Will the Yanks see the light?

[Beach Hut]

Needless to say hopefully this will finally persuade all parties of the forces in Iraq to perhaps step back and re-group.

Enough is enough as far as I am concerned it is time to try a sort this out once and for all and leave a peaceful regime intact.

 

[Easy 10]

Small minorities or not, any "moral high ground" that the coalition forces previously may have had as they try to bring law and order to Iraq, has been completely blown out of the water now by those images. If coalition troops are going to behave no better towards Iraqi's than the evil regime they have gone in to remove, then what hope is there of ever bringing peace and democracy to the region.

Massive damage has been done by this, and it will only incite more violence and hatred from those Iraqi's who may previously have been supportive.

 

[London Irish]

Who can say how we would react if we thought we were alone with someone on he same side as the guy who blew our best mate's brains out ?

What a load of f***ing crap. You can justify any kind of barbarism with shit like that.

The British torture will have less impact simply because the war is widely acknowledged here to be a disaster and the images will have but a marginal impact on people's view of the war. The US is only just about waking up to that fact that Iraq is a disaster thanks to their cowed and gutless media.

Look at tonight's news! You couldn't make this f***ing stuff up!

The US have given up in Falluja, a week of bombing everything in sight, slaughtering god knows what in that city, and they've admitted they can't control the place, so they need to bring in an expert at keeping down Iraqis - a former Saddam general!

Fair play to the C-u-n-t - at least Gen Jasim Mohamed Saleh has a sense of humour. He reports for duty dressed in his old Saddam Republican Guard uniform (!!!!) and with his best Saddam moustache.

What an absolute humiliation for the US. They "liberate" Iraq from Saddam and when the Iraqis tell them what they think of that, the US bring back all the old Ba'athist butchers to start doing what they do best.

Bush is now in a blind panic and knows he has to stop the flow of US troops going home in bodybags if he's got any chance in November. So the Texan tosser is cutting and running.

The f***ing hypocrisy is exquisite.

 

[Juan Albion]

What a load of f***ing crap. You can justify any kind of barbarism with shit like that.

Nonsense, I think you missed the point entirely. No-one is trying to justify anything, certainly not me. You can never justify anything like that, and I certainly wouldn't. The book should be thrown at anyone who ever does anything like that. I doubt if anyone thinks for a moment that anything like that could ever be acceptable.

But nor can you go up some ivory tower and ignore the realities of warfare (especially for the sake of scoring some political point), however distasteful they might be to us back home. The reality of warfare is more brutal, I suspect, than any of us can imagine unless we have actually been through it, and the context needs to be remembered. The reality is that 500+ Americans have been killed by Iraqis and that means several thousand American troops who have lost good friends to the 'enemy'. That a few of these react in such a disgusting way does not totally surprise me - just as it doesn't surprise me that some Iraqis react to seeing their friends killed by Americans by killing some 'Yanks' and dragging their bodies through the streets. Neither act can be 'justified' by us but it happens. It is one of the sad truths of war that otherwise normal human beings are reduced to such animals. If a bunch of politicians hadn't sent them to war they would probably be at home running a kids sports team or helping at the Boy Scouts.

 

[Lady Bracknell]

Look at tonight's news! You couldn't make this f***ing stuff up!The US have given up in Falluja, a week of bombing everything in sight, slaughtering god knows what in that city, and they've admitted they can't control the place, so they need to bring in an expert at keeping down Iraqis - a former Saddam general!

Predicting this scenario would have been almost too much even for the ever-fertile imagination of Mohammed Saeed al-Sahhaf! Although some of last year's pronouncements by the Minister of Information seem to ring surprisingly true today...

"Americans are now in disarray"

"Iraqi forces are still in control of the city..."

 

[Juan Albion]

"Americans are now in disarray"

"Iraqi forces are still in control of the city..."

 

[London Irish]

What's this bolix about "ivory towers"? I'm sorry, are your sitting in the middle of Falluja or Baghdad dispensing your wisdom for the rest of us? Or perchance "sitting behind a computer desk" as I am?

I'm applying some straightforward moral judgements to these torturing *****. Your point that "the brutal realities of war" "explains" their actions is a cop-out and an insult to the majority of US and British soldiers who obey military discipline and rules of engagement with the enemy and do not commit war crimes. People retain the choice to do good or bad things in bad situations - fuzzy moral relatavism DOES end up lessening the burden of individual responsibility on those that choose to do the bad things.

That "the reality of warfare is more brutal, I suspect, than any of us can imagine", well, I'm sorry for you that you bought the prevailing myth of the modern war as a surgical, smart bomb-enabled, media newspeak-sanitised, "collateral damage" myth-making, consequence-free enterprise.

