Gen. Janis Karpinski passing the buck. Is she Lurch?

This is not a babe. She looks like nurse Ratchet on a bad day. She said she was not responsible. Just like bush*, no one in this administration, from the top down, is responsible for anything.

are 2 entirely separate issues...

Madeleine Albright isn't exactly Mrs. America.

more than likely improve her looks.

are the men who gave the torture orders.

Even if that order was given, which it wasn't, she was the senior ranking officer at the facility and if she were given an order that was illegal, she would be obligated to DISOBEY it. She is gutless for not accepting responsibility for what went on there, and is acting out of cowardice for suggesting that someone else of equal or greater rank share in her dereliction.

I am no Bush fan, but I am an officer, and I have taken enemy POW's into custody while in Afghanistan, and let me assure you, they were NOT mistreated. Just to stop the conspiracy theory/tinfoil hat wearers right now, to imply that there is some general torture order to be blindly followed is insulting to those that serve with honor and try their damndest to uphold what the Constitution and this country stands for.

What those MP jackasses did stains all who serve, and it pisses me off to no end. I hope those that committed what we committed to stop end up in prison for a long time, and if I get the chance to serve on their court martial board, I promise you they will.

torture was widespread and condoned. I suppose you've read Sy Hersh's article:

http://www.newyorker.com/fact/content/

and they disgust me. And they disgust 99.999999% of us who proudly wear our uniform. If there is a silver lining, it appears that it occurred only in this prison, and only by a small number of soldiers. Even that, to me, is abhorrent and unacceptable. When that article makes specific allegations, it speaks about the soldiers now being charged and reprimanded in Abu Ghraib. But still, it is unacceptable. Those responsible need to go to prison.

Is it difficult to control your emotions when you take into custody someone who was trying to blow your head off 5 minutes earlier? You bet. But we do, every day, and without the humiliation that those Iraqi prisoners suffered.

30 MORE TORTURE SCANDALS PROBED:
http://www.sundaymail.co.uk/news/tm_objectid=14201795&method=full&siteid=86024&headline=30-more-torture-scandals-probed-name_page.html

Torture commonplace, say inmates families

Amnesty International Says It Has Evidence of pattern of Torture by Coalition

And there are lots more...

that Amnesty International is screaming at the top of their lungs about this, when in 30 years they didn't give a shit about what Saddam was doing.

Do I condone what those MP's did, or any American? No, it sickens me. As a soldier, and as an American. trust me when I tell you that this is an exception, not the rule, and almost all POW's are treated with respect and dignity. From someone who has been there, done that, albeit in Afghanistan, not Iraq.

I hope this all ends soon...that's what I really want.

what is going on at Gitmo...why can't the prisoners even talk to a judge? Frankly, I think that torture has always been used to a lessor or greater extent in the past. But in Iraq, the need to squash a widespread insurgency against an occupation has made torture so commonplace that news of it is leaking out all over the place.

one of the alledged "cruelties" is that prisoners are "made to wear orange coveralls." Big deal. Convicts in our penal system have to wear something to distinguish them from everybody else should they try to escape.

They are given an opportunity to worship as they see fit, they are fed, and they are clothed. They are given a medical examination, and yes, they are interrogated. There is a HUGE difference between interrogation and torture. They are not tortured. And just for the record, sleep deprivation isn't torture. Only unless it's accompanied by an infant with colic, lol.

I think we can agree that torture, by any side, is deplorable. I would submit, probably for flaming, that we are FAR more compassionate in the treatment of our prisoners that we hold in custody than the treatment our POW's get while held in enemy hands, the latest incident, deplorable incident, not withstanding.

detention without a "day in court" strikes me as unAmerican.

didn't go in front of a judge. Because they're not US citizens. If they were, however, as in the case of Jose padilla, that would be a whole different ballgame.

I see a huge difference between enemy POW's and American citizens held without due process.

we (the US government) can go around the world picking up whom ever we please, throw them indefinitely in a prison without so much as a visit in front of a judge, much less counsel, and you're OK with that?

Think carefully about that. What we allow to be done to "foreigners" today is what we will endure tomorrow.

Take a peek at any number of their annual reports. Here is the summary of the 2002 report.

Scores of people, including possible prisoners of conscience and armed forces officers suspected of planning to overthrow the government, were executed. Scores of suspected anti-government opponents, including people suspected of having contacts with opposition groups in exile, were arrested. The fate and whereabouts of most of those arrested, including those detained in previous years, remained unknown. Several people were given lengthy prison terms after grossly unfair trials before special courts. Torture and ill-treatment of political prisoners and detainees were systematic. The two Kurdish political parties controlling Iraqi Kurdistan detained prisoners of conscience, and armed political groups were reportedly responsible for abductions and killings.

http://www.amnesty.org/ailib/aireport/index.html

My apologies. It seemed like stories like that never made the news.

but that would be more an issue with what the media found "newsworthy". Actually, though, I do remember Poppy Bush holding up an Amnesty International report to support Gulf War I.

