Either these photos are false, or...

[womzilla]

Or there's a lot more going wrong than just the US losing a war.

Warning: Not graphic. Just incredibly, gut-churningly unpleasant.

Photos show jail abuse by US troops
April 30, 2004
Sydney Morning Herald

... The program reported that poorly trained US reservists were forcing Iraqis to conduct simulated sexual acts in order to break down their will before they were turned over to others for interrogation.

In one photograph naked Iraq prisoners stand in a human pyramid, one with a slur written on his skin in English.

In another, a prisoner stands on a box, his head covered, wires attached to his body. The news show said that, according to the army, he had been told that if he fell off the box he would be electrocuted. Other photographs show male prisoners positioned to simulate sex with each other.

The "program" was 60 Minutes II; given that people are up on military charges for these acts, I suspect they actually happened.

We are not merely creating a new generation of America-hating terrorists; we have carefully plowed the field and spread it with fertilizer, and now are carefully pruning weeds to make sure that the crop comes in strong. "I am going to kill America--not today, in ten years" is the motto of our fradulent president.

UPDATE: Here's the transcript of the actual 60 Minutes II piece. It's also available in a printer-friendly version and full video from that page.

Comments

[cheshyre]

Rivka and Jeanne point out that the reason these soldiers are up on charges is because they are soldiers. The interrogators they were reporting to were private contractors and thus not subject to the same code of justice or risk of court martial.

Overreaction

[(Anonymous)]

I'm disturbed if it turns out that the civilians involved are not punished, but this will not merit even a footnote in future histories of this war. Yes it will provoke outrage among many Iraqis, but that won't matter in the long run.

There may well be terrorism while we are engaged in occupying Iraq. But if we either (1) manage to establish a reasonable government there, or (2) turn tail and run, there won't be any Iraqi terrorists targeting America, just as there are no Vietnamese, Japanese, or German terrorists targeting America, no Indian terrorists targeting Britain, no Hungarian terrorists targeting Russia, etc.

I do think that if we withdraw too quickly, not only will it be bad for Iraqis, it may encourage future terrorism against the U.S., just as our lack of resolve in Iran, Lebanon, and Somalia probably encouraged bin Laden to think that terrorism against the U.S. would achieve something.

Could you explain what you mean by "the US losing a war"? Clearly that's not true in the military sense.

Common sense

[nwl.livejournal.com]

Whenever there is some sort of obviously wrong behavior, I always wonder - isn't there a point where someone says or thinks this is a bad idea? Why would anyone think this sort of behavior is a GOOD idea? Has common sense and just plain reality of life that far gone from the human race? And to take pictures grinning with the people. The mind boggles. Just too horrible for words.