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dporter
Joined: 26 Apr 2009
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 Posted: Wed May 27, 2009 7:42 pm Post subject: Abu Ghraib abuse photos 'show rape' |
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http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/northamerica/usa/5395830/Abu-Ghraib-abuse-photos-show-rape.html
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At least one picture shows an American soldier apparently raping a female prisoner while another is said to show a male translator raping a male detainee.
Further photographs are said to depict sexual assaults on prisoners with objects including a truncheon, wire and a phosphorescent tube.
Another apparently shows a female prisoner having her clothing forcibly removed to expose her breasts.
Detail of the content emerged from Major General Antonio Taguba, the former army officer who conducted an inquiry into the Abu Ghraib jail in Iraq.
Allegations of rape and abuse were included in his 2004 report but the fact there were photographs was never revealed. He has now confirmed their existence in an interview with the Daily Telegraph.
The graphic nature of some of the images may explain the US President�s attempts to block the release of an estimated 2,000 photographs from prisons in Iraq and Afghanistan despite an earlier promise to allow them to be published.
Maj Gen Taguba, who retired in January 2007, said he supported the President�s decision, adding: �These pictures show torture, abuse, rape and every indecency.
�I am not sure what purpose their release would serve other than a legal one and the consequence would be to imperil our troops, the only protectors of our foreign policy, when we most need them, and British troops who are trying to build security in Afghanistan.
�The mere description of these pictures is horrendous enough, take my word for it.�
In April, Mr Obama�s administration said the photographs would be released and it would be �pointless to appeal� against a court judgment in favour of the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU).
But after lobbying from senior military figures, Mr Obama changed his mind saying they could put the safety of troops at risk.
Earlier this month, he said: �The most direct consequence of releasing them, I believe, would be to inflame anti-American public opinion and to put our troops in greater danger.�
It was thought the images were similar to those leaked five years ago, which showed naked and bloody prisoners being intimidated by dogs, dragged around on a leash, piled into a human pyramid and hooded and attached to wires.
Mr Obama seemed to reinforce that view by adding: �I want to emphasise that these photos that were requested in this case are not particularly sensational, especially when compared to the painful images that we remember from Abu Ghraib.�
The latest photographs relate to 400 cases of alleged abuse between 2001 and 2005 in Abu Ghraib and six other prisons. Mr Obama said the individuals involved had been �identified, and appropriate actions� taken.
Maj Gen Taguba�s internal inquiry into the abuse at Abu Ghraib, included sworn statements by 13 detainees, which, he said in the report, he found �credible based on the clarity of their statements and supporting evidence provided by other witnesses.�
Among the graphic statements, which were later released under US freedom of information laws, is that of Kasim Mehaddi Hilas in which he says: �I saw [name of a translator] ******* a kid, his age would be about 15 to 18 years. The kid was hurting very bad and they covered all the doors with sheets. Then when I heard screaming I climbed the door because on top it wasn�t covered and I saw [name] who was wearing the military uniform, putting his **** in the little kid�s ***�. and the female soldier was taking pictures.�
The translator was an American Egyptian who is now the subject of a civil court case in the US.
Three detainees, including the alleged victim, refer to the use of a phosphorescent tube in the sexual abuse and another to the use of wire, while the victim also refers to part of a policeman�s �stick� all of which were apparently photographed. |
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Big_Bird
Joined: 31 Jan 2003
Location: Sometimes here sometimes there...
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| Posted: Wed May 27, 2009 8:18 pm Post subject: |
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There are no words to describe how sick I just felt reading that (though I think I've read of that very same incident - the man climbing up to see the boy being raped - some years before).
I think this is a case for not making the photos public. Would you want your cruel degradation (or that of a loved one) all over the internet for the whole world to see? |
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Manner of Speaking
Joined: 09 Jan 2003
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| Posted: Wed May 27, 2009 9:07 pm Post subject: |
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Although I can understand Obama's and the Pentagon's argument...if those pictures really do exist, they could constitute evidence in a civil suit, if the victims were ever wanted to file suit against the individuals who assaulted them. And this is not an anti-American argument, by the way...Bush was right to say "this is not what we do as a country" when those photographs first became known.
