New Abu Ghraib images broadcast
 

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/middle_east/4715540.stm


An Australian TV channel has broadcast previously unpublished images showing apparent US abuse of prisoners in Iraq's Abu Ghraib jail in 2003.

These images showed up in a very bad moment and we dont know how will be the reaction in the Muslim world ...

Re: New Abu Ghraib images broadcast
 

I'm pretty sure the reaction will be negative. Question is not what, but by whom. By that, I mean that, as one of my professors (he's traveled a fair amount in the Middle East) asserts, the people there don't just riot and demonstrate spontaneously. He feels, with regard to the cartoons, that Iran and Syria, both of which's gov'ts aren't terribly popular, used the cartoons to redirect anger against them towards the West. And I suspect that'll be pretty much the same w/ these images, although likely on a lesser scale.

Re: New Abu Ghraib images broadcast
 

forgive the wording of the next comment--They are beating this subject to death...we know what happened, the us government dubbed its scapegoat and she got in trouble and now is not really doing much about it. All this is fodder for the extremest to keep attacking western targets. Abu Ghraib was a huge screw up by the US for lack of managment and training. The whole truth will not come out about this subject and publishing this photos will not help.

Re: New Abu Ghraib images broadcast
 

Certainly the whole thing will get worse and worse...like publishing those cartoons...

Re: New Abu Ghraib images broadcast
 

This is a dead issue that is being resurrected by people who want to exploit the Islamic discontent. The people responsible for the torture have been prosecuted and are serving time in prison. It's funny that the media will only cover the beheadings of innocent people for a day or two... but won't leave the Abu Ghraib subject alone.

Re: New Abu Ghraib images broadcast
 

I am not stating that it is a good thing that these photos surfaced now, in fact they should have been released to the press (Rumsfeld stated in his testimony that there were more) at that time and the subject could have been delt with completely then.

The photos do represent something the major public has not seen yet and are therefore somewhat newsworthy and just like the cartoons the press has every right to publish them, when they got hold of them.

I do however not believe that everybody guilty of these crimes or at least responsible for the treatment of these prisoners has been prosecuted and sentenced to a just punishment. The people on the bottom level took the fall, I do not believe they acted on their own accord and even if they did, the supervisors are at least responsible for atrocities like this that happened on their watch and there should have been consequences for that.

The USA has always claimed the moral highground, but the treatment of prisoners (or captured enemy combatants, if you like) in places like Abu Ghraib, Guantanamo and probably detention camps in Eastern Europe has damaged the already tainted image of the USA in such a manor that it will take decades to heal.

If we claim to be better than our enemies, we should not resort to the things that they do, otherwise the struggle will be in vain.

Re: New Abu Ghraib images broadcast
 

Liberty of the press????...isnt it? :rolleyes:

Re: New Abu Ghraib images broadcast
 

Yeah... but this was an isolated incident that took place nearly three years ago. How is this story still relevent? Everybody who participated in those events are going through the judicial system as we speak... or are even in military prisons. This is an irregularity within the United States military. The United States doesn't advocate torture. Abu Ghraib was simply mismanaged, bottom line. It's not like some top general was sitting there instructing these soldiers to do this stuff. There are probably more pictures that the media has had access to for years... but will only release during times of great turmoil. The cartoon incident presented the anti-American (or at least anti-war) media with the perfect opportunity to incite some uprisings.

My friends and family are serving this nation with honor and dignity and for people to equate them to these few, sadistic soldiers, is borderline offensive. For decades, Americans have fought to end torture, tyranny, and oppression... and you all are well aware of that. Yes, there have been blemishes in our system and history... but as a whole, our military is full of honorable men and women.

If it wasn't for the United States... Europe may have still been split into two factions: a Soviet, communist bloc in the East... and a Nazi, national socialist bloc in the West. We are capable of doing honorable things to help other people. Our government has condemned the Abu Ghraib incident... and has brought justice forth against those who did this. What more do people want? Is there a necessary reason in prolonging this story? No. There isn't. But hey, if it incites more anti-American sentiment... the media is all for it.

We're a nation ran by immigrants and the descendents of immigrants. Americans aren't stupid. We know how our military is and we, for the most part, know the difference between right and wrong. If the media is convincing people overseas that torture is a consistent policy of our's... then we have a major problem. We follow the Geneva Conventions... and while I condemn the torture in Abu Ghraib, if these were guys who were armed militants... then they aren't covered by the Conventions. If these were the types of guys who have been capturing Westerners for years and beheading them... then the Conventions don't apply to them. That's where a lot of people have mixed feelings on this topic. I've heard countless Americans say: "We'll at least they still have their heads." If some of these guys were innocent people... then I find this even more disturbing. However, if these were terrorists... how bad should I really feel for them? If humiliation is the worst of their problems... then should I really feel bad for them? In our military prison in Cuba, the imprisoned terrorists are offended by having female prison guards. The issue of legality is very debatable. All people can really do is complain.

