Brian Nystrom wrote in message ...
riverman wrote:
This
latest thing is atrocious, and I am sure than there isn't a single American
living in the states who fully realizes how distainful, discrediting and
compromising this makes us look.

Agreed.

I trepidaciously look forward to how Bush will pass blame for this on to
someone else.

The blame rests with the people who did it. That seems pretty evident.
There's no reason to pass the blame, what's needed is to prosecute the
guilty parties.

It is not isolated Brian.
We ( As a group ) don't see these people as fully human so we can do
nasty things to them.
After all they blew up the trade towers ... right??.

Fiona wrote:

Brian Nystrom wrote in message ...

riverman wrote:

This
latest thing is atrocious, and I am sure than there isn't a single American
living in the states who fully realizes how distainful, discrediting and
compromising this makes us look.

Agreed.


I trepidaciously look forward to how Bush will pass blame for this on to
someone else.

The blame rests with the people who did it. That seems pretty evident.
There's no reason to pass the blame, what's needed is to prosecute the
guilty parties.


It is not isolated Brian.

That depends on how you define "isolated". I'm assuming that this has
happened more than once, but that hardly makes it systemic.

We ( As a group ) don't see these people as fully human so we can do
nasty things to them.

Don't include me in your "we". I don't see it that way at all. There is
no justification for what apparently happened.

After all they blew up the trade towers ... right??.

No. Whatever gave you that idea?

You're going way out on a limb here. What point are you trying to make?
Are you just trying to bait me or something? If so, you're wasting your
time, as I don't think that way.

On Thu, 06 May 2004 23:44:30 GMT, Brian Nystrom
wrote:

That depends on how you define "isolated". I'm assuming that this has
happened more than once, but that hardly makes it systemic.
...

Wait a minute. We are expected to believe that these reservists came up
with things that Muslims specifically would see as humiliating? All by
themselves with no help? Do you think they took Arab Humiliation courses
at their local community college?

Galen Hekhuis NpD, JFR, GWA
We are the CroMagnon of the future

Galen Hekhuis wrote in message . ..
On Thu, 06 May 2004 23:44:30 GMT, Brian Nystrom
wrote:

That depends on how you define "isolated". I'm assuming that this has
happened more than once, but that hardly makes it systemic.
...

Wait a minute. We are expected to believe that these reservists came up
with things that Muslims specifically would see as humiliating? All by
themselves with no help? Do you think they took Arab
Humiliation courses
at their local community college?

Galen I think anyone would be humiliated at this stuff. I did not see
anything that would not fill a Christian or a pagan with absolute
disgust .


Galen Hekhuis NpD, JFR, GWA
We are the CroMagnon of the future

brian : i was being sarcastic. the world knows that iraq had nothing
to do with the trade tower bombings . WMD's are sort of in doubt
right now too.
in an earier post I mentioned what happened to a friend .
i am pretty angry about that.
soldiers are not policing themselves in a mannor appropriate for the
circomstance.
US soldiers (and brits) are finding themselves in the same
circomstance that i would imagine the germans did with the jews.
dehuminize the foe and they can be mistreated or even exterminated.
the germans are not an ignorant barbaric race, as a nation quite the
oposite : but they did what they did and now we are getting a lesson
on how this can happen.
i saw a night vision video of three men being shot by machine gun a
couple of nights ago. they were unarmed.
the humiliation the men in that iraqi prison were put through was not
just stuff that would play on the Islamic mind , it would be a crime
against anyone.

what you are looking at is an attitude. young men have absolute power
over a people that can't speak the language to complain and if they
can they are afraid to.
this has hapened before; and will again.
the truly sad thing is there is now way out.
we had a program played here in Canada , A W5 CBC production . It was
about the bush , bin laden ties and soudi arabia. It was most
interesting.
going to war seams easy. how george gets you out of it is going to be
a task.

though i dissagree with your view you are quite eliquent. i an sure
you don't carry a natural hatred for arabs at large, right now though
the coalition of the willing seams to. the news not allowed out of
iraq is frightening . your own media is not allowed to show coffins,
body bags or the bodies of dead US soldiers.
i think you will change your mind, eventually ( 10 years or so ) but
only if i am wrong....
fiona.

