Iraqi Prison Abuse

[Yelof]

wonder how much /of the abuse of Iraqi prisoners is backlash for the allied civilians who were beaten, hanged from the bridge

The pictures came out after the bridge incident, but they were taken before the bridge incident.

also

the group killed in Falluja were not civilians they were mercenaries

It now looks as if the terrible corpse desecration and surrounding crowd was all staged to provoke the enivitable American overreaction in the attack on Falluja. I can't find the picture, but I remember seeing a picture showing that the crowds at the desecration were much smaller then suggested by the pictures and that there was a guy holding a sign telling the crowd when to cheer. This is textbook guerrilla warfare, who is winning the media war? or hearts and minds?

Lets hope that once Kerry has the election sown up, he can switch to talking about an exit strategy. He doesn't talk about one much now because he is afraid to sound unpatrotic. I think his current strategy of more international involvement might suffer from what Colin Powel called "china shop rules" i.e. you break it you fix it, unless he delivers real sovereignty to the Iraqes and sets a withdrawl date for American troops.

[Lady Sidhe]

I read that they were civilian security people. Private security, whether or not those providing the security are ex-military, is not the same thing as a mercernary. Mercernaries take money to fight WARS, for whichever side will pay them the most. Not the same thing.


"Blackwater Security Consulting, the North Carolina company which employed the four men, said only that they had been in Falluja to provide protection for food convoys into the town but gave no further details.

Blackwater was founded in 1996 by a former US navy commando. It recruits former special forces soldiers, FBI agents and policemen to provide military and police training, and to serve as bodyguards and bomb disposal experts. Its employees are responsible for protecting Paul Bremer, the American civilian administrator in Iraq."


Sidhe

[DanaC]

Private security like the private security firms which have been helping the coalition interrogate Iraqi prisoners?

Oh and

Blackwater was founded in 1996 by a former US navy commando. It recruits former special forces soldiers, FBI agents and policemen to provide military and police training, and to serve as bodyguards and bomb disposal experts. Its employees are responsible for protecting Paul Bremer, the American civilian administrator in Iraq."

Since Paul Bremer is the Civil Administrator in Iraq and Iraq is a country under occupation, it stands to reason that he and any who work for and with him become legitimate targets for the resistance movement and those members of the general populace who dont want to be ruled by an occupying force. It is completely disingenuous to characterise them as mere security personnel of a similar calibre and level of guilt/culpability as the average ex-cop security guard down at the local hospital or warehouse.

We, the Coalition of the Willing have invaded another soveriegn nation after 10 years of softening them up with bombs and sanctions,starving their children with the help of the dictator we had previously assisted;Disarmed them in full view of the world then launched our nights of Shock and Awe.

Now we sit in their seats of power and we lay laws down in their lands;we ascribe innocence and guilt to those who choose to submit and those who do not;we attack insurgents with no regard for the loss of innocent lives;kick down the doors of ordinary people in the middle of the night an drag out their sons, beat them and kick them to the ground, tie their wrists or worse;touch women with no regard for how great an insult that is;frighten them with dogs and take aimed fatal shots at civilians, children,old ladies......

When they killed the security personnel they were attacking part of the machine of governance which is currently being imposed upon them. It was a legitimate act of resistance.

[Yelof]

They were mercs they were not repairing telephone wire, they were guns for hire...

There are a lot of them in Iraq

..and to return a bit to the start of the thread the question of why Rumsfeld should go, I think it was Churchill who said this first "not just wrong but mistaken", the whole Iraq adventure wrong in my opinion from the start has also been run incompetently, many of those mistakes directly tracable to Rumsfeld. Amongst those are the use of mercenaries so that Rumsfeld can play with his army light idea and also the culture of avoidence of enemies rights that has lead to the PR disaster of Abu Ghraib. I could go on, but it would be hard to think of near anything Rumsfeld has done right since..ever?

