ABUSE CRISIS: Army Destroyed Mock Abu Ghraib Execution Pictures

According to Army documents released by the American Civil Liberties Union indicate that pictures of mock executions were destroyed after the Abu Ghraib scandal broke. The reason for the destruction was to avoid further public outrage. The pictures showed U.S. military personnel posing with hooded and bound detainees during mock executions.



Yet another scandal related to Abu Ghraib and where is the punishment for any ranks above enlisted. I agree that those who actively participated in the abuse need to be punished, but the trail has to lead higher than that. I have relatives in the military and someone higher is always responsible even if he was not there. At the vary least the indications that this scandal was occurring were ignored at the worst, it was tacit approval.

Related AboveTopSecret.com Discussion Threads:
ABUSE CRISIS: AP: Iraqi Died at Abu Ghraib While Hanging by His Wrists

First of all, I think this crisis has passed, except for those unfortunates on both sides who were involved. Secondly, I think the Army was wise to destroy the pictures. They serve no function except to prolong the pain caused by those who committed these crimes.

[edit on 05/2/18 by GradyPhilpott]

Grady, you are a military man, why is the punishment being confined to the enlisted ranks only? No doubt all convicted deserved to be, but why is it stopping there? I voted for Bush as most people know despite my reservations about Rumsfield (you take the good with the bad) but heads should have rolled over this and the only ones doing the rolling are all below the rank of Lt. jg????

My having been in the military does not give me any insight into the details of these crimes. The most important thing is that those who were most directly involved are being prosecuted. I believe that it is very possible that these things went on without the knowledge of higher ups, because these events happened on the night shift. There were individuals who were involved in this who were both old enough high enough in rank to know what they were doing was wrong.

The fact is that by the time that the photos were released to the public, the internal investigation had been going on for months. The brass did what it should have. Are there those who were involved who will skate, maybe, but when you considered how many are facing trail or have been tried, my guess is that there has been a lot of singing going on.

Maybe, it won't all be perfect, but the people who engaged in the activities knew that they were doing wrong and they deserve to be punished and will be punished.

Nothing was done wrong at Abu Graib. Not one person should be procecuted for anything. The entire incident is a "liberal" media hype and should be completely forgotten.

Originally posted by DrHoracid
Nothing was done wrong at Abu Graib. Not one person should be procecuted for anything. The entire incident is a "liberal" media hype and should be completely forgotten.

there was nothing wrong in world war two concentration camps either, right doctor?
its just "military stuff" us civilians dont even understand.

Originally posted by Souljah

Originally posted by DrHoracid
Nothing was done wrong at Abu Graib. Not one person should be procecuted for anything. The entire incident is a "liberal" media hype and should be completely forgotten.

there was nothing wrong in world war two concentration camps either, right doctor?
its just "military stuff" us civilians dont even understand.

So now Abu Graib is on the same level as Nazi extermination camps? I do love how the liberal mind works. Self delusion.....................

Originally posted by GradyPhilpott
First of all, I think this crisis has passed, except for those unfortunates on both sides who were involved.

This 'crisis' has only just started. The original pics released were 'mild' and not really very horrible. But that was in election season. The above demonstrates that they are willing to destroy stuff to control the fallout, they'd certainly withold stuff temporarily in an election season. More is going to come out with time, and possibly by the end they will have someone like rummy step down, since he probably won't be in the 2008 cabinet anyway. Or maybe not being in the 2008 cabinet will be made out like a 'step down'.

Secondly, I think the Army was wise to destroy the pictures. They serve no function except to prolong the pain caused by those who committed these crimes.

It was wise to engage in an illegal cover-up? It was wise to conspire to destroy evidence in order to protect the people chained to the conspiracy by their command? Thats not wise. Thats damned stupid, unethical, and illegal. If the military can' t handle the shame and punishment for doing these things, too bad, it shouldn't have done it.

drhoracid
Nothing was done wrong at Abu Graib

People were killed thru torture.

It doesn't matter if they were scumbag jihadis who should've been executed anyway.

Originally posted by Nygdan
It doesn't matter if they were scumbag jihadis who should've been executed anyway.

thank you for answering to doctor.
i still think he doesnt understand.

Originally posted by DrHoracid
Nothing was done wrong at Abu Graib. Not one person should be procecuted for anything. The entire incident is a "liberal" media hype and should be completely forgotten.

This from the man who thinks that American soldiers tortured by SaddamCo. during the Gulf War should be compensated for their suffering. Why do Americans suffer in a different way than the rest of the world?

Why am I surprised?

Originally posted by GradyPhilpott They serve no function except to prolong the pain caused by those who committed these crimes.

They serve to go down in the horrors of history. Or don't you want America's shame to be passed on to the younger generation?

