CSM: 'Six morons who lost the war'

'Six morons who lost the war'
Tom Regan, Christian Science Monitor

Regardless of the outcome of the now multiple investigations into prisoner abuse at Baghdad's Abu Ghraib prison, politicians and media around the world say the United States' image has suffered a serious blow. Sen. Joe Biden (D) of Delaware said on Fox News Sunday that "This is the single most significant undermining act that's occurred in a decade in that region of the world in terms of our standing."

The Associated Press reports that a senior Bush administration official, speaking on condition of anonymity, said the photos (of US soldiers abusing Iraqi prisoners) hurt the US efforts to win over an audience that is already deeply skeptical of US intentions. Arabs and Muslims, the official added, "are certain to seize upon the images as proof that the American occupiers are as brutal as ousted President Saddam Hussein's government."

Officials at the Defense Department are also said to be "livid," and well aware of the damage that has been done by the incident, according to NBC News' Pentagon reporter Jim Miklaszewski. Speaking on the Imus in the Morning radio/MSNBC program Tuesday , Mr. Miklaszewski said he asked a Pentagon contact about the soldiers alleged to be involved, to which the Pentagon official replied, "You mean the six morons who lost the war?"

The Chicago Tribune reports that other experts agree with this assessment.

"The United States already had a huge perception problem in the Arab world," said Stephen Walt, a professor of international affairs at Harvard's Kennedy School of Government. "This is only going to reinforce the belief that the United States is anti-Arab and anti-Muslim, whether it's true or not."

(more)

http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&u=/oneworld/20040504/wl_oneworld/4536853021083694689

(A CSM is the senior NCO in an Army unit ballation or higher)

Now that would be a ballsy Sergent Major!

This issue could largely be quelled if we act quickly to bring those responsible to justice, including and especially senior officials.

There will be short-term flare-ups due to this, but the long-term effect is not written in stone.

We ain't seen nothing yet. We will pay for this, in spades.

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This is just the kind of garbage the freeper folk love to use against us. I don't blame them because this is one of the sickest posts I have seen here.

Correct. These atrocities are carved into the minds and hearts of Arabs throughout the world. That hatred will outlast many a graven stone.

... but also an overstatement. Short-term, yes, we can expect severe consequences; but the long-term effect of this issue can more easily be remedied than *'s siding with Sharon; our continued occupation of Iraq; our continued expedient support of dictators and kings in the name of oil.

Unfortunately, these crimes have been known for SOME time, and we may already be too late to "quickly" bring justice for the victims. It's obvious that the military has been trying to cover-up this issue. Myers should be reprimanded and fired for not having read the Feb report.

They hold grudges for centuries - literally. The hate is passed down from generation to generation.

We could draw and quarter the guilty parties tomorrow, but it wouldn't help stem the hate.

"They hold grudges for centuries - literally. The hate is passed down from generation to generation."


Maybe not centuries here, but certainly long enough to perpetuate and re-affirm the hate-filled ideology of the American style Christian wingnut "patriot."

To regain the credibility of the world would require landing such a big fish, that it would just never happen.

Of course torture takes place. It's just like the Rodney King video. It wasn't some freak thing--it's just unique in that it was recorded.

..just ask ANYONE of colour in LA and you'll hear Rodney-King type stories all the time....

This will have a negative effect for a long time...

among others...

1. george walker bush
2. richard cheney
3. donald rumsfeld
4. paul wolfowitz
5. paul bremmer
6. whatever lame-brained general officer in charge of the Iraq fiasco
7. ...

You mean, Bush, Rice, Rumsfeld, Wolfowitz, Cheney, and Powell?

.

a perpetual war, a la 1984?

bush will not be satisfied until every human being on earth is dead. He is the anti-christ and bathes in the blood of babies and drinks the blood of virgins and eats the hearts of mothers.

He needs a guaranteed supply of baby blood. Thanks for clearing that up. (slaps forehead)

Remember what Jebbie said: "It looks like the people of San Francisco are an endangered species."

mid-summer.

Something on the order of destroying an oil-refining facility. But I also think the desperate neo-con mafia will try something big and stupid. And they'll be exposed by pissed-off intelligence bureaucrats.

We are just gonna have to wait and watch. Somethings coming.