Thanks for your service. I really want to believe you and hope you're right. If you guys could avoid torturing the Taliban, you would think the Iraqis could escape it.

Everyone,

It's this guy's responsibility to round 'em up. What happens after that (Gitmo) isn't his decision.

Amnesty International did not ignore Iraq or Hussein for thirty years. Even before the invasion, AI listed human rights abuses in Iraq in its annual reports and had campaigns to improve human rights in Iraq (see http://www.web.amnesty.org/web/ar2000web.nsf/part3/e4fe4c995a902b58802568f50049de33?OpenDocument and http://www.amnesty.org/ailib/aireport/ar97/mdesum.html and http://web.amnesty.org/library/Index/ENGMDE140051997?open&of=ENG-IRQ#BAC and http://web.amnesty.org/library/Index/ENGIOR410081993?open&of=ENG-IRQ for examples).

the number you give indicates that only one out of 100,000,000 uniformed personel are not disgusted by this behavior. that means that there's only a one in a thosand chance that one out-lier (i.e., a soldier who found the torture amusing) would exist in iraq. yet there were two smirking soldiers in the pictures (a one in a million occurence if your numbers are correct) - and further, there are reports of 13 or 17 people being charged - the odds of that happening based on your premise are astronomical.

think it's time you faced reality and start accepting the fact that a lot of our troops aren't so lily white and pure.

And if she was in charge, she should have known what was going on in the prison. If she didn't, then she is not a competent leader. Either way, it happened on her watch. And I think that makes her responsible.

but others shared responsibilities. I believed that she was inferring that contract and military intelligence types were also responsible.

Welcome to DU!! :toast:

Liar. Commanding officers know everything that's going on...all the time. She's scary, really.

which is believable

she'll take some with her.

maybe even up to the chief tormentors.....

like bush*...who is publicly ordering assassinations on TV, displaying the mutilated corpses of saddam's sons for America to behold his trophy kills, and posting multi-million dollar bounties for executing people without trials, presumably to collect the money, their heads must be brought to bush*...

why be surprised that really-low level soldiers act like nazis, when bush* sets the 'moral tone' for his 'low-rent occupation that shot more innocent civilians than terrorists to prop up puppet rulers and exploit gas and oil resources'....who can even be surprised anymore?

1a & 1b were controlled by the Military Intelligence Command

The Army is between a rock and a hard place. They feel they a need to use torture and now the American public wants REAL assurances that the torture will stop.

who was giving military intelligence the order to turn up the heat?

Norville just gave her her out.

now its all being blamed on stress the huge numbers of prisoners to process. the constant threat of attacks, the attacks themselves

There's a war going on, so we should expect our people to occasionally act inhumanly.

Yeah, that's going to fly with the rest of the world.

doesn't look like they're going to name them after all

"for suggesting that someone else of equal or greater rank share in her dereliction..."

She has accepted responsibilty. I also, feel that justice demands that all who were directly and indirectly responsible should be taken to task.

Who is the Commaner In Chief of the USA?

Boy, she is LYING. Big Time. Jeez. You can hear her voice tremble a little, I think.

As for her looks, she is ugly because she's an evil liar. Good looks bless good people.

the great American tradition is alive and well.

They sure misjudged her. I'm more convinced than ever that this is a widespread problem because of her appearance tonight.

Whereas guys can look like Rumsfeld, Wolfowitz and Novak and be judged on their deeds.

Sorry, no sell.

Start the 'Blame the US' movement?

To counteract all the propaganda from the RIGHT of course who want to derail the other RIGHT's campaign...

to question are the ones holding the whitewash brushes.

look ill. I won't make fun of their appearance, but each and every one of them is aging so fast it isn't funny.

(I hate making fun of politicians based on their looks)

I went over some of this in the thread http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=104x1517119 (not just the initial post).

There's an entire chain of command missing in this story.

17 MI Officers & NCOs were "whisked" away before these 7 were hung out to dry.

Read that thread. You heart will sink. The ENTIRE structure is rotten to the core. And be sure not to miss Must_B_Free's posts towards the end about the Commandant of TRADOC, General Kevin P. Byrnes, the Commandant in charge of Training & Doctrine for the entire Army, had an avid desire to 'awakene' the "inner warrior" in the young troops under his care.

Naw sorry. Karpinsky may have known and may very well not have known. When it comes to the "need to know", national security blah blah blah, they can keep a 1 star General out of any intel site in the world. You have no need to know.

And sheesh, expecting her, when she was in charge of EVERY single prison, detention center in Iraq, to know what they were doing in cell-block 1A (off-limits to almost everyone except CIA and MI) is to expect the CEO of the Hilton to know what's going on in every single hotel in the chain.

She looks rough that's for damn sure, but there's not a female in combat, who doesn't look rough after a week.

I'm not going to defend her but I'm not following the bandwagon because this scandal is a LOT more far-reaching than a BG, 2 NCOs and a small lot of Specialists & Privates.

The Army doesn't toss a Brigadier General out to the wolves over the crimes of a 7 enlisted people, most of whom are really LOWER, LOW enlisted.