Post by RPankn on May 7, 2004 17:26:28 GMT -5
May 7, 2004
Are the Abu Ghraib photos 'wanton' acts of deranged individuals – or the very latest in 'black propaganda'?
by Justin Raimondo
The pictures just keep coming at us: the latest batch of Iraqi humiliation photos appeared this [Thursday] morning in the Washington Post, along with a story revealing that the newspaper has come into possession of "more than 1,000" images, a mix of ordinary "travelogue" shots and depictions of Iraqis in various states of naked prostration. Iraqi prisoners squirm on the prison floor in the buff, clotted together like worms on a wet sidewalk, while burly American guards loom over them, poking and prodding; a female soldier holds a leash at the other end of which is an Iraqi neck. These images, avers the Post, are "further visual evidence of the chaos and unprofessionalism at the prison," and one is initially inclined to concur.
But a question inevitably arises: Why?
Why did these miscreants – mostly lower-level grunts – take pictures of their own misconduct? This is behavior that makes absolutely no sense. Surely they knew the pictures would get out, and get them in major trouble. The Post offers a few clues:
"The new pictures appear to show American soldiers abusing prisoners, many of whom wear ID bands, but The Post could not eliminate the possibility that some of them were staged."
Staged – for whose benefit?
Are these sickening photos the products of a Vast Antiwar Conspiracy, designed to discredit an already discredited war? Or is something else going on here?
Let us leave this question aside until last, however, and take up another issue raised in the Post piece, which informs us that "it is unclear who took the photographs, or why." Yet not everyone involved seeks refuge in agnosticism. The families of the accused, and their lawyers, are quite certain about who authored this outrage:
"Lawyers representing two of the accused soldiers, and some soldiers' relatives, have said the pictures were ordered up by military intelligence officials who were trying to humiliate the detainees and coerce other prisoners into cooperating.
"'It is clear that the intelligence community dictated that these photographs be taken,' said Guy L. Womack, a Houston lawyer representing Spec. Charles A. Graner Jr., 35, one of the soldiers charged.
"The father of another soldier facing charges, Spec. Jeremy C. Sivits of Hyndman, Pa., also said his son was following orders. 'He was asked to take pictures, and he did what he was told,' Daniel Sivits said in a telephone interview last week."
This is hardly evidence of "chaos" and "unprofessionalism." Quite the contrary, it indicates that this whole bizarre business was carried out intentionally and quite professionally – it was, in short, a policy endorsed by higher-ups.
The reality of occupied Iraq – that it is really one big prison presided over by its American overlords – is readily apparent to anyone who has been paying attention. Regular readers of Antiwar.com won't have missed a series of reports from Iraq filed by Kathy Kelly, of Voices in the Wilderness, and Mike Ferner, with the Christian Peacemakers Team, who went there shortly after the "liberation" and documented widespread abuses. People have been treated in Iraq's prisons pretty much as they've been treated outside of the prisons: like dirt.
Last year, Kelly interviewed two Palestinian students resident in Iraq who has been arrested and held without charges for two months. Their crime, as Kelly related, was being Palestinian:
"'It was inhuman, the way they treated us,' said Fadi. 'For the first seven days we were given no food or water.' On the first day, they were handcuffed and taken to the Hasan Al Bakr Palace where they stayed overnight on wet ground, outdoors. 'We tried to bury ourselves in the sand to keep warmer,' Fadi recalled. 'All the time they were pointing their guns at us. They made us feel that we are going to die now, they gonna kill us now.' The next day they were taken to Saddam Airport where they were again held outside, in the cold, without food. 'They were laughing while they were searching us and throwing us on the ground. They took pictures of us which they said they would send back to their families in the U.S. .'"
One wonders if they ever sent those photos back home – or if they were taken for other purposes. In any case, the mistreatment of prisoners, and the American penchant for recording their own brutality on film, is nothing new. Nor is the element of sexual perversion.
The Taguba report lists rape and abuse of imprisoned children among the other crimes committed by the MPs and their enablers, but this is old news. Child abuse as a key aspect of the "liberation" was revealed by Kelly on Antiwar.com back in December:
"'There were 13 year old kids in with us,' Fadi said. 'Sometimes they would throw candies from their humvees, shouting 'Bark like a dog, and I'll throw you the candy'..Some of the small children were crying in the night, asking to go home to their families. We were trying to get them quiet.'
"'Some of the prisoners were criminals, thieves. They put the children with them. Some of them tried to abuse children. We told the guards, they started laughing. One prisoner tried to rape a kid and he refused, so they made a cut on his face."
