f13.net

I think we're due for a story on heroism to counteract the negatives in the media focused on the abuse. Of course the media doesn't like to pick up this type of story for whatever self-serving reasons....

http://www.usmc.mil/marinelink/mcn2000.nsf/lookupstoryref/200456162723



Found on Snopes

Wow, you're right.  An uplifting story about a brave American who single-handedly slaughtered dozens of Iraqis totally makes up for the ill-treatment thousands of Iraqi prisoners suffered at the hands of some other Americans.

No, really.  I don't know how you felt when you read that story, but what went through my mind was "what a fucking waste".  What a waste of human life, what a waste of the lives of all the thousands of brave American men and women dead and wounded so far in this travesty.  They pledged their lives to protect their country and Bush send them to Iraq, to do this.  What a waste of that man's courage.

Over-analyze much?

Just pointing out a story of courage that symbolizes the incredible job that MOST of the soldiers in Iraq are doing as opposed to focusing on those that completely fucked things up.



Yep, saving the lives of your fellow soldier/American is certainly a waste.


I can over analyze and twist things too...

What might have been a reasonablly intelligent debate about this topic was short-cutted by idiocy from the onset. Thanks for not waiting 4 pages to go retarded.

What a glorified waste of an intellect.  And what Arcadian said.  Sheesh, hippies suck.

See we arent all spineless simpering twits so we see the value in what he did unlike certian others I can name.

Please, by all means, harness your staggering intellect and explain the connection between the bravery of one American soldier in a firefight, and the systematic abuse and torture of thousands of civilians by the American army.

I'll even give you a free starting point: if Bush hadn't ordered the invasion, neither of them would have happened.

Just like how if your mother hadn't needed her fix, you wouldn't have been conceived.

Lets see kinda goes to prove that whole abuse was perpitrated by a small group of fucktards and that sniveling anti-american psychos should be able to understand that but yet even with thier astounding brains cant quite grasp that. That kinda wraps it all up in one package. Bush ordering us into Iraq need not be brought into the conversation its irrelavent as were there now cant change that.

BUUUUURN!!

If you're addressing me with this then I thought I already did that but I'll try again.

This example was in contrast to the prison abuse story:

Prison abuse = soldier not doing their job and fucking things up.

This example = soldier doing a great job and saving lives.

What the fuck is so hard to understand?

You gotta understand, Delt, when you hate every soldier equally, then you can see how a story of personal heroism and the willingness to self-sacrifice for the good of your mates might get a hippie's ire up.  And it makes them feel more like the self-absorbed, idealistic, pie-in-your-eye pinkos that they ARE when they are confronted with nobility from a grunt.
Because nobility is putting a pie in the face of a billionaire.  Nobility is sitting in a tree (until you fall to your death, I might add) so that the EVIL loggers won't cut it down.  Nobility is taking a beanbag in the face because you don't like money or the acquisition thereof in a free society.  Nobility is defacing SUV's because they use (gasp) GASOLINE.  
But a soldier, risking is his life for the good of his friends and fellow countrymen?  To bring freedom to a group of people who have known nothing but rape, torture and murder at the whim of a madman for 35 years?  That's just insane.  Bug-fuck insane.  This is just how far off the beaten track of logic these yahoo's are.  They would consider what is obviously an act of unselfish heroism as a 'waste'.  But, don't worry, I am sure once he sees Moore's latest steaming pile of donkey shit that will probably put the shine right back on his illusions...

Think of it more as premature ejaculation. You knew it would happen at some point, you just didn't expect it to happen so soon.

I'm not trying to demean that soldier's bravery in any way, but I find your juxtaposition of these stories deeply disturbing.

The world is reeling after the graphic revelation that Iraqi civilians have been subjected to criminal abuse by US soldiers for months.  To "counterbalance" this you present the story of an American marine who, without thought for his own safety, went courageously into enemy fire and despite extreme danger, killed at least twenty Iraqi troops and wounded many more.  You may see those as two sides of a coin, but I see them as two facets of the same thing: an unjust invasion and a shitload of Iraqi casualties.

The real "other side of the coin" to me is the tens of thousands of young American men and women serving in Iraq who, despite the slowly mounting casualty list, are risking their lives day after day to try and build a new Iraq.  The ones risking assassination, booby traps and sniper attacks to build water filtration plants, electrical power stations, roads and hospitals.  If you want to tell a story that actually does talk about the good Americans are doing for Iraq, maybe you should try and find one that doesn't end with Iraqi corpses stacked like cordwood.

ha ha ha. shit, I thought that kinda balls out attack only worked in games.  
(is it wierd that i got flashbacks reading that discription?)

My only problem with SUVs and gasoline is that most of the money goes to the Arabs (OPEC) and I'm getting sick of those greedy bastards raising the price on us.

I have no idea why the SUV is singled out I can think of qite a few cars that use far more Gas.

Oh oh.

Looks like schild got rid of the Cold Storage forum just a wee bit to soon.

Carry on.

I guess its easier to say SUV and mean "Useless shits of cars that eat more gasoline that they ever would need just to be cool"  than make a list of every such car. I think nobody that makes that argument actually only hates SUVs and loves those other cars.

Me, I hate them because they are so frigging large and they are a bitch to navigate around with my bike. In Austria, people with SUVs pay more taxes and the gasoline is way more expensive, though. So I have the feeling they pay for their idiocy with their money and im fine with it.

Btw, without wanting to get into a heated Pro/contra military discussion. The other side of soldiers torturing prisoners would be soldiers saving tortured prisoners or making active steps against prison torture. Saving other soldiers in a firefight, noble as it might be, is just the other side of cowardly letting your fellow soldiers die.

Which happens here as well.


Done that too . Oh how soon they forget.

Well I hope to buy an SUV someday myself. I like them because they're comfortable and I can carry alot in them. That said I still wish we could get off foreign oil. Too bad we didn't drill in Alaska. Oh well.

With all due respect DarkDryad, the gasoline can't be more expensive on both sides of the pond. They have to be more expensive somewhere or the same price. Lets look what we have:

Price comparasation (currenct data benzinpreis.de). GB as counterargument against people saying its more cheap because of the war in Iraq.


Normal

USA 0.46 Euro / Austria 0.90 Euro / Great Britain 1.36 Euro

Super

USA 0.49 Euro / Austria 0,92 Euro / Great Britain  1.31 Euro

Diesel

USA 0.50 Euro / Austria 0,76 Euro / Great Britain 1.40 Euro


Plus, I don't get your second comment DD, try to clarify it? Done what too and why does it support the argument that saving fellow soldiers is the opposite of torturing prisoners? Or was this a clever way to say "We are the good ones, we torture less prisoners than Saddam did." What I mean is if a fellow soldier tortures a prisoner you stop that. That takes real guts, because you do the right thing and might be shunned for it in the future, not celebrated as war hero and getting a medal.

Did anybody else look at the pictures of "torturing" the prisoners and think, wow frat prank gone wrong. Seriously, you say torture, I think beatings, hoses, pistol-whips, blood, and electrodes on the nuts. I don't think of naked human pyramid in silly costumes with leashes. That's more of a Thursday night kind of thing...

Yes, that's almost word for word what Rush Limbaugh (http://www.bluebus.org/archives/20040507_rush_limbaugh_o.php) said.

I think it's a pretty despicable point of view, to be honest.

What I was saying is thet while we have has a select group of soldiers that did in fact abuse prisoners, I am loathe to use the T word as well I can think of much more horrific things that would better be classified as torture, the average grunt has stopped much more torture, abuse, what have you than these asshats have committed. There are soldires who have risked life and limb for Iraqi civilians and gone into harms way to ensure the safety of these civilians.

Also keep in mind it was soldiers who reported the abuse of detainees so yean I'd say weve done that.

As for gas prices. You are aware that oil/gas cost pretty much the same thing everywhere right. Taxes leveyed upon that gas/oil by your respective government/state are what raises costs through the roof. At this point the states/govs have taxed gass so much that once you see a spike in crude prices it makes the situation that much worse. I'm not sure if youve been to the middle east but heres some news. EVERYONE drives a gashog auto over there with the exception of the very poor. Gasoline cost on average a 1/10th what we pay for it. Maybe its time we started chargeing the shit outta them for the food we send and whatnot. I can walk what are they gonna do?

Yeah because you know sandbags on the head and pictures being taken of you naked hurt you oh so horribly. Its not fucking torture abuse yes torture no. Tell ya what you put sandbags on my head and hell even violate me with a chem light and call it torture then allow me to show you what torture really is ok. Didn't think so.

Someone call a medic we have a hemorraging heart here.

Ouch, sounds like somebody's got a bad case of panty-bunch today. Well, despite your hate for the situation, I'm not saying they shouldn't be fired. They made a dumb decision, it hit the papers, end of story. You don't keep your job when that happens. What I'm talking about is the massive public outcry about "torture" when that's just a media buzz word meant to fan the flames. Was it torture in the strictest sense? Perhaps, if you want to look at the outlier definitions. In reality most definitions of torture deals with the idea of physical pain in some form, and more to the point, EXTREME physical pain. So, when the average person thinks of torture, they don't think of stripping people down and calling them names. They think of batteries hooked up to your nipples, and all those scenes from movies where horrible things happen to spies.

But if they called it mental abuse that wouldn't get the hippies to print up those catchy protest signs.