Most of the 2m+ Britons who marched against the war over a year ago didn't.

 

[Juan Albion]

What's this bolix about "ivory towers"? I'm sorry, are your sitting in the middle of Falluja or Baghdad dispensing your wisdom for the rest of us? Or perchance "sitting behind a computer desk" as I am?

I'm applying some straightforward moral judgements to these torturing *****. Your point that "the brutal realities of war" "explains" their actions is a cop-out and an insult to the majority of US and British soldiers who obey military discipline and rules of engagement with the enemy and do not commit war crimes. People retain the choice to do good or bad things in bad situations - fuzzy moral relatavism DOES end up lessening the burden of individual responsibility on those that choose to do the bad things.

That "the reality of warfare is more brutal, I suspect, than any of us can imagine", well, I'm sorry for you that you bought the prevailing myth of the modern war as a surgical, smart bomb-enabled, media newspeak-sanitised, "collateral damage" myth-making, consequence-free enterprise.

Most of the 2m+ Britons who marched against the war over a year ago didn't.

Out of interest did you actually read what I wrote or just guess - and get it completely wrong?

Just for fun, humour me and tell me, in your own words, what you think I actually said...

(Here's a hint - no, I didn't ever buy the "surgical blah blah..." myth. Where did I say I did? Saying we cannot imagine the horrors of warfare sitting at home has nothing to do with surgical myths...)

 

[London Irish]

If you're going to play games rather than defend anything you said, your post would have been more effective without the 3rd par.

 

[graz126]

would not surprise me if the orders came from the top (bush himself). its a war they are fighting, toture is commonplace. it is one of those orders. toture them, get the truth or the information we need, but if you get caught we totally condone all of your actions.
end of the day wars are not fought with feather dusters. it would not be as important if wars were fought by playing international tiddly wink competitions.
i would be quite sure that our lads were involved in these tortures aswell. giving them out and taking them. i have known of people with photos from the 1st gulf war and falklands showing more disturbing things than this. shit happens wether it is right or not. all soldiers want the wars over as quick as possible so the can get home to their loved ones. so they do what they can to aid this.
sad state of affairs but isnt any war?

 

[NMH]

The operative word in this Iraq conflict is 'EMBROILED', and GW's agendas have both sides embroiled in a conflict which has no possible peaceful resolution.

Bush has ZERO concept or interest in international affairs or politics, no idea of culture or foreign democracy. The current conflicts may well facilitate terrorism for generations.
One man's terrorist is another's 'freedom fighter', and we are emulating the nazi invasions in Europe in WWII. Experts on international affairs warned that the only regime that can work in Iraq is the same as Saddam's. They said this before he was deposed, and they will only be proved right, imho.

Yes, I believe a war on terrorism was necessary, in covert operations to track them - and in raised home security. The US have basically tolerated the occasional plane going down every year, until the big 9/11 hit - and they should have been getting ahead of that in the first place. ARM airline pilots forfuxsake, train stewardesses in defence and give them mace or tazer guns.
"US intelligence" has been an oxymoron for a long time, and foreign policy has attracted dissent, and got the results.

Why does anyone support Israel ? They are pretending to be making token offerings to the Palestinians, then playing hard-liners after the inevitable suicide bombings occur. If they were seen to be doing something tangible, these suicide bombers might desist. Itzak Rabin was the best chance for any progress, and he was murdered by his own peoples. What chance?!
It's frustrating, and never-ending.

'BIG OIL' controls the USA at the moment. The intimation that there should be 'alternative fuels' pioneered is distracting bullshit because there is ALREADY the alternative of alcohol as a fuel. Half of Brazil uses it successfully - why are the rest of the World ignoring this ? $$$$$$ ! If we start refining alcohol from sugar like Brazil does, then the whole mess of attention given to the middle-east fades, and we no longer need to worry so much about Islamic stranglehold on World progress and economy.


Still, we are biding time 'embroiled' in war in Iraq, and it can only lead to more embarrassment, hatred and terrorism. No winners, and foot-soldiers as pawns, cannon fodder. If we are "making the world safe for capitolism" then the "safe" part seems to have been discarded.

Mankind is so sophisticated and advanced isn't it?

 

[Row Z Creased Shirt]

I defy any other footy messageboard to have a debate on current affairs between the hours of midnight and 7am on a saturday morning. Amazing.

