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fortdixlover
Master Chief Petty Officer of the Navy
Joined: 12 May 2004
Posts: 1476
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 Posted: Wed Jun 16, 2004 10:07 pm Post subject: The Saddam Torture Videos |
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Abu Ghraib before the U.S. was a true concentration camp, and the American media suppresses this information in yet another example of why they cannot be trusted.
FDL
BY JAMES TARANTO
Wednesday, June 16, 2004 3:15 p.m. EDT
The Saddam Torture Videos
The American Enterprise Institute held an unusual video screening yesterday, and hardly anyone showed up. One who did was the New York Post's Deborah Orin:
The video only lasts four minutes or so--gruesome scenes of torture from the days when Saddam Hussein's thugs ruled Abu Ghraib prison. I couldn't bear to watch, so I walked out until it was over.
Some who stayed wished they hadn't. They told of savage scenes of decapitation, fingers chopped off one by one, tongues hacked out with a razor blade--all while victims shriek in pain and the thugs chant Saddam's praises.
Saddam's henchmen took the videos as newsreels to document their deeds in honor of their leader.
But these awful images didn't show up on American TV news.
In fact, just four or five reporters showed up for the screening at the American Enterprise Institute think tank, which says it got the video via the Pentagon. Fewer wrote about it.
We saw part of this video a few weeks back, and indeed it is every bit as horrific as Orin's fellow reporters describe. Our computer crashed about a third of the way through and we didn't have the stomach to start watching again after rebooting. So we can certainly understand why television news outlets would see it as unfit to air.
As Orin notes, this "raises a very complex problem in the War on Terror. It's worse than creating moral equivalence between Saddam's tortures and prisoner abuse by U.S. troops. It's that we do far more to highlight our own wrongdoings precisely because they are less appalling."
Part of the problem may be that the press hasn't quite figured out how to deal with such "asymmetric propaganda," as Orin calls it. Yet it doesn't seem that it would be that hard to provide context--to make sure that every story about American abuses at Abu Ghraib also included graphic descriptions of what went on there before Iraq's liberation.
Why does the press harp on American abuses and ignore Saddam's? Orin quotes AEI's Michael Ledeen as saying it's because most journalists "want Bush to lose." Reporters, of course, are at pains to maintain an air of fairness, but surveys have demonstrated that most lean to the left.
If you listen to prominent Democrats like Ted Kennedy, Robert Byrd and Al Gore, it's hard to avoid the conclusion that they'd rather see America lose the war than the president win re-election. It's bad enough that one party is willing to engage in what as a practical matter amounts to anti-American propaganda. Surely we have a right to demand better from the news media. |
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ROTC DAD
Lt.Jg.
Joined: 12 May 2004
Posts: 147
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| Posted: Wed Jun 16, 2004 10:12 pm Post subject: |
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The fact that Saddam tortured fellow Iraqis does not in any way diminish US guilt in abusing detainees.
Saddam was a sadistic tyrant. What's our excuse? |
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fortdixlover
Master Chief Petty Officer of the Navy
Joined: 12 May 2004
Posts: 1476
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| Posted: Wed Jun 16, 2004 10:21 pm Post subject: |
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| ROTC DAD wrote: | The fact that Saddam tortured fellow Iraqis does not in any way diminish US guilt in abusing detainees.
Saddam was a sadistic tyrant. What's our excuse? |
Dear ROTC dad,
There is a factual error oin your statement above. let me point it out to you:
The fact that Saddam tortured fellow Iraqis
You neglected to include the following in your historical description of Saddam and his henchmen's prison practices:
- mutilation
- disfigurement
- amputation
- butchery
- decapitation
- castration
- flagellation
- incineration
- homogenization (via industrial plastic grinder)
- rape of women observed by husband and children
- murder
- etc.