Shockingly enough, I have to agree.  I have said this before, it's a matter of perspective.  Did we do wrong?  Yes.  Should those responsible, all the way up the chain of command suffer for it?  Oh, yes.  Is it anywhere NEAR comparable to drills in the noggin and firing squads for children?  Oh please.  Yes, we ARE supposed to be better.  And what MAKES us better is that this shit is all over the news and people are going to pay for it, and hopefully changes will be made to BETTER us.  This is what we are fighting for, freedom, which includes the freedom to make mistakes, openly acknowledge them, and move towards something better.  It's a substantial improvement compared 35 years of dictatorial abuse that is just now fully coming to light.

Tell that to to this guy.  Seriously.

What about the guy the MPs let the dogs loose on?  That sounds like it just might have hurt.  Or this guy, who was told that he'd get fried if he fell off the box?  I'm just waiting for one of you mouthbreathers to say that was no big deal and that it was actually the poor bastard's own fault if he thought he was about to be tortured because he should have realized he was being bullshitted.

Aren't you people even slightly ashamed of yourselves for sitting here playing horseshit semantical games, as if getting what happened at Abu Ghraib labled as "abuse" instead of "torture" somehow matters?

And shit like this:



Oh joy, so Saddam Hussein is now the goddamned moral baseline for the occupation?  So we're all supposed to judge American conduct by the standards of the enemy rather than by the standards of our own ideology?  I suppose those ingrate Iraqis should be grateful that all we did was bloody their noses a bit, then.  I'll have to remember that rationale for the next time I decide to punch my girlfriend in the mouth.

Disgusting bullshit moral relativism.

What about the guys we tortured to death? Is that a frat prank?

One of the guys currently under court martial (interestingly, about half of the court-martialed people were whistleblowers, and none are high ranking) wrote a letter to his family telling them that they tortured a guy to death, then packed him in ice and stuck an IV in him to make it look like a medical problem.

That's a fucked up frat prank no? What frats were you guys in?

First there is no allegation they killed that guy simply took a picture of his corpse so that is to say the least a non issue. Dog bites yeah they hurt  and the guys who did it are being punished. still a far cry from what Id call real torture. I mean for christ sakes we have dogs that are loosed on people here as well and its not torture. Was the man fried? No not torture. Yeah they crewed with his head but again id say its far from torture. Examples of what Id call torture? Sure.
Lets see off the top of my head:
Flaying of skin with hot brands
The pulling of healthy teeth with no pain meds.
Using a drill on various body parts mainly the joints
Being drawn and quartered
Being broken on a rack
See one HELL of a difference there. No one is deneying they were abused mentaly and physicaly but IMHO this is far from what a textbook definition of torture is. Like I said I will undergo anything you say that these guys were subjected to in the name of being tortured if you undergo my version. I promise you I will change your mind.

I'm aware of it because that is my point Dark Dryad. The taxes on the gasoline here are (or at least should be according to tax law) used to pay for the environmental damage done by the car using that gasoline.

And you are talking about Iraqi torture the US soldiers stopped, I'm talking about US torture they ought to have stopped to warrant the title of this thread. Both is good, the second is what would have made a splendid public relations move, far better public relations than "Soldier singlehandedly took out an enemy platoon with a toothpick and a selfmade flamethrower."

Actually I'm talking about the latter. It was soldiers who reported the abuse to the appropriate people. They were told to do things that they knew to be illegal orders and they reported it. You seriously dont think the news media uncovered this do you? They found out about it after it was reported, investigated and actions were underway to correct it. No matter how they like to make it look like they had something to do with it the matter was being handled via the UCMJ already.
I swear if we had had the media access to WWII we would have either lost or taken years longer to accomplish our goals.

He's just taking a page out of the conservative handbook.  Don't be jealous, next time a conservative can go stupid first.  I promise.

Christ.  After reading this thread, I can honestly say there's no point in mentioning anything that will draw conservatives in.  Read Coulter a bit too much, do we?

When pictures of a hooded man on a box (who is alive today) ellicit more outrage among Americans than the filmed decapitation of an American, something is wrong IMO.

But hey, people want to politicize the whole thing and use it to back up their existing political beliefs, and/or bash the ideology they disagree with.

We did a naked pyramid, they sawed a man's head off. I don't consider it relativism to say "punish the individuals who were involved in the mistreatment", and then to celebrate when a soldier demonstrates amazing courage and valor, placing his own life at great risk to save his fellow troops when they came under attack, as in the story above.

It's not a difficult position....fuck the people that are trying to kill our troops. I have no qualms about our soldiers killing people that attack them. I don't agree with prisoner misconduct (although the enemy feels differently), but I'm not about to weep for some Iraqis that buy it in their failed attempt to kill Americans.

Want to talk about waste? How about all the lives being sacrificed for the ideologies of Saddam Hussein or Al Qaeda? I'm going to go ahead and lay the blame at the feet of the fucking monsters that made these conflicts necessary in the first place.

Bring the noise.
Cheers.............

So you blame Rumsfeld and Cheney?  At least you are beginning to see the light!

You keep pretending that none of these detainees have been killed.

I don't think it's conservative to say that the way the media has tatooed the situation as one of the worst events ever. Nor do I think it has anything to do with political slant. The reason I object to the event is based entirely on the money-making yellow journalism slant that made a mountain out of an isolated event. People were mentally fucked with and generally mentally and in rarer cases physically abused. Nobody has been proven to have been killed by said abuse. However, with the media spinning, you'd think we'd sent in stormtroopers to systematically execute each prisoner who didn't talk. It's irresponsible and irrational pandering to the shock factor that sells the news. That's the whole problem with the war right now, taking isolated incidents and transforming them into worldwide epidemics. They are raising people's expectations to the fact that if we want to fight, nobody on our side can die, and the soldiers should be handing out flowers to the grinning liberated children on the streets.

That's a lie, read the article, there's already been one person court martialed for killing a detainee:

Quite the opposite....I acknowledge that some prisoners have been killed. I'm actually upset that our troops were mistreating prisoners, and agree with the notion that those individuals should be punished accordingly.

I'm just amazed that such a huge chunk of the American public who was so quick to practically deify Jessica Lynch and Pat Tillman has been virtually apathetic about the brutal decapitation of Nicholas Berg. I'm equally puzzled by the pacifist bullshit in this thread that claims we shouldn't honor the valor of soldiers who fight valiantly when attacked, merely because a few imbeciles in our military did things that were morally deplorable.

I understand the outrage about prisoner mistreatment. I don't understand why that the American public is MORE outraged about the mistreatment than they are about Berg.

It's the disparity that pisses me off....because it's a disparity that exists because the mistreatment can be (and has been) easily politicized. I would expect more outrage and outpouring of sympathy for Berg and his family than for the prisoners...particularly the ones that weren't killed like "Mr. Hooded Box" guy.

Bring the noise.
Cheers...............

Fair enough, it still lends to what I'm getting at. ONE guy. Look at how your own article plays fast and loose with the facts about the rest. Assertions about unsure events, general statement to suppose more people are dead/killed for no reason, when in actuality many of them were escape attempts, assaults on guards, or natural causes.

Your one case is tragic and an example of excessive force if that is the way it went down. We shouldn't put up with that behavior and its obvious the army did not let it go unpunished. Yet, that is not the focus of the article. It is not about the isolated wrongs and their correction. It is about add-ons of more questionable facts to make it into a huge issue. It's a pitfall for the uninformed.

Because we expect this kind of shit from them. We've seen them gass a puppy. We've witnessed them fly two planes into a giant building killing thousands of people.  We've learned to expect a certain level of barbarism from the muslim extremists.  Be outraged all you want, but some guy getting his head sawed off over the course of a minute seems pretty par for the course from these bastards.

What we don't expect is that our own millitary would act in such a savage, inhumane manner.  We're supposed to be liberating people from shit like this.  We're the fucking champs of human rights, aren't we?

No just actually have a perspective of how the world works and dont wine and cry over a little spilled milk.

What part of CIA dont you understand. We are talking about the military here. Are you surprised the CIA has killed people? I just know you aint that dumb Cev.

Lets see. A PRISONER starts a fucking riot and we cry when hes shot. Man you people.

Us people?  I wasn't part of the court martial hearing.  It's the military who decided he used excessive force, not me.  The defense claimed the guy threw a rock at a structure, but obviously the military didn't buy the defense.

It's not "you people", it's the military that convicted this guy..

Ok lets review..
A select group of asshats do some fairly bad things.
They are reported
The military investigates and says yep.
They are in the process of being delt with.

And the problem is where exactly?

This isnt a systemic thing is highly isolated. Its being delt with. Yes it was utter fuckin stupidity to place a MP unit under the command of a MI unit. The theater commander has to answer for that but wont so where to now? My whole issue with this is even though one or two people have died and abuse was going on I fail to see it as a case of OMG torture. I can kill you with a teaspoon of water but it aint torture. Maybe we should just institute a medieval approach No prisiners will be taken you attack or support our enemies you die. Clean, straight to the point, and no room for abuse scandals to come out. You make the soldiers afraid to take prisoners for fear of reprisal later this is what you are asking for.

So where do we go from here? Is there any outcome that can make you guys happy that wont utterly fuck Iraq or the US in the process? I doubt it but then again that would probably be fine cause were supposed to be like the French from what I hear. You know all elitist untill the shit hits the fand then we give up. Sorry I, and the majority of Americans mind you, dont want to have a country dominated by pussies.