Re: New Abu Ghraib images broadcast
 

:rolleyes:

a very simple (naive) way of interpretating History...

Re: New Abu Ghraib images broadcast
 

Had the U.S. not participated in World War II, there was a very strong chance that would've happened. I only speak the truth.

Re: New Abu Ghraib images broadcast
 

Actually it was not an isolated incident, the USA currently has a history of being very leniant with international law, or do simply not want to be included in it, and the international view of what torture constitutes. A report released by an independent UN-panel called Guantanamo "effectively a torture camp where prisoners have no access to justice." To the outside world, even your allies, this does look like the USA advocates torture, that it is not as bad as the practices of the enemy does not condone it. Torture is still torture in any measure. Also I do not believe that the media did have access earlier and held on to the pictures, because they have their own agenda. This is once again the bias (meaning b.s.) about the liberal media.
Furthermore do I believe that the military men and women in Abu Ghraib did not just think, 'come on, let's torture some Arabs'. Guantanamo and the methods used give a clear impression of, at the very least, not taking the rules of the Geneva conventions too narrowly and that impression is given from the top down.


No-one ever said that everyone in the military is a torturer or a sadist. The military is probably just like society, there are good and bad people in it and many in between. Ofcourse as a soldier, you do get involved in a lot of extreme situations and we don't know how any of us would react in certain situations. The new images of British soldiers beating and killing Iraqi youths do once again prove that the behaviour of the coalition force is not always up to par. Surely they were provoked, but as I stated earlier, if we want to take the moral highground, we do have to behave accordingly and not slip into the atrocities that the enemy is using.


For someone, who just mentioned that something that happened 3 years ago isn't relevant anymore, you do like to drag up things that happened over half a century ago and judge it like you want to. If the French hadn't helped you in your revolutionary war, you would probably still be a British colony is another statement I could make about if this or that had never happened. Do you still view the acts of the current French government in light of their help in your revolution?


You have a president, who keeps abusing the word "War", first we had the "War on drugs", now we have the "War on terror", but if prisoners are being taken in this "War", they are not prisoners of war, but they are 'enemy combatants', who don't fall under the Geneva conventions, yet they also don't seem to fall under the judiciary process of the USA or other international laws. You cannot have it both ways, Bush calls it a war, than they are prisoners of war and should be treated accordingly. The international condemnation of Guantanamo is not based on the fact that they use female prison guards, that is a load of sh.t (pardon my French) and you know it.

Once again just because the 'enemy' doesn't play by the rules, doesn't make it right for 'us' to do the same. This is exactly the place where we should draw the line. You are defending the western values and the western values as I love them exclude even the slightest possibility of torturous activity and include the possibility to judiciary access to some sort of court for everyone, if we move away from these values, there is nothing left to defend.

Is it hard living up to that standard, when fighting people who will resort to anything, undoubtedly, but the end does not condone all means and the only way to (re)gain respect is to use the highest standards at all times.

Annan Says U.S. Should Close Gitmo Prison
 

UNITED NATIONS - Secretary-General Kofi Annan on Thursday said the United States should close the prison at Guantanamo Bay for terror suspects as soon as possible, backing a key conclusion of a U.N.-appointed independent panel.

White House spokesman Scott McClellan rejected the call to shut the camp, saying the military treats all detainees humanely and "these are dangerous terrorists that we're talking about."

The panel's report, released Thursday in Geneva, said the United States must close the detention facility "without further delay" because it is effectively a torture camp where prisoners have no access to justice.

Annan told reporters he didn't necessarily agree with everything in the report, but "the basic premise, that we need to be careful to have a balance between effective action against terrorism and individual liberties and civil rights, I think is valid."

He said he supported the panel's opposition to people being held "in perpetuity" without being prosecuted in a public court. This is "something that is common under every legal system," he said.

"I think sooner or later there will be a need to close the Guantanamo (camp), and I think it will be up to the government to decide, and hopefully to do it as soon as is possible," the secretary-general told reporters.

The 54-page report summarizing an investigation by five U.N. experts, accused the United States of practices that "amount to torture" and demanded detainees be allowed a fair trial or be freed. The panel, which had sought access to Guantanamo Bay since 2002, refused a U.S. offer for three experts to visit the camp in November after being told they could not interview detainees.

Annan said the report by a U.N.-appointed independent panel was not a U.N. report but one by individual experts. "So we should see it in that light," he said.

U.N. spokesman Stephane Dujarric said the report will be presented to the U.N. Commission of Human Rights, which appointed the panel, when it convenes on March 13 in Geneva.

Manfred Nowak, the U.N. investigator for torture who was one of the panel's experts, told The Associated Press in Geneva that the detainees at Guantanamo "should be released or brought before an independent court."

"That should not be done in Guantanamo Bay, but before ordinary U.S. courts, or courts in their countries of origin or perhaps an international tribunal," he said.

The United States should allow "a full and independent investigation" at Guantanamo and also give the United Nations access to other detention centers, including secret ones, in Iraq, Afghanistan and elsewhere, Nowak said by telephone from his office in Vienna, Austria.

"We want to have all information about secret places of detention because whenever there is a secret place of detention, there is also a higher risk that people are subjected to torture," he said.

The United States is holding about 490 men at the military detention center. They are accused of links to Afghanistan's ousted Taliban regime or to al-Qaida, but only a handful have been charged.

The U.N. investigators said photographic evidence — corroborated by testimony of former prisoners — showed detainees shackled, chained and hooded. Prisoners were beaten, stripped and shaved if they resisted, they said.

The report's findings were based on interviews with former detainees, public documents, media reports, lawyers and questions answered by the U.S. government, which detailed the number of prisoners held but did not give their names or the status of charges against them.

Some of the interrogation techniques — particularly the use of dogs, exposure to extreme temperatures, sleep deprivation and prolonged isolation — caused extreme suffering, the report said.

"Such treatment amounts to torture, as it inflicts severe pain or suffering on the victims for the purpose of intimidation and/or punishment," the report said.

The International Committee of the Red Cross is the only independent monitoring body allowed to visit Guantanamo's detainees, but it reports its findings solely to U.S. authorities.

Legislators and journalists have been allowed in on guided tours but few are permitted to see interrogations.

Pentagon spokesman Bryan Whitman said the U.N. report "clearly suffers from their unwillingness to take us up on our offer to go down to Guantanamo to observe first-hand the operations."

McClellan, the White House spokesman, echoed Whitman, saying "it's a discredit to the U.N. when a team like this goes about rushing to report something when they haven't even looked into the facts. All they have done is look at the allegations."

Although his statement did not address specific allegations, the Pentagon has acknowledged 10 cases of abuse or mistreatment at Guantanamo, including a female interrogator climbing onto a detainee's lap and a detainee whose knees were bruised from being forced to kneel repeatedly.

In Strasbourg, France, the European Parliament condemned the treatment of prisoners at Guantanamo and renewed its calls for the detention center to be closed.

Human rights activists also supported the investigators' findings.

Amnesty International said the report was only the "tip of the iceberg."

"The United States also operates detention facilities at Bagram Airbase in Afghanistan, Abu Ghraib and elsewhere in Iraq and has been implicated in the use of secret detention facilities in other countries," an Amnesty statement said.

Many of the allegations in the report have been made before. But the document represented the first inquiry launched by the 53-nation U.N. Human Rights Commission, the world body's top rights watchdog.

By EDITH M. LEDERER, Associated Press Writer

Associated Press correspondents Sam Cage and Alexander G. Higgins in Geneva, Jan Sliva in Strasbourg, France, and Jennifer Loven in Washington contributed to this report.

Re: Annan Says U.S. Should Close Gitmo Prison
 

You know Ralphy... that U.S. governement will reject closing the prison at Guantanamo despite the all evidences, because they have a 'tradition' in ignoring UN determinations... so I really dont believe in this posibility especially during Bush administration.

Re: New Abu Ghraib images broadcast
 

No one is denying that US had an important role in World War II...and that american militaries contributed to to beat nazism, but is completely different from saying "If it wasn't for the United States" ...because your country didnt fight alone.

Dont let that 'patriotism' dazzle the historical true...

Re: New Abu Ghraib images broadcast
 

Brief reply because I just got home from partying at a club with a bunch of Europeans and Brazilians, actually. Damn, Brazilians can dance... and Europeans are smooth with the ladies. But anyway, I'm a tad bit buzzed and tired... so I will give a brief reply. I will, and will always respect the French for two reasons: helping the American colonists in the American Revolution and for rising up during the French Revolution.

The War on Drugs was an initiative pretty much created by President Nixon... and respected by every U.S. President since. It happened to be a major issue during the Clinton years as well.

I was implying that a three year old story with no new developments isn't relevent. For me to use analogies is completely different than the international media rehashing the same old story and showing it to billions of people. Huge difference. Me= a couple of people, Media= Billions of people. The media is damn well aware of how Arabs have been responding to basically everything. They know that this is going to incite anti-WESTERN (notice how I didn't say American) sentiment. It's hard for a soldier who is young and just saw his best friend killed by a terrorist who will do anything to brutally kill his opponents. They dont' know how to react half of the time.