Now, let's rephrase your declaration properly:
The fact that Saddam tortured, mutilated, disfigured, amputated, decapitated, castrated, flagellated, incinerated, ground to pulp, raped, and murdered fellow Iraqis does not in any way diminish US guilt in abusing detainees through unclothing them and marching them around on leashes.
That's better. Wouldn't you agree?
On not diminishing "guilt", I would tend to agree. On the quality and quantity of the "guilt", that's another matter. You know, guilt has levels. I think we can agree that Hitler was more "guilty" of crimes than, say, somone committing a frat hazing.
So, you win the argument, but that's a rather Pyrrhic victory for you (and for the dead, crippled and deformed Iraqis, of course).
What is it about Auschwitz-like Concentration Camps that leftists don't understand?
FDL |
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mtboone
Founder
Joined: 10 May 2004
Posts: 470
Location: Kansas City, MO.
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| Posted: Thu Jun 17, 2004 1:39 am Post subject: Torture Videos |
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ROTC DAD wrote:
The fact that Saddam tortured fellow Iraqis does not in any way diminish US guilt in abusing detainees.
Saddam was a sadistic tyrant. What's our excuse?
A very few stupid idiots did something we all say was wrong, but you blame the whole US Military? You have to realize, like in our society, there are people in the Military that do stupid things. You seem to deem it necessary to slander all for political gain, are you with CBS, ABC or NBC? |
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Airedale
Ensign
Joined: 02 Jun 2004
Posts: 50
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| Posted: Thu Jun 17, 2004 1:40 am Post subject: |
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That was an interesting story fortdixlover.
You got a link to it?
I would like to send it to this guy for an unbiased critique.
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ROTC DAD
Lt.Jg.
Joined: 12 May 2004
Posts: 147
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| Posted: Thu Jun 17, 2004 1:38 pm Post subject: |
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FDL,
Do you ever talk on point. The point I am making, which you and many others don't seem to understand, is that the US claims the moral high-ground and then proves that we are liars.
How so, you ask? I have only to see John Ashcroft on TV telling the Armed Services Committee and The Senate Intelligence Committee that we have rewritten US and International Law so that we can torture people when we think its a good idea and then not turning over these memos to Congress. All the while, our President stated in the UN that the US was in the forefront of the fight to end torture in the world.
It is not just the work of a few soldiers, as many of you continue to hold onto this ridiculous belief. The government's top legal advisor has had memos written to justify torture. Does your moral sense have no understanding of the concept that it is wrong, not just for Saddam Hussein, but for US as well? |
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ROTC DAD
Lt.Jg.
Joined: 12 May 2004
Posts: 147
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| Posted: Thu Jun 17, 2004 1:43 pm Post subject: |
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FDL,
and, as usual, you make light of our guilt. You really don't have a moral compass, do you?
When people such as myself were complaining that Hussein was a tyrant during the Reagan Administration, people like you were defending him as a stalwart ally of the US. Now, when the US is behaving in a similar fashion, Hussein is the greatest enemy in the world. And you complain about our moral compass?
mtboone,
You really need to be better informed before you make statements like this. It has nothing to do with the Alphabet media. It has everything to do with an Administration which believes it is above the law and can rewrite it according to its wants. |
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ROTC DAD
Lt.Jg.
Joined: 12 May 2004
Posts: 147
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| Posted: Thu Jun 17, 2004 1:49 pm Post subject: |
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As for killing detainees; at least 37 have died under mysterious circumstances while in our custody. So far 4 have been classified as homicides. How many beaten and otherwise abused, we don't even know yet.
Though we do know that Rumsfeld ordered that certain detainees be moved so that the IRC would not know of their existence, let alone what condition we were keeping them in.
And as I said before, you continue to argue moral relativity. |
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ASPB
Master Chief Petty Officer of the Navy
Joined: 01 Jun 2004
Posts: 1680
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| Posted: Thu Jun 17, 2004 1:53 pm Post subject: |
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ROTC Dad
Your pattern of making statements of what is no more than opinion as fact without documentary evidence is outside the rules of civil debate and will not be tolerated. Either make it evident that you are offering only personal opinion, the opinion of others, or provide documentary evidence. Otherwise your posts will be edited.