Face it the US has the biggest wang in the world at this point in time. Up untill Nam everyone on the face of the planet was fairly afraid to screw with us , specially after that Nagasaki /Hiroshima thing. The day the politicians caved to the spineless cowards who dodged the draft of whined the loudest  and pulled troops out of Nam instead of doing what it took to win gave the minor assholes in the world free reign to screw with us. You dont have to like it but its pretty much history.

The axiom speak softly and carry a big stick works. Sooner or later we will realise the ONLY way to achieve peace in the world is to be the good guys no one really wants to screw with in the first place.  Its human nature you will screw with those you deem to be weaker than you. Its no ones fault humanity is just wired that way still. MAYBE in a few thousand years that will have changed but dont expect it now.

In summary yes BOTH incidents are bad one wasnt expected one was a given eventually.

Color me a little less desensitized to watching a 26 year old man experience the last few moments of his life than you apparently are.

The difference between his murder and the WTC attacks is the scope and scale. This wasn't ramming a plane into a building filled with nameless faceless Americans in some act of Jihad....it was chopping a defenseless, scared young man's head off that should have had practically his whole life ahead of him. He was ended, basically as a means of saying "fuck you" to Bush and every American on the planet.

And people wonder what could have possibly motivated our troops to mistreat prisoners. This strikes me as precisely the type of shit that motivates a soldier to look for a little payback. Doesn't make it right, but it does make it a tad easier to understand.

Moreso than anything else, I'm outraged that the American public seemingly doesn't give a fuck about this kid. I wasn't expecting Lynch/Tillman level recognition, but I did expect a bit more than a few news blurbs that barely mention the kid's name.

I guess I wasn't aware that something had to be shocking and surprising to invoke anger.

Bring the noise.
Cheers.............

I am fully aware of how the world works.  I'm not sure what you are aware of, but apparently spelling and grammar are not on that (no doubt very short) list.

Invading Iraq has done nothing for us, and in fact has expended most of the goodwill the world felt for us after 9/11.  It has toppled one government in Spain, and no doubt Blair will go down as soon as an election is held there.  It remains to be seen on whether Americans will remain hoodwinked long enough to re-elect a man who by all rights should be working fast food, but by an accident of birth managed to bumble his way through wrecking several corporations, the state of Texas, and somehow onto the presidency.  This is without pointing out that Iraq will implode shortly after we leave, and by the looks of things, our troops might well begin packing their bags on July 1.  This is assuming we carry through with Colin Powell's promise that we will leave should the Iraqi authority demand that we do so.

The world does not re-arrange itself because we will it.  Democracy will not take root in Iraq, the culture and people there will ensure that.  So we've removed a strongman we could work with, and did in the past, in order to... what exactly?  Provide more instability in the middle east?  We could unleash Sharon and accomplish the same goal, without spending the blood of our children for unachievable goals.

If you think you know how the world works, you need to think again.  Power may come from the barrel of a gun, but those who live by the gun... I'm sure you know the end of that one.  Right?

But the beheading happened after the prison abuse.  So does that make it easier to understand what motivated the Al Qeada terrorists to mistreat Nick Berg?  Maybe prison abuse is "the type of shit that motivates" a terrorists to "look for a little payback"?  Doesn't make it right, but maybe it makes it a tad easier to understand?

I saw it. It repulsed me. It sickened me. I'll not dare watch it again. But, I see the capacity for this in these people.  Thus, I'm not shocked, not angered, just sickened.




Everything they do is in the name of their "jihad" which is basically a giant "fuck you" to America.  I don't see how you can draw a difference. We know these extremists do this kind of shit. They've been doing it for years.  In essence, this was nothing new, just taped.



Must have been watching a different program, because his mug was all over the airwaves for a solid week. Just about as much play as Tillman got sans the deifying.  

But really, what do you want the public to do? Have a national Nicolas Berg day so that America remembers some guy that was in the wrong place, wrong time getting his noggin hacked off? Should they name a street after him? Sure, it's tragic, but given the ways things have been in the past and the way things will continue to go in the future, it's just not that memorable.  

We will see far worse than Nicolas Berg before this is all over.

Except for the allegation that we killed someone. Other than that allegation, there is no allegation. Good point. In fantasy land a military man didn't write a letter to his family saying they tortured someone to death. Too bad we live in reality, and he did write that letter and make that allegation.

And again, half of the people being court martialed are whistleblowers. No higher ups are in trouble, even after we've uncovered memos stating that the Geveva Convention was "quaint."

It's quite similar to 9/11, where the FBI agents who did their jobs got fired and the ones who ignored their warning were kept on.

Keep drinking the Kool Aid, the problem is isolated and certainly isn't systemic.

And expect many more of them to surface. You did notice that there is like NO EVIDENCE. I assume you think they destroyed just those pictures though right?

I am unaware of this letter. Linkage? Are you sure he wasnt talking about the same guy above that the CIA is responsible for?

You can play "chicken or the egg" on this all you like. I'm not particularly concerned with why Berg was killed, or why those bastards were motivated to do so. I think it's pretty clear that they planned on killing him anyway. I'm pissed off that the media and the public don't seem to give a fuck about it.

I've already pointed out that I am upset and pissed off about the abuse of prisoners, and I want the appropriate punishment for everyone involved. Since that already appears to be forthcoming in a rather expeditious manner, my outrage about prison abuse has certainly taken a backseat to the execution of Berg.

Were the bastards who killed him justified by the prison abuse? They certainly seem to think so. I personally don't give a fuck if they had justification, or an engraving fucking invitation to kill him. He was an American non-combatant hostage, and I get pissed off whenever Americans are killed by terrorists. You'll have to pardon me if I don't react quite as strongly to Iraqi prisoners being photographed in a naked pyramid.

But the sensationalism surrounding this has fuelled the "outrage" of a lot of folks who already opposed to our being in Iraq. Not surprisingly, the "outrage" seems to be drawn along party lines....funny how that works, huh? Odd how the outraged are trying to pin the blame higher and higher within the military and even the Bush Administration.

So naturally, those same "outraged" people go "meh" at the death of Berg, or a story of heroism such as the one that kicked off the thread. Because Bush is bad. Bad bad bad. So is the war, and Rumsfeld, and the military. Bad. Dismiss the other side completely, because it doesn't support your political position.

Fuck it. I'm out for the night...go on justifying to me why I'm supposed to be morally appalled at the heroism of a soldier killing Iraqis after being ambushed, or why I'm not supposed to be angered at a video being produced of a young American man being executed. My guess is that "Bush is bad" will probably cover your stance on the matter.

Bring the noise.
Cheers.............

You forgot one of the main rules of journalism. Dog bites Man doesn't sell, Man bites dog does.

So if something is expected by somebody its only minor news, if somebody does something that wasn't expected its major news.

Just not caring is different from being morally appalled. Really, neither Americans or Iraqis count for me as anything more than human beings. And as that, one dead person is as good to me as one other dead person. Explain to me why I should make a distinction between them, and that has nothing to do with Bush.

You've confused suprise and outrage.  It's understandable I suppose, it futher's your political agenda afterall, but here in the Real World they are not the same thing.

Am I outraged that an American was killed in Iraq?  Absolutely.  In addition to Nick Berg I'm fucking outraged that 788 US Soldiers and counting have died in Iraq.  I am the very epitome of outrage.

However, I'm not suprised.  I told everyone here that this would happen well before we invaded.  I knew it would happen, our soldiers and our civilians would go fight an unnesessary war and they'd end up dead.  It's sad, I literally begged not to do it, but my advice was unheeded and we invaded anyways.  Now, because of this unnesessary war, Nick Berg is dead, and I'm fucking outraged.

In addition to being outraged I'm fucking suprised that something so stupid as the Abu Ghraib abuse would be allowed to happen.  While I knew the people we were determined to fight against weren't a threat, I also knew that when we sent the country into chaos some really bad people would move in and try to take over and do evil things.  However, I didn't suspect that our own forces would become evil themselves.  Maybe I'm just naive but I thought, much like President Bush told us, that we really were the good guys.

Yeah, we're outraged that Nick Berg died.  We're outraged that we invaded a country and sent it into such a chaotic mess that evil people can come in and kill Americans in evil and viscious ways.  We're outraged that our troops are in a situation where they are dying to create a chaotic mess full of evil people for a war that we didn't support.  We're also outraged, as well as suprised and downright shocked that our chain of command is so fucked up over there that it could create a situation where horrible things like the Abu Ghraib prison incident (as well as the Afghan prison incidents and the Gitmo prison incidents) could happen.

The reason we focus on our own people being bad isn't because we aren't outraged about Nick Berg, it's because we can fix our own people and because we expect more out of our soldiers, as well as their commanders to stop this kind of thing from happening.  You keep blaming us for not being outraged about Nick Berg, but you are wrong, we are outraged about Nick Berg, we just aren't suprised, we told you from day one that this would happen.  We wish you had listened.

Bingo. FWIW, just the description of the Berg video has affected me in a deep and lasting way...I can't bring myself to watch it, since I know it even the description haunts me. It has a much more visceral impact on me than any hundred accounts of prisoner abuse could.

