It looks as if we will just write this one off as "a few bad apples".
How many people think we would accept that from the Iraqi side?
I know that sounds obvious, but here's a horrible question: "Is that really us?"
Is that a mirror we're looking in when we see that terrible woman G.I. holding the lighter and grinning?

Saddam and his henchmen were. Now we got out own henchmen and no court-martial or punishment of the guilty ones is going to change the minds of the Iraqis that witness it. We have lost the trust for good, if we ever had it. The stupid ass things we have done to screw this up are just to numerous to count and the damage done is to severe to correct.

If you search back, there was a story originating in the conservative British newspaper the Telepgraph (I believe) in which unnamed British officers in Iraq said the U.S. didn't understand how to deal with the people in Iraq.

The said our soldiers treated the Iraqis the way the Germans treated the Jews, Roma, Slavs, etc. in WWII. (I can't remember the German term but it amounted to less-than-humans).

I believe all of our soldiers have been indoctrinated to treat anyone who questions U.S. authority as a "terrorist enemy", and to consider the "terrorist enemy" as "less-than-human".

I can dig up the URL if you like.

in Basra(?) or somewhere months ago. There were pics here...

but for the most part... well just ask any Catholic from Northern Ireland what they think of the 'humane' British army.

and do not recall the use of indiscriminate shelling or the use of C-130 gunships in Belfast.

That doesn't excuse the collaboration in terrorism between the police, military and Orange terror groups.

my point was indeed that being less evil doesn't make you good. You will read a lot of crap over here in Britain about how the British Army has hardly harmed a fly over there in Iraq... usually contrasting them them to the Americans, who are portrayed as incompetent and the source of all that is wrong with the situation. But Britain was a willing partner in all of this, and if the British troops have comitted fewer crimes its because they have largely been in more peaceful areas. As a Guardain columnist said the other day, its not that the British have made Basra peaceful by not being heavy-handed, its that the British could afford not to be heavy-handed in a relatively peaceful part of Iraq.

being confirmed once more:

http://www.thomhartmann.com/democracyfailed.shtml

When I saw the story on CBS yesterday I thought about this Independent article and that the fighting in Fallujah was supposed to have been triggered by the four American mercinaries who's bodies were mutilated after they were killed. Imagine what the US military would do if it were Iraqi's posing with live Americans.



US tactics condemned by British officers
By Sean Rayment, Defence Correspondent News Telegraph (UK) 04/11/2004

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/main.jhtml?xml=%2Fnews%2F2004%2F04%2F11%2Fwtact11.xml

Senior British commanders have condemned American military tactics in Iraq as heavy-handed and disproportionate.

One senior Army officer told The Telegraph that America's aggressive methods were causing friction among allied commanders and that there was a growing sense of "unease and frustration" among the British high command.

The officer, who agreed to the interview on the condition of anonymity, said that part of the problem was that American troops viewed Iraqis as untermenschen - the Nazi expression for "sub-humans".

Speaking from his base in southern Iraq, the officer said: "My view and the view of the British chain of command is that the Americans' use of violence is not proportionate and is over-responsive to the threat they are facing. They don't see the Iraqi people the way we see them. They view them as untermenschen. They are not concerned about the Iraqi loss of life in the way the British are. Their attitude towards the Iraqis is tragic, it's awful.

this morning, i have to say we are doomed.

those pictures are really some of the worst things i've ever seen.

the smile on that Nazi woman's face...

I'm Jewish, but now and lately, I feel more and more like one of the Germans that sat on his hands during WWII while they roasted Jews. Someday people will write books about how we just allowed it to go on and on even though we knew about it. I really feel my little soul shrinking and breaking...

..but don't expect any answers from the superpower occupiers.

be cruel and abusive. I can see people like Ashcroft or Rumsfeld doing such incredibly horrific stuff.

They do NOT represent the vast majority of our soldiers. However, if our soldiers would be abused in such a way by Iraqis, some of us would blame the Iraqi people as a whole. Some of the extremists (especially freepers) would say "Nuke the whole country." We definitely wouldn't say that those are "just a few bad apples"

What a horrible unjust war. :cry:

(ed. grammar)

collective punishment would have been in order.

oh the outrage that would cause huh? we'd call them animals and unleash holy revenge hell on them. we are a criminal nation now.

It is also reality.

I am not counting on the arab world to worry about it being representative.

Those stupid war criminals have no idea how much damage they did.

Not that we aren't and haven't done plety on our own.

But I really think a case could be made for charging these war criminals for aiding and albetting Al Qaeda and the 'resistance'.

I am sure membership at least doubled with the release of those pictures.

Stupid, Cruel and stupid.

Kerry better make plans for pulling the US out of Iraq, because there is NO WAY IN HELL that the Iraqi people will submit to US rule now. Once these pictures get broadcast on Al Jazeera, Iraqis will see them and NO AMOUNT of propaganda will change their opinion of the US occupation.

As far as they will be concerned they US is just as bad Hussein was, and they will continue to fight for as long as it takes to remove ALL trace of US occupation, including any "gvoernment" the US might set up.

I doubt they will even trust the UN, and certainly not if a single US soldier is involved.

The "ceasefire/massacre" in Fallujah; the rape and torture of prisoners in Abu Ghraib and other prisons in Iraq. Only "God/Bush" knows whats going on in Guantonamo Bay???

While 50% of Americans sponsor these activities, the other 50% are content to blame "this Administration". At some point we have to ask ourselves -- Is attributing blame really enough?

No one can terrorize a whole nation,

unless we are all his accomplices.

Edward R. Murrow
----------------------------------------------



When your feet grow tired from marching, write letters
When your hands grow weary from writing, make phone calls
When your voice goes hoarse from yelling, then start praying.
Please America -- March NOW ... pray later.

The DU Activism/Events forum is sadly the most underutilized board of this website.

Seemingly, the Iraqis (for this war, anyway, GWI they were much more brutal) treated US POWs in strict acordance with the Geneva Convention. None were tortured or humiliated, and Pfc. Lynch was brought to a hospital for medical treatment. She was not raped, despite the delusions of the RW.

Many people here are shocked that this would go on. I'm not. This is par for the course in a colonial occupation. Thoroughly standard stuff in counter-insurgency operations. It is neither surprising, nor shocking, nor even new for American troops. American troops put the dogs on prisoners in Vietnam. See also the LIFE Magazine expose on Puolo Condor (Can Dao) prison island. Dirty business, this colonialism. Don't be shocked.