I think maybe it is time to tell the Israeli's to piss off. Maybe it is time to give them a whack in the head, you know, kinda like a reality check.But then who would replace them as the most important culture in the world, at least as far as indigenous arrogance goes? Afterall, I think it is a colossal embarrassment that the most powerful man in the world is nothing more than a puppet for Sharon and all the pro-Israeli advisors that "guide' him. That's Bush I'm speaking of. That's why you are voting for him.

Maybe it is time to put the Arabs at the top of the food chain. They have lots of oil that we need. American companies could get billions upon billions in contracts modernizing and developing Arab countries.Seems to me the Arabs have alot more to offer than the Israeli's do.But could we ever get over the incessant whining and complaining of the Israeli's in their never ending desire to monopolize victimhood? Or by that point would we even give a shit.

Yep going to school....

Tough rhetoric but no action has taught a lot to people in the world.

And why do we support Israel and not the Arabs? I'll never understand why we must make everything ideological. Ideological strategy in foreign policy? No thanks.

The Arabs have the thing we want, strategic interests, and as thus our policy of pissing them off is against our strategic interests. Thats how i see it - Israel matters little and should never have been supported in the way it has and is.

They did it first so we can do it too...way to sink to the lowest common denominator. Worst argument evar.

I think everyone here has done a pretty good job of denouncing what happened. So I want to
bring our attention to this Prick:


Limbaugh
I know there are a couple here who listen to Rush. Any thoughts, comments on what he said?
Calling it a frat prank, or no worse than a Britney Concert (said in an earlier episode)

I wonder how he would like getting phosphoric acid from a chemical light poured on him, or get
bit by a dog, raped, or sodomized with a broomhandle or chemical light.

After saying something like that, can any of you still support him?

Emotional release. I like that. Is Rush still addicted to something other than just plain stupidity?

But I must say, and I'm sure someone will take issue with this, Rush does have a point however ignorant it is.

Military personel (and not just Americans) have taken part in hazing type rituals as an initiation of acceptance by their peers for ages. Happens in sports also. Obviously these adolescent engagements still surface regardless of the severity concerning the situation, case in point.

The people who were involved in these actions probably had performed some type of stunts before, in whatever context, and instead of being chastised, were probably cheered on, not only by their peers but also by those in positions of authority. Or for those in a position of authority, maybe a wink,wink, nudge, nudge turn the other cheek attitude prevailed,..you know,..it's just kid's blowing off steam, no harm, no foul.

George Bush said the actions of these few involved were "un-American." Interesting choice of words considering many feel his actions regarding his war in Iraq is as equally un-American. I have to wonder when thinking of these soldiers and of George Bush, how far the apple falls from the tree.

EDIT; as of 2:30 p.m. today as stated on CNN, George Bush apparently knew nothing of the incidents at the Bagdad jail. According to Bush, Rumsfeld didn't tell him and will not accept Rummy's resignation nor will he fire him.

wow, emotional release...

wow

rush is on something to be able to honestly believe that, or even conceive it.

I can see the t-shirts now: I tortured prisoners for emotional release....

plain and simple, enemy or not, you don't treat people like that and i actaully applaud bush for calling the actions un-american. then again, like ofkuo said, a lot of others feel his actions are just as un-american..

Actually, without proper guidance, prisoner-guard relations can quickly turn into an us vs. them situation, which may result in the actions we saw photographed. I think the US military should have foreseen such abuses, given the large volumes of psychological research that has shown the likelihood of abuse in these instances. Furthermore, I think they should have taken steps to prevent it.

I don't think it's fair to turn the soldiers that did this into inhuman villains, as if we're somehow better than them. Research has shown that we are not. (FYI, a study into prisoner-guard behavior was conducted by a US university; a group of normal, regular-joe students was divided into two groups: guards and prisoners, and they would have to play the part for a week or so. The experiment was halted after 3 days, because the "guards" became too abusive...) Anyway, these were young soldiers, just barely adult. They weren't actively being watched by their commanding officers, and there probably was a lot of peer pressure involved.

One way the soldiers might have "justified" their actions: They were in a war zone for months, in fact longer than they had hoped for. These Iraqi insurgents were largely to blame for them *still* being there; they were also to blame for the deaths of their fellow soldiers. If it wasn't for those bastards, the soldiers could have been home already... One can see how such a mind-set, combined with the aforementioned prisoner-guard abusiveness, combined with lack of supervision, combined with peer pressure, combined with sheer stress, can lead to extremes. Calling those extremes "un-American" is pretty silly, seeing that those extremes are just plain human - we are not a nice species to begin with.

(Note: I'm not trying to excuse, just trying to understand.)