HOWEVER-

The only thing left to do in the Berg incident is to get the motherfuckers that are responsible and punish them (since the actual murdering cocksucker has been ID'ed). Similarly, the only thing left to do in the prisoner scandal is find out WHO IS RESPONSIBLE AND PUNISH THEM. Unfortunately, we don't have a fucking video of every interaction up and down the chain of command from Lynndie the Lesbian to GWB and back. So there is an ongoing investigation, which creates ongoing news stories.
With ongoing news stories, analysis, discussion, and opinions will continue to appear.

There is nothing to discuss about the Berg incident. The vast majority of civilized people around the world are appalled, horrified, and disgusted by it. The prison scandal is more divided- asshats like this, for instance (http://news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&cid=615&u=/nm/20040511/pl_nm/iraq_abuse_inhofe_dc&printer=1) don't see anything wrong with it. With these kinds of people IN OUR OWN GOVERNMENT, you are going to get controversy and debate and public outcry.

You're right. Saddam would have simply killed a few thousand more. No big loss, after all, they are just more Brown Skins.

....

So, you are saying that Saddam would have killed less Iraqis than we have?  How are we the good guys again?

Because we are TRYING to do good whereas they are TRYING to do bad.  See, there's the difference.  The actual body count isn't nearly as important as are your intentions, and measuring how much good you do against how much bad you do and how much bad you DON'T do if you set your mind to it.

See, we could nuke everyone in Iraq.  That would be bad.  But we don't.  We may in the process of trying to do good kill more people with conventional weapons than they do to us, but we're trying to do good, and we're not trying to do bad, 'cause if we were, we'd just nuke them all.

The other side, meanwhile, is trying to do bad, and kill all they can, and if they had nukes to wipe out every American, you can bet they'd do it in a New York WTC Minute.

Bruce

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/5006372/

It's in the flash (?) section on the different people being charged.

"The senior enlisted man among those charged, Frederick, 37, is a prison guard in Virginia, as is his wife, Martha. He wrote his family about a prisoner "stressed" by interrogators until he died; the body, he said, was packed in ice and given a fake IV to simulate a medical emergency. When he brought up his concerns about conditions at Abu Ghraib to a senior officer, the response, he said, was not to worry about it: military intelligence was pleased with the results."

In addition, there was the memo I mentioned, brushing aside the Gevena Convention.

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/4999409/

The quote at the very end sums it up best. For higher-ups in Al-Queda these types of tactics may make some sense. They don't make sense for guys pulled off the streets.

---
People are upset because:

a: We are supposed to be the good guys
b: There is something we can do about it
c: It makes us look really bad
d: Some people don't think it's an issue.
e: There is NO EXCUSE for it. It's just wrong, or dare I say evil even?

Ok its what i though its the same guy they took a pic of and it was the CIA contractors that did the killing not our soldiers. Ive always known that the CIA was shadowy and did not so up and up things so that comes as no surprise to me and shouldnt to you either.

Cev, Please for the love of pete stop saying our forces when taking about those asshats a few individuals did this our forces as a whole did not.

Far from it appearing to be a few kids harmless frat pranks, Maj. Gen. Taguba's report (http://news.bbc.co.uk/nol/shared/bsp/hi/pdfs/10_5_04_tagubareport.pdf) documents a lack of training, supervision and discipline. Brig. Gen. Karpinski was apparently in dereliction of her duties. Serious questions need to be asked regarding the lack of training in internment for the 800th MP Brigade, and on the choice of Titan and CACI to provide civilian interrogators, and the manner in which they selected candidates. It is not simply enough to reprimand a few squaddies.

It looks like the truth behind Copper Green is going to come out, no matter how ugly it gets. It's no longer just a disputed article in the New York Times - apparently the credibility and visibility of whistleblowers (http://www.upi.com/view.cfm?StoryID=20040518-064124-9605r) is growing.

(http://news.bbc.co.uk/media/images/40120000/jpg/_40120903_iraq_pow_abuse122_ap.jpg)
And that's torture, kids.

Good point. It's not like the CIA is part of the United States or anything like that...

The Bush strategy for the past year has been to blame everything on the CIA. That's BS. And why does it matter which official government organization is to blame?

You might as well post "they guy who did the killing was named Fred, so there!"

Why are people trying to defend America's actions by comparing the US with fanatical terrorists?  

The fact is that America's whole foreign policy is partly based on it being morally superior to all, or most of the rest of the world.

The neocon foreign policy is premised on the assumption that the US way of life is superior and that the use of force is justified to mould the world in the US image.
The US claims the right to invade countries without security council resolutions.
It claims the right to invade countries where human rights violations are taking place
It claims the right to act as the world's policeman
It claims the right of preemptive self defense but denies that other countries have the same right
It claims the right to use nuclear weapons in warfare but denies other countries that right
It claims that it need not sign the ICC statute.

Basically, US foreign policy depends on the US being the 'good guys' and being SEEN as the good guys.

Thats why the torture allegations are so important, because it throws a hell of a lot of doubt on the whole basis for America's foreign policy.

And its so important because although the rest of the world pretty much rejected the 'good guy' image of the US from the moment Bush came to power, the American people have still always seen themselves in that way and this is probably the first incident that has started to shatter that view amongst Americans.

If Americans dont believe in the whole 'morally superior, can do no wrong' image then they are going to be much less likely to support ill conceived military expeditions in the future.

Actually Righ thats a dead body in pretty damn good shape as far as dead bodies go. I mean yeah hes got a black eye but levidity aside hes in really good shape. Heart attack maybe ? Possibly . Im not saying these things were right or that they shouldnt be punished. Evidently I have a much more stringent definition of torture than most. So be it call it what you will but plese dont lump all soldiers into one group based on the actions of a group of poorly trained, mismanaged asshats. Our honorable troops deserve better.

Few things. 1) The world sees us as thier police force. We didnt ask for the job the UN gave it to us. Any time a nation is in trouble they come lookin for help from the big kid. 2) You may be right it may change support for military actions. Look at what a wonderful thing inaction has been for the French.

1.) As member of the world, you are delusional Dark Dryad. UN asked you to invade Iraq now? Now thats what I call an 180 degree turnaround.

Nobody is saying that ALL US forces are to blame. I'm sure the majority of them are doing a good job. However, you can't just dismiss it as "these things happen" either.

Did you people that are so outraged by military guards mistreating prisoners even think for a second about what happens in prisons daily on American soil? Did you think that its a magical fairy land where people check their prejudices at the door? Do you believe that the military can screen out every bad egg of a human being while maintaining forces thousands strong?

If you think the world runs that way, I've got sad news for you. Large groups have assholes in them no matter how well trained, and a few assholes can do a lot of damage. You can't get rid of that factor, you can minimalize it through good training, and you can be reactionary to the problems. That being said, as soon as that happened, the military has dealt with the issue with grave seriousness, and it has punished those involved. The small percentage of people are being held responsible for their actions.

But that's not good enough for some, some want to use every advantage they can get politically to point the finger and say LOOK we're not the good guys, HA! Get a clue, they aren't saints they are soldiers, and they carry with them problems and prejudices you can't even imagine. When you are getting shot at, you don't typically like the people shooting at you, and on top of that, if it's one ethnic group, that will taint your perceptions of them. There were many more soldiers working hard as guards in a prison while knowing that the people they protect would shoot them at first chance.

Some have said that the reason Nick Berg didn't surprise them was because of the terrorists involved. You also seem to think that our soldiers should be 100% good across the board with no faults. Then, you spit on all of them when that illusion is shattered. You wonder why some Americans weren't shocked by the prison abuse? For the same reason you aren't about Nick Berg. We know these men are in a volatile situation, and we know the nature of human beings. That doesn't excuse abuse, but you don't seem to understand that the abuse has not and will not be excused by those in power. They've done nothing but apologize and try to make it right.

Oh and as a side note, arguing that we shouldn't be in Iraq now is possibly the dumbest thing ever. If you want to use that as a reason not to vote for Bush so be it. However, that concept seems only to poison everything else you see in the current light as just another reason we shouldn't be there. Congratulations, stroke yourself off at your superiority for a moment. Done? Ok, reality check then, WE ARE THERE. Your superiority doesn't mean a damn thing, nor will ousting Bush change that fact. You're looking at a bad situation and saying, yep that's a bad situation we shouldn't have done that. Hey, no shit, care to offer something new?

At least one prisoner has been beaten to death. At least one has been shot dead. The deaths of at least fourteen others are "under investigation". There are 1800 photographs out there that we haven't seen. Sivits has copped a plea bargain and yet only managed to implicate the people seen in the handful of photos we have seen. There is a mountain of rising evidence suggesting widespread abuse among many other people. The other soldiers awaiting trial are exected to testify against their superiors - that this was systemic behaviour that they were ordered to participate in.

18 USC section 2441 defines as war crimes under civil law breaches of the Geneva conventions. Even though you seem to think that the skin must be flayed from someone's body and their kneecaps drilled before it is torture, the articles of both the Geneva conventions and our own civil law do not agree with you. Lawyers for the government warned them that they needed to distance Al Queda from being seen as prisoners of war if the cabinet was not to be charged with war crimes in the future. That's why we deemed the prisoners at GTMO to be "illegal combatants" not covered by articles of war. Even if that holds up, the problem is that the techniques of "softening" used there appear to heve been ordered to be applied in Baghdad. Unfortunately, there are 3000 people in that prison, many of whom are petty thieves, civilians and soldiers who are suspected to have aided insugents, and "a small number of intelligence sensitive suspects".