So, people in the Pentagon are blaming these monsters for our humiliation in a war we were going to lose anyway. Nice.

The morons who lost the war are sitting in the Pentagon, the Capitol and the White House. The sooner America figures this out, the better.

the atrocities are apalling, to be sure, but could this mean a sooner rather than later end to this insidious occupation?

"This is the single most significant undermining act that's occurred in a decade in that region of the world in terms of our standing."
--------------------------

It wouldn't have happened if we weren't there in the first place, Joe.

they might be angry at the soldiers who were stupid enough to be photographed doing this, but they almost certainly save their true anger for those who allowed these photos to become public.

This is crazy, this is insane, and if they thought morale was low among the servicemen and women in Iraq, wait until they court-martial these folks for following orders. That doesn't excuse them, but the people not shown in these pictures are just as culpable. I CAN'T BELIEVE a Pentagon official would say this, unless he was referring to ABC, NBC, CBS, FOX, CNN, and MSNBC, the "six morons" that showed the pictures on tv.

As far as the "single most undermining act" that is a little dubious, because this was not a single act or a single instance, and since the pictures are at least 4 months old, the "act " they must be referring to is the reporting on the abuses, not the abuses themselves.

Someone trained them to do this.

I heard a snippet on one of the cable news stations this afternoon: there are reportedly incidents of Americans servicepeople abusing women and children in prisons in Iraq and/or Afghanistan. Supposedly there are videos.

I sure do hope not.

boy, he'll NEVER take personal responsibility will he? He'll just blame the troops... When really they're just following his example.

"pResidential Infallibility"!:eyes:

B-)

I forgot.

Off to the reeducation camps for me... :spank:

Bush, Cheney, and the war criminals in the cabinet belong in the Hague, I feel so sorry for any of our poor soldiers or Marines who are captured by Iraqis, they will pay for these crimes.

This is about more than six people.

Bush used the deaths of the 9/11 victims to justify his illegal and imoral war in Iraq and now the relevation of the torture and rapes erases any and all validity he/we may have had.

He has lost the war for us. Now and for a generation or more to come.

The deaths of the US and coalition forces have been made ignoble by the heinous crimes and violations of human decency Bush has allowed the US military to commit in our and their names.

This is the message the media needs to hear. This is the message America needs to hear.

So you won't forget when, at ANOTHER Press Conference, a journalist asks you: "Have you made any mistakes?"

It is undisputable that the facts are the facts, and that this is a racist, completely bigoted war.

another soundbite that is.

Can't say "no more torture chambers and rape rooms" now
Can't say "no more mass graves"-Fallujah
Can't say WMD, or yellowcake, or any of that
Can't say "Mission Accomplished"
Can't pose with the firefighters, they won't have him

They showed the pic of Rummy and Sadam shaking hands on MSNBC last night before the Hardball interview (or was it Sun., can't remember) but the only info they gave was that Rumsfeld "once met with Saddam Hussein". No sale of chem and bio weapons was mentioned.

HERSH: First of all, it's going to get much worse. This kind of stuff was much more widespread. I can tell you just from the phone calls I've had in the last 24 hours, even more, there are other photos out there. There are many more photos even inside that unit. There are videotapes of stuff that you wouldn't want to mention on national television that was done. There was a lot of problems.

There was a special women's section. There were young boys in there. There were things done to young boys that were videotaped. It's much worse. And the Maj. Gen. Taguba was very tough about it. He said this place was riddled with violent, awful actions against prisoners.

O'REILLY: All right. So we're going to see in the weeks to come more pictures and videotapes of atrocities against Iraqis? Is that what we can look forward to seeing?

HERSH: Mr. O'Reilly, this is a generation -- you know back -- you and I in our days, if we had something, you know, we came back from war. We would take our pictures and hide them behind the socks in the drawer and look at them once in a while.

This is a generation that sends stuff on CDs, sends it around. ome kid right now is negotiating with some European magazine. -- You know, I can't say that for sure, but it's there. -- It's out there. And the Army knows it.

O'REILLY: Boy.

HERSH: They have tried to recover some of the CD discs from computers, individual computers. But obviously, you can't stop this...

(more)

http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,118955,00.html

He said there were separate wings for women and juveniles at Abu Ghraib and said we should expect to hear about more atrocities.