Mother Jones - Comments for "Exclusive: Who's Behind Abu Ghraib?"

i think the photos made them guily.how can theses men and women sleep at night knowing they did this to somebodys brother,son,dad,hubsnad.this is why alot of people dont like us americans because of people like them,i dont like people like them they make me sick.they will carry this to the day they die and thiers no going back and telling these men that your sorry.it's to late.i hate you people that has done this.all americans dont belive in this [deleted].all americans are like this. just the dam rednicks and haters.guily you dam right thier guily and something should be done to them.because maybe the next time it's your son that they do this to.

Lets start prosecuting from the top down and call it trickle down.

Bill
What is lacking in your pschye to make you lash out at everyone with hate? Do you think your comments pass for witty?
Torture does not work. Torture gets people to say what you want them to say. Torture did not work for the Japanese or the Nazis, so why do you think we Americans can make it work.
It only takes a small amount of imagination to see that torture is about feeding the egos of torturer and not about information.
-ron

Thank you, Christian, for your sane and sound comments. And thank you for your honorable service, even though I think this war was a terrible mistake.

Bill, you give the name "American" and "serviceman" a grave, and terrible disservice. I feel sorry for you and those who agree with your deplorable viewpoint. Atrocities do and always will happen in war, but torture of any kind is not only not effective, it destroys both victim and perpetrator.

Please go to YOUTUBE.com and listen to the reports of Winter Soldier.

Sincerely,

An American Patriot who loves this country and those who serve her honorably.

If by "Old School" you mean WWII, let me refer you to the example of Major Sherwood F. Moran, USMC, who led Marine Corps interrogation and translation teams that dealt with Japanese prisoners during WWII. In particular his teams were known for extracting the truth from the hardened Japanese troops in Okinawa, who had fully expected to die in place. This is not so different from the suicide bombers of today. Major Moran has stated, in writing, that the best interrogation approaches are rapport-based. Or perhaps you mean Vietnam. There are several accounts of SOG operators who captured VC soldiers and used rapport-based approaches not only to extract information, but to turn the VC to our side.

You seem to be living in this fantasy world wherein Americans did whatever they wanted and paved the way to victory. I am certainly not naive enough to argue that US soldiers have never tortured anyone or commited atrocity, but history shows that we win wars in spite of atrocity, not because of it.

I honestly have no fear that we will eventually defeat Al Qaeda and their ilk, but it will not be because we tortured them until they squealed. We will win as we have always done, through a combination of right principles, on-the-ground innovation, and sacrifice. Perhaps your fear is what makes you so keen to torture our enemies, but your fear is of no use to the troops on the battlefield.

We have faced more dangerous enemies in the past, and we beat them without sacrificing our principles.

========================================Christian,

Do you have any idea what was done to individuals, in all wars we have fought, Mex/ Am, Philipens, WWI, WWII, Korea, Vietnam, etc...? Since you were in the service, and you say you have talked to questioners, didn't they tell you what the "Old School" guys told them..?
It is called a ticking clock, and the more urgent the need, the more severe the methods. My grandfather and uncle both told me of the method used in the fields of WWII and vietnam, they got a group fo prisoners, and one officer who knew something important but would not talk. They started with the lowest in rank, and he was disposed of in whatever manner you choose. Then they went down the line, by the time they got to the officer he told them the truth. Men are not stupid, when men are faced with death, it is a very powerful tool.
Do you not understand that most americans say they want to coddle the prisinors, but when it comes down to it, they don't really care, since America re-writes history...? As long as it is not in the face of the average american, they do not mind..!!!
I kind of wish it were different, but after talking to MANY people, and being reminded of how i felt on Sept. 12th , i now know.
The old adage about everything being fair in Love and War holds true. It is just that in the old days the men kept there mouth shut when they came home, about what they did, and now, they tell "Dr Phil" everything...? What is up with that...?
I was watching history channel the other night, and they had a video of an american submarine commander machine gunning japanese who had been sunk. They had NO room on the sub, so they killed everyone of those guys. Were they prosicuted for war crimes..? NO.... That only happens if you loose a war...
We had better not loose this one ..HUH...?

Bill

I have not forgotten 9/11. But after serving in Iraq I have to ask if the administration forgot about 9/11, or even if they really cared about it in the first place. So much of administration policy has been counter productive and harmful to the efforts of counter terrorism we'd almost be better off if we'd done nothing.

Consider the fact that we invaded Iraq, a country that had nothing to do with the 9/11 attacks--a Pentagon intelligence study recently confirmed this fact again. Yet there we are, stuck in civil war with too many sides to count, while Al Qaeda uses our invasion of Iraq as a global rallying cry to sign up Islamic terrorists everywhere. We tortured and in some cases even murdered prisoners in our custody because "the rules had changed" and yet we gained very little actionable intelligence from these procedures. Meanwhile, the atrocities at Abu Ghraib and other US prisons have tarnished our global reputation and provided more fodder for the radicals trying to take us down. All this while we let Osama Bin Laden slip away, face a rising incidence of terrorism in Europe, the Middle East, and North Africa, and our neglect allows the Taliban and Al Qaeda rejunvinate their movement in remote regions of Afghanistan and Pakistan.