Our honorable troops do deserve better. They deserve better than a half dozen asshat scapegoats being pilloried as those who bear the full responsibility, when it is clear that it is far more widespread and that orders ran counter to every soldier's training, to every American's acceptable behaviour.

No please refrain from being and idiot. I was speaking in GENERAL terms much like you were. Let me quallify it for you. IN GENERAL the world comes to the US for help when other countries threaten them. Better? Hope so.

See I agree fully with you. You left all politics out of this and stated pure simple fact. Good on you. I also agree that the few that are under investigation are being offered as scapegoats and have stated as much before but  when I say systemic I speak in the larger terms of the whole military. In that light its not systemic as I see this issue comming from one source. The theater commander who didnt have the common sense to not task a MP (guard) unit to a MI (ineregators) unit.
Assigning soldiers to jobs that arent in thier job desription asks for trouble as they have recieved no training in this area so thier definition of soften up would be severely lacking. That and now they are asked to do things by supperiors that they may not know are illegal orders. This is a breeding ground for asshats and Taguda says basicly the same thing.
IMHO the theater commander should be relived and tried as well as the civilian interrigators and the CIA operatives involved. This will prove to be a tad difficult as the Military cant try them because they are civilians and cilvilan court has no jurisdiction in a foreign country. What are we to do? I dont have an answer to that but I see the steps being taken now as a good starting point.

Perhaps it would be better to paint it in terms of International Relations. We are the lone superpower in the world at this point, which carries with it a responsibility and an obligation to try and maintain order and the status quo.

But hey, some people want to believe we can throw away the tights and just be plain old Peter Parker. They need to accept the fact that we are the world's Spider Man. Power, responsibility, yadda yadda yadda.

Bring the noise.
Cheers..............

EDITED TO ADD: Paelos is my new hero in this thread. Well said, sir.

Hi. Just in case some of you have forgotten, we have been in a UN sanctioned state of war with Iraq since 1992. Hussein willfully and flagarantly violated the conditions of the cease fire over and over and over again. We didn't need another resolution to go in, but it was rather polite of us to try.

In fact, the only thing that pissed me off about Clinton's Presidency was that we didn't go in in 1998 when Hussein threw out all the inspectors. (well, ok throw in inaction in Rawanda as well).

Allegations suggest that it goes somewhat higher than the theatre commander. The greatest blame may lie outside the military altogether. What are needed in situations such as these are international war crimes trials. That's why every reasonable country in the world signed the Treaty of Rome to create an international criminal court. However, following regime change in the US, the decision has been made to stand alongside China and refuse to ratify the agreement. Attempts are currently being made at a furious pace to try and ensure that non-signatories are not accountable, and serious consideration is being paid to remove the US signature from the treaty. All this despite widespread congressional and senate support, and judicial rulings that the treaty in no way compromises the US constitution.

So the question here is whether we want to stand alongside non-signatories of the Treaty of Rome - Iraq, North Korea, Libya and Cuba, or whether we want to ratify it and continue a long history of adhering to the Geneva conventions. While we're at it, perhaps we could also ask this administration to ratify the Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights, the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child and the Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination Against Women - all of which we've signed under the previous administation, but none of which we have ratified.

Except, or course, for being, well...DEAD.

I swear to god, you people always focus on the little details.

Daeven, it was not for you to decide to continue that conflict. I agree that before Iraq there was indeed a large involvement of US forces in international peacekeeping missions, the USA having by far the the largest military force of the world and by far the most missionary drive to bring democracy and freedom to "lesser" countries.

I agree as well that the international community as well as the USA began to see you as the police force by sheer virtue of your involvement in all those conflicts. But lets agree that this was before Iraq, you burned your boy scout uniforms for Juniors moment of revenge.

That seems a bit harsh for the situation. War crime courts are meant to judge the losers of the war IMO. Because really, in war its the victors who set the rules. Now, if we as the winning side of this conflict decide to indict our own, I think we are well within our rights to keep that in house. Besides, we are still knee-deep in the conflict so doing that now would be a huge hit to support, and logically our government would not want any more swing.

When I think of war crime trials I just conjure images of ex-Nazis and dictators. It's a stretch for me to lump these soldiers in there.

Actually, yes it was. We were within our legal rights to invade. Saddam had repeatedly violated the sanctions placed upon him, and resolution 1441 indicated specifically that Iraq would be subject to serious consequences if it did not comply. Quite frankly, the threat of force is the only thing that makes law relevant....passing resolution after resolution and watching Saddam blatantly violate them without an eventual military response served to do nothing but render the UN and international community impotent.

The ass-kissing within the UN before the invasion was primarly just that....we were trying to get the blessing and support of the international community. They refused, based largely on the objections of a few nations that had a clear conflict of interests, so we went in without UN support. That got some noses bent out of joint, as the international community was reminded that we're still the lone superpower in the world, and that we didn't NEED their permission, even though we certainly wanted it.

Bring the noise.
Cheers.............

Here is the text of UN Resolution 1441.  It simply says that if Iraq violates the resolution that the council will convene and decide what to do:



It does not give the authority for individual members to unilaterally decide to enforce the resolution.

Furthermore, Iraq complied with resolution 1441 by giving a weapons declaration to the UN in the alloted time; however, the US chose not to believe the declaration, which is understandable, but it's also why the UN Weapons inspectors were sent into the country, to verify the text of the weapons declaration required in 1441.  The US chose to cut short the inspections and enforce 1441 unilaterally on the hunch that the declaration was faked, but it's since been proven that the declaration was completely accurate.

Only really hardcore conservatives are debating WMD still. I'm a conservative, I felt betrayed by the whole deal, and personally I don't think we should have gone over there either on that evidence. It was shady, and the reasons were suspect, and the timing was right.

As I've said before, so what? Where does that get you? We get it, you hate Bush, you want him gone. OK that's fine, but at least give me somebody who's not a bigger assclown to replace him. Do I like Bush's foreign policy thus far? Not especially, but the idea of Kerry's foreign policy scares the shit out of me. Bush can clean up his own mess a lot better than the anti-Bush. So vote your way in November, and I'll vote mine, and that will be that.

Now that we are done with that, I do hope you realize how little that has to do with the current incidents. The fact that you are looking go after higher and higher superiors in this deal is just a political game. Were the shoe on the other foot with a Democrat in office, I just wouldn't expect the same reaction. So if it's political, that's not a good reason. Look at the actual situation and how it's being handled. If you think that the military is not correcting itself the right way, that's fine, but I don't see going after higher individuals as the answer unless they were directly involved.

And if a Democrat were in office you wouldn't be here posting messages that said "Ohh come on guys, they already arrested a couple of people, isn't that enough?  Leave the poor Democrats alone!"

You believe the people demanding investigations, full real investigations, are politically motivated only because your defense of the people who ordered this torture is political.



I take it you were out of the country for Clinton's presidency?  Or does he no longer count as a Democrat?



There have been a dozen stories linked in this thread that implicate that higher ups, potentially as far as Rumsfield, directly had their hand in the abuse.  There are 1800 photographs, there are leaked memos, there are tons of whistleblowers, there is a large deal of evidence that indicate that the orders for Operation Copper Green were approved by Rumsfield himself.

I think he meant Res . 678

See, I went ahead and read the text....you missed a part:



The specific language that Iraq will face serious consequences was HUGE, and was supposed to be the part of the resolution that actually gave it some teeth.



We didn't need to be granted that specific authority. See Daeven's post above.



I thought we found some missles with a range greater than 150km, didn't we? Regardless, our assessment was that he was not fully compliant, specifically with paragraphs 4 & 5, which would constitute material breach by omission and/or impediment. You'll want to note that even interference with the inspectors constituted material breach.

We may have proven that the materials reported upon were accurate, but you can't exactly prove what he did or did not omit. Hidden, sold, given away, there are any number of possible explanations. Just because the crackhead says he doesn't have any drugs, and the cop doesn't find any drugs, doesn't mean he doesn't actually have any. My expectation is that he smuggled them out and got them into the hands of another anti-American government or terrorist group. Just because they aren't there now doesn't mean he didn't have them at the time.

Kind of a silly point to really argue, really. Even if we find some eventually, it wasn't all that our intel thought was there....so the detractors will continue to hammer upon that. The US interpretation of paragraphs 1, 2, 4, 5, & 13 seemed to differ with that of the UN. *shrug*

Our decision was certainly unpopular, but I don't think we did anything illegal....if we did, the UN certainly hasn't really done much of anything about it.

Bring the noise.
Cheers.............

In American prisons bad things happen too. But that is often from other prisoners, not guards. In addition, the standards for getting thrown into prison in Iraq in the first place are MUCH lower.

These people have not gone to trial and been found guilty of anything. Many of them are innocent and will eventually be quietly let go. In the US guys don't get picked up off the street and thrown in maximum security prisons the next day.

Wow, I'd hope not, because then he'd really be wrong.  Resolution 678 allows for any member of the security council to unilaterally assit Kuwait uphold the conditions of Resolution 660 which requires Saddam to pull out of Kuwiat and only to pull out of Kuwait:



So if he did mean Resolution 678 he'd be rather foolish since resolution 678 only "Authorizes Member States co-operating with the Government of
Kuwait, unless Iraq on or before 15 January 1991 fully implements, as
set forth in paragraph 1 above, the foregoing resolutions, to use all
necessary means to uphold and implement resolution 660."  

