I find these allegations extremely disturbing. While it is somewhat reassuring that four soldiers apparently got dishonorable discharges for beating Iraqi prisoners in a January incident, not only do the soldiers responsible for this inexcusable behavior at Abu Ghraib prison need to be kicked out of the military at a minimum, but the FBI, CIA, and other civilian personnel who "turned a blind eye and even encouraged the behavior" also need to face severe consequences. And they need to investigate up the chain of command in every unit or agency involved to see how high the knowledge of the torture went. If the military or another responsible entity whitewashes this, that would be something that would cause me to switch my position on Iraq and say the U.S. government should pull its troops out.
Yours in liberty,
<<< Starchild >>>
Dear Starchild;
The Iraqi prisoner abuse by the military could be transplanted to any other country or time in the past. Yes I am being cynical about this. Generically around the world and going back as far as you want to in time abuse of prisoners by the imprisoners is pandemic. Witness the revealations about the California Youth Authority and the recently released videos showing inmates being pummelled and stomped.
Even if it is the US military doing this - why would you believe just because it was the US military it couldn't happen? The overall military think from the personnel on the ground is that they are in Bandit Country. When you consider the hundreds of homes broken into looking for weapons or insurgents and finding nothing. The people taken away because some neighbor concocted a false compalint. The fact that prisoners were abused comes as no surprise.
For an inside reaction from Iraqis on seeing the prisoner abuse video images see this blog site from River Bend.
http://riverbendblog.blogspot.com/
After you read what Iraqis think after seeing the prisoner videos scroll down to Monday March 29 Tales from Abu Ghraib...
The story is what happens all across Iraq every day to The Innocent Ones.
Ron Getty - SF Libertarian
Starchild <sfdreamer@...> wrote:
I find these allegations extremely disturbing. While it is somewhat
reassuring that four soldiers apparently got dishonorable discharges
for beating Iraqi prisoners in a January incident, not only do the
soldiers responsible for this inexcusable behavior at Abu Ghraib prison
need to be kicked out of the military at a minimum, but the FBI, CIA,
and other civilian personnel who "turned a blind eye and even
encouraged the behavior" also need to face severe consequences. And
they need to investigate up the chain of command in every unit or
agency involved to see how high the knowledge of the torture went. If
the military or another responsible entity whitewashes this, that would
be something that would cause me to switch my position on Iraq and say
the U.S. government should pull its troops out.
Yours in liberty,
<<< Starchild >>>