Top Officers in Abu Ghraib Case Cleared

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There is still much that remians to be investigated in this case. And some are not satisfied:

This is really what I was referring to in my comment. It seems to me, and to others as well, that the internal workings of the Pentagon no longer possess the credibility to keep its own house in order. Rather than hold full hearings on a case that some of us feel is a very serious issue for the US, the Green findings have an appearance of a whitewash.

I, for one, would not be so quick to trivialzie this as "minor" in its nature regarding the abuse that occured by uniformed soldiers.

A pattern is emerging in the "investigations" that are being held regarding how we are conducting our busimess on the world stage. If some of you feel that America needs to be the "big player" on the world stage, something which I have strong misgivings about, then it is important that we conduct ourselves with the utmost integrity and throughness in all matters regarding incidents involving the American military. Here's some of that pattern:

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/7604529/
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/7734657/
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/7743048/

Interesting pattern....

[ May 06, 2005, 05:12: Message edited by: Chandos the Red ]

 

I haven't had the opportunity to read through all of the comments but, if this hasnt been seen before, i believe it pertains to what is being discussed here.
Basically, the general in charge of Abu Ghraib is being disciplined, demoted to be exact.
http://news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&cid=514&e=5&u=/ap/20050505/ap_on_go_pr_wh/prisoner_abuse_army
Once again, if this has already been said i apologize, i simply do not have the time to read through all of the posts at the moment and i thought this was quite relevent.

 

The question is that those politicos who set up the policy of 'the gloves are off' and pressured the military to follow are still uninvestigated. A serious investigation of them ain't gonna happen on a GOP controlled Senate because it will bring bad press for Bush. What about the role of Douglas Feist and Stephen Cambone? Wolfowitz? Rumsfeld? What about the role of their pentagon staffers and Generals?
Nevermind, just a few bad apples, if you're daft enough to believe that.

Darkwolf, that your father in law had a tougher time in his Force Recon training is totally beside the point, Lynndie and Graner were doing this not to a volunteer but to folks randomly picked up on the streets in broad US sweeps, 80++ % of them being useless from an intelligence point of view. Lynndie and Graner were making their games with a bystanding baker, a cab driver or a whatever, not some hardcore terrorist - just the average Iraqi Joe Someone.

The other point is that the US have chosen a moralising point of view where they boast to fight for values. In can't see anything of that reflected in the dehumanising of Iraqis like in Abu Ghraib and Arabs in Gitmo. Where is respect for individual dignity and liberty in Abu Ghraib, in Guantanamo? I can't see it.

The US is in Iraq to 'bring the light to the benighted', but pretty much choose to dim the brightness as far as their own methods are concerned, and with a straignt face.

Bush and Rice utter about the need for fair trial, human rights, human dignity and due process in the middle east while pissing on just that in their Iraq endeavour - no one in Abu Ghraib had due process. No one in Gitmo had due process.

Darkwolf, that is what the issue of credibility is about, not the approval of other countries. The US actions contradict and betray their lofty rhetoric.

Certainly the US don't lead by example. That this doesn't bother you, your relativism, I find disturbing.

 

Unsubstantiated conjecture.

It is a war, **** happens. You can use any phrase to it that you like to try twist the meaning of abuse for emotional gain, but it doesn't change the reality that there was no widespread torture.

There is no evidence that warrants any punishments further than those handed out.

Again, it is a war, **** happens. The pictures showed abuses, not torture.

You have blurred the lines between credibility and dislike, they are two different things are two different things, exactly as respect and compliance from fear of retribution are. As far as Bush having others besides the US to please, I wasn't aware of any capacity for citizens other nations to vote in US elections. The President of the US has only one audience to please, the citizens of the US. Right now he is doing a damn poor job of it, but it has little to do with the realities of Iraq, and more to do with the agenda's of the US press and the political gain of the Democratic Party.

Total response. The people of Iraq are not the enemy, and the percentage of those abused to the general populace who are starting to see the fruits of liberty is infinitesimal. This is a bigger issue in Europe and with the left in America than it is to the people of Iraq. Of course they aren't using it as part of an agenda to discredit the current US Administration.

There are a greater number of people who support the war and are not profiting than those who are profiting from it. It is implied in your claim that we went to war so that certain entities could profit from it. I would love to see some evidence that isn't circumstantial to back up that claim.

Nice red herring. That is not what was implied and you know it. If we did it to our own people, and they were volunteers who could quit at any time and still chose to go on, it is pretty difficult to call it torture.

Ah yes, the great conspiracy theory, and you are calling who daft?

No one has said that what was done was morally right. Some of us just get a little sick of people using an isolated incidents to try to discredit the entire US government. It wears a little thin after a while.

What a statement. The Iraqi people already have more rights now than they ever did under Saddam.

How many people just voted in elections in Iraq? How many were abused in the prisons? War sucks, and there will never be a war without victims, but if you can sit there with a straight face and tell me that overall the Iraqi people would have been better off if Saddam was still in power I have to question your mental state. Compare the number of people who were abused in AG to how many would have been raped, tortured and killed by Saddam and his loving spawn and then get back to me with how terrible the abuses committed by the US troops were.

I find it a little disturbing that in almost half of your last 50 posts (and over half if only examining those posts to the Alleys) you were critical of the US, an organization of the US, or an individual from the US. In those 50 posts you never once had anything positive to say about anything (even in posts to Whatnots and Baldur's Gate). Hopefully this level on negativity is not reflective of your entire life.

It always confuses me why those on the left who profess the wonders of a more socialistic life are always so negative, and why those on the right are always so positive on the outlook of man and our future. Reagan saw a city of light on the hill, and the leftists only see dead spotted owls and global warming from the trees cut down to build the city and the energy produced to light it.