So 678 allows any member state of the security council to unilaterally impliment and uphold resolution 660, and 660 demands that Iraq withdraw it's troops from Kuwait, in order to justify the invasion with Resolution 678 you'd have to be under the very mistaken assumption that Iraq had reinvaded Kuwait..

Yes, but you should leave those poor republicans alone.  After all, it's not like they are democrats or anything.  *rolls eyes*

Ahh partisanship.  It brings a tear to my eye.

You completely skipped over the part that I quoted above that says the serious consequences will be decided on by the entire security council once the entire security council decides there is a violation, which it never did.  Iraq didn't violate 1441, but even if they had it still didn't give any member state the authorization to unilaterally act on that violation.  In fact it speficially dictated that a violation of 1441 would result in a meeting of the security council and nothing else.  Nice try at lying your way through that one though.  Well no.. it really wasn't a very nice try at all.

Well not to toss any monkey wrenches but we did sign a conditional ceasefire agreement with Iraq which they have repetedly violated that alone makes it legal  to go back in UN be damned.

I didn't....but as long as we are still playing the game, let's review another snippet you overlooked:



I'd certainly consider 1441 to be a subsequent relevant resolution, seeing as how they all basically stem from the Gulf War and Saddam's subsequent resistsance to UN resolutions, specifically those regarding disarmament.

Bring the noise.
Cheers.............

Damn beat me to it. ALL SUBSEQUENT AND RELAVENT RESOLUTIONS. Pretty much says it all there dont it hoss?

Cevik, the reason I don't address many of the ideas that the higher level offiicals are involved in your articles you've posted is because of a key fact: the articles have no evidence. Read more than the headlines and you'll see that. It's simply he-said/she-said between investigative journalists with vague sources and the government. Example,



So some guy says he has a source inside. Well hell, nothing like journalists lying about that to get a story across has EVER happened. Forgive me in the light of such evidence that I see it as pure bandwagoning by the press because they smell blood in the water. Catchy headlines scream that Rumsfeld is involved, but the fine print might as well say, we think. Here's a little side article about your boy Hersh who broke that story: http://www.mudvillegazette.com/archives/000982.html

From your earlier articles about the deaths, most of them were either self-defense or escape attempts, and the ones that weren't were/are being investigated with a couple of offenders already court-marshalled. The whole thing reeks of a smear campaign. I've never denied wrongdoing by the few, but saying now that their were orders handed down from the top? Your definition of "evidence" is far from what matters in a court of law.

In another article about Reuters' staff being abused, it goes on and on about this serious allegations until at the very bottom it says, "In its report, the US military said there was no evidence the Reuters staff had been tortured or abused." Oh yeah, and in this case the victims were Baghdad based journalists. Their motives couldn't be suspect.

The point is your sources suck, and at best they raise questions, but don't provide answers. Yeah, I question whether the top people were involved, but I don't feel the need to write an article with no proof saying that I KNOW they were. Because we don't know, all that other crap is just supposed to stir up the nest.

No it doesn't, you guys are overlooking the word "relevant" (and in some cases misspelled it in atrocious ways).  In order for the resolution to be relevant to 660, it would, according to the UN Security Council as well as the International Community have to be related to the withdrawal of troops from Kuwait.  1441 has nothing to do with the invasion of Kuwait, therefor it's not relevant to 660.  With your line of reasoning any resolution ever passed with the word Iraq in it was "relevant" to 660, which clearly was well beyond the intent of Resultion 660.  Nice try though.

Welp, I'm going to simply have to disagree with you. I think it is *our* (as in the US and Europe's) responsibility to remove the odious govermnents of the world the we saddled them with due to our Metternichain pursuit of anti-communits stability during the cold war.

I think a big part of the problem is that some people don't realze that a lot of us on this side of the pond have decided that status-quo in the middle east and africa is no longer a desirable thing.

Finally, if as it turns out that 'Oil For Food' is as bad as it looks to be, we had every right, and even a responsibility to ignore the consensus of the international community and go it alone.

Of course, you could file a petition with the International Court in The Hague and we'll see what sort of enforcement rights that unelected body has.

Honestly, I really do think this is the Middle East's golden hour for change. Because if Iran is successfull, if Tel Aviv or DC disappears in a NCB attack, well, all the hand wringing or condemnation from the 'International Community' won't mean diddly squat.

P.S. I love how you harp on generalities I've (at least) never proposed. I nver said we deserved the 'boy scout' uniform. I'm convinced we burned it well and good during the cold war in the name of survival. How's your's doing? Still rotting from the 30-years war?

My sources suck?  You think that Hersh is lying to make a story?  Do you even have any clue who Hersh is?  Ever heard of the My Lai Massacre?  The Righties were saying the exact same thing about Hersh back then that you're trying to say now.  

Maybe it's time for you to start reading beyond the headlines.  We aren't talking about a story from some unbelievable two bit journalist who's trying to make a name for himself.  This guy has already done exactly the same thing with another war, and you know what, the guilty people back then kept saying "there is no evidence, you're lying"..

Of course I know who Hersh is, and I know from his experience with the military he is severely positioned against them. He's also well known for going after Kissinger in the Nixon White House.

As for him lying, he IS lying about a lot of things as the article about his interview with O'Reilly indictates. They aren't flat out lies, its just embellishment for shock value. I don't doubt somewhere up the chain of command that these abuses were indirectly condoned, but I don't believe it reaches as high as Hersh wants to believe. Especially since he's not naming names like he did when he broke the story on My Lai. There were no holds barred there. Why not now?

Read that blog again, the guy who wrote it was a moron.  First instead of tackling the Hersh article, he disects an interview with O'Reily which already makes the blog entry more than worthless.  Then he goes on to attempt to discredit Hersh by claiming the things he said that were absolutely true are "lies".  

For example, Hersh points out in the Taguba report Taguba says that 60% of the captives are not a threat.  If you read the Taguba report you'll see that this is indeed what Taguba claims, then the blog writer goes on to say this is a "lie" without giving any evidence to support his claim.  Hersh recites Taguba's statistic and the blog writer says it's untrue without supporting his allegation and uses that to discredit Hersh, and that's just the very first thing in the article you linked.  I'd hardly call that a good reason not to believe what Hersh has to say.  It looks like a poor attempt at a partisan attack to me, a very poor attempt.

For the sake of argument and so this doesn't just turn into us arguing sources the whole time, let's assume that Hersh is correct. That this is in fact a giant order coming from the very top officials in our government that we should subject prisoners to the this kind of punishment. What do you want?

Suppose you can prove that even Bush and his people were involved in this entire thing and are systematically ordering torture while taking a break from kicking puppies. Everyone gets indicted, everyone gets tossed out of office by an election. Bush loses, Democrats win, and Kerry goes into office. There, we've declared your perfect scenario for the liberals. Relish in it.

Now, and here's my point before the partisan train pulled into town, what do we do? We've got men on the ground and an unstable situation. Realize for a second what that whole scenario does to our perception as the "do-gooder" superpower in the world. Realize that terrorists and despots don't give two damns about party lines. Also, realize that European nations, allies, and enemies will all see that as vindication for all their years of America hating. You may think of it as cleaning a dirty house, but that wouldn't be the perception elsewhere. The entire middle east has functioned for millenia on a put up or shut up macho attitude, and if we walk out, disaster will ensue. What went from hundreds of our own people dying will skyrocket to thousands of innocents dying in a bloody changover. You could basically kiss any and all goodwill we had goodbye.

Bizarre, your defense has become "let the criminals be criminals because doing anything else will be admitting defeat?"  Seriously, that's the sickest answer you could possibly give.

What do I want to happen?  I want the guilty people to suffer the consequences of their actions.  If that's 7 random military guys who acted bad, then those guys go to jail.  If it's the upper ranks at the pentagon, then those guys go to jail.  If it's Bush then he goes to jail.  It's not partisan, it's reality, if you break the law you pay for it.  I want the administration to finally take responsibility for their actions, instead of constantly pushing it off on someone else.

Only someone so biased towards their party as yourself could possibly think this has anything to do with party alignments.  This isn't about Republicans vs. Democrats, this is about giving illegal orders then trying to hang the good men and women who serve our country out to dry when the heat comes down.  This isn't about elections, well it's not to those of us in the Real World, it's about breaking the law.  The only people who are being overtly partisan about this whole mess are people like you who are willing to say and do anything before admitting they are wrong.  It's just sick that you want to give a free pass to criminals who are ordering the torture of people simply because you hate to see your political party in disarray. It's sick.

Good grief. We're back to frat pranks versus torture again, are we? The very practices named in the army report are defined by our own laws as war crimes. But don't take my word for it.

http://www4.law.cornell.edu/uscode/18/2441.html

Its easy Daeven, but you have to remove your head from your ass to get it.

It is for you to decide only what is desirable in your own country, other countries are not your business as long as they don't make you their business. That is the one thing you are failing to grasp.

And of course, one could argue that it has been our business for quite some time now, which was kind of my point.

*shrug*

Ah, but I am but a poor pupil of rhetoric, and must retreat before the great and benevolent wisdom of the ad homenim.