But arguably, legally those victims should have the right to posess that photographic evidence for their own legal purposes. |
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On the other hand
Joined: 19 Apr 2003
Location: I walk along the avenue
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| Posted: Wed May 27, 2009 10:37 pm Post subject: |
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Big Bird wrote:
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| I think this is a case for not making the photos public. Would you want your cruel degradation (or that of a loved one) all over the internet for the whole world to see? |
I disagree. The imperative to protect the victims is outweighed by the imperative to let people know just what happened, so as to prevent the same sort of thing from happening again. As long as these photos remain hidden, the Bush apologists will just continue with their "frathouse hijinx" spin on the crimes, and a lot of people will keep on falling for it, because they haven't seen the pictures with their own eyes. |
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Komichi
Joined: 19 Jul 2006
Location: Piano Street, Seoul
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| Posted: Wed May 27, 2009 11:00 pm Post subject: Now that I think about it |
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| What ever happened to the American soldier a few years ago that raped the young girl, then killed her and her entire family? A mere wrist slap was the extent of his punishment, if I remember correctly. |
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Pligganease
Joined: 14 Sep 2004
Location: The deep south...
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| Posted: Wed May 27, 2009 11:54 pm Post subject: Re: Now that I think about it |
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| Komichi wrote: |
| What ever happened to the American soldier a few years ago that raped the young girl, then killed her and her entire family? A mere wrist slap was the extent of his punishment, if I remember correctly. |
The mere slap on the wrist of life in prison. |
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Big_Bird
Joined: 31 Jan 2003
Location: Sometimes here sometimes there...
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| Posted: Thu May 28, 2009 12:20 am Post subject: |
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| On the other hand wrote: |
Big Bird wrote:
| Quote: |
| I think this is a case for not making the photos public. Would you want your cruel degradation (or that of a loved one) all over the internet for the whole world to see? |
I disagree. The imperative to protect the victims is outweighed by the imperative to let people know just what happened, so as to prevent the same sort of thing from happening again. As long as these photos remain hidden, the Bush apologists will just continue with their "frathouse hijinx" spin on the crimes, and a lot of people will keep on falling for it, because they haven't seen the pictures with their own eyes. |
They say that the trauma is much worse for those victims of sexual assault whose photos make it onto the internet, or simply if those photos are lost and remain existing where the victim can not have them destroyed/removed forever from potential viewing. The crime is never in the past. It becomes a constant ever present knowledge, and victims find it far more difficult (even impossible) put it behind them to the extent the average 'private' victim eventually can (although of course the rape victim who can put it completely behind them is a rare case indeed).
You really need to weigh up the pros and cons very carefully before you let images - of a real live living and suffering person undergoing the most horrific and degrading moments of their life - out for the whole world to gawp at. These people are going to pay a truly dreadful and ongoing cost for this kind of public disclosure. It may be cathartic for our society for a brief moment in history, but these guys then have to live with it all their lives. Some of them might even feel their life is not worth living after their shame (and even in our supposedly enlightened society it is considered - and felt as - a deeply shaming crime for the victim) is let loose forever. The internet and the easy replication of digital images has new and horrible consequences for the rape victim unfortunate to be filmed during such a terrible violation.
I think only doctored photos (faces blanked out and all identifying features blacked out) should be released. |
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supernick
Joined: 24 Jan 2003
Location: Seoul
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| Posted: Thu May 28, 2009 12:52 am Post subject: |
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I do remember a few indiviuals on this board (maybe a couple)who claimed that the reports of rape could not be proved unless they saw the video or images first hand. They certainly were not convinced that such acts did occur. The reporter who first reported these acts was also doubted here on this board.
Rape is bad enough, but who are these people that actually do it knowing that they are being photographed?
And was it just a few bad apples?
From Daily Kos' partial transcript of a video (link to REAL stream) of Seymour Hersh speaking at an ACLU event. He says the US government has videotapes of children being raped at Abu Ghraib prison in Iraq.
" Some of the worst things that happened you don't know about, okay? Videos, um, there are women there. Some of you may have read that they were passing letters out, communications out to their men. This is at Abu Ghraib ... The women were passing messages out saying 'Please come and kill me, because of what's happened' and basically what happened is that those women who were arrested with young boys, children in cases that have been recorded. The boys were sodomized with the cameras rolling. And the worst above all of that is the soundtrack of the boys shrieking that your government has. They are in total terror. It's going to come out."