Everyone is free to opine but we're not going to debate opinions here. It's counter productive. Facts and conclusions can be debated, not opinions.
This is being openly posted as it applies to everyone participating here. Don't start looking backward for failures to do this in the past. I'm guilty as well as are many others.
Additionally, posting consecutively is. at a minimum, in poor taste. You have the ability to edit your posts. Please use it.
As Moderator.
_________________
 On Sale! Order in lots of 100 now at velero@rcn.com Free for the cost of shipping All profits (if any, especially now) go to Swiftvets. The author of "Sink Kerry Swiftly" ---ASPB |
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nakona
Lieutenant
Joined: 04 Jun 2004
Posts: 242
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| Posted: Thu Jun 17, 2004 5:37 pm Post subject: |
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| ROTC DAD wrote: | FDL,
Do you ever talk on point. The point I am making, which you and many others don't seem to understand, is that the US claims the moral high-ground and then proves that we are liars.
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No, ROTC DAD, we claim the moral high ground because we ARE the good guys, and then we prove we are HUMAN.
The abuse committed by a few individuals (and it's abuse, not atrocities) doesn't make the entire country evil.
I PERSONALLY resent your implication that it does.
_________________
13F20P |
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sdpatriot
Ensign
Joined: 16 Jun 2004
Posts: 50
Location: SD
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| Posted: Thu Jun 17, 2004 7:32 pm Post subject: |
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| nakona wrote: | | ROTC DAD wrote: | FDL,
Do you ever talk on point. The point I am making, which you and many others don't seem to understand, is that the US claims the moral high-ground and then proves that we are liars.
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No, ROTC DAD, we claim the moral high ground because we ARE the good guys, and then we prove we are HUMAN.
The abuse committed by a few individuals (and it's abuse, not atrocities) doesn't make the entire country evil.
I PERSONALLY resent your implication that it does. |
i personally resent it also. i have friends and nieghbors in Iraq and
Afghanistan right now. a Marine now returning for his second tour,
a Army Ranger who served in Iraq and is now in Afghanistan, a
young lady in the Army Reserves who was shot at by children and
had grenades lobbed at by a woman in Iraq. another young man
who is in the Marines and could be leaving for Iraq any day.
funny, i have talked with them all, and all have shown disgust for
the behavior of those who abused Iraqi prisoners. and the ones
that have been there have also told of the good works they and
fellow soldiers have done, and of the depth of depravity they have
discovered that went on under Saddam's regime. they are mystified
as to the lack of coverage by the media on this. they are proud of
the work they have done, rightfully so.
whining about the should have's in the 1st Desert Storm doesn't take
away from the job that is getting done this time. and whining about the
perverts who are being tried for their alleged crimes sure as hell
doesn't take way the amazing heroism and self-sacrifice of the majority
of our men and woman in the military.
sdpatriot
_________________
"Guard against the impostures of pretended patriotism."
George Washington, Farewell Address, September 19, 1796 |
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fortdixlover
Master Chief Petty Officer of the Navy
Joined: 12 May 2004
Posts: 1476
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| Posted: Thu Jun 17, 2004 9:35 pm Post subject: |
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| ROTC DAD wrote: | FDL,
Do you ever talk on point. The point I am making, which you and many others don't seem to understand, is that the US claims the moral high-ground and then proves that we are liars. |
Sir,
What you don't seem to understand are Judeo-Christian ethics. Your blatantly pagan sense of moral equivalency and blame is sad and revolting.