And the left wonders why they are out of power in Washington.

 

Ah, the joy of bashing each other from the comfort of our laptops and PCs! We take ourselves far too seriously. All these tough sounding names and tough talk from people who could be 98 pound weaklings (not that I have something against them). All these accusations towards each other is not helping development of the thread.

I am not trivializing any issues or anyone's feelings but give me a break. Unless, you're a G.I. in Iraq, a detainee in Guantanamo, a civilian in Afghanistan, a survivor of 9/11 or some other similar situation, who can really say with authority what the feelings and events were at those times? I doubt if any of us are really experts in the topics we discuss. Anyone here a CIA operative, a terrorist, a Tory or a U.S. senator? God, a lot of us haven't been another country and we try to impress each other with our wealth of knowledge, skills in debate, mastery of vocabulary.

Most of us are ordinary Joes in whatever country we are in. The names, gems, and avatars might give some sense of rank or power but it all ends after you log off. Let's show some respect, damn it! Sometimes I wish we could all be in one place and see who can walk his talk. No one here is better than anybody else. If you feel that you're being attacked personally, say so and tell a moderator. Don't launch your own personal attack. We don't really know each other here. A lot of stuff here I suspect is bravado.

Argue on the merits. Otherwise I recommend that we split this forum further to have one where we can insult, flame or just plain attack the integrity of a person.

I apologize if I broke any rules with this post. The mods can censure me in whatever way they wish. To those who may feel defensive about this post, it's not directed at anyone. It's just a culmination of all the crap I've read in these fora. If you did feel defensive, maybe it means what I've said is true.

Sheesh, now I remember why I stayed away for nearly a year.

END OF RANT!

 

Please show me where I said that these abuses were "ok". Another attempt to discredit me by attributing false claims to me . In fact I stated above "No one has said that what was done was morally right.", and "I never said it wasn't" in regards to a claim that I was implying that it wasn't a crime. I won't argue that what happened in AG wasn't a morally vile act as well as a crime, or that it should be overlooked, but at the same time it disgusts me to see people persecuted for crimes which are being blown out of proportion for political agendas, and other persecuted for crimes which there is no evidence to tie them to. Those responsible should be prosecuted to the full extent of the law for the actual crimes they committed.

What is the purpose of equating abuse with the term torture-lite? The only gain I can see here is to incite emotion in others from the connotations of the word torture. Torture-lite does not equal abuse as the word torture creates an emotional response. So you have to ask what is the agenda of someone who substitutes such a phrase for a normally accepted term.

Yes, but you have misapplied the definition to suit your political position. What part of what we said we were going to do did we not do? It is true that an extremely small number of people were abused in a prison. Yes it is wrong, but overall, but Iraq is moving forward as a democracy, and the control of the country is being transferred back the Iraqi people. An example of lost credibility would be UN, an organization that passed resolution after resolution telling Saddam to comply with the terms of the cease-fire, but would never enforce them due to the fact that many of the member nations were making enormous profits off of the status quo. Very few in the US believe a word that comes out of the UN. Lost credibility is just another political ploy to attack an unpopular decision made by the US.

I thought we were discussing the abuses in AG, not the deaths in the war? The death in the war is another discussion having to do with the justification of the war and is off topic, so I will not address it here.

 

Change DW's post to read, "the majority of the people of Iraq are not the enemy," and then it would be correct.

 

The general in charge of Abu Graib was busted down to Colonel. That's fairly significant.

 

I disagree. If I were going to compare war activity, I would look at Saddam’s actions against Iran and Kuwait (actual wars). We were discussing torture, abuse and illegal imprisonment. You brought in the discussion of war deaths, not me.

 

I agree. While she bears a degree of the blame, it appears they have found their scapegoat.

 

tor·ture
Pronunciation Key (tôrchr)
n.

1.
1. Infliction of severe physical pain as a means of punishment or coercion.
2. An instrument or a method for inflicting such pain.
2. Excruciating physical or mental pain; agony: the torture of waiting in suspense.
3. Something causing severe pain or anguish.

a·buse
Pronunciation Key (-byz)


1. To use wrongly or improperly; misuse: abuse alcohol; abuse a privilege.
2. To hurt or injure by maltreatment; ill-use.
3. To force sexual activity on; rape or molest.
4. To assail with contemptuous, coarse, or insulting words; revile.
5. Obsolete. To deceive or trick.


The only definition that fits the offenses is that of abuse. Look at the italicized section. There was no "excruciating physical or mental pain" involved. Well, one could make an argument for mental pain, but it would be a weak one. I also checked for the phrase "torture-lite," but it wasn't there.

 

What about Jeremy Graner hitting an Iraqi on the head with an iron bar until he begged to be killed? Was that not "excruciating physical". I also think that rape and sexual abuse would fall under the "mental pain" category.

Of course its easy to be tough when you are hitting a tied up unarmed man with a metal bar...

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/americas/4514839.stm

Edit - added the 'metal bar' for Slith

http://www.cbsnews.com/elements/2004/05/04/iraq/whoswho615518_0_10_person.shtml

[ May 10, 2005, 13:09: Message edited by: Cesard the Fir Bolg ]

 

Well I most certaintly consider raping someone to be torture, but whatever term you use does it really matter? The bottom line is that something wrong has been done and the matter should be investigated properly and those guilty should be punished properly.

I admit I have not read very much and I did not know about what was done with the general but this that England was not aware that what she did was wrong just stinks. If she can't figure out the difference between right and wrong in a situation like that she is clearly mentaly ill.

 

Um... That's basically her defense. That she has somewhat lower voltage than the average person. Her learning disabilities are to the point where she has difficulty reading. Apartantly, it's been documented since she's been in kindergarten, and they took her in the military anyway. Or were you being sarcastic?