*PLONK*

Are you out of your mind? How many times do I need to spell it out for you, I DON'T LIKE BUSH'S FOREIGN POLICY. Hell, when you get down to it, I don't really even like Bush in power even though I'm conservative. I know he's fucked up, I'm not blind to that. If there was a way to get rid of him and put somebody else competant in there with a legit plan I'd jump on the train in a heartbeat. Unfortunately, that man doesn't exist on the other side of the fence, and he actually scares me more in power than Bush does in a foreign policy sense. I personally think, if Bush were tossed out of the office and the Republicans scrambled to find a new candidate, the Democrats would be screwed. Suddenly, their strategy of being the anti-Bush would be useless since he was already gone. I don't give two fucks about the whole party, but what you are suggesting is a hang em high attitude to the whole deal.

I think it's interesting that you can look at political scandals in black and white and look down at others while telling us its the way the real world works. I could only wish you were correct. I could only wish that even at the highest office, if you commit crimes you are held to the same standard as the crackhead on the corner. But I'm hoping that you've seen before how special treatment and power dodges the system. I hope you've seen how innocent people on both party sides have been antagonized for pure political reasons. It's the basic reason that liberals and conservatives can't agree. The liberals look at the way they think is should be, and the conservatives say that's not reality.

You are putting words in my mouth by trying to put what I said into one sentence. It's as if you think that the last point I made is a summation of my entire argument. It's not. It's a long line of things that you have either ignored, or kept talking about my partisanship. My suggestion is not let the criminals walk if they are guilty. It's to point out that if you try your hang em high approach, the whole Iraq situation, American goodwill, and foreign policy stability go out the window. My suggestion is if you want them gone, do it in the election without the scandal fallout. The scandal with Clinton didn't just hurt the Democrats, it hurt the nation. We don't need to make it part of the Presidential term that each must have a scandal associated with it. If he's guilty I want him held accountable as well, but I don't want to do at the expense of the greater good for our country.

We will certainly disagree over that last part. Even if true, I see it as a utilitarian thing and you don't. I don't see the abuses as bad as the media has blown them up to be, and you do. I don't believe this has reached the highest offices, while others claim they have evidence that it has. We shall see about that, I'm not so firmly entrenched that I believe it's impossible. Surely it is, but it takes a healthy amount of damning evidence to make me question the highest officials in our government. You won't believe this, but I didn't jump all over Clinton either when the first scandal started there. I'm more skeptical of the media than I am of our government. It's a POV argument at this point, which is essentially moot.

And as a side note, calling me sick? Come on, get off the moral high horse.

Again, very well said Paelos.

Bring the noise.
Cheers.............

This would be great if we could manage to elect a President who didn't appoint bull-headed stupid motherfuckers into office that create the scandals in the first place. We haven't had a non-scandal President since... well, shit, how long has it been? Truman had McArthyism, Kennedy had lots of shit going on behind the scenes that didn't show up until long after his death, Lyndon Johnson had Vietnam, Nixon was Nixon, Ford wasn't in long enough to do much more than trip over Air Force One, Carter pissed away the Panama Canal, Reagan had Iran-Contra as well as any number of smaller fuckups, Bush Sr. was still tainted by Iran-Contra, Clinton got his dick sucked and now Bush Jr. is trying to set the record. When exactly will we get a President who doesn't surround himself with complete fuckups?

I want presidential scandals. I want to be distracted from just how bad things really are.

Your life must suck cause I have seen no meaningful change in my lifestyle one way or the other since Bush became Pres. Patriot act? No change. Unemployment rates?(which are as low as they were wioth clinton atm) No change. Market? About the same as it was this time last year.  Gas Prices? Yerah they go up in the summer. Always have and things tend to cost more and more every year. Hasnt effected me yet and I travel over 2400 miles a month by car.

So exactly how bad is it?

You do not want to talk about gas prices.

Six years ago, I was paying .80 cents a gallon for gas in Mississippi. At the worst, I was able to find gas for less than a dollar. Since that time, gas prices have risen and have not stopped rising. I paid over $2 for gasonline yesterday for the first time in my fucking life. That's NOT the normal cost of inflation, that's fucking piracy. And unfortunately, the oil companies can justify it because the Middle East has gone batshit insane over the exploding of a shitload of bombs on one of the biggest producers of oil. Who can we blame that one on? No, Bush, Jr. is not the sole source of blame, but I do know that even after 9-11, gas was much fucking cheaper than it has been since the Iraq invasion. These prices cannot be explained away as normal inflation, because I haven't noticed my groceries suddenly doubling in price in the last six years, nor anything else for that matter. I'm just lucky I live in the south where we get heat by electricity, or I'd be fucked.

Unemployment? Yes, I can safely say it's much worse since the Bush got put into office. Part of it I will blame on the dot.bombs, part of it on the corporate scandals; the rest falls on Bush. His tax cuts have not stimulated the economy in anywhere near the promised levels, and what's worse is those same tax cuts were not accompanied by spending reductions. So as a result, we will soon have a record-high budget deficit with no end to it in sight.

The Patriot Act has had a subtle effect on Free Speech. I daresay the FCC's recent cracking down on anything that might hint at not being "for the children" is indirectly related to the whole Ashcroft mentality, but I can't of course support that with direct evidence. More a gut feeling.

Actually if you look at it were bitching about a 5.6-5.8% average yearly unemployment rate last year. Take a gander at this shart of everywhere else. Hell our unemplyment rate is better that Canadas. Britain's is only marginaly better. In the scope of things I'd say it aint that awful bad and it has been improving albeit slowly.
I cant lay the blame for IT jobs moving overseas solely on him either as that started happening well before he took office. Yeah I'll hive you he has some responsibility for the situation but his tax cuts are working slowly. You dint expect this to happen like overnight or even within a year did you?

Edit: I could care less about the Ashcroft effect. As a parent I monitor what my kid watches and put my V-Chip to good use. I see them clamping down on shitty trash tv  simply making my job easier so color me unphased by TPA as of this day.

The only people I've heard bitching about the FCC crackdown vehemently are the radio shock jocks who suddenly found themselves out of a job because they were lewd for the sake of being lewd. They should have been fired earlier for being no-talent assclowns. I can get on the radio and piss people off while making fart jokes and sexual innuendo. Hell, if it makes the radion stations play ACTUAL MUSIC on my ride to work I'll be happy.

I'm bitching about the FCC crackdown. We have better shit to worry about than 1/2 second of boobs on TV, Howard Stern interviewing strippers, gay marriage and all that garbage. Lack of priorities is a problem. As a country we have better things to worry about, and the FCC has better things to worry about.

Acctually maybe YOU have better things to worry about. See I have a problem bringing up my kid in a age where sexualy explicit material , scenes of pure violence, and a drug culture are glorified on fucking network television. Shitty shows such as Springer and the like along with E!, MTV, and numerous other channels contain such trashy TV they are permanetly locked on my set as no view. Hell I would rather have my kids exposed to the horrors of Nazi Germany (as its history and all) than this shit.
Them doing WHAT THEY WERE FUCKING ESTABLISHED TO DO isn't high up on my bitch and moan meter.

Edit: Please expound on what you think the FCC is for btw.

While I applaud your efforts to shelter your children from material you find objectionable, I can't help but remind you and the FCC that I AM NOT YOUR CHILD.

I am adult with my own mind, and my own decision-making process, and I like to have television that tittilates, infuriates, shocks and stretches my way of thinking. Same goes with radio. It's all well and good to restrict entertainment to "suitable for children" until all entertainment is only suitable for children. At this point, art gets stifled because it might be objectionable to children.

I'm in favor of rating the material along a standard, then letting parents decide whether or not they should allow their children to watch or listen to it, because that's their fucking job. If parents can't or won't, it isn't up to a government body to be a surrogate nanny.

I've also never quite grasped why seeing a bit of titty or hearing the word "fuck" was supposed to cause so much irreperable harm to minors.

I see your point but lets be honest. When I grew up and you as well probably they had warnings before shows and or movies that  had graphic violence and or sexual situations that allowed the parents to make those choices and that was fine. These days you have the superbowl cashing in on the sexual aspects. Lets be honest CBS knew exacly what was gonna happen(as it was rehearsed) and it would have taken all of what 2 - 4 seconds to place a warning on the screen?  It wasnt the tit being shown I object to. My daughter has 2 of her own to look at if she would like to see them. It was the way it was presented with a fucktard of a guy ripping off the clothing. I see this as MTV/CBS saying hey its ok to do this as aint shit happened to either of them. I enjoy violent titilating TV as much as the next guy but some warnings would be a welcome sight and honestly while I love howard's show I really dont want my kid tuning it in and there aint ways , short of ripping out the car radio, from her being able to tune it in. Howard is funny to some extent but he gives the distint impression that all women should be sexual objects and whore themselves out for the highest price. You fail to see where this might be a problem?
Does it need to be censored? Hell no but it needs to air at an appropriate time and have some form of warning beforehand. Prime Time and in your face aint it.

If Junior is going to get caught masturbating, he can get caught masturbating to dad's pornography stash or HBO, just like we had to, dammit.

Bring the noise.
Cheers............

Damn right. Why talk frankly about the joys and the danger of sex, when we can relegate it to a dusty pile of paper in the back of the closet? Teach those kids the right way... hide everything you don't want to deal with openly away from prying eyes so you never have to discuss it with the kids.

As for Stern, I personally think he's an ass, myself. BUT, and this is the important point, he's much more entertaining and thought-provoking than an normal hour of ClearChannel programming. His ability to say crazy shit is the American way; that freedom is what makes this country special. Nowhere in the Bill of Rights does it guarantee you the right to not be offended. It recognized that unpopular speech is what this country was founded on.

