Iraqi Abuse Scandal: The Plot Thickens

[Burtsplurt]

Unne: I don't think China or Cuba ever claim that they're pro-human rights. All we can do is put pressure on them to change their minds. I think that people are never going to be to make a big deal about executions of political prisoners unless they know about it. Those two countries aren't exactly renowned for their freedom of information.

I agree with LH on the rest.

I'd prefer they punish the criminals or whatever and stop showing pictures on the news every day. We know people did something bad, we don't need to keep beating a dead horse.

What will that achieve, exactly? What will happen if the same thing happens again? I'd say there's got to be a pretty big investigation of what happened, and, most importantly, *why* it happened, and then for implementation of new practices. The more embarrassed people feel, the better; it'll help prevent it re-occurring somewhere else.

[Azure Chrysanthemum]

We're Americans. If you don't keep showing these images, we'll forget within a month.

If only I were joking...

[The Captain]

I understand the sentiments of DocFrance, Unne, and the like, but I think what LH said really rings true: America is supposed to stand for something, supposed to not have these sort of acts occur on our watch. If we are going to say that we'll bring democracy to other countries and "liberate" people, we ARE going to be held to a higher standard because we brought it upon ourselves. When you're the sole Super power in the world, you are held to a higher standard than the rest of the world, whether it's fair or not.

This situation must be fixed the right way, completely, or else, we risk only further alienating the rest of the Middle East, and will loss a lot more credibility with the rest of the world, though we've already lost enough.

Take care all.

[Shadow Nexus]

Unne: I don't think China or Cuba ever claim that they're pro-human rights.

Have you seen "Comandante" by Oliver Stone? Fidel does claim to respect human rights, then again, I doubt he does (I am not sure if he does, it's impossible to find non biased information about that country, and I have tired, but everything was so contradictory I gave up). Then again, I wonder what country respects human rights. Mine dosen't. It seems like human rights is just a paper politicians use to accuse each other.

[TasteyPies]

I say let the abusers get abused by the abusies.....

Thats justice there

[Mr. Graves]

The more pubicity, the better, no matter how disturbing. We have a right to know what happens over there. It does involve us and our world policy/image, after all.

As it stands, it appears we've knocked over Saddam's rule so we could just take over his job. It's the way it's appears to me, and I'm sure it's appears that way to other countries, too.

[TheAbominatrix]

This doesnt need to be written off and forgotten. "They did wrong, get over it." is not an option. This shows a disturbing trend in our military prison system. How many other prisons are hiding the same things? What about Guantanomo Bay, where Rumsfeld himself said the prisoners have no Geneva Convention rights?

[DocFrance]

I'm not saying we should just forget about it. But this is the fourth thread made on the same exact subject. We're really just beating a dead horse, because almost every post has been exactly the same.

[TheAbominatrix]

And two of those threads were duplicates because the posters didnt see that we already had a thread on it. This is an expansion of what we were talking about in the last thread.

[Strider]

Yeah, that's the only reason I made an entirely new thread, because it is different than what we've been talking about in other threads.

And I know that some people might question the Post's journalistic credentials, but is that really a legitimate reason to dismiss something like this? With all that's happened in the abuse scandal thus far, is it really a stretch? Either way, it's hard to ignore.

[Rei]

Really, how much of the same thing do you have to see? Remembering what happened is all well and good, but it doesn't need to be the top news story again and again, especially when nothin' new has been said. At least wait until something big happens, like the soldiers get jail time or Rumsfeld resigns or somethin'.

I was also gonna say somethin' about everyone else holding America to a higher standard because we deserve it, but it probably is just because we're the superpower. Either way, it doesn't need to be rubbed in so much that we're just like everyone else, except with a bunch more influence. The investigations and such we need, but not the endless "news" stories.

[TheAbominatrix]

Actually this does bring to light a lot of new stuff. Most of what has been said was not known at the time of the original reports. If you don't want to hear about it again and again, there's a lot of other, different threads around.

[Dr Unne]

Why I think we should get over it:

Our military's rules outlaw behavior like the behavior those people are accused of. The Geneva Conventions are pretty clear that you can't go around torturing people, physically OR mentally. We adhere to the Geneva Conventions, officially. No one in our military thinks that the things that happened in those prisons are acceptable. People are being rounded up and court-marshalled. Everyone from the President himself straight down to the military leaders have publically apologized, repeatedly. There's apparently a world-wide investigation going on now, not just in Iraq but in every military prison, and there's now enough public scrutiny that nothing is going to get by anyone. The problem is in the process of being corrected; whoever was to fault will be done away with. It's a bad thing that happened, but I'm satisfied that it's in the process of being fixed, and I don't feel the need to keep bringing it up every couple minutes. What more do they need to do to satisfy people? Burn Rumsfeld at the stake?

Like I said, there are FAR worse things going on every single day down the street from me. There are also people being exploded by bombs all over the Middle East on a daily basis. There are countries whose OFFICIAL policy is to do far worse things than most of us can imagine, on a daily basis. The US military are not the bad guys here. I think there are bigger problems to worry about in the world.

[Rei]

Eh, not really, Abominatrix. It says that she had sex with other soldiers, and Congress was disgusted by the videos. When I hear of prisoner abuse involving sexual acts and all those other forms of torture, it's pretty safe to assume that some sexual acts are goin' to be happenin'. Hell, she didn't even have sex with the prisoners. And I pretty much assumed that anyone of importance in the Capitol would've seen the pictures by now anyway, and the standard answer would be "I'm disgusted." The only thing I see that's newsworthy is that one of the guys slammed his head against the wall to knock himself out. That's pretty disturbing.

And, I guess I could ignore all threads that I don't agree with, but that'd leave out a bunch of stuff, and besides, discussion, or debate, or whatever, is fun.

[TheAbominatrix]

Yet it happened. And it may be happening elsewhere. These people, some of them are professional prison guards in civilian practice. We're discussing the issue. I don't see why we cant discuss it without 20 people going 'get over it, get over it' when there's other threads they could be participating in. It's unfair to the people who want to discuss it.

There are bigger problems? Of course. And we should deal with them all. This should be dealt with. If you're tired of discussing it, dont discuss it.

Edit: And Rei, there's a lot of stuff in there I didnt know about. And others, probably. Debate is fine, but why is cant we have it be about this topic instead of 'why we should or shouldnt stop talking about this topic'?