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[hani]

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Is there diffrent between Saddam and Americans?
I think Saddam is better than Americans .What do you think?

TORTURED, ABUSED AND HUMILIATED - SHOCKING PICTURES SHOW HOW SOLDIERS TREATED IRAQI PRISONERS IN SADDAM'S JAIL
Fri Apr 30, 2004
UK DAILY MAIL

FOR decades, Saddam Hussein's infamous Abu Ghraib dungeon was the scene of unspeakable cruelty against Iraqi prisoners.

Now the Americans are in charge - but the torture has continued.

Photographs have emerged showing Iraqis being sexually abused and bullied by their U.S. captors.

One, shown on Page One, depicts a hooded prisoner standing on a box with wires attached to his hands. He was wrongly given to believe that if he fell off the box he would be electrocuted.

The sickening pictures, shown across the U. S. on the CBS network, have outraged Americans and are expected to redouble the fury of Iraqis already pursuing a relentless campaign of death and destruction against the occupying forces, ten more of whom died yesterday. In the words of one leading Marine: 'We'll be paid back for this.'

Screened on the authoritative 60 Minutes news programme, the photograpsh showed male and female soldiers laughing, pointing and giving the thumbs-up sign as they humiliated the PoWs.

The sickening snaps, including shots where jeering soldiers pose next to their helpless and, in many cases, naked prisoners, were taken as trophies - souvenirs to show their friends and family back home.

They came to light only when one of the men involved gave a photo to a soldier from another unit, who was so shocked he took it to his commanders.

Television chiefs said they obtained 12 pictures, but said the army had confiscated 'many, many more'. One shows naked Iraqi prisoners stacked in a human pyramid, with a slur written in English on the skin of one.

Others handed to military investigators show naked Iraqis forced to simulate sex acts, a detainee with wires attached to his genitals and a prisoner attacked by a dog.

The photographs were all taken late last year at Abu Ghraib, where U.S. troops were guarding hundreds of prisoners captured during the Iraqi invasion.

They led to criminal charges against six military policemen who are being court martialled for allegedly abusing about 20 Iraqis.

In addition the military has recommended disciplinary action against seven U.S. officers who helped run the prison, including Brigadier General Janis Karpinski, the commander of the 800 Military Police Brigade, who has been suspended from duty.

Brig. Gen. Mark Kimmitt said last night in Baghdad that the investigation began in January when an American soldier reported the abuse and turned over evidence that included photographs.

'That soldier said, "There are some things going on here that I can't live with".'

Kimmitt said he was 'appalled' at the photographs. 'These are our fellow soldiers, these are the people we work with every day, they represent us, they wear the same uniform as us, and they let their fellow soldiers down.

'If we can't hold ourselves up as an example of how to treat people with dignity and respect, we can't ask that other nations do that to our soldiers,' he told CBS.

One of those facing court martial is Army Reserve Staff Sgt. Chip Frederick. He is charged with maltreatment, assault and indecent acts, striking detainees and ordering detainees to strike each other.

Interviewed by telephone on the 60 Minutes programme, he said he would plead not guilty and added: 'We had no support, no training whatsoever, and I kept asking my chain of command for certain things, rules and regulations, and it just wasn't happening.'

60 Minutes also quoted, however, from an e-mail which Frederick reportedly sent to his family, in which he said of Iraqi prisoners: 'We've had a very high rate with our styles of getting them to break; they usually end up breaking within hours.' Kimmitt insisted only a small minority of soldiers were responsible for the abuse.

'Frankly, I think all of us are disappointed by the actions of the few,' he said. 'Every day we love our soldiers but frankly, some days we're not always proud of our soldiers. It's a small, small minority of people we're talking about here, less than a dozen out of the 150,000 who are serving honourably and proudly over here.

'We live by our values. Some of our soldiers every day die by our values and these acts that you see in these pictures may reflect the actions of individuals but by God it doesn't reflect my army.'

The Baghdad prison scandal is disturbingly reminiscent of how the Americans' cruel treatment of prisoners was revealed at Camp X-Ray in Cuba following the Afghanistan conflict by photos showing the hooded captives chained like animals in open-air cages. They were also paraded in orange jump-suits. With the reasons for invading Iraq under increasing scrutiny, this will cause further damage to America's attempts to persuade the rest of the world it was in the right.

Former Marine Lieutenant Colonel Bill Cowan said: "We went into Iraq to stop things like this from happening and here they are happening under our tutelage.