As one example, the Pentagon planners ignored an eight-month-long effort led by the State Department to prepare for the day when Saddam's dictatorship was gone. The "Future of Iraq" project, which involved dozens of exiled Iraqi professionals and 17 U.S. agencies, including the Pentagon, prepared strategies for everything from drawing up a new Iraqi judicial code to restoring the unique ecosystem of Iraq's southern marshes, which Saddam's regime had drained.

from

http://www.commondreams.org/headlines03/0712-05.htm

[richlevy]

Originally posted by Lady Sidhe
Not saying it's right, mind you, but it seems that all this "iraqi prisoner abuse" came out after the burning of the civilians.

Payback can be a bitch.

And right now some Iraqi somewhere is saying the same thing about the beheading. That attitude can not only start a race to the bottom, it can grease the track.

And you know, it seems to me that people have forgotten the outrage they felt on 9/11. Back then, we were ready to kick some ass. Everyone was behind Bush. Now, people are more worried about the enemy than they are about the allies. We got Sadaam--which is a good thing, because whomever thinks that he wouldn't have jumped right on the Al-Q bandwagon, if he wasn't on it already, is living in a dream world.

So the president took our outrage, our determination, and our goodwill, and used it to invade the wrong fucking country!, against the advice and wishes of most of the world and a number of his advisors. As for Saddam Hussein, a secular Sunni leader persecuting a Shiite majority, supporting a Shiite Islamist terrorist organization which would likely turn on him in an instant, yes I have some serious doubts. So far the only people who were dumb enough to voluntarily back Al-Q without realizing they had their own agenda, back when they were the muhajadeen, ]was us.

Just because we haven't gotten the big guy yet doesn't mean this was a failure. All of a sudden, people are talking about how Bush did this, and how he did that....they forget that they were right behind him when this shit happened. I'm not a humongous Bush fan, but I think he did the best that could be done at the time, and I still support his decision to go to war. It was what had to be done. Had we not retaliated, it would've been open season on the wussy USA, and everyone knows it.

I'm not arguing Afghanistan, but this constant confusion between "War on Terror" and Iraq, by otherwise rational people, still confuses me. Again, Bush took the ball during 9/11, to his credit. He then did one right thing (Afghanistan) and then ran in the wrong direction and scored for the other team. Thanks to Iraq, there are probably more potential terrorists out there than there ever have been. Bush might as well pose for an Al-Qaeda recruiting poster.

And speaking of screw-ups, didn't Clinton know about all these threats ahead of time? If anyone should've been forced to resign, it was HIM. I don't think that we've ever had a worse president, IMO. He was like the idiot brother you hid in the closet when company came over, so he wouldn't embarrass you. Interesting, too, I think, that Sadaam thought Clinton was just the shit....

Comparing Bush and Clinton, and coming up with Clinton as the idiot? Aside from some truly stupid personal behavior, Clinton at least had people looking in the right places. As far as respect goes, Clinton had the respect of many world leaders. Compare that to Bush, who took a large deposit of goodwill following 9/11 and completely squandered it.

I think we should be more concerned with our (AMERICA'S---remember America? The wronged country?) safety than about bitching after the fact. It's easy to play monday-night quarterback when you're not in the hot seat. Bush did what he felt was right, and everyone backed him then---but now they blame him for everything from the prisoner abuse to the sand flies.

Everyone was dumb enough to give him a blank check on Iraq. Congress should have demanded consultation before attacking. Bush claimed a 'clear and present' danger, invaded without considering the consequences, as usual ignored the more pessimistic assessments of manpower and resources needed, and stuck the entire country in a giant sandtrap. I cannot think of anyone who does not believe that this is "Bush's War". Noone in Congress demanded we invade Iraq. I think even those allies who had troops on the ground with us were suprised that we finally attacked instead of opting to contain and pressure Hussein.

I agree that those who abused the prisoners should pay for it. While I may understand their feelings, I don't agree with their actions. But I also think it's time to start worrying more about the safety of our country, and relaying the fact that we're not going to take this terrorist shit, than we are about giving comfort to the enemy, who'd probably treat allied prisoners the same way, considering how much they hate Americans.