This is ridiculous. Orders received from the top on this horrific scandal as were the orders to destroy the photos. All should be held to account from the President on down the line.

America should always be remembered as "the good guy" and these pictures would contradict that now, wouldn't they?

Incroyable !


[edit on 18/2/05 by AlwaysLearning]

Dr. Vincent Iacopino, director of research for Physicians for Human Rights, called the hyper-extension of the arms behind the back "clear and simple torture."

it is very simple.
most of the so called "ghost-prisoners" were tortured brutally,
and the number of all the dead will never be known.

dont matter how you turn it,
its still torture and people still died because of it.
that is how the world will remember that.

Originally posted by DrHoracid

So now Abu Graib is on the same level as Nazi extermination camps? I do love how the liberal mind works. Self delusion.....................

Any time someone is held prisoner in extreme conditions and/or tortured and/or killled without being convicted of a crime, YES IT IS the same thing. And ANY TIME torture is applied it is UNACCEPTABLE. There is no justification for it EVER.

For a Jew who's people have suffered all through time, you have no compassion for anyone else do you?

Balancing act: liberal ---OR--- inhuman narrowminded self-righteous whatever... (I don't even think conservatives are this bad)

I'll be a liberal any day.



[edit on 18/2/05 by AlwaysLearning]

I will bring up a side point...
the former american ambassador to Iraq... John Negroponte... is probably at the top of the blame list for the abuses at ABU GHARAB, but he will never be confronted, just as he was never confronted for the DEATH SQUADS that he sanctioned in Honduras during the senior bush administration...

He is also getting ready to be appointed as the intellegence Tsar of the USA...

it is kind of like learning that a priest who almost got imprisoned for child molestation, but was transferred to save face, is now being made POPE...

It also points out that there may have been a much darker side to the abuses at Abu Gharab than we are privy to...

Negroponte is known for using torture and illegal interogation techniques in his past appointments (also "special" ambassador positions), and for making critics of his, dissapear...
there is also a large speculation among former CIA that he was behind at least one beheading in iraq, just to distract the media from his connections.

I know this all sounds 'stretchy" but take a look at the Negroponte getting appointed thread... and you might start to see a clearer picture of what was really going on behind closed cell doors in Iraq...

it is entirely beleivable after researching his history, and his "special" role in Iraq, that these "mock" executions were real....

FredT that has been my problem too with this whole ordeal, why only the enlisted have to paid for the sins of the change of command.

Something seems to out of the ordinary, perhaps if the investigation keeps on going up in the that line the real masterminded will come to light and somebody or some important people are getting immunity from the investigation.

Like Mr. Bush said "He will not hold accountable any of his staff from wrong doings during his administration"

But how come our soldiers are "held accountable" they work for the government too.

presidential accountability went away after the Iran-contra hearings and Daddy bush pardoned all those involved.

These prisoners were not tortured, based on any evidence I have seen. They were hazed by a bunch of perverted hacks, who did nothing except gratify their own perversions and drag America's name threw the mud. For that the participants deserve to be severely punished.

Originally posted by GradyPhilpott
These prisoners were not tortured, based on any evidence I have seen.

Yes, the ones that were not tortured were not tortured, althought when a person can be water boared and still not be tortured thats kind of making it meaningless.

Have you seen that one person so far was revealed to have been hung from their wrists with the hands down and behind the back? And that, whatever they were doing to him was brutal enough to kill him?

I think that Charles Krauthammer sums up the issue of Abu Ghraib pretty well in his article about how the war on terror is as much about sex as it is about terror, from which I quote:

[...]

One could not have designed a more symbolic representation of the Islamist warning about where Western freedom ultimately leads than Thursday's Washington Post photo of a uniformed American woman holding a naked Arab man on a leash.

Let's be clear. The things we have learned so far about Abu Ghraib are not, by far, the worst atrocities committed in war. Indeed, they pale in comparison with what Arab insurgents have done to captured Westerners, and what Saddam Hussein did to his own people.

The American offenders should surely be judged by our standards, not by others'. By our standards, these were egregious violations of human rights and human dignity. They must be punished seriously. They do not, however, reflect the ethos of the American military, which has performed with remarkable grace and courage in Iraq, or of American society.

The photographs suggest otherwise. Which is why the abuse at Abu Ghraib is so inflammatory and, for us and our cause, so damaging. It re-enacted the most deeply psychologically charged -- and most deeply buried -- aspect of the entire war on terror, exactly as bin Laden would have scripted it.

www.townhall.com...

Krauthammer is great. However, that article talks about rather innoccuous things that these apparently quite puritanical gyno-fearing fundamentalists are whining over, not actual, brutal, murderous, torture.