'We will be paid back for this. These people at some point will be let out. Their families, their friends are going to know.

'If we don't tell this story, these kinds of things will continue, and we'll end up getting paid back 100 or 1,000 times over.'

CBS executives received an appeal from the chairman of the military Joint Chiefs of Staff, General Richard Myers, two weeks ago to hold the story because of the dangers of a backlash against soldiers in Iraq from outraged insurgents.

But it was agreed for the photos to be shown this week because other news outlets had obtained similar pictures.

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I never do a crime
By living to love you

[Mary Cat]

That's a provocative question, but I think it's overly simplistic. Both Saddam's regime and the current "situation" have bad sides, but you know why? Basically, because people can really SUCK sometimes, especially when they get drunk on power. It doesn't matter what nationality they are; it happens all over the world... Chile, Argentina, Uruguay and a ton of other Latin American countries during their dictatorships in the 70s had incredible violations of human rights... Cambodia, slavery, not to mention the notorious Hitler and the Holocaust... and that's only RECENT human history. How many atrocities is the human race responsible for... against itself? The answer, if you could calculate an actual number, would be astronomical.
That's not to excuse what happened - it's horrible. But you can't say "Saddam was better." You've probably read about some of the atrocities committed by him, his sons, and those in power during his regime, and they're ALL horrible. And what about recent events in Fallujah? The only thing we can hope is that the war, whether it was fought for legitimate reasons or not, will lead, eventually, to greater peace and a better future - and present - for the Iraqi people and everyone involved. It's events like the one you described, however, that make me pessimistic.

[Cuckoo]

I don't really know who's better or worse (never met Saddam ) but I heard of this psychological experiment that some scientist did to find out people's behavior in such circumstances. He put a group of mentally healthy people together. Some of them were playing prisoners and others - captors. At first everything was ok but as time went on the prisoners were treated worse and worse, because the captors knew they could do whatever they wanted with no punishment. The only difference from the situation in the Iraqi prisons is that the experiment was stopped and nobody died. So, as horrible as it is, torture is a part of human nature. Even copletely norlmal people may turn that cruel in some circumstances.
Of course, I don't think that it excuses the Americans because why did no higher official stop them?! Why was there nobody checking on those "guards"?! Why did the soldiers have all the control?! I don't know if Saddam's regime was this bad but I'm sure Americans created more trouble than there was.
_________________
You are what you love, not what loves you.

[LucentShade]

Personally, I think the abuses had their origin much higher in the chain of command. I would even say it goes all the way up to the commander-in-chief of the armed forces, President George W. Bush. Sure, he may not have personally ordered the specific abuses but his attitude of "Who cares about international law, we're going to do what we want!" creates an environment where such abuse is possible.

[asterix]

It is all part of the inhumanity of war. If you want to avoid this kind of stuff, you have to stop war.
Everyone says they hate war but wars keep on happening.
Considering that the people who were being abused would have been doing much worse to the Americans if their roles were reversed, I have no sympathy for them whatsoever.
These are the same people who are taking hostages and cutting off their heads. Where is the outrage about that?

[pirateslife4me]

well suddam's people did chop the heads off of american people and show it on TV...oh yea and kill hundreds of innocent people and ruin one of america's greatest landmarks
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~*~pirate~*~

[Bob S.]

[gaot62]

at least it is american journalists who exposed these evil deeds, what about iraq?

[element105]

This reminds me of what a Somalia sergeant said to a American POW in the film "black hawk down",he said "we don't need the American democracy".Can this not be a little illumination to someone who are imposing their "democracy" to others

[nemeh]

I don't think that China must be give lessons about "democracy" and human rights. About all the Chinese government should tell how many people they killed in Tibet, among many other things.

[Bob S.]

[admiral]

There are another similarities of Bush and Iraq.
I don't really want to tell it, because I feel very embarassed, although I'm not American.
So, if you can read German, read it, if not, I can't help you.
http://www.ksta.de/html/artikel/1125645256704.shtml

[fooly]

@hani
First of all, to make accusations like that, you also should post a reliable link here where you got this information from. Everything else ist storytelling, sorry.

@admiral
Of course germany spits out stuff like this, I call it left wing propaganda, because like everybody knows the mood in germany right now is very anti-american. That's all right with me, but it's also a little dangerous to believe everything whats on the media. Just get the facts, thats better.

I don't like Bush at all, but I refuse to believe everything what on the media right now. There's too many propaganda involved, from either side.

[nemeh]

I am sure that China is NOT a democracy.

[Anastasia Angel]