That you revel in hate-Amerca-first for humiliation-level 'abuses' of a few while people of a higher moral evolution try to save a country from genocide of the most brutal and savage kind, is likewise revolting.
| ROTC DAD wrote: | | How so, you ask? I have only to see John Ashcroft on TV telling the Armed Services Committee and The Senate Intelligence Committee that we have rewritten US and International Law so that we can torture people when we think its a good idea |
Sir, just as in my original response to you earlier in this thread, why is it that you don't see your misuse, abuse, and reckless use of generic words when the detail really matters? Why do you conflate throwing people in shredders feet-first with American interrogations?
| ROTC DAD wrote: |
It is not just the work of a few soldiers, as many of you continue to hold onto this ridiculous belief. |
Sir, your undocumented insinuation that 'many' soldiers were involved in the Abu Ghraib-type abuses is evidence of paranoia. You were also warned about such wild assertions.
John Kerry said the same in Vietnam, and has now tried to back off these assertions. Sir, how do we know you (and he) are not pursuing the same agenda?
| ROTC DAD wrote: |
The government's top legal advisor has had memos written to justify torture. |
Sir, the only torture here is having to read and reread your reckless disregard for semantics.
| ROTC DAD wrote: | | Does your moral sense have no understanding of the concept that it is wrong, not just for Saddam Hussein, but for US as well? |
Sir, my moral sense is that what the U.S. soldiers did in Abu Ghraib was wrong. However, it compares to the atrocities of Saddam like a match to an H-bomb.
In other words, I have a Judeo-Chrisitian moral sense that says that there are abuses of the 'leash on the pecker' kind, and there are massive, sustained Crimes Against Humanity, and one is fantastically more serious than the other. You seem to have a pagan sense of morals that equates the two, or none at all.
Either agree with the Judeo-Christian belief that there is a universe of difference between the 'abuses' of Abu Ghraib pre-Saddam ouster and post-ouster, or else stop lecturing to honorable, God-fearing American military personnel and their colleagues on moral issues. They are not interested in leftist paganism, I can assure you.
And My God, at least have a little sensitivity towards the Iraqi bloggers and audiences reading this site and express some condolences for the mass murder and atrocities committed by the dictator Sassam Hussein, who GWB removed from his fascist pedastal of absolute power.
FDL
Note: here's what ROTC DAD and other 'leftward-leaning' people compare the American abuses at Abu Ghraib to:
[WARNING: THIS IS GRAPHIC]
From http://www.nationalreview.com/comment/schulz200406170846.asp
According to Senate sources, this four-minute video, comprised of several clips, came to be after several verbal and written inquires were made to the Defense Department at the start of 2004. It is an edited version of several different tapes, totaling between one and two hours, discovered after the regime's collapse. The translations of the words heard on the tape were provided by the Department of Defense.
The first film clip opens with the camera showing a man standing in a bland, mostly empty room. The camera pans down to show his right hand. Folded rugs are visible in the background. The clip jumps to footage of scrub-clad "surgeons" with rubber surgical gloves severing the man's hand at the wrist. First the skin is peeled away with surgical knives and tweezers; ligaments, tendons, muscle, and bone underneath are exposed. Then the gloved hands wielding the knives begin to slice, shredding through the sinews, slashing muscle, breaking bone, until the hand is ultimately detached and plopped onto a green cloth, as yellow, pulpy tissue spills forth.
The next clip opens amid Saddam Fedayeen — Fedayeen means "those willing to die for Saddam" — chanting loudly: "With blood and spirit we will redeem you Saddam." The Fedayeen stand barking and clapping in a courtyard. A blindfolded prisoner, forced to his knees and held in position has his arm outstretched before him along a low concrete wall. A masked member of the Fedayeen raises high a three-foot-long blade and ferociously slams down on the man's hand, slicing through his fingertips. The victim is wailing, howling, screaming in agony.
The swordsman-torturer, not sufficiently satisfied with his first effort, raises the sword again and drives down once more on the man's immobile hand. This time he severs the fingers closer to the knuckles as blood spurts cartoonishly from his hand spilling over and down the concrete slab. The victim emits a wail I have never heard — could never imagine hearing — from a grown man, this time louder, harder than the first.