I would say that Seymour Hersh was right. |
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Big_Bird
Joined: 31 Jan 2003
Location: Sometimes here sometimes there...
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| Posted: Thu May 28, 2009 1:12 am Post subject: |
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| supernick wrote: |
I do remember a few indiviuals on this board (maybe a couple)who claimed that the reports of rape could not be proved unless they saw the video or images first hand. They certainly were not convinced that such acts did occur. The reporter who first reported these acts was also doubted here on this board.
Rape is bad enough, but who are these people that actually do it knowing that they are being photographed?
And was it just a few bad apples?
From Daily Kos' partial transcript of a video (link to REAL stream) of Seymour Hersh speaking at an ACLU event. He says the US government has videotapes of children being raped at Abu Ghraib prison in Iraq.
" Some of the worst things that happened you don't know about, okay? Videos, um, there are women there. Some of you may have read that they were passing letters out, communications out to their men. This is at Abu Ghraib ... The women were passing messages out saying 'Please come and kill me, because of what's happened' and basically what happened is that those women who were arrested with young boys, children in cases that have been recorded. The boys were sodomized with the cameras rolling. And the worst above all of that is the soundtrack of the boys shrieking that your government has. They are in total terror. It's going to come out."
I would say that Seymour Hersh was right. |
I remember a few years back discussing this on this same forum. There were reports of female Iraqi prisoners being raped by US soldiers, getting pregnant by them, and then being murdered by their communities to 'cleanse the stain.' I also remember the teenager being sodomised and screaming, as a fellow Iraqi climbed up to see what was going on - and I think I may have posted an article about it here. A lot of posters thought it was all just 'lefty bs.' It's one of those occasions I wish to hell I had been proved wrong.
But do these doubters need to see the evidence? Can't they just have it reported to them through official channels? I don't need to see the pictures to accept they exist, if reliable witnesses are already reporting having seen them. I don't think this superfluous trauma should be dished out to those unfortunate victims, or the people that love them. In normal murder and rape trials only the jurors and the lawyers need to see such evidence. Why does this need to be different? |
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supernick
Joined: 24 Jan 2003
Location: Seoul
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| Posted: Thu May 28, 2009 1:34 am Post subject: |
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And why do we even need the photos or videos? People saw what was going on. Victims have stories. Even without photos or video, people were victims and had the marks to prove it. When you have a reporter like Hersh, people should listen. He was also doubted when he uncovered the mass killings of civilians in Vietnam.
It's going to be rough for the U.S. over this and for the many good miltary personel, but the full truth has to come out, and for all persons involved to be punished. Maybe they should let the Iraqi courts deal with all those involved. Now that would be justice.
Hersh said that he saw a video. Who knows who had it but I'm sure the CIA got their hands on it so as to not have it revealed. I'm guessing that Hersh himself agreed to have placed where the public wouldn't have access to it. Could you imagine what would have happened if it ended up in the wrong hands? |
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billietea
Joined: 03 May 2009
Location: South Korea
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| Posted: Thu May 28, 2009 2:57 am Post subject: |
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| sick, just sick...this world can be so wonderful yet so awful at the same time. |
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bacasper
Joined: 26 Mar 2007
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| Posted: Thu May 28, 2009 6:55 am Post subject: |
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| Big_Bird wrote: |
| They say that the trauma is much worse for those victims of sexual assault whose photos make it onto the internet, or simply if those photos are lost and remain existing where the victim can not have them destroyed/removed forever from potential viewing. The crime is never in the past. It becomes a constant ever present knowledge, and victims find it far more difficult (even impossible) put it behind them to the extent the average 'private' victim eventually can (although of course the rape victim who can put it completely behind them is a rare case indeed). |
This is the typical tripe put forward by practitioners of the bastard discipline of victimology.
In many cases victims do not even know they are being photographed. Anyway, how can anyone possibly think that a photograph of a crime can be as traumatic as the crime itself?
While one is being brutally raped, the last thing one cares about is if someone is taking a picture. |
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Big_Bird
Joined: 31 Jan 2003
Location: Sometimes here sometimes there...