On 7 May 2004 07:23:45 -0700, (Fiona) wrote:

Galen I think anyone would be humiliated at this stuff. I did not see
anything that would not fill a Christian or a pagan with absolute
disgust .

You think wrong. Rush Limbaugh has said it was no more than frat hazing.
Even Don Rumsfeld said that it was "abuse," not torture. Being as how that
seems to be the attitude of some, and others take the "we're not as bad as
Saddam" approach, it is much more credible to me that these folks were
steered into these acts. This is not to say that the people who did these
things are any less guilty, it is just that not everyone involved (or who
comments) is filled with "absolute disgust." There are plenty who think it
is the result of a "few bad apples." I think it involves much more than
that. I do not believe a "few bad apples" chose prisoners in Iraq of all
places. How many military prisons are there? What are the odds?

Galen Hekhuis NpD, JFR, GWA
We are the CroMagnon of the future

Yep, just an "isolated incident". Here's something from the CBC.

"3000 Prisoners Slaughtered in Afganastan

This video is about how the US slaughtered 3000 Afgan prisoners of war. The
video is big - 55 megs download and it is shocking. It makes the Black Hole of
Calcutta look like a picnic. These prisoners were left in sealed truck
containers to suffocate and fry in the hot sun. The few that survived a week
were taken out and shot an buried in mass graves.

The video is EXTREMELY disturbing and it will give you nightmares. If you are
not ready to see this footage - DO NOT WATCH IT !!! This is NAZI level stuff."

http://marc.perkel.com/images/AfganPOWsKilled.mov

For a country that prides itself in its free press, I was amazed to see
coverage of the photos of US soldiers torturing and humiating Iraqi detainee
on all the tv news stations last night, all except CNN.

Followup:

So where are we now? CBS was asked to suppress the story - which it did -
essentially confirming that part of the US media is under the direction of the
US government. Now that is a free press.

----

I don't know why everyone is so surprised by the discovery of abuse of Iraqi
prisioners. It should come as no surprise that a nation capable of compromising
the rights of its own citizens in support of a war on terror through the
provisions of the Patriot Act would hesitate at all in violating the human
rights of people it has declared as the enemy.

----

The far right has a tradition of believing the End justifies the Means. We need
only become students of history. It was 40 years ago, that we first heard
"Extremism in the defense of Liberty is no vice". (Barry Goldwater - 1964
presidential campaign).

One aspect of becoming older is that you get to see much of the past repeated.
It seems each generation needs to learn their own truthes through their own
experiences. So we make the same mistakes all over again.

Those of the Vietnam era have already experienced the abuse of domestic
surveillence by the CIA and FBI. And nearly 34 years ago to the day, we
witnessed our own military killing our own citizenry in the streets. Back then
the images of abuse were prisoners in "Tiger Cages" and people pushed out of
helicopters. The chant from Patriotic chorus was just as loud. "Love it or
Leave it". Nixon won in a record landslide only to become the first president
to resign in disgrace.

And then we wonder why the American people are split so sharply over (your
pick) Bush, the war in Iraq, rights violations both foreign and domestic.
Many of us have seen it before. And after the dust settled, there were the
investigations where we learned that we were lied to and spied upon "for our
own good". The distrust that the government earned lingers long.


Blakely LaCroix
Minneapolis, Minnesota, USA.
RBP Clique member # 86.

The best adventure is yet to come.

Dan Valleskey wrote:

me too.

I wouldn't usually bother posting that, but I am afraid many folks
think Bush has a very good chance of being re-elected. I hope that is
not true. Articles and viewpoints like this help me to wake up
tomorrow morning with a brighter outlook.