A piece by Mike Ferner, who traveled to Iraq with the Christian Peacemakers, documented the ubiquitous brutality of the American occupation in heartbreakingly matter-of-fact prose published here in February:
"We return to the cars and drive a short distance to our next stop, a slightly larger farmhouse on the edge of the village. It is the home of Yasseen Taha, a 33 year-old farmer who attended evening classes at the University of Baghdad's Islamic Studies program.
"On October 17, Yasseen's brother, Aziz, and his wife, Majida, were shot and killed by troops from Lt. Col. Sassaman's base, according to Yasseen's uncle, Muhnna Azazzal, who spoke with us. On that day at about 4:00 p.m., U.S. troops and tanks stationed at the former Iraqi airfield three kilometers south of the Taha home, came from that direction toward the village, 'firing randomly,' said Azazzal.
"Yasseen's younger brother, Aziz, a fourth-year student in the University of Baghdad's English Studies department, was struck by one of the bullets and mortally wounded. Yasseen's wife, Majida, knelt to help her brother-in-law and was hit by a bullet and killed instantly. She left three children, the youngest 15 days old. Aziz died within two hours, but in the meantime, Azazzal said, U.S. soldiers surrounded the scene, telling neighbors to keep back and denying Aziz any first-aid. Aziz's sister, Asmaa, said that she witnessed the carnage that day. Seeing her brother shot and bleeding to death, she began to cry hysterically. An American soldier responded by firing his rifle into the ground near Aziz' dying body 'to mock my grief,' she said."
Ten days after these horrific murders, Yasseen was arrested by U.S. troops. It seems that the "liberators" had been recently attacked in the vicinity – gee, who would thought? – and Yasseen was a prime suspect, "having lost two family members to Army shootings." As of February, Yasseen was still rotting in Abu Ghraib prison. He is not allowed any visitors, and, although no formal charges have been filed, his uncle says he heard from released detainees that Yasseen stands accused of "terrorist acts."
One needn't make any overt move to resist the terroristic sadism of the occupiers to be labeled a "terrorist." The potential is sufficient. This is a "preemptive war" – with a vengeance.
Another piece by Ferner documents the razing of Abou Siffa, a village 30 miles north of Baghdad, in a campaign that resembles nothing so much as a Nazi pogrom. I have been skeptical of allusions to the Third Reich in describing acts carried out by U.S. soldiers in this war, just as I have long thought comparisons of Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon to Adolph Hitler are over the top, But what, I ask you, does the following account, rendered by one Mohammed Al Taai, remind you of?:
[continued in next post]
Are the Abu Ghraib photos 'wanton' acts of deranged individuals – or the very latest in 'black propaganda'?
by Justin Raimondo
The pictures just keep coming at us: the latest batch of Iraqi humiliation photos appeared this [Thursday] morning in the Washington Post, along with a story revealing that the newspaper has come into possession of "more than 1,000" images, a mix of ordinary "travelogue" shots and depictions of Iraqis in various states of naked prostration. Iraqi prisoners squirm on the prison floor in the buff, clotted together like worms on a wet sidewalk, while burly American guards loom over them, poking and prodding; a female soldier holds a leash at the other end of which is an Iraqi neck. These images, avers the Post, are "further visual evidence of the chaos and unprofessionalism at the prison," and one is initially inclined to concur.
But a question inevitably arises: Why?
Why did these miscreants – mostly lower-level grunts – take pictures of their own misconduct? This is behavior that makes absolutely no sense. Surely they knew the pictures would get out, and get them in major trouble. The Post offers a few clues:
"The new pictures appear to show American soldiers abusing prisoners, many of whom wear ID bands, but The Post could not eliminate the possibility that some of them were staged."
Staged – for whose benefit?
Are these sickening photos the products of a Vast Antiwar Conspiracy, designed to discredit an already discredited war? Or is something else going on here?
Let us leave this question aside until last, however, and take up another issue raised in the Post piece, which informs us that "it is unclear who took the photographs, or why." Yet not everyone involved seeks refuge in agnosticism. The families of the accused, and their lawyers, are quite certain about who authored this outrage:
"Lawyers representing two of the accused soldiers, and some soldiers' relatives, have said the pictures were ordered up by military intelligence officials who were trying to humiliate the detainees and coerce other prisoners into cooperating.
"'It is clear that the intelligence community dictated that these photographs be taken,' said Guy L. Womack, a Houston lawyer representing Spec. Charles A. Graner Jr., 35, one of the soldiers charged.
"The father of another soldier facing charges, Spec. Jeremy C. Sivits of Hyndman, Pa., also said his son was following orders. 'He was asked to take pictures, and he did what he was told,' Daniel Sivits said in a telephone interview last week."
This is hardly evidence of "chaos" and "unprofessionalism." Quite the contrary, it indicates that this whole bizarre business was carried out intentionally and quite professionally – it was, in short, a policy endorsed by higher-ups.