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| Posted: Thu May 28, 2009 2:24 pm Post subject: |
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| bacasper wrote: |
| Big_Bird wrote: |
| They say that the trauma is much worse for those victims of sexual assault whose photos make it onto the internet, or simply if those photos are lost and remain existing where the victim can not have them destroyed/removed forever from potential viewing. The crime is never in the past. It becomes a constant ever present knowledge, and victims find it far more difficult (even impossible) put it behind them to the extent the average 'private' victim eventually can (although of course the rape victim who can put it completely behind them is a rare case indeed). |
This is the typical tripe put forward by practitioners of the bastard discipline of victimology. |
You are talking tripe.
This is researched and documented by serious psychologists (not just amatuer fantasists like yourself). I'm not going to google up articles because I have an assignment due and you can do it just as well as I can. But it has been written about and I have read about it on several occasions.
| Quote: |
| In many cases victims do not even know they are being photographed. Anyway, how can anyone possibly think that a photograph of a crime can be as traumatic as the crime itself? |
Sex abuse victims who are aware that there are pictures or footage of them suffer extra trauma, and can not find closure in the way the might if they were unaware of the existence of any footage.
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| While one is being brutally raped, the last thing one cares about is if someone is taking a picture. |
What is your point? That it's OK to take pictures then? Anyway you are wrong. Everything about a rape is horrible, and if you knew you were having your photo taken you don't think this would be an added touch of horror?
Secondly you must be thick because are not talking about what these rape victims felt during the act. We are talking here about their compounded trauma when pictures are released to the world at large. We can't stop them being raped. They've been raped. We can stop their ongoing trauma being compounded by restricting every man and his dog from viewing these pictures.
And you claim to be some kind of student of psyhcology - but you must be some sort of D student if you believe the trauma ends when the rape ends. For many victims the rape itself is just the beginning of a lifetime of psychological pain.
If you think the victims of Abu Ghraib are not aware there is footage out there of them, you must be even more thick that I at first thought. Some of them were even shown their films.
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"After more than 4 months, a woman soldier woman came, and I concluded from her conversation with other soldiers that her name is Mary. She said to me "now you have a golden opportunity, since an officer who has a high position will visit us today, if you deal with him positively, you would be released, especially because we are sure you are innocent."
I replied, "If you are sure of I am innocent, why you don�t release me?"
She screamed in nervousness, "The only way that guarantees your releasing is to be positive with them."
She took me to the public toilets, and she supervised my bath while she was holding a thick stick, hitting me by it if I didn�t perform her orders. Then, she gave me makeup, and warned me not to cry and ruin my makeup. Then she took me to an empty small room where there was nothing but a cover on the floor, and after one an hour she came accompanied with four soldiers who was holding cameras. She took off her clothes and she harassed me as if she was a man. The soldiers were laughing and listening to a noisy music, and taking photographs to me in all poses, and they were emphasizing on my face. The woman asked me to smile otherwise she is going to kill me, and she took a gun from one of her colleagues and fired four bullets near my head, and swore that the fifth bullet will be fired in my head.
After that, the four soldiers raped me alternately the matter which made me lose my consciousness. When I regained the consciousness I found myself in the cell and the traces of their teeth, nails and cigarettes are in everywhere in my body."
Nadia stopped narrating her tragedy to wipe her tears, then she continued: "After one day Mary came and told me that I was cooperative, and I will be released but after I watch the film that they have shot. I was in pain when I saw the film, and she (Mary) said: "you have been created for the sole purpose for us to enjoy". At the moment I became very anger and I attacked her although I was afraid of her reaction, and I would kill her except for the interfering of the soldiers. When the soldiers released me she showered me with hitting, then they left me. |
http://www.uruknet.info/?p=30291
And here is another article about this same girl's horrendous ordeal: http://www.peacewomen.org/news/Iraq/July04/ordeal.html
I also read of one Iraqi guy who tried to live his life as normal when he was released, but when the photos became public he left his family in shame and cannot return. The photos are not a piddling trifle as you suggest.
I don't want to discuss this anymore with you bcasper, because what you just wrote amazed me. |
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Big_Bird
Joined: 31 Jan 2003
Location: Sometimes here sometimes there...
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| Posted: Thu May 28, 2009 2:49 pm Post subject: |
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And at the end of this article is yet another victim who was affected by the earlier photos being released to the world. This guy was not even featured in the photos his family saw, but the release of those images still had a huge impact on his life.
