Just how bad are the torture and abuse photos which Barack Obama has barred from public view?
A senior Pentagon official told CNN that these images of torture and abuse at the hands of US troops have "so infuriated" Mike Mullen, the US joint chiefs chairman and "nation's highest-ranking military officer that he demanded leaders ensure continued training of troops to prevent abuse."
According to the CNN sources, Mullen saw the unreleased photos in May and June and "decided to write the memo after thinking more about what he saw in the photos."
Recently, German Spiegel wrote that some of the photos the Obama administration does not want to make public are "much worse than from the Abu Ghraib prison in Iraq."
Allegedly, there are "photos of rape, of female prisoners being abused and sexual violence being committed against an underage male prisoner" by US soldiers.
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Comments: 48
I do believe that the men who are responsibke for this and the women involved should be punished by the proper means. For the sake of the Nations integrity and so that we all can Unite as a country once more, I pray that God will lead the nation back to its great stature and focus the attention away from the scandalous abuse and onto the valiant correction of these problems. We all know that after the 911 attack, George Bush crossed lines that led to these abuses. He must have felt that nescesary, though I disagree. All in all...this should not bear down on the bravery of our troops and all that they give to ensure that we are a free nation...free to post what we think.
May we all find the fine line of resolution in these matters and look forward to a better USA. Hope is not dead.
Better yet I want Obama the Liar [whom I voted for to prevent a MacInsane Madministration] to re-join the International Criminal Court so King Gearge and Team Tyrant can be put on trial for the whirled to see.
Then again I want ALL KINDS of crazy stuff, like the fake War on Terror to end.
Pictures that depict criminal activity are some of the most credible evidence used in our courts. Police and federal investigators use film whenever it is available, in fact cameras are being used now to record traffic violations with remarkable success.
Torture has become standard procedure during the blatantly illegal and deadly wars of aggression that exemplify U.S. military adventurism. Our tax dollars have been funding some of the most evil and horrific mass murder campaigns in human history, yet most Americans have little knowledge of our complicity in crimes against all sanity that compare with Hitler's and Stalin's crimes.
Sheryl, our CIA and NSA and other shadow agencies have teamed up with the worst dictators on Earth to terrorize and slaughter huge segments of populations in hundreds of countries around this world. But only in the last ten years have our renegade rulers elevated into a virtual mini-economy, the methodologies of kidnapping, transporting, detaining / disposing of suspects and witnesses, and of course the techniques of obtaining information, quickly and efficiently, without regard for human rights or any rule of law whatsoever.
Bushco did for the prison and torture industries what Home Depot did for the building and home-repair businesses.
And sadly, Obama seems to be carrying on in the same U.S Manifest Destiny brand of arrogance and complete disdain for International Laws, of humanity, compassion, and decency towards those we are supposed to treat with Love and Respect..
In Uzbekistan there are secret prisons financed by the U.S., through a $500 million aid package that Bush / Cheney ordered, which was used in large part to hire Uzbek government cloak and dagger thugs to handle the dirty work whenever our military rounded up 'insurgents; or suspected Al Queda members from Afghanistan and also Iraq. THOUSANDS of suspects were airlifted to the black-ops sites by military transport during the first three years of our illegal invasions and occupations. Hundreds are still rotting away in those sites even though Bush made a show of condemning this dark chapter in our ongoing 'freedom spreading missions, mainly because a British diplomat learned that innocent civilians were routinely being boiled in vats of cooking oil, wives and children were being raped while their husbands and fathers were being flayed alive and forced to watch their families raped, burned and often murdered after the ghoulish treatment by guards and their government overseers.
Our CIA thugs were seen by witnesses who related their stories to the British whistleblower; this man was censored and left the British Gov, he was slandered and threatened by his superiors, but he went on to publish much of what he had learned.
I'll find his name and info in my records later. My point is, torture, mass torture, has been and is being done on a scale that most people cannot even allow themselves to believe, let alone to investigate, study, and become fully or even partially aware of.
But I have forced myself to learn. I demanded of my eyes, my mind, to view pictorial evidence and witnesses' statements of many hundreds of maimed, burned and dismembered human beings, the Children of Falluja slaughtered by OUR MILITARY who first commandeered and closed all clinics and hospitals [too many witnesses to allow], the thousands of air strikes in Iraq's residential areas during the Shock and Awe invasion [that never really ended, and is still taking place right now...
In closing, I must address your last ridiculous statement.
The only kinds of people who would fear being elected after we study these pictures, then hopefully prosecute and jail the Bush war criminals, are people who want to carry out evil, illegal activities, that just might be exposed.
http://www.frugalfun.com/uzbekistan.html
Abuse of female prisoners? Sexual violence? That begs the definition of such and of course you don't even look at Mullins ordered, simply further emphasis on both cultural and social attention during training. I may be wrong but given your continued determination to damn close to a million plus troopers with the actions of a few over these years, I won't be surprised to see the alleged abuses to be far less controversial many college hazings.
IF said photos/videos of rapes exist, that is a court martial offense and under the UCMJ still can be punished by death. There has already been one rape trial over a similar offense in Iraq with several troops found guilty. That happened without the media being aware until the charges were made by the Army. These alleged photos/vids would not simply result in increased training but immediate relief for cause of the chain of command and a movement out of of the area/relief from duty pending a court martial or investigation. That said, unless one is to accuse Adm Mullins of hiding things too, this is simply media BS.
