What I wanna know re: torture pics is this:

Okay, let's say you and your buddies are going to torture and humiliate and possibly rape a bunch of detainees from another country, a decision that is plainly, obviously against the laws of the Geneva convention, and against consensus morality.

WHY THE FUCK WOULD YOU TAKE PICTURES OF IT?!?!?!

Am I the only one here who thinks that you SHOULDN'T take pictures of yourself and your friends committing acts of violence and indecency against prisoners of the war on terrorism, lest that pesky international media get their hands on them?! I mean, what kind of a moron burglar would take pictures of himself committing burglaries? Or what kind of a moron president would commit treason in the White House with a tape recorder rolling....okay, well, Nixon would do that, but that's besides the point. The point is that it's a special breed of dipshit that is so careless about being a dipshit that he/she BRINGS A CAMERA TO THE SCENE OF THE CRIME, and that this breed is practically begging to get caught in the act.

Beyond the moral outrage, there's the dipshit factor at play here, too.

particularly of rapes. The Komolka case in Canada comes to mind.

I think it comes from a feeling of power and that you will 'win' and that no one will be able to do anything against you.

...then again, so did we.

Who turtured the captured Iraqi soldiers, then sent the film home to his girlfriend to have it developed? How stupid can you get?

they're not as uncommon as we'd like to think.

Where else but in a war zone are people going to get away with this sick shit? Oh man, my buddies back home will never believe this! And you know what? Most of the time, they do. Get away with it, I mean.

Hmmm.....we're on the same wavelength again! (I hope she doesn't think I ripped her idea off; I haven't been on DU for a few days.)

When something that was once unusual or taboo becomes ROUTINE, people have this strange need to document it - to take pictures. It's like they feel they are in a dream (or nightmare) and taking pictures will somehow make it real - break the spell.

Look at the pictures again. One of the most revolting aspects of it all is the "smile for the camera" type poses of the torturers. Same kind of smile you would expect if they were having their picture taken with Micky Mouse at Disney World.

The torture was widespread. It was everyday.

nt

One was a picture of a North Vietnamese Soldier with his left eye burnt out with a hot iron. He'd died in the process of "information extraction," and this guy and his buddies had set him up against a tree with a cigarette in one hand and a Coke in the other with a sign on his head: "Things go better with COKE." He also collected ears: he said he only collected them from the living.

This guy was an idiot and a sadist. And these shits are no better: it's only a matter of degree.

I'd be in therapy for DECADES after witnessing something like that. I bet that shmuck thinks he's pretty tough for doing something so utterly pointless and stupid.

I spend my life trying to get away from violence and unease. I don't understand some people at all.

We live in a country where people would line up to pull the switch on an electric chair. Did you know there were literally THOUSANDS of volunteers for that firing squad in Utah 20+ years back?

The fact of monsters in our society is no surprise to me. It only saddens me when I see the evidence of them in action. And YES it took a couple of years to get over working less than 5 feet from that sadist.

to try to get insurgents to surrender


http://www.commondreams.org/headlines03/1207-06.htm

Published on Sunday, December 7, 2003 by the New York Times
Tough New Tactics by U.S. Tighten Grip on Iraq Towns

In selective cases, American soldiers are demolishing buildings thought to be used by Iraqi attackers. They have begun imprisoning the relatives of suspected guerrillas, in hopes of pressing the insurgents to turn themselves in.

http://www.jihadunspun.com/intheatre_internal.php?article=2811&list=/h...

While these photos and reports were put down to "loose" Iraqi women (which shows a fundamental understanding of Iraq's religion and culture) we discovered later that those who were detained, some at Abu Ghraib prison, who refused to provide US officials with intelligence where given a prod to garner "cooperation" by rounding up the female relatives, forcing then into sexual acts that were filmed and then shown to their husbands, fathers and brothers and to the general public through porn sites. Now the CBS 60 Minutes II report legitimizes the incidents we have been reporting all along.

And they hate us for our... freedoms!

...they took pictures because they were sanctioned. They were not afraid that there would be any lega repercussions from their actions.

The pictures actually beg the questions: Who authorized this behaviour? and How high up does it go?

There are other, less savory questions that could be asked comparing this kind of behaviour to certain prison camps in Germany during WWII but, I quail to ask them without much more evidence.