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Abu Ghraib Victims Speak: August 8, 2004
"Saddam Saleh al-Radi, a former Abu Ghraib detainee, has a unique perspective: He was jailed in Abu Ghraib twice � the first time for trying to overthrow Saddam Hussein in the mid-1990s. 'What U.S. forces did to me, Saddam Hussein himself did not do,' al-Radi said through a translator. 'During Saddam Hussein's time, we used to be tortured. The scars from the torture I received during the previous regime still mark parts of my body. But I was never forced into nudity. There were never any immoral practices during Saddam Hussein's regime.' [...] After three days of interrogations at one of Saddam's old palaces, he said he was taken to Abu Ghraib, put into a holding cell, and there a hood was placed over his head for what he thinks was about 16 hours. 'When they were torturing me, I lost consciousness,' al-Radi said. 'So, they removed the hood. One of the soldiers then urinated on me.' Then, the hood was put back on. And al-Radi was frog-marched to a cell on the ground floor of tier 1-A, known as the hard site. 'He then started pushing me,' al-Radi said. 'And wherever he saw a wall, he would hit me against it. Wherever there's a door, he would push me and hit me against it.'
Once in his cell, al-Radi said, he was forced, still hooded, down on his hands and knees. 'He pulled the bag off my head, and I saw something I have never seen in my life: A man's buttocks were facing me, and he was completely naked, [and] so were the others with him,' al-Radi said. 'I'm 29 years old. Since I'm mature, around the age of 13 to 14 years, until today, no one has ever seen me naked. Nor have I seen anyone naked at all. 'I am religious,' he added. 'My religion does not allow me to see the private parts of naked bodies of others. And for others to see my naked body, this is haram, forbidden for me. God will not accept this. 'They stripped me naked,' al-Radi said. 'They made me stand on a box used for storing soldier food, I think it's called MREs. I was completely naked with two bags on my head.' Al-Radi mostly blamed two American soldiers, Staff Sgt. Ivan Frederick and Cpl. Charles Graner, both of whom are now facing military charges, for the alleged rough treatment. According to al-Radi, Frederick, 'threatened me by saying that if I did not cooperate with them by giving them information, they would make the soldier rape me.' What was done to him has had a terrible effect, he said. He had become engaged to be married just four days before he was arrested, but broke it off immediately after he was released from prison.
'For me to commit to a woman, I will need to be truthful to my other half,' al-Radi said. 'I feel that something is missing inside me. How can I say any of this to my wife? I am sure she will lose all respect toward me.' And that was before the world saw those photographs of things that had happened to him.
'Before the publishing of the photographs, I had been keeping my experience to myself,' he said. 'After the publishing of the photographs, my mother came to me and asked me, 'Have they done to you what they have done to them?' I had to say, 'No.' Then, a relative of mine, who was detained with us and who knew of my story there, told my family what he knew, and that they did so-and-so to me.' Now, he said, he doesn't see anyone � not his mother or brothers or sisters-in-law. He's too ashamed."
[ABC News]
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http://www.camerairaq.com/abu_ghraib/ |
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Big_Bird
Joined: 31 Jan 2003
Location: Sometimes here sometimes there...
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| Posted: Thu May 28, 2009 3:00 pm Post subject: |
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Photographer David Modell, BBC: May 13, 2004
"The language of photography has, again, proved its power. [...] There is something unique about the language of photography that contributes to the horror of these pictures. Memory itself is constructed through frozen moments in time and so a photograph slips serenely into our minds and is retained. [...] Moving images can never be this potent. We cannot retain and carry with us a video-clip in the same way. We cannot have a two-minute news report always available in the top drawer of our minds ready to be glanced at, at any moment. [...] These are not snatched, clandestine images, taken to uncover the truth and disseminate it. And this reveals an appalling reality - that photographs are a deliberate part of the torture. [...] The taking of the pictures was supposed to compound the humiliation and sense of powerlessness of the victims. The photographer was the abuser. When we view the pictures, we are forced to play our part in this triangle of communication. The photographs were taken to abuse, by exposing the victim at their most vulnerable. By looking at the images we become complicit in the abuse itself. It is this that makes them intolerable for the viewer and why they are so destructive to a war effort built on the spin of 'liberation'."
[BBC] |
http://www.camerairaq.com/abu_ghraib/page/2/ |
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