.

I’d like to think that if I were over there, I’d at least be smart enough to NOT TAKE PICTURES OF MY FRIENDS COMMITING (what some people consider) HUMAN RIGHTS VIOLATIONS.

15

“Our bretheren, our blood, was displayed on al Jazeera and nobody says a peep.”

Actually, Al Jazeera refused to show the more brutal images from Falluja and others such as the execution of the Italian hostages.

16

Imagine that you are an American soldier who has been watching his buddies and fellow soldiers die for quite some time now. That gets pretty frustrating as you can imagine. Now imagine that you just captured some of these assholes that has been cowardly planting roadside bombs and killing innocent civillians as well. Are you saying that you would be courteous to them? Never mind, I really can’t expect you to answer that. You’ve never been in that situation. RLTW

rangertab75

17

FUCK THAT! When American soldiers were captured in Afghanistan and shown on TV the American governement cried for the Geneva convention! Then again I don’t hear anyone saying the same thing about Iraqi prisoners or Taliban held in Guantanamo. I smell an awful lot of double standards. A man stands behind what he truly believes in all the time not in what the heat of the moment dictates.

Peace.
k.

18

People are outraged by the treatment of American (and other) prisoners. However, I disagree with the “this is war” mentality so who cares.

19

Hey, i don’t dispute that those guys probably deserved what they got,

BUT

In this climate where the media tell the public what to think, you cannot afford to play into the hands of the Islamic fundamentalists and the liberal news agencies.

Just as the media chose to misrepresent the goings on in Vietnam and pretend it was a failure, they are doing the same thing in Iraq. The media LOVE death and destruction and torture and violence, they thrive on it, they don’t have a moral view, they just like to stir up trouble.

So we sure as hell can’t afford to be seen to be the evil b*stards they all like to pretend we are. The idiot in charge of those guards should have had enough common sense to realise that it might slightly inflame the Arabs.

20

The media doesn’t necessarily like blood, gore, violence and crimes commited to our fellow man.

The public does.

This isn’t a new thing, heck there were hundreds ciivillian spectators at the battles of Bull Run and Shiloh way back at the beginning of the Civil War. Only when it got too dangerous for it to be a family outing did the general public rely on the papers for the blow by blow.

The media is just covering “the story” and if embelishing the story sells a few more papers or buys more lucrative support from advertisers than so-be-it.

It’s what the public wants afterall.