There is something very preculiar about this whole deal. I've guarded prisoners when in the military and never were we in position to do anything like that even if we wanted to. Never, and I mean never, did they (brass) allow lower ranking enlisted personnel free access to prisoners. Something has changed drastically in the system or we don't have all the right scoop yet. Your 4 points sound logical. TW

"Folks who will believe that this is typical already hate us"

Folks like John Kerry?

Why was it necessary to break this story now? My understanding, and this article confirms, is the Army has been on this for months now, and is going through the process of making sure justice is served. If things were going too slow, then that's the fault of our judicial system. Splashing this all over the news does nothing but undermine US efforts by confirming the prejudices of certain people(s). This smells on a number of levels.

And another point--it's only our self-restraint that keeps us from descending to this level on a regular basis. All that is needed is an excuse, and Americans will be as brutal as is perceived necessary. I dread that in the next year or two Arabs are going to do something so terrible/stupid as to give a lot of people that excuse.

I though a couple of the photos were funny. The Arabs will go nuts claiming that they are being humiliated.

I always thought humility was a virtue. maybe we should make them parade around naked for three years. sure would put a crimp in their attitudes.

OJ writes: "(1) If they were developing useful information from these interrogations then they are less objectionable." (And Robert Schwartz makes the sentiment that much more obvious).

We've established what you are; now we're haggling over price.

M:

Yes, there's nothing intrinsically wrong with using torture to gain important information. We only limit its use in order that our own soldiers not be tortured in turn where the rules of war apply.

"Yes, there's nothing intrinsically wrong with using torture to gain important information."

That's monstrous. One wonders why your morality isn't similarly malleable in other situations.

If there's nothing wrong with killing them to win the war and reform their natioon then why wouldn't torture be permissible? We ban torture for our purposes, not our enemies.

This will have an effect in the Arab world. The people saying otherwise are full of it. These pictures will ensure more active sympathy on the part of Iraqi civilians, and they will ensure that guerrilla fighters will not surrender--why should they if this is what awaits them? It also destroys--rightly or wrongly--what moral credibility we had in Iraq. These photos have effectively lost us the propaganda war, and as our effort in Iraq depends on the Iraqis' goodwill, we've lost the peace there, too. It's just a matter of time now.

I wish this wasn't so. Despite my opposition to this idiotic war, I don't want to see my country fail, and I fear for the consequences--which were all too predictable.

Derek:

You assured us before the pictures came out that they felt this way. Are we now on double secret probation?

Look, if you want to stick your head in the sand and pretend there's no problem, go right ahead. But quippy caricatures of my position won't get you out of this hole. The fact is, this picture has an emotional impact. Those who only halfheartedly hated us will now do so with far more vim and verve.

If all as reported on ABC is true, I agree that it was despicable and damaging ... but the exception, not representative.

If, as noted by a previous post, it will influence the fanatics to not surrender, I see that as an advantage. My impression is that in previous combat situations we were taking too many prisoners. These are not soldiers; they are terrorists.

Quoting a Marine Sgt.: "this is the perfect war; they want to die and we want to kill them."

Remember the prisoner problem we had in Korea? They opened up a second front.

Genecis:

Yes, but Derek's position requires that one believe that torture is not so horrible as to prevent them from fighting us but so awful as to prevent their surrender when cornered--it's line drawing of the most absurd sort.

Maybe I'm just insensitive, but when I first heard of the torture I was expecting mangled bodies, pulled fingernails, actual shock treatments, etc. What I got was a bunch of naked Iraquis doing what cheerleaders at any college football game do. The hysteria doesn't match the actual abuse. Thats not to say that an investigation isn't needed, but this ranks as pretty juvenile and petty torture. Especially compared to the stories of Saddaam's plastic shredders and rape rooms.

Also, Real Clear Politics has a very good point that the elephant in the room is that the Moslems are stressing the humility aspect of the torture, rather than the physical aspect. Is this due to there being female MPs and the person in charge of the prison was female?

There would be less protest if we made a mountain of skulls in front of the mosques in Fallujah. This story is bent. The soldiers who broke discipline will be court-martialed, as they should be. But pandering to hysterical Arab fears? That is just too much.

None of you guys seem to understand that all wars are won in the will. We won't build pyramids of skulls. That's the way we are. Whether you think that's good or bad is irrelevant. (I happen to think it's good, BTW). That being the case, we have to win by offering a far better alternative.

Right now, we aren't doing any such thing. The streets in Iraq are far more dangerous now to the average person than they were under Hussein because of crime and terror, all of which gets blamed on us because we're supposed to be in charge. We're not offering them democracy, because we try to rig and sabotage anything resembling a one man/one vote system. And now we have these stories coming out, and believe you me, it doesn't end with naked posing pictures. You have reports of rape and physical beating in a U.S. Army report, one that even led to death. And that's just the stuff they could find out!