I have never felt this stongly about any election.

And I am sorry, Wilko, but Kerry will not pull us out of Iraq
overnight. Far as I can tell, we will be there for a while.

I know, I know... but one can always hope...
I just hope that he isn't as dumb as Bush when it comes to alienating
the world and turning the U.S. into a nation under terror. Every time I
watch U.S. news (whether it be NBC, CNN or CBS), I wonder why people are
being constantly being made afraid with messages from the government and
media. It must be that the only way the U.S. government can get away
with unconstitutional limitations or individual's freedom is by saying
that it's necessary because of the constant threats.

I know folks who are ready to move to Canada! I only hope that one
day I can return to Europe for a visit without being ashamed of being
an American.

Dan, you're okay, and so are many, if not most, of your countrymen.

Unfortunately, there is a considerable amount of people who won't think
for themselves, who will believe everything their media or their
government tells them. If that minority is vocal enough, it might sound
like they're talking for the entire nation.

Anyway, if you want to hop over to Europe and you'll find yourself near
Eindhoven, you're welcome to stay at my house. (I'll even protect you
from the hordes or angry Europeans trying to shred you and your fellow
Americans to ribbons! ;-) )

Wilko

--
Wilko van den Bergh Wilkoa t)dse(d o tnl
Eindhoven The Netherlands Europe
Look at the possibilities, don't worry about the limitations.
http://wilko.webzone.ru/

Paddlec1 wrote:

Yep, just an "isolated incident". Here's something from the CBC.

"3000 Prisoners Slaughtered in Afganastan

This video is about how the US slaughtered 3000 Afgan prisoners of war. The
video is big - 55 megs download and it is shocking. It makes the Black Hole of
Calcutta look like a picnic. These prisoners were left in sealed truck
containers to suffocate and fry in the hot sun. The few that survived a week
were taken out and shot an buried in mass graves.

The video is EXTREMELY disturbing and it will give you nightmares. If you are
not ready to see this footage - DO NOT WATCH IT !!! This is NAZI level stuff."

http://marc.perkel.com/images/AfganPOWsKilled.mov

The funny thing is that this documentary was shown on German and Dutch
TV almost two years ago, not too long after the invasion of Afghanistan.
I posted about seeing it in a thread about the war in Afghanistan on
Boatertalk, and got a wave of resentment and being called a liar because
it wasn't shown on any U.S. TV station, therefore it wasn't true.

If only that link had been available then.

--
Wilko van den Bergh Wilkoa t)dse(d o tnl
Eindhoven The Netherlands Europe
Look at the possibilities, don't worry about the limitations.
http://wilko.webzone.ru/

Wilko

Type in Message-ID:

The funny thing is that this documentary was shown on German and Dutch
TV almost two years ago, not too long after the invasion of Afghanistan.
I posted about seeing it in a thread about the war in Afghanistan on
Boatertalk, and got a wave of resentment and being called a liar

because
it wasn't shown on any U.S. TV station, therefore it wasn't true.

Excuse me, but the incident was covered by the American press, even had an
investigative piece in Newsweek on it. The only difference is that it was a lot
less judgemental of the US role in the tradegy than the video linked in the
article. No one disputes the basic facts, that Taliban prisoners of the
Northern Alliance were transported in closed trucks and many of them died. What
I do dispute is the role the US played in it. We provided advisors, in
particular fire control and forward air controllers, to the Northern Alliance.
The US did not command the unit nor have control over the action of its troops.


I suspect the actual casualties were somewhat less than protrayed in the video.


I find it somewhat interesting to note that the Special Operation training
program have a similar situation built into the Robin Sage, their final
training exercise. What do you do when you have to support people that play by
different rules than you do?
The reality is that you advise them to do the right thing and deal with the
fact that they often do not.




SYOTR
Larry C.