The camera then turns to the assembled Fedayeen as they continue rhythmically chanting.
In the third clip, a prisoner sits on the ground, his arm tied with white cloth, strips to a wooden board resting on a gray concrete slab. A man stands before him with a sword, this blade is wider than the last. He, too, strikes down on the man's hand, severing it from his right arm as the prisoner recoils in pain. The camera then quickly darts to the man's hand resting on the dusty ground several feet away as it was launched a considerable distance from the prisoner due to the force of the torturer's chop.
When Mel Gibson's movie The Passion was released, several critics harped on the scenes where Jesus is flogged mercilessly by Roman soldiers. The brutality was so extreme, critics charged, the depiction bordered on parody — it was not a credible rendering of what could have happened to Jesus.
In the fourth clip in the Saddam torture film, it's clear Gibson's cinematic vision of just how depraved men can be was not divorced from reality.
A tall prisoner, stripped to the waist and blindfolded has his arms tied before him to a white pole, his bare back exposed. Black-clad Saddam Fedayeen surround him, jackal-like, as one begins to pound on his back with a black rubber whip. With the man screaming, his scourged back arching backward, shoulders and arms frantically struggling to block the blows, one of the Fedayeen torturers is heard to say "no situation more honorable than truth over falsehood." Thwack! Thwack! Thwack! The prisoner's knees buckle as he crumbles into a hump on the ground from the blows, crying out in pain. Another Fedayeen grabs his hands and pulls him up the pole to receive further lashes.
"In the name of Allah the merciful," intones the beret-topped loyalist to Saddam's "secular" regime in the next segment. He introduces to the viewer and the assembled butcher squad to another prisoner. The loyalist-narrator reads from Koran, Sura 2:179: "And there is a saving of life for you in the Law of Equality in punishment. O men of understanding, that you may become the pious."
"The Fedayeen, Saddin Ezzedin al-Arousi," he goes on, "was charged with a special mission in which he betrayed his duty in the mission. The head of the Fedayeen has ordered the following: He is expelled from Fedayeen work and his arms are to be broken in front of his unit. Tarik Juman will personally undertake the breaking of his arms. Thank you."
The camera jumps to al-Arousi sitting with one arm tied behind him as his right arm is extended out to his side. His right elbow rests on a cinderblock and his right fist is supported by another cinderblock. Nothing supports his forearm in between. While a Fedayeen holds the prisoner's elbow in place, Tarik Juman crashes a three-inch-thick pipe down on his old compatriot's forearm, bending the forearm in a 'V' shape and shattering the bones within. This procedure is repeated for his left arm as well.
In another clip a hooded and blindfolded prisoner is led to a room where he is forced to kneel, hands tied behind his back. Another man sits before the prisoner with thick metal tweezers and a scalpel. With his left hand he grabs the tip of the prisoner's tongue with the tweezers and pulls it forward from his head. With the scalpel in his other hand he slices through the prisoner's tongue, cutting it out of his mouth and then dropping it on the floor.
This ritual is repeated for more prisoners who are lined up, squatting in a row like parts on an assembly line waiting for processing, sitting ducks surrounded by dozens of men bearing witness to a Baathist tongue lashing.
In the final clip we see a blindfolded prisoner being led to his fate as the assembled men around him sing "Happy Birthday, long live the leader, eternal gift to the people." Again with arms tied behind his back he is shoved to the ground, bent over stuffed burlap sacks. A black-clad Fedayeen loosens the prisoner's shirt exposing his back and neck, while another stands two feet from him holding a long silver blade at its curved handle. He raises his arms and strikes, hacking the prisoner's head from his body, tumbling it to the ground. He picks up the severed head by the hair and places it ceremoniously on the dead man's back as the camera pans in closer and closer and you can make out the victim's now lifeless and bloodied face. |
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