Yes. Some were sold there by bounty hunters paid for the “terrorists” they turned in. Some were picked up in random raids. Some were soldