More Torture Pictures

Off Topic Politics and World Issues
61

As I said, John McCain said he’d prefer getting beaten, over psychological torture, any day of the week. Psychological torture is more permanent and more damaging.

Read a book. Here’s one:
?A Question of Torture?

Or just read about torture from any source that you want. You can’t find a defense for torture. The way to combat terrorism is not to sink lower than they are. You’d just be letting terrorists destroy our values that way.

Torture is un-American. Period.

Locking people up in isolation for years without bringing any charges, just based on the word of the federal government, is un-American.

62

Pentagon reveals Guantanamo names

The US defence department has released the names and nationalities of some of the inmates detained at its Guantanamo Bay prison in Cuba.

FYI

Makkun

63

I know, every one is more interested in the real issues like gay cowboys and whose religion is the best - but I think this is an important issue, so I’ll keep posting interesting links and comments regarding the issue of detentions without external control and the abuse that comes with it.

Amnesty attacks ‘dire’ Iraq abuse

Thousands of detainees held in Iraq are still being denied basic human rights with reports of torture rife, Amnesty International has said.

[…] More than 200 detainees have been imprisoned for more than two years and nearly 4,000 for longer than a year, it reports.

“To hold this huge number of people without basic legal safeguards is a gross dereliction of responsibility on the part of both the US and UK forces,” said Amnesty UK director, Kate Allen.

Iraq’s acting human rights minister Nermeen Othman told the BBC the interior ministry had admitted abuses have been widespread.

"We know that there is abuse, there is violation, there is torturing… in reports we have said that is true.

“What we are doing now is to have two high committees in the government to try to prevent this sort of abuse and violation,” she said.[…]

‘14,000 detained without trial in Iraq’

Mike McDonough
Monday March 6, 2006

US and UK forces in Iraq have detained thousands of people without charge or trial for long periods and there is growing evidence of Iraqi security forces torturing detainees, Amnesty International said today.

[…]“It is a dangerous precedent for the world that the US and UK think it completely defensible to hold thousands of people without charge or trial,” Amnesty spokesman Neil Durkin said.

The detainee situation in Iraq was comparable to Guantanamo Bay, he added, but on a much larger scale, and the detentions appeared to be “arbitrary and indefinite”.

“It sends a very worrying message to the people of Iraq that the multinational force does not think normal human rights standards apply,” he said.

Amnesty said there was no fresh evidence of US-led troops abusing detainees in ways similar to Abu Ghraib prison, but it warned that the US practice of denying detainees access to lawyers or visits by relatives for their first 60 days in custody left the door open to mistreatment.

“The worry is that people will suffer abuse during that period and it is less likely to be checked if there is no form of external oversight,” Mr Durkin said.

The Amnesty report also claimed Iraqi security forces were systematically violating the rights of detainees.[…]

Makkun

64

[quote]danmaftei wrote:

mazilla,

I appreciate your calling BS on the amount of media attention and hysteria about this topic (I really dislike extreme leftist hype), but I don’t agree at all with your logic. Because this isn’t the most extreme torture, it isn’t of any importance? Listen, don’t think that the only “real” torture involves physical pain, the mind can be equally abused. And don’t counter with the bulletproof “Yeah but extreme physical pain can bring psychological distress as well,” I’ve heard that too many times, it’s true, I know, it’s besides the point though. What soldiers are doing to those prisoners is torture. Maybe it doesn’t warrant this much attention and hype, but it’s still torture.

And now that I read your other two/three posts, let me stop being nice. “I’d rather take the bag anyday?” Wow… I’ll just say this one thing, and if you can’t understand that, then we’re done here. By your logic, by you repeatedly stating that what is going on is not that bad, that it’s not torture, that real torture involves decapitations and the such, then it goes to follow that you believe that it should be forgiven because it is war, and therefore you believe that if you were a soldier in Iraq and were captured, and your capturers strapped you naked to a pole and covered you in shit and sent pictures of this to your families and friends, they should be forgiven because it is a) an act of war and b) not that bad, because they COULD’VE decapitated you. Way to go.

[quote]

if i am a soldier i am fully aware of the possabilities. one of those is that of torture or death. only a fool can’t see that. it’s war. i am no war monger, but war is war. there will be death and pain. soldiers know full well the chances they take, its all part of war.

it must be nice to sit at home on your comfy couch and preach about the atrocities of war. if you are going to do so at least be realistic, you can’t make an omlette,without breaking a few eggs, and all that. at the risk of sounding redundant, the Iraqi soldiers were not treated any worse than any average military prisoners in the history of the war.

in fact i bet they have it allot better. i don’t see them on any “death march”. no beheading’s there. nobody has been drawn and quartered, nor hanged, i don’t even think they have executed anybody, have they? wow, we have been torturing them so. those poor killers, having to eat regularly, and drinking TAP water, oh god noooo. whats next, trials. why, those poor bastards.

so dan, if the choice was your’s, it would be safe to say you would rather have your head cut off than wear a bag on it? how do you get through life with such foolish pride? somehow i doubt you would pick the bag, over the sword. you just don’t seem to be that stupid, but i could be wrong. after all i did read your post

65

It’s been a while, but as I said earlier, I think this is an important issue, so here we go:

Attorney General calls for Guantanamo to close

Lord Goldsmith risks row with White House by denouncing detention centre as ‘unacceptable’

Jamie Doward and Mark Townsend
Sunday May 7, 2006
The Observer

The Attorney General, Lord Goldsmith, is set to trigger a diplomatic row between Britain and the United States by calling for Guantanamo Bay to close.