CNN trumpeted the alleged massacre by Marines of an Iraqi family a couple of years ago. After the court martial exonerated all of the accused, no one in the media even bothered to report the charges were all false and cooked up. It cost the accused hundreds of thousands of dollars and grief but no one who rode that wave of publicity like Rep Murtha or the media ever apologized.
Outrages do happen but considering the number of personnel involved, far fewer than in any Western civil society and demonstrably less than what happened in Iraq before hand.
I am not so sure about these two reasonings or what they mean. How is a question and a report on what he said /he said a continued Damnation of all the troops?Did I read that wrong? Are you saying that years of this persons posts are malicious or that these abuses by a few are?
second, I think this will be more conroversial than any hazings we will see in the news. This affects the oppinions of millions of people, these snippets of information we see in such photos, that I for one do not want to see any more of. A molded opinion i might have, but I am aware of how the voters abd American citizens are affected by the actions of our leaders. If crimes are committed, they should be prosecuted through the right avenues. The image this may display on all of our troops, I agree is not fair, thus there should be prosecutions to show just who the guilty are. They deserve more than that, our troops do, but we can not assume these kind of reports are maliciaous toward the troops. It was the actions of those few you mention that brought on all of this fuss.I believe in the freedom of opinion. Sava is merely writting what he thinks is a good subject to write on these controversiak issues. I doubt that he is damning all of our troops. Maybe I missed something in the past that I have not read yet, but I see no harm in this report.
A look at her postings/comments are universally negative about what the troops have done in Iraq. I have said that wrongs against the civilian population happened and troops have gone to jail for some of them. My problem is the idea its a common thing and that our troops are acting like animals there. Many of the allegations of torture have fallen aside but still they are taken as gospel by some. Its a blanket suspicion that all are involved and there is somehow a vast cover up.
Read the accusations and then what I wrote. If such evidence exists as stated here, then heads do need to roll and those vid/pics of rape are sufficient. Much of the other stuff considered abuse is not worse than hazings here. As for the effect it has on opinions, much of that is already settled. People who want to believe the worst, will and the others who refuse to acknowledge anything wrong will do so also. I too will be PO'd and demand action if such evidence as stated here shows up but until it does, it sounds like more smoke and noise.
Finally, I'm unsure how freedom of opinion came up. I take that as a given as evidenced by my joining in here with my opinion also.
Basara was the one port capable of handling oil tankers of any size and while under joint British/Iraqi control it wasn't able to handle much traffic at all until fairly recently. The oil was sold and the money first held in deposit for the Iraqi government and then the Iraqi government handled it all. So the ships that tanked up were part of normal commerce and not of some stolen Iraqi plan.
Sheryl, when you have to travel distance, do you walk, use a horse, or a car?
she never said she supported any of the allegations but questioned if you would compare them to what has happened to Iraqis and Americans in the hands of the terrorists?
http://jack113.250free.com/Page2.html
Suffice to say, we will never be cleansed. We still have wingnuts in this country defending this type of behavior, for crying out loud. There ain't a chance in hell that those responsible will serve one minute of time being bars for what they've done.
I do not sahre the notion that the events of 9/11/2001 and the actions of terrorists against our citizens and military, gives us carte blanche for murdering, raping, torturing and abusing anyone we want.
That is NOT a moral high ground. We are NOT the best when we stoop to low levels at in the name of provocation.
Just because some of them have killed some of us in barbaric ways, including some of our children, should not give us justification to rape, torture and murder whichever of them we feel like, including some of their children.
An honest question: How did you become so well informed and from whence cometh your journalist-level abilities at presenting such credible and high-quality discourse??
C'mon SPILL IT!!!!
Complete transparency and criminal proceedings against Bushco and Obama if he keeps covering for his predecessors.
I have been studying some aspects of United States military and 'foreign policy' activities since George Bush stole the 2000 elect-tron, a debacle that Greg Palast calls, in his excellent books 'The Best Democracy Money Can Buy' and the 2004 updated version of that important work, a 'diseased sausage'.
Strong voices are indeed thundering forth; some of the incontestable best are:
Antonia Juhasz - 'The Bush Agenda' and 'The Tyranny of Oil', also Antonia maintains some internet sites that she somehow finds the time to keep well stocked. This woman is a GODDESS of Truth and Global Awareness, I have found her to be without equal in her field.
Amy Goodman, another SuperGal, is the heart and soul of DemocracyNow; also she and her brother David have written two books, 'Exception to the Rulers' and 'Static', both of them filled with facts and evidence proving America has been hijacked by war profiteers posing as politicians, business people, and carreer military / intelligence service personnel.
Amy goes after Faux Noise and exposes them as the house organ of the neocon war-chickenhawk cabal. Her work has brought many crimes into the light, and many once-stifled voices have been broadcast internationally through her tireless efforts.
When East Timor was ravaged by soldiers using American supplied weapons, Amy was there, and she was threatened, knocked down, and almost shot while her cameraman was beaten, and hundreds of civilians marching towards a cemetary to honor their fallen fellows and family were fired on with many being killed.
Read about this in the opening chapter of 'Exception to the Rulers'.
I just responded to an earlier post by Sheryl, please have a look and weigh in!
PEACE ALL and Have a Wonder Full!
http://www.frugalfun.com/uzbekistan.html