The reality of occupied Iraq – that it is really one big prison presided over by its American overlords – is readily apparent to anyone who has been paying attention. Regular readers of Antiwar.com won't have missed a series of reports from Iraq filed by Kathy Kelly, of Voices in the Wilderness, and Mike Ferner, with the Christian Peacemakers Team, who went there shortly after the "liberation" and documented widespread abuses. People have been treated in Iraq's prisons pretty much as they've been treated outside of the prisons: like dirt.
Last year, Kelly interviewed two Palestinian students resident in Iraq who has been arrested and held without charges for two months. Their crime, as Kelly related, was being Palestinian:
"'It was inhuman, the way they treated us,' said Fadi. 'For the first seven days we were given no food or water.' On the first day, they were handcuffed and taken to the Hasan Al Bakr Palace where they stayed overnight on wet ground, outdoors. 'We tried to bury ourselves in the sand to keep warmer,' Fadi recalled. 'All the time they were pointing their guns at us. They made us feel that we are going to die now, they gonna kill us now.' The next day they were taken to Saddam Airport where they were again held outside, in the cold, without food. 'They were laughing while they were searching us and throwing us on the ground. They took pictures of us which they said they would send back to their families in the U.S. .'"
One wonders if they ever sent those photos back home – or if they were taken for other purposes. In any case, the mistreatment of prisoners, and the American penchant for recording their own brutality on film, is nothing new. Nor is the element of sexual perversion.
The Taguba report lists rape and abuse of imprisoned children among the other crimes committed by the MPs and their enablers, but this is old news. Child abuse as a key aspect of the "liberation" was revealed by Kelly on Antiwar.com back in December:
"'There were 13 year old kids in with us,' Fadi said. 'Sometimes they would throw candies from their humvees, shouting 'Bark like a dog, and I'll throw you the candy'..Some of the small children were crying in the night, asking to go home to their families. We were trying to get them quiet.'
"'Some of the prisoners were criminals, thieves. They put the children with them. Some of them tried to abuse children. We told the guards, they started laughing. One prisoner tried to rape a kid and he refused, so they made a cut on his face."
A piece by Mike Ferner, who traveled to Iraq with the Christian Peacemakers, documented the ubiquitous brutality of the American occupation in heartbreakingly matter-of-fact prose published here in February:
"We return to the cars and drive a short distance to our next stop, a slightly larger farmhouse on the edge of the village. It is the home of Yasseen Taha, a 33 year-old farmer who attended evening classes at the University of Baghdad's Islamic Studies program.
"On October 17, Yasseen's brother, Aziz, and his wife, Majida, were shot and killed by troops from Lt. Col. Sassaman's base, according to Yasseen's uncle, Muhnna Azazzal, who spoke with us. On that day at about 4:00 p.m., U.S. troops and tanks stationed at the former Iraqi airfield three kilometers south of the Taha home, came from that direction toward the village, 'firing randomly,' said Azazzal.
"Yasseen's younger brother, Aziz, a fourth-year student in the University of Baghdad's English Studies department, was struck by one of the bullets and mortally wounded. Yasseen's wife, Majida, knelt to help her brother-in-law and was hit by a bullet and killed instantly. She left three children, the youngest 15 days old. Aziz died within two hours, but in the meantime, Azazzal said, U.S. soldiers surrounded the scene, telling neighbors to keep back and denying Aziz any first-aid. Aziz's sister, Asmaa, said that she witnessed the carnage that day. Seeing her brother shot and bleeding to death, she began to cry hysterically. An American soldier responded by firing his rifle into the ground near Aziz' dying body 'to mock my grief,' she said."
Ten days after these horrific murders, Yasseen was arrested by U.S. troops. It seems that the "liberators" had been recently attacked in the vicinity – gee, who would thought? – and Yasseen was a prime suspect, "having lost two family members to Army shootings." As of February, Yasseen was still rotting in Abu Ghraib prison. He is not allowed any visitors, and, although no formal charges have been filed, his uncle says he heard from released detainees that Yasseen stands accused of "terrorist acts."
One needn't make any overt move to resist the terroristic sadism of the occupiers to be labeled a "terrorist." The potential is sufficient. This is a "preemptive war" – with a vengeance.
Another piece by Ferner documents the razing of Abou Siffa, a village 30 miles north of Baghdad, in a campaign that resembles nothing so much as a Nazi pogrom. I have been skeptical of allusions to the Third Reich in describing acts carried out by U.S. soldiers in this war, just as I have long thought comparisons of Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon to Adolph Hitler are over the top, But what, I ask you, does the following account, rendered by one Mohammed Al Taai, remind you of?:
[continued in next post]