It's a fact of human nature that people will put up with far more BS from their own people than from foreigners. This scandal has effectively sunk any efforts to win "hearts and minds" in Iraq, and considering our retreat from Fallujah (and that's what it was, don't kid yourselves), winning "hearts and minds" was the only way we'd ever win.

So, if you think it's a good thing that the militants won't give up, then you've got head shoved so far up your ass you can tickle your tonsils with your tongue.

"Yes, but Derek's position requires that one believe that torture is not so horrible as to prevent them from fighting us but so awful as to prevent their surrender when cornered..."

It takes a deliberate act of will to be so stupid as to make this comment, Orrin. Your logic-chopping aside, people are willing to volunteer to fight, even under the threat of torture. The point is, they now have far less incentive to surrender because every horrid story they've heard has been confirmed (at least in their head).

Now you might pat yourself on the back and say, "Hey, cool, dude, we can like just kill them." But that means we lose more people trying to snuff them and we lose more people when our intelligence personell can't debrief. We also lose more people when Iraqi civilians, disgusted by this behavior, sympathize, support and hide guerrillas.

But, hey, go ahead and pretend that everything's just fine. What're the lives of 1,000 servicemen compared to your hoakey dreams of universal democracy? Mere matchsticks in the wind.

Questions, questions.

OJ responds: "If there's nothing wrong with killing them to win the war and reform their natioon then why wouldn't torture be permissible?"

If there's nothing wrong with putting a murderer to death, is there anything wrong with torturing him to extract his confession? Killing in war is what soldiers do; torture in any situation is what monsters do.

Genecis writes: "If all as reported on ABC is true, I agree that it was despicable and damaging ... but the exception, not representative."

But that's the question, isn't it? Even if the abuses are confined to the six soldiers we are assured were mostly responsible, what proportion of Iraqi prisoners came under their supervision in the past year? And what of reports that prisoner abuse was sanctioned higher up the chain of command? At what point do you think the behavior can be said to be representative of us?

OJ complains: "...Derek's position requires that one believe that torture is not so horrible as to prevent them from fighting us but so awful as to prevent their surrender when cornered..."

Sounds perfectly logical to me.

Buttercup repeats the common apologia: "Especially compared to the stories of Saddaam's plastic shredders and rape rooms."

Well, if you set the standard low enough, we're sure to pass. But that isn't the point, is it? If were to murder someone, I'm pretty sure I could find another murderer who was worse.

Finally, Jim Hamlen opines: "There would be less protest if we made a mountain of skulls in front of the mosques in Fallujah. This story is bent."

No. That sentiment is bent. First, are the pictured abuses the tip of an iceberg? Does it matter, if a significant proportion of Iraqis believe it so? Second, when you envision the supposedly more measured response to a "mountain of skulls," I'm assuming that you are simply exaggerating for effect (perhaps an example of the characteristically liberal lack of a sense of humor). But if your son/father/brother were forced to perform oral sex on a fellow male prisoner, what would your response be?

Terribly sorry, but that last post (Questions, questions) was me.

M:

You don't torture to get a confession, because anyone will confess to anything.

However, to use your example and to demonstrate that there's nothing inherently wrong with torture:

A serial killer takes your Mom and buries her alive, planning to kill her later. In the meantime he's captured. He refuses to reveal her whereabouts. Torture him or let your Mom die?

Torture is just a tool--useful for some things, useless for others.

Derek:

The streets of Moscow are more dangerous since the Soviets fell--whoopty flip?

Orrin,

Can you not make the distinction between a state of chaos brought on by a domestic transition and one imposed and maintained (through neglect) by foreigners? The Russians have no one else to blame for their situation than themselves. That is not the case with Iraqis, and that has bad consequences for us.

Derek:

You've got the Arab mind so finely callibrated it gives one shivers.

Of course, your delusion that we control their minds by our actions is rather classic and always wrong.

Derek:

Yes, but we're leaving. They'll have to impose order themselves. It doesn't much matter if they blame us, might even be helpful, giving them something to unify around and buying time while order is restored. Any way, Baghdad streets are likely to be safer in 2005 than Detroit streets.

OJ:

No proponent of or apologist for torture that I have yet read has ever been able to supply a real-life example of the hypothetical situation you mention; the situation also fails to address the problem that ensues if, in fact, you have the wrong man. It should go without saying that no example of real-life torture has ever had such a justification anyway.

Torture is a tool for a job that never needs doing. It is meat for monsters, and nothing else. Anyone who endorses it forfeits their moral authority on any other matter.