When we consider the question of torture, it is not enough to ask if it is right. Clearly it is not. We must also ask if it is practical. Here again, the results are not good. Even the information gained by the torture of Khalid Sheik Mohammed at the hands of the CIA had already been extracted from him by the FBI, using rapport-based approaches. Interrogators I have worked with have told me that one reason torture is not reliable is that the subject under torture is likely to say anything you wish to hear. The information gained in this way is not accurate, and could be dangerous to future operations. So why do we continue to risk our safety, our reputation and throw propaganda points to our enemies by using a technique that doesn't work?

Torture isn't about effectiveness. It is all about punishment. The 3000 souls who died on 9/11 deserve better than short-term revenge. If we're in this fight for the long haul, we'd do better to return to methods that have served our nation in the past. We have faced more dangerous enemies in the past, and we beat them without sacrificing our principles. We can surely keep our democratic ideals without losing to a group of rag-tag terrorists.

Hey ustah,

I don't know where you are from, but the USA doesn't answer to any foreign court system...!!! I mean, our country pays attention to other countries jurisdictions and all, but if ti si during WAR time, and they are in service to the country, we judge them, NOT some foreigner with a grudge aginst the USA. For some reason many people do not understand that the rules changed on 9/11. In the days following many things that were aginst the law were overturned by executive order, the same way they were first put in place. It used to be illegal to assassinate, not any more. The agents to the USA were given a basic licence to kill.
You bleeding hearts seem to have forgotten the 3,000 souls that were butchered on 9/11. Thank god most of us will NEVER forget..!!!

Bill

A honest president would sign the U.S. back into the International Criminal Court, retroactive, and see that everyone on the chart was prosecuted.

The buck F*%$ing stops there...

Hey Bill, did you actually fight in WWII? Did you personally save any of the oppressed Dutch or other Europeans from the Nazis? If not, then you're just taking credit for the good work that other good men did. Moreover, you are trivializing their sacrifice by claiming their struggle as a kind of free pass for Americans to do whatever we want forever.

That's ridiculous, of course. American soldiers did indeed save oppressed peoples around the world by fighting and dying in WWII. My grandfather was one of them--my decision to serve in the military was in part inspired by his example. But we did not tarnish our victory by reducing our conduct to barbarism. In fact, we upheld the standards of justice and democracy by giving even the Nazi leaders fair trials. We did not torture them for evidence, nor did we summarily execute them.

Your attitude is shameful and un-American. You have no right to claim credit for the work of my grandfather and other veterans, nor do you have the right to call for torture of our prisoners in this current war.

Don't get sucked in by Bill(ious), engaging in dialogue with someone whose muffled jingoisms come from having their head well and truly inserted in their posterior will get you nowhere fast.
The US incentive in WW II wassn't to save Europe, it was the promised booty when it absorbed the Nazi war machine, likewise when it absorbed the Japanese war machine after reigning down terror on a civilian population with WMDs. Now their Military juggernaut is so gargantuan that it cannot be stopped.
There is always a chain of command, someone always tells a subordinate what to do, that is the nature of the military --- the buck cannot be passed --- the Commander-in-Chief is always responsible.

http://www.indypendent.org/2008/03/17/america%e2%80%99s-imperialist-agenda/

“I am saddened…to…acknowledge what everyone knows: the Iraq war is largely about oil,” announced former U.S. Federal Reserve Chairman Alan Greenspan in 2007. It has become fashionable to blame the war on oil, or on a handful of warmongering neo-conservatives in the Bush administration.

But the problem is far deeper than the quest for oil, or the desires of a few rogue politicians in Washington. The broader problem is that of imperialism, which is rooted in protecting “free markets” at whatever cost, and is justified under the false pretenses of spreading “freedom and democracy.”

======================================
Hey Mir, the Nethrlands,

I bet your family were memeber of the (NSB) during WWII...? I am sure you know who they were..right..? For you to act like this twords the country that "Saved your Ass", is what is sickening..!! How come you and many other people who were saved by our country men spilling there blood on your shores, have NO affection for us..? I bet if you talked to your parents and grand parents and found out what our country went through to SAVE you... you might change your tune... Next time you need saving, you better call the other guys, oh, i forgot, they would have made you slaves..!!!

BIll

Most of the comments are actually DEFENDING the torture with comments such as "our boys are in trouble and we therefore need to torture..". This is sickening!
Why did you send 'your boys' there? (think a bit before answering 9/11). Did the Iraqi's invite you and are now treating you as bad hosts? Or did you break down their door, destroyed their homes and raped and tortured their people?
Seriously America, what do they feed you to keep you so dumb?
You seem to have lost all sense of humanity and civilization! I can now completely understand your racial segregation, your economic disaster and your "New Orleans"!
I bet McCain will be the new president! The last two elections, we (the rest of the world) gave you the benefit of the doubt and made a difference between your fascist government and the populace. Don't expect any sympathy when you choose yourself Hitler-version 2008 as president this time! It actually IS your fault this time.
Please America, realize that the world does not consist of 300 million humans and 6.3 billion sub-humans. We are all stuck together on this spec of cosmic dust and need to respect each other (including those 6.3 billion sub-humans)!

Mother Jones - Comments for "Exclusive: Who&#039;s Behind Abu Ghraib?"

Mother Jones - Comments for "Exclusive: Who's Behind Abu Ghraib?"