FWIW. my opinions are, these revelations should comes as no surprise to anyone, JA was partially right when he basically said this torture is a fairly natural symptom of modern warfare. On the one hand everyone wants to salute the bravery of anyone willing to put their lives on the line for someone else, but the very essence of violent conflict is the dehumanisation of the enemy, and of yourself aswell.

These actions are inexcusable and the perps should be punished, but the responsibilty I feel goes further back into the war machine than just the individuals involved. It is the system that trains these people, and the control of commanding officers who do know the 'rules' as well. You might also want to acknowledge that many people volunteer for the armed forces in the US as it is their only hope for a decent job and education, that would not be open to them in civilian society. I think this is a factor in the abilityof some of the troops to handle the pressure of being in combat situations, and that they are just not mentally equipped for the horrors of war. Particularly when their chickenhawk leaders make them believe it is going to be a cakewalk, with happy locals throwing flowers and not launching RPG's at them.

I suspect that this abuse is more widespread than the military would like us to think. Many prisoners have died in custody in pretty shady circumstances, including one at the hands of our boys.

It makes a complete and utter mockery of the values that we are meant to stand for, and we serve as an example or beacon of hope to no-one if we can get away with acting like this.

 

[Uncle Spielberg]

Noone on here seriously thinks for a second do they that the Iraqi's wouldn't do excatly the same and much worse to USA prisoners if the boot was on the other foot do they ?!.

Its given some great photo opportunities for the anti USA campaign and for that many people must be very happy.

 

[Row Z Creased Shirt]

Noone on here seriously thinks for a second do they that the Iraqi's wouldn't do excatly the same and much worse to USA prisoners if the boot was on the other foot do they ?!.

Its given some great photo opportunities for the anti USA campaign and for that many people must be very happy.

So that's all right then. The bad guys do it so we can do it too.

What a load of tosh, not even Bush and Bliar agree with that sentiment. (not in public anyway)

 

[Tom Hark Preston Park]

It's all over the front page of the Daily Mirror today. Only this time its British soldiers pissing all over the Geneva convention. The kid on the receiving end wasn't even a terrorist, they're saying he was only trying to nick something from his local docks. They have no idea whether he's dead or alive, they just knocked seven shades of shit out of him while he had a hood over his head and his hands tied behind his back. Then they chucked him off the back of a lorry and dumped him in the street. Makes you sick. Thought we were supposed to be 'liberators'. How the did we end up losing the peace in such a deeply disgusting fashion? So much for our reputation as being The World's Policeman for our sense of fair play. B.Liar Out!

 

[NMH]

Noone on here seriously thinks for a second do they that the Iraqi's wouldn't do excatly the same and much worse to USA prisoners if the boot was on the other foot do they ?!.

Its given some great photo opportunities for the anti USA campaign and for that many people must be very happy.

Then what is the point of news and truth coming out of these conflicts ? If the point is that "they would do the same to us", then just-about every war has had atrocity, and likely always will.
It shouldn't be dismissed or supported.


Any new government of Iraq that is 'friendly' for the US and Britain will be seen as a puppet government, a sham put in place by our side to control the area politically.
Welcome to Israel pt 2 for the next however-many centuries.

 

[alan partridge]

Noone on here seriously thinks for a second do they that the Iraqi's wouldn't do excatly the same and much worse to USA prisoners if the boot was on the other foot do they ?!.

Its given some great photo opportunities for the anti USA campaign and for that many people must be very happy.

GG buries his head in the sand again!

really? do you really think cos they do it then our side should too?

all your posts on the war take a moral high ground over the invasion of iraq. you call iraqis animals as rebellions attack allied forces (whilst tens of thousands of IRAQIS try and escape the fighting) and you claim the forces are there to do some kind of 'good'.

so how do you explain away torture?...oh ofcourse...an anti-american campaign

 

[itszamora]

This frightens me -

"Why in God's name would you choose to air such a story at this time? This is something our country didn't need to know now. Everyone in this country is hanging on for dear life to support the troops, and you have taken all our faith in goodness away. How many more reports can we watch like this before support fades?

We are losing our fight with other countries to support us, and now you have just sealed it. ... We've just lost the goal of helping anyone over there because of this show, and God help us. You are no better then those who did these horrible acts. Your reports are bringing down this country. "

What the hell is she talking about, the Christian Fundamentalist/Fascist ? OF COURSE THIS IS GONNA WRECK SUPPORT FOR THE WAR, THAT'S WHY THEY RAN IT! A country's media is supposed to be objective and tell the truth, not pander to the government line like she wants it to. Besides, if the truth is "something our country didn't need to know right now" isn't there something fundamentally and horribly wrong with the US of A?