abuse or torture? Or just stupid?: Prisoner photos

I believe it was John McCain that said he was outraged at the outrage over the prison scandal. Now, I am not defending what those soldiers did. Don't get me wrong. But, I have to wonder if I too am also outraged by the outrage. I've seen a picture of a female US soldier pointing at an Iraqi prisoners junk. I've seen a picture of a dog near a prisoner (and have yet to see a dog attacking an Iraqi prisoner). One picture I have seen was of a prisoner with underwear on his head. The worst, imho, were of prisoners, naked, stacked on each other and others like that.

Again - I'm not defending the actions of the soldiers. But, every time I hear the word 'torture' mentioned I wonder if some perspective is needed.

personally, i don't really care wtf they do to those prisoners.
they killed (beheaded) one of ours, we should kill 1000 of them.

I am sure that there are things that are going on that we don't know about. I wish this could be peacful somehow. I wish things could be easier. Unfortunately propoganda controls our hate and anger. On both sides. They will kill us, so we must kill them. Torture..... they call that torture. I wonder what they call cutting someones head off while they are alive and screaming.

I am going through a hard time in my head deciding where I stand on all of this. I know I am sickened...literally...and I am mad. I am upset. I want revenge, yet I want an end. It is so complicated.

Yeah, some perspective is needed, Bob. You're right

Take a look at my post (the entire thing, please. It's not long, seriously... just look at the link at the very bottom of my last post)

www.abovetopsecret.com...

You will clearly see that it is torture and not abuse, if my verbal explanation is not clear enough.

Again; abuse is slapping around your prisoners and stuff like that; things that don't do permanent damage.

Torture is doing things that permanently damage a person physically or mentally. Those pictures clearly demonstrate the employment of torture. All you have to do is a bit of empathy. A little "If i were in their shoes, how would I feel about being treated like that?"

[Edited on 5/12/2004 by AlnilamOmega]

From what I've seen, there was no "TORTURE" involved. There was HUMILIATION!!!

Saddam= Torture!!

These are people who think death is martyrdom(sp). They would rather die and get their 72 virgins in heaven. But humiliation, thay can't live with that.

If these peole were tortured, I say throw the book at those responsible. If all it was is humiliation....then I say JOB WELL DONE!!! If we can get information by humiliating these bastards, then I'm all for it!!!! But I can't condone out and out torture...(Even though, in certain situations I can rationalize it), because it makes us no better than them.

I agree that the furor over the photos seems out of touch with reality. However, the things that are in the background that the pentagon is not releasing right now are far worse than this.
The Chair of the Senate Armed Services committee mentioned during the interview with Rummy last Friday that there are allegations (I think there are photos) of child rape and murder. So in the grand scheme of things the stacked naked men are humiliated but alive. If the other allegations turn out to be true we had all better be pretty freaking upset.

WTF silQ needs to read all posts before jumping to conclusions. At least not everyone in this forum has the mind of a 16 year old. The comment posted by silQ is something my 12 year old brother would say, but you never know.

Correct, My brother said he stumbled across an act of forced paedophilia. I was quite shocked. Not only is that torture to the man it is torture to the kid

As far as the first set of pictures is concerned, I agree with you completely. There are much worse things in this world than be humiliated.

here's a description of some of the unreleased images.
www.abovetopsecret.com...

when in war, why is it okay to riddle someone's body with numerous bullets, but slicing his head off is termed barbaric. War is War people. some tend to forget that we are the invading party in a country in which many (more than you are led to believe) dislike and do not want us there.

there should be outrage about these pictures, not because it happened to iraqis but because one day it could happen to you when you are accused of being a terrorist for not agreeing or rebelling against your oppressors.

The guy packed in ice is one I didn't see. I'll admit. But, your description offers nothing conclusive on what that picture is about. it said: picture is believed to have been taken at Abu Ghraib prison Even the BBC is unsure. The guy could be dead and his body is being preserved w/ ice, the story could be also be titled "US Army mortuary workers making do in Iraq - even preserving enemy dead w/ respect" - or something like that. You get the idea. We simply don't know the truth.

Firstly, it's not always about getting information from these guys. A lot of this torture is happening to people who were arrested for mediocre things like selling beer without a Coalition license.

Secondly, it's not all about humiliation. The kind of emotional damage that is done when a heterosexual man is forced to commit homosexual acts with other heterosexual men is irreparable. Also in support of this is how there is physical damage being done as there have been reports of some of the captured people have had acid dripped unto them, via broken chemical lamps and damaged batteries (and not the small AA kind, either)

Spoken like a true American. Full with hate, arrogance, ignorance, and stupidity.

God Bless America.

and this question about torture vs. abuse

the sexual nature of these acts are disgusting and perverted, many men I know would rather die than be forced to endure what some of those prisoners had to do.

Thanks for looking into my post, sir.

If I may make a suggestion, the pictures I posted there do not demonstrate much because I wanted to keep in line with ATS terms and conditions (and didn't want to make someone eating dinner feel sick, and similar kinds of situations).

If you, and others reading this thread, would kindly look at this link below, I would appreciate it:

abuse or torture?

i agree SilQ

they kill the innocent, we should kill the guilty (we have soilders in prisons not hostages)

There were reports of Iraqi women who were jailed in hope to get their husbands to surrender. Some of these women were raped. These are just reports mind you so i'm not saying they really happened. But the whole war was based on 'reports' recieved and not any hard evidence, so if you americans are so stupid to believe reports thrown out by your own government (who time after time is proven wrong or shown to be withholding important information), why dismiss other reports from more credible organisations like the red cross...
What about the photo of the iraqi prisoner being sat on? Not torture? the soldier sitting on him was huge! And the beheadding of Berg, as unfortunate as it was, was a retaliation the the abuses your soldiers subjected the Iraqi prisoners to. This 'War on Terror' and the War in Iraq iso nly creatingmore hatred for the USA and s only going the make the problem worse.; Not only are the USA creating more enemies, but they are losing support from all around the world.

These act were Abuse, Torture, and Stupid... expecially taking pictures of them. These pics would've surfaced sooner or later and now they have i want to see Rummy pay, coz he;s admitted to knowing that 'harsh' techniques were used in Iraq, Afghanistan and Guantanamo Bay

the memoryhole site isn't coming up for me. Wasn't that the site showing picture from a pornographic video, that weren't actually photos from the current situation? We're all aware that some of these pictures (the rape) and the British soldiers urinating are a hoax, right?

It doesnt come up for me on the first time either. Could be DDOS or Denial of Service attacks, but I admit this is speculation. Click on it again please.

No this is not the site that had those fake torture pictures that really came from porno sites. Most of those false pictures were posted by fake Arab sites that are owned and operated by subsidiaries of the CIA, and were used to discourage belief in such horrific photos.

[Edited on 5/12/2004 by AlnilamOmega]

ummm hellooo???

what about these?
here's a description of some of the unreleased images.
www.abovetopsecret.com...

fake too?