Actually, since there is no single group of insurgents, it is hard to gauge a single response. Some captives get medical attention, some are executed. Considering you have two major groups, plus random terrorist cells, putting a single face on the enemy is impossible. Ask a US soldier in Vietnam if he would rather fall into the hands of the NVA or the Khmer Rouge. And by getting caught torturing prisoners (yes it really is torture), we are giving aid and comfort to the enemy in handing them the greatest propoganda victory of the war.

BTW, the whole "let's do this to them because they'd probably do the same to us" ranks right up there with "It's ok to steal/lie/cheat because everyone else does it" as one of the lamest moral prevarications ever used.

We're rebuilding their frigging country for them, like we always do after we kick someone's ass. If they were smart, they'd let us do it and wait for us to leave, instead of torturing and killing civilians, which is going to result in backlash, no matter what. That's just human nature.

Human nature is to resist outside interference. We really don't care about them. They know this. We really didn't go to war to 'free Iraq'. They know this too. If we hadn't done such a half-assed job, they might have gotten with the program, but it's obvious we didn't commit enough resources at the outset to get the job done, even without civil unrest.

As for the abuse. Deep down, the government wishes the pictures never got out. They weren't that upset by the initial reports of abuse. Like many Americans, the concept really doesn't take hold until you see the pictures. It is especially troubling when you consider that there was no due process and some guys in that jail are probably innocent jerks who were picked up off the street, or because some neighbor wanted to make points with the US or was mad at them.

The US is now in the business of 'disappearing' people. This means grabbing someone and not even telling their families where they are. Imagine your son or daughter going out to run an errand and never returning. Going to authorities meets a blank wall. Then you hear that a notorious prison is back in business and that there are abuses going on. And you still cannot find out if you son/daughter/cousin/uncle is alive.

This is supposed to win hearts and minds and make everyone believe we're the good guys?

[elSicomoro]

Someone on another board I frequent asked the question, "Do you feel safer now than you did 2 years ago?"

My answer: "Fuck no! I feel less safe now than I did 2 years ago."

[jaguar]

Whether fighting wars or 'providing security' these guys are mercs, plain and simple. They are militarily trained (often SpecOps types), heavily armed dudes who are payed to shoot anyone that gets in the way, the fact it's not all out war doesn't mean they are not mercs. There are also 10,000 of them in Iraq at the moment. I've met some of these guys working in similar security positions in other locations, you can't compare them to rent-a-cops with oversize tourches, these guys are serious military types that tend to see the world as good guys and bad guys, end of story.

[xoxoxoBruce]

An army of G. Gordon Liddys.

[TheLorax]

You know I expect this sort of depraved behavior from Americans, hell we’re a bunch of savages but the British? Well now the world has certainly to hell in a hand basket when properly bred British troops would do something as rude as torture.

[ladysycamore]

Originally posted by sycamore
Someone on another board I frequent asked the question, "Do you feel safer now than you did 2 years ago?"

My answer: "Fuck no! I feel less safe now than I did 2 years ago."

Precisely, and truth be told, I've never felt 100% "safe" anyway, especially knowing that someone could easily drag my black ass behind a truck, like in the case of James Byrd .

Oh, did I go there? I sure did. Homegrown terrorism anyone?

[Happy Monkey]

The vast majority of terrorism on US soil has been by US citizens.

[glatt]

I think that depends on your definition of "terrorism" and if you are counting separate incidents or total people killed.

[Troubleshooter]

The instant you feel the safest is the instant you're least safe.

[Happy Monkey]

Terrorism is the application or threat of force against civilians by a non-governmental body for the purpose of furthering a political goal by instilling fear in the target populace.

Counting by total people killed rather than incidents decreases the vastness of the majority, but I suspect that homegrown still has an edge.

Foreign terrorism certainly wins on average kills per incident, though.

[warch]

Lets hope that once Kerry has the election sown up, he can switch to talking about an exit strategy. He doesn't talk about one much now because he is afraid to sound unpatrotic. I think his current strategy of more international involvement might suffer from what Colin Powel called "china shop rules" i.e. you break it you fix it, unless he delivers real sovereignty to the Iraqes and sets a withdrawl date for American troops.

The only strategy worth considering is to invest until Iraq is stable. For that we need diplomacy and a willingness to appologise.