[mattduke]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('', 'A')ccording to the Telegraph, the new photos depicted much more serious abuses than previously documented. One photo reportedly showed an American soldier apparently raping a female prisoner and another was said to show a male translator raping a male detainee, the paper reported.

[smallpoxgirl]

It's bad enough that they did all that, but what sort of sick f**k takes pictures of it? "Dear Mom, the weather here's really hot, but I'm well. Thought you might like these pictures of me torturing and raping a prisoner. Give dad my love. Your Loving Son."

[Jotapay]

I posted in the other torture thread here that Seymour Hersch had reported this in 2004. This came out in the Telegraph (UK) this morning.

http://peakoil.com/open/us-interrogator ... 3-105.html
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldne ... -rape.html

Rumsfeld acknowledged on video to the press corps that there were more photographs which could not be released because they would cause significant public response.

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('', 'A')t least one picture shows an American soldier apparently raping a female prisoner while another is said to show a male translator raping a male detainee.

Further photographs are said to depict sexual assaults on prisoners with objects including a truncheon, wire and a phosphorescent tube.

Another apparently shows a female prisoner having her clothing forcibly removed to expose her breasts.

Detail of the content emerged from Major General Antonio Taguba, the former army officer who conducted an inquiry into the Abu Ghraib jail in Iraq.

Allegations of rape and abuse were included in his 2004 report but the fact there were photographs was never revealed. He has now confirmed their existence in an interview with the Daily Telegraph.

[like_the_dinosaurs]

Dont be silly people. Its a new interrogation technique. "Who's your daddy, answer the question now, Who's your daddy?"

Seeing stuff like this really makes the blood boil.

[PrestonSturges]

Photos like this are taken for blackmail purposes. If someone is photographed like this and the family sees the photos, they would be honor bound to kill the rape victim. The rape victim is blackmailed into being a spy.

[rangerone314]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('PrestonSturges', 'P')hotos like this are taken for blackmail purposes. If someone is photographed like this and the family sees the photos, they would be honor bound to kill the rape victim. The rape victim is blackmailed into being a spy.

[EnergyUnlimited]

Now Americans can be tortured or even declared not to be "persons", that upon order of President or those acting on his behalf.
http://www.financialarmageddon.com/2009 ... erved.html
That is not funny, if you live in US.

Many progressive fools have seen Obama as their savior, but now it seems that they may end up with Idi Amin bis, time permitting.

[pablonite]

A person under torture will tell you what you want to hear - eventually, which comes in handy when trying to manufacture scapegoats for state sponsored terrorist attacks.

The main purpose of state sponsored torture however is fear, it goes hand in hand with state sponsored terror.

The elites can only do 2 things through the instrument of "governemnt", taxing the population and taking them to war. The only commodity available to them is fear.

Many people are still coming to terms with torture in America even though it really took off during the cold war. The School of the Americas right in the heartland has been teaching tin-pot dictators the "art of torture" for decades.

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('', 'S')ince the fall of Communism, free markets and free people have been packaged as a single ideology that claims to be humanity's best and only defense against repeating a history filled with mass graves, killing fields and torture chambers. Yet in the Southern Cone (i.e., Chile and Argentina after the coups in the 1970s), the first place where the contemporary religion of unfettered free markets escaped from the basement workshops of the University of Chicago and was applied in the real world, it did not bring democracy; it was predicated on the overthrow of democracy in country after country. And it did not bring peace but required the systematic murder of tens of thousands and the torture of between 100,000 and 150,000 people.

[Dreamtwister]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('EnergyUnlimited', 'T')hat is not funny, if you live in US.

[Jotapay]

Can I declare Rick Perry to be an enemy combatant? If not, why not?

He's trying to steal 500,000 acres from Texans to build the NAFTA superhighway and he wants to loot the $100 billion in the Teachers Retirement System. That qualifies him, right?

[EnergyUnlimited]

@Dreamtwister,
I do not live in US either.
I find it quite entertaining to read some news of this kind coming from land of the free.
However I feel some pity/compassion for average Americans when I read whats going on there.
Yet, you are probably right.
They might well deserve it.

@Jotapay,
It is up to President and his clique, not up to you, to declare who is enemy combatant or who is not a person.

BTW, what do you think about Rick Perry convincing Mr Obama to declare complaining teachers that they are not peoples really?

[Plantagenet]

The recent terror attacks in Belgium are tragic. The Belgian and France police captured one of the Paris terrorists in Brussels, and then several days later other Islamic terrorists in the same terror network staged bomb attacks on the Brussels airport and a metro station.

It makes me wonder why the Belgian police didn't find out from the terrorist they captured what other plans his terror network was making for future terror attacks. The Belgian police had several days to find out what was planned---if they had been able to get this information in advance they might have been able to stop the terror attacks in Brussels and save many lives.

It seems to me that the Belgians have just demonstrated the classic argument in favor of torturing terrorists to learn their plans. The Belgians captured a terrorist and apparently didn't even ask him about potential attacks in Belgium. Then, several days later his buddies blew up a bunch of innocent people in two terror attacks. Perhaps if the Belgian police had done a tough interrogation of the terrorist about future attack plans, or even waterboarded the captured terrorist or injected him with sodium pentathol or a similar drug they could've got some warning about the upcoming terror attacks in time to stop them.


Why didn't the Belgians ask the captured Paris terrorist if his buddies had any more attacks planned?

[Tanada]

Torture is notoriously unreliable, if this course is taken the person doing the torture also loses some of their humanity in the process. Also if done for more than a brief time the 'witness' will give any answer they think the 'interrogator' want s to hear just to make it stop.

[americandream]

The choice really is between efficient information gathering or going beserk like Bush 1 and 2 did and making a real ballsup that affects all of us in very negative and prolonged ways. Obviously, there is a need for those operating these techniques to be focussed on the information and not gratuitous suffering, like some of the whacknut countries out there. But that said, if I had a choice between systems that uncovered the links back to the scumbags funding the duplicity and mayhem (and when Trump tells you that we need to temporarily close down shutters to work out what is going on, that should be telling us something of the goofballs who have been running the show thus far) and going stupid as in bombing the shits out of reasonably modern places, and back into the bronze age, nicely packaged for said scumbags to swoop in on, guess which one I would prefer.

[Plantagenet]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('Tanada', 'T')orture is notoriously unreliable

[americandream]

One does not necessarily have to be thuggish to be an information gatherer. In fact the more professional the individual, the less necessary is the need to use force. One can with sheer will, overwhelm those less able to reason.

It is a necessary service to stem the slide into even more pervasive barbarism.

[onlooker]

Thanks Tanada, for pointing out some of the conclusions of studies done about Torture. I would add that a society that regularly employs torture is a society not worth living in or supporting. Tomorrow, they can be torturing you.