M:

Had we tortured Moussaoui we might well have stopped 9-11.

Sure, if Moussaoui was really the 20th hijacker, if we had the faintest idea that he was part of a larger conspiracy with such deadly aspirations, if he had any information that would have been of use, and if that information would have been used propitiously (and given that some of what he would have told his torturers was already known, that point is in doubt).

Oh--and if we were subhuman monsters.

To have gotten useful information out of Moussaoui, or whoever hijacker #20 was, torture would have to have been a routine element of interrogation in this country. As it stands, no one was hot on the trail of an Al Qaeda operation at the time of Moussaoui's arrest, and so a hypothetical torturer wouldn't even have known what to ask for. So what real-life relevance does your hypothetical have?

OJ,

If we had had a real immigration policy we would have prevented 9/11.

As to the Arab mind, I'm not making any claims about the "Arab" mind, only human nature. People give their own slack that they'd never give a foreigner. That's life. No one's arguing that we can conduct mind control, only that actions have consequences, and this one, like it or not, will have major consequences.

As to the safety of Baghdad's streets next year, you're certainly welcome to try walking around. Hey, maybe you could even wear your "Ayatollah Asahollah" T-shirt.

It's impossible to look at magazines, newspapers, TV, etc., and not be deluged with these photos. Come Sep. 11 it will be difficult to impossible to find photos from Sep. 11, 2001, since they might bother people. And that's the real reason why we'll struggle in the WOT until we get hit hard enough and often enough to fully wake up and get serious.

Derek,
Get your"facts" straight. The Marines still surround Fallujah. The F.P.A. is manning one check point under Marine command. We yielded 15% of the city and still control 10%. The Marines are not happy with this because of Iraqi misperceptions ... like yours.

It must be dark and lonely in there. Try licking your tonsils.

1) You have to deal with Orcs in a way that Orcs can understand. In most of the Middle East, "interrogation" usually involves battery cables or a cheese grater to the genitalia. And I think there was a old phrase for such afairs called "amusing the women of the harem."

I keep getting shouted down by Superior Intellects (i.e. 161 to my 160) when I tell them we Americans are the freaks; what's normal in most of the world is Saddam, Uday Qusay,and "amusing the harem". That's Normal; We're the Freakshow.

2) I keep remembering that only the losing side gets prosecuted for war crimes, and that courts-martial resulting from this means that we are losing the war.

3) Some Rush Limbaugh commentary on the torture photos when I was driving to work this morning:

"This is torture? It looks like something Madonna would do onstage. That or Performance Art done on an NEA grant."

Derek:

Ha! It's the dirty beaners! They're under every bed!

M:

There'll be more Moussaoui's--we should torture them to find their plans when we catch them.

Problem here is that liberals just do not know their scripture anymore.

Isaiah 20
1 In the year that Tartan came unto Ashdod, (when Sargon the king of Assyria sent him,) and fought against Ashdod, and took it;
2 At the same time spake the LORD by Isaiah the son of Amoz, saying, Go and loose the sackcloth from off thy loins, and put off thy shoe from thy foot. And he did so, walking naked and barefoot.
3 And the LORD said, Like as my servant Isaiah hath walked naked and barefoot three years for a sign and wonder upon Egypt and upon Ethiopia;
4 So shall the king of Assyria lead away the Egyptians prisoners, and the Ethiopians captives, young and old, naked and barefoot, even with their buttocks uncovered, to the shame of Egypt.
5 And they shall be afraid and ashamed of Ethiopia their expectation, and of Egypt their glory.
6 And the inhabitant of this isle shall say in that day, Behold, such is our expectation, whither we flee for help to be delivered from the king of Assyria: and how shall we escape?

I continue to believe that humility is a virtue and that we should teach it to the Arab world.

I had the same thought as buttercup. We're promised pictures of torture and we get college pep teams.

We need a Directorate of Torture in the Department of Homeland Security to get our procedures in line with global norms.

On the other hand, if Orrin is right that we do not use torture in order that torture not be used against American prisoners, that policy has been a complete failure.

Harry:

Yes, if our enemies were law-abiding they'd not be enemies.

But they are law-abiding. It's just they have different laws.

Derek Copold sez:

" Those who only halfheartedly hated us will now do so with far more vim and verve."

I'm with the Romans on this one:
ODERINT DUM METUANT
(Let them hate us, so long as they fear us.)

Then why are the Turks, Saudis, Jordanians, etc. arresting them?

They aren't arresting the imams.

Why would they?

Specialist Darby is a traitor to his country and should be shot, or better yet, turned loose amongst the Iraqis he loves so much. I'm sure they'll be humane and treat him nicely.

Because they're preaching terror and murder?

Gee, I dunno.

Turkish imams?

Of course.