One problem with this thinking is that at least one of the accused guards is a prison guard at home so he wasn't new to the situation and several of those pictured were not "young" soldiers.

I think you are refering to the Stanford experiment (http://www.prisonexp.org/)?
It was halted after 6 day (two weeks were planned)
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stanford_Prison_Experiment

Two soldiers (Ivan Frederick (37y) and Charles Garner (35y)) were guards in their civilian live. AFAIK Garner worked in the death row

Yep and that IMO makes it inexcusable to say "i didn't know no conventions..."

Yeah right...

BS. There is a huge difference between giving your buddy his "blood wings" and violating the Geneva convention. The issue here was a gross failure of leadership. In a disciplined unit the offending swine would have had their nuts crushed long before this became an issue.

I beg to differ. Now that the photos have been shown around the world, they have simply galvanized sentiment against us. What that means, where the rubber meets the road, is that now I have to deal with even more people who will be trying to kill me and my men.

Heads should roll, starting with the CO and the entire chain of command of the prison.

And it looks like one of those heads may end up being Donald Rumsfeld. He is being accused of sitting on this for several months without taking action.

I loathe Donald Rumsfeld, but I actually think he did the right thing in keeping this hush-hush. The potential fallout from this story is the death of American servicemen, so I think it would have been better handled internaly, as was happening prior to the break of the story (though not neccesarily to the satisfaction of the public).

I am not saying that the above reason even entered into his head, but a careful management of this story could have saved lives...

No, not in trouble for keeping this hush hush.

In trouble for knowing about the abuses and torture in the prison for several months. Reading the army reports on what was going on, and doing nothing about it.

I'm with you 100%. And it was leadership at every level which was sadly missing.

I didn't make an excuse, I made a point.

But now I am confused

Originally posted by debaser [/i]
[B]I loathe Donald Rumsfeld, but I actually think he did the right thing in keeping this hush-hush.

What I meant with the Rumsfeld comment is that, IMHO, the good of keeping it quiet (protecting our troops from potential reprisals) outweighs the good of being open with the information...

Yep, I agree. That's armed forces discipline. A friend told me about a case where a nuclear missile was mishandled in a silo. The silo workers then bungled another inspection. The entire chain of command was then removed and replaced.

I don't see a lot of discipline happening here. The armed forces can talk all they want, but unless commanders are being removed from command, I don't think the rank and file will get the message that the armed forces disapproves of their actions.

I understand what you are saying, but to coverup something and let it fester made things alot worse. And now, more humiliation,..panties on some guys head, Iraqi's forced to masturbate in front of female personel or risk being beaten, helicopters shooting and killing wounded unarmed civilians..etc.

Now the reprisals which may take place will be 10 times worse than if confronted immediately. At this level, I would expect a more logical line of thought.

Amazing...

The same thread in "Politics" is going better (read "more polite") than the thread in "General" (which I had to lock).

WTG "Politics"!

Wow looking at that thread versus this one is pretty amazing...

We've sure learned a lot :D

Found the *very* interesting thread on that missile accident. Whether you're interested in this thread or not, the story is a really good read.

http://jaghunters.blogspot.com/2004_...s_archive.html

all for a missile silo accident that hurt no one. Obviously, the military wanted to send a message that there was zero tolerance for sloppiness when it comes to our nukes.

What signal will Bush send about the torture? Interestingly, I saw on Drudge that the woman pictured in two of the pics (including the most recent one where she has a prisoner on a leash) hasn't been charged with anything yet.

You can bet her military career is over.

But she might have a future as a Dom in an SM club... :D

One question... is anyone surprised?

Of course, we had to get rid of Saddam, he committed terrible acts of torture against his own people, the Iraqi people must be glad that now they can be tortured by Western Christian's rather than Ba'arth loyalists and the Iraqi secret police...

Let us say once and for all, this has not been, never, a moral war.

Oh well, this is getting even worse. It's now public that this wasn't isolated incident:

U.S. Abuses in Iraq `Not Isolated,' Red Cross Says

Seems that there is actually a rotten apple(s) in almost every basket...

Superbelt, don't you have anything better to do with your time than use this event to promote your undying hatred for Limbaugh. Absolutely I still support him. I didn't even get to the part in your link where that quote is, but here's the point he was trying to make, from your same link:

Why your trying to convince the ignorant that he equates sodomizing, rape, dog attacks and baths in phosphoric acid with emotional release comparable to fraternity hazing isn't necessarily beyond me, but is frankly old. Your peeps don't need any convincing, so why waste your time. He was referring to the first pictures that came out with the naked Iraqis being humiliated. Sure that's bad enough, but i have yet to hear of phosphoric acid, rape, etc etc that you have described, and rest assured all you rush haters, these examples (if they took place, which i find real fuckin hard to believe) were not the object of his commentary.