As a staunch ally in the “war on terror”, the UK is increasingly critical about how the US treats its detainees. A good example how you can (and should) be a critical friend when necessary.

Makkun

66

i think we Americans so conveniently forget about the numerous video tapes of our people that were sent over seas to rebuild and promptly had their heads severed… although the old “eye for an eye” mentality is somewhat “brutal” for the average PC shmuck these days, we must put in perspective the fact that we are not facing people who have mentalities similar to ours… every decision they make is founded on religion and nothing else, not even reason, and they will stop at nothing to let the world know that they are loyal to that fact… i think our plan of attack, if we have one at all, should be seriously revamped

67

[quote]makkun wrote:
Balle,

Balle wrote:
[…]
I don’t mean to offend anybody I’m just looking for answers nobody seems to be able to give me here so I’m turning to you.

Btw, I’m German and I find it awkward to have the historical backround attached to the country and somehow my identity. I’ve just had an history exam today and that made me think about the “business” of history and politics even more.

I would argue that these are still isolated incidents - but they show how fear can create a political climate in which abuse can develop and thrive. It is dangerous to create “exceptions” in the status of prisoners (and thus de facto creating second class prisoners). That’s the time when fuckwits crawl out of their caves and excert what little power they normally have - on to helpless people without rights. Unfortunately some posters here give a good example of that attitude, and I’m often disgusted with some of the vocabulary they use. But the mechanisms are well researched - you may want to read Zimbardo, Adorno and Zygmunt Bauman on that.

Are the detainees in Guantanamo or Abu Ghuraib all innocent? No, in fact many of them might be pretty bad people (and it would be great to see more proper court proceedings here) - but our societies (and due to its history German society is luckily among them) have agreed on a certain code of conduct, and certain inalienable rights. One of them, is to consider people innocent until proven guilty, another is to give anyone fair representation, a third is not to abuse them - Guantanamo, extraordinary renditions and manoeuvering around what constitues are only examples of how a society reacts if it struggles with these ideals. US soldiers commit these things not because they are evil, but because they think they can and should act out on behalf of a higher purpose. So even without further pictures of abuse, there is work to be done in bringing back the current US administration into the fold, as it seems to have lost its path on some of its own ideals. It is not directly, but IMO systemically responsible for those phenomena, as it has created the environment that allows this abuse to develop.

As for the abuse at hand, the US military has stomped on it so far - people have been discharged and heavily punished. But I doubt that they will be able to really end it, if the underlying cause (the dehumanisation of certain classes of prisoners) is not put aside.

Every German who has confronted his/her country’s history will be wary of this kind of exeptions to what is good and right treatment - and to any call for collective punishment of people. But again, this is the exception, and most personnel deployed in Iraq is there to help a destroyed country back on its feet. Whether they should be there in the first place is another matter.

Makkun[/quote]

I believe you need to be tortured as well…

Thank You

68

[quote]Brad61 wrote:
Unless you’ve actually experienced said psychological torture and physical torture, you don’t really have any authority on the subject. Stop pretending you do. That is to say, it’s basically just a guess which is worse, and because it’s immoral to do studies, I don’t know how you’d have any numbers to back you up.

As I said, John McCain said he’d prefer getting beaten, over psychological torture, any day of the week. Psychological torture is more permanent and more damaging.

Read a book. Here’s one:
?A Question of Torture?

Or just read about torture from any source that you want. You can’t find a defense for torture. The way to combat terrorism is not to sink lower than they are. You’d just be letting terrorists destroy our values that way.

Torture is un-American. Period.

Locking people up in isolation for years without bringing any charges, just based on the word of the federal government, is un-American. [/quote]

I think debate instead of torture…

69

JRR641,

[quote]JRR641 wrote:
[…]

I believe you need to be tortured as well…

Thank You[/quote]

Quod erat demonstrandum.

Makkun

70

In all fairness, we must admit that the torture is not limited to “ennemy combatants”.

"Friday 12 May 2006

Lawton, Okla. - The Army has shaken up a program to heal recruits injured in basic training after soldiers and their parents said troops hurt at Fort Sill were punished with physical abuse and medical neglect.

The program, which treated more than 1,100 injured soldiers last year at five posts, normally returns three-fourths of its patients to active duty, according to Army statistics. But at Fort Sill, recruits said, injuries were often subject to derision, ignored or improperly treated.

Two soldiers in the program have died since 2004, one or possibly both of accidental overdoses of prescription drugs. The latest death, in March, remains under investigation, the Army said."

So it’s not that they like to torture Arabs or something. They like to torture anybody they can. Perhaps you know some adolescent like that? There’s a great career for him in the US army. He just has to make sure he doesn’t get injured in training.

71

Lol, its funny how every other guy in the internet claims his father was in the first wave on d-day. Ive heard that at least 15 times…

[quote]steveo5801 wrote:
Great…the country that gave us Nazis is now publishing so-called atrocities about us?

You got to be kidding me!
[/quote]

Ure so ignorant that it hurts. Well, you got to be to think that Reagan was more than a willing puppet…