As for the Super Bowl, I continue to be left speechless by the moral indignation that people like my sister and her husband display over this thing. She has 2 kids, both under the age of 3. Beautiful kids, innocent little angels that I would never want to be hurt. Both parents were absolutely aghast at the idea that a 2-pixel wide nipple was shown on television for a total of 2 seconds. They apparently weren't offended by the sheer assclownitude of the entire production, which seemed to revel in its own retarded language of the slack-jawed illiterate. No, they were worried that the bird's eye view of a floppy mammory might have somehow wormed its way into the consciousness of their children. Was it the appropriate place for it? Considering the number of ads for male impotence remedies littered throughout the advertisements that bookended the brain-jarring violent spectacle that is football, it appears to be right in line with the target audience. Or maybe it was a cleverly disguised "Make Love Not War" protest to the violence-charged audience too concerned with horse flatulence and alcohol to understand?

Or maybe it was just fucking stupid, and worth about as much attention as the nipple got airtime?

It was a completly inappropriate place for the display, but I can't see it as being something so goddamn offended by when commercials are plugging me to "pick the right moment" by taking a pill that can apparently cause my erection to last so long as to require immediate medical attention should I not be able to slake its lustful thirst.

In other words, there are a helluva lot more important things for the FCC to be looking at than a titty spotted from the 75th row. Like, ohhhhh, constant plastering of the dead bodies of Iraqi prisoners all over the television as moronic servicemen hold the thumbs up sign in front of it.

There ought to be limits to freedom.

- Dubya.

So your saying the whole frwakin military is corrup prisoners abusers? If not then its not systemic. That means the whole system is involved.

And no where does it say there are to be no repercussions for what you say. Only that you are allowed to say it.

The shows you are talking about are NOT the ones the FCC is going after. How many kids listen to Stern on the RADIO in the morning?

None of the shit on network television is in trouble, or on MTV or E!. It's mostly radio stuff, awards shows, and other things that really do not have a large impact on kids. If you were going to start cleaning up the airwaves, radio as a whole is a stupid place to start. Nor was the superbowl "controversy" damaging to ANYONE.

There IS a lot of shit on TV, and a lot of glorification of things that shouldn't be glorified. In my mind though, a show like Friends (which normalizes promiscuity and irresponsibility) is a last more impacting than Janet at halftime.

What do I think the FCC should do? How about ensure a diversity of owernership across TV and radio for starters? They are supposed to be a regulatory group, but they are only regulating content rather than businesses. A fundamental tenet of working democracy is that different voices are represented in the media. The FCC has worked tirelessly to make it possible for fewer and fewer companies to own larger stakes of TV/radio. (And publishing)

Typically the attitude you want in a regulatory group is hard-ass. Ideally they are pro-regulation and the negotiation is between them and others who want to deregulate. Instead in the Bush admin, a number of regulatory agencies actively crusade AGAINST regulation. (The EPA is another obvious example) The foxes guard the henhouse, there is no balance.

How could Kerry's foreign policy scare you more than Bush??  Bush is the one who is breaking wholesale with American foreign policy traditions.  Bush has a radical foreign policy and there is nothing radical or scary about Kerry's foreign policy.

Romp, you want to know why Kerry's foreign policy scares me? Read his intended actions in the War on Terror from his own website.

http://www.johnkerry.com/pressroom/speeches/spc_2004_0227.html

After going through the expected motions of pointing out how Bush is entirely wrong in his approach, here's a few excerpts that make me a little uneasy.









Mind you that one mostly scares me because of Kerry's voting record against spending on defense budgets.



Great more CIA domestic goons, that's awesome.



A "Name and Shame" campaign? I'm sure that will be super popular.



Here's my deal after all that. Most of those quotes speak to the fact that we will listen to our allies so long as it's convenient, then we do our own thing. Hmmm, remarkably familiar to the status quo under Bush, except he goes farther to say that Bush Hasn't done enough on the war on terror, AND he wants more CIA intelligence with less restrictions and more power. I'm sorry but the Patriot act scares me enough.

On top of that, going after the Saudis? Great in theory, poor in practice. Kerry's policies don't seem to give two damns about the fact that a lot of this stuff will lead to an international jihad. Instead of just looking at one nation, suddenly we are on top of all Islamic nations pushing them around. If you look at the history books that kind of shit doesn't fly with those people, and they are quick to use whatever God-based doctrine to back up killing you en masse.

Lastly, giving it all back to the UN? What? The people who basically ignored their own policies until we acted on them. Granted our actions were overstepping our bounds but I'm not entirely comfortable with the UN as an organization of rebuilding a country with its best interests in mind. Lest we forget exactly how many countries in the UN were caught with their hands in the trading cookie jar when we invaded (cough) France (cough).

I don't like my choices here, but you can see where the objections would stand with Kerry's proposals.

Kerry has an excellent voting record for defense budgets.



It turns out that all of the "evidence" in the Oil for Food investigations was supplied by Chalabi.  You know, the same guy that made up the 45 minute claim as well as the Saddam/Atta Link to dupe the United States into invading Iraq.  Funny enough, the Oil for Food stuff all started flowing from Chalabi right after Brahimi announced (http://www.dailystar.com.lb/article.asp?edition_id=10&categ_id=5&article_id=3168) Chalabi will not be running Iraq.  So the only "evidence" that supposedly exists about the Oil for Food "violations" has come from the one source of information that has a motive to lie, and has been proven to be lying about two other extremely significant facts.  I don't think I'd put much money on the Oil for Food allegations ever panning out.

Unlike the conservative chicken-hawks, Kerry has fought in wars. I am sure he is *disgusted* by the WAY we spend our money and the state of troop equipment.

In the name of a faster, more mobile force we have guys running around in vehicles that can't withstand even small arms fire, being told to put sandbags on the floor so they don't all die if they hit a mine. The problem with the faster, more mobile force is that it arrives and the destination quicker, then gets beat up.

We read about shit like full body supercomputers or some other wackiness, when the reality is our troops ride around in unarmored vehicles.

It isn't a matter of money, it's a matter of priorities, and placing pragmatism above some dumb grand vision.

It really sickens me when I read about guys in the field writing back home about how they feel unsafe in their shitty unarmored Hummers. There just is no excuse.

Well Kerry's foreign policy has more emphasis on multilateralism, the UN, rejection of neocon agenda, less or no intervention in countries which do not pose a threat to the US.

He plans to invest in alternative energy sources to try and stop American pandering to countries like Saudi Arabia because of oil.

Fact is Bush's policies have pretty much been disastrous, America's international reputation has gone down the toilet because of Iraq and since 9/11 militant islam has only gotten stronger and gained more recruits to its cause.

Kerry also talks about winning the war of ideas, something which Bush has completely ignored but is more important than any military war.  The US needs to convince the rest of the world and the middle east particularly that it is a benevolent power.

IMO Kerry's foreign policy is more of a return to normalcy, its a shift to the moderate center and is more in line with the views of the State department and people like Colin Powell.   Its more in keeping with US foreign policy over the last 50 years from which Cheney, Rumsfield, Wolfowitz et al have broken from.

Y ou are correct Kerry would love to let the the rest of the world see us as spineless pussies.  Tell me what you want its the baddest son of a bitch on the playground that doesnt get fucked with.

Damn, you're right, that new "Name and Shame" Campaign of his and hitting up the Saudis with charges of laundering terrorist money, that should show them we're the open-minded guy next door.

Tell you what lets just hand the keys to the UN and let them do all our foreign policy. That would probably lead to the best way to do things for our American interests, right?

And you didn't really address his responses to giving the CIA more influence. Hell, the CIA was at the core of a lot of these prison abuses that first began the debate. Everyone knows they are shady, and I'm not really excited about pumping up their sayso in our foreign and domestic affairs.

That's an odd thing to say, because I always thought that the CIA was part of the government of this country. Now that you put it that way though, I'm inclined to take your lead and consider them some isolated conspiratorial secret society.

No, actually, that's not what I want in foreign policy. That kind of cowboy bullshit got us involved in Vietnam and Korea, and has us fucking up policy every chance we get in Iraq. Neither Korea or Vietnam ended up solving any of the problems they were meant to solve, nor did the loss of Vietnam lead to the "Domino Effect" that was one of our main reasons for insinuating ourselves into certain countries (like Afghanistan in the 80's).

As for the CIA, I think Kerry is saying what I'm saying about the CIA. It's totally fucked right now. For all the abuses and stupidity that the CIA has committed over the last 5 years or so (prison abuses in Iraq, allowing foreign terrorists into the country to get flight training), the director has not been fired, nor has he even been in jeapordy. HOW THE FUCK IS THAT POSSIBLE? How can someone who runs an organization that is fucking up on a regular basis not be fired?

The CIA needs a new director, and with that new director a new culture. It also needs to start working with and putting the thumbscrews to IMMIGRATION, the bunch of incompetent yokels who allowed the 9/11 terrorists into the fucking country in the first place. And the CIA needs to work with the FBI better on domestic terrorism and foreign terrorists who make it into the country.

None of these things are going to happen under Bush, who has shown that he won't fire any of his appointees even if they fuck up so badly they should be shot. Nor will he fire those who weren't his appointees (think he inherited Louis Freeh).