Now you may disagree and even go so far as to take offense at the above quote, but i don't. So yeah - I support Limbaugh.

There is that royal "we" again...:rolleyes:

Matthew,

I listen to Limbaugh and I'll be honest I am a lefty, liberal but I do agree with him at times.

What he has to say about this though is shock for shock value. He knows it'll get into the press and raise his ratings. Does he believe it? No, I'd say he probably doesn't believe it. Limbaugh has a job to do, that is deflect as much as he can the wrongs of the GOP while maintaining a hatred and constant pointing out of the Dem's wrongs.

I can guarantee he would be at the top of the list crying for Clinton's head if this torture had been during Clinton's years.
Limbaugh no matter how hard he tries to make it look like he is, is not a good political resource. He is entertainment, same as a circus clown or Stern or Barbra Streisand.

I have never heard anyone from another country say, (after seeing one of our men dragged through a street or any of Limbaugh's examples) "Yeah the US deserved that". And trust me I know some very very anti war people, but to them torture is torture whether it is Iraqis torturing us or we them.

Of course if Limbaugh is so very patriotic where was he during Vietnam, why did he not serve if he is this expert on the military he acts to be?

I guess I just took a very long way of saying this................. Limbaugh is entertainment that is all, what he says is neither right nor wrong, good nor bad , it is what it is and it's just entertainment, pure and simple.

http://rush.digitalchainsaw.com/theatre.html#interview

Sorry. Couldn't resist. I'm going to General now for punishment.

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/4855930/
So, do you and Rush have any more defense that you would like to make of USA soldiers raping boys?

I'll wait for a retraction from either of you. I think in Rush's case I will be waiting a long while.

Wow. You're kidding, right? That's got to be the biggest troll I've ever seen.

Like- ever.

I'm at a loss to respond appropriately.

Why?

Do you deny that these acts of torture took place?

How do you imagine they make Iraqi people feel about America and Britain?

I laughed I cried I was deeply touched.

Very funny site.

Harmless, doesn't your own smugness irritate you? I think you should save it for:

a. A more appropriate subject matter and
b. a time when your not so dead fucking wrong.

I hadn't heard about those events that took place, and they are outrageous and nothing short of criminal. If that is accurate, everyone involved should be punished, and i'm confident they will be.

The first pictures that came out were sickening, and I think we all expect more from our soldiers over there, but at worst they were mental torture, at best humiliating. Go back and reread my post, and rush's quote, and then come back and accuse me of defending the raping of boys. He was referring to those initial pictures, and he was not at all defending them, he was putting them into perspective, which by the way wouldn't even be necessary if it weren't for certain peoples (^^^) almost sadistic glee exploiting this news.

I'll be waiting for a retraction and an apology would be a pleasant surprise.

When Rush says anything approaching what you just said, I'll be glad to retract my words.

I just checked his web site. Nothing yet. You would think with all the updated news about abuse and torture he would have amended his prior statements. But no, he's busy bragging about how news shows are labeling him the "voice of the conservatives."

Pan, sorry i missed your post - that was an absolutely fair assessment. I just can't sit back and let someone make that outragseous claim that Limbaugh sees "torture" in it's tradiational sense as emotional release tantamount to frat hazing. And I think it was done deliberately.

...and harmless, may i suggest changing your name to "hopeless"

Why? You said that Rush's "hazing" comments were based on the original pics of torture, not the most recent ones, and not the most recent allegations of rape. You defended Rush.

Given the serious nature of the new allegations, I am anxiously awaiting Rush to say anything approaching retraction of his "hazing" comments.

Still waiting.

Let me ask you something harmless...how the hell is he gonna retract something that he hasn't responded to yet?

Harmless, Matthew kindly stop. This was a good thread that is fast going downhill.

Harmless, I like ytou man, I even agree with you sometimes but, man, it's fricking Limbaugh. Who the freak cares? The right wingers that listen and believe him? The Lefties that are wanting to crucify him and nit pick everything?

Dude he's a political Stern. All he's doing is trying to get publicity for his show and get us lefties worked up so that we look like fools. I would worry more if Bush or one of his men said it.

Matthew, you seem to be a good guy. Why defend Rush? It doesn't matter what you say those who dislike the man are going to twist everything he does. The same way people twist Stern.

All I can do is ask that the personal attacks stop. You 2 are passionate guys and name calling and getting riled up solves nothing.

Go to Humor talk about a faux paux you have seen from an elected official that made you laugh. release some of that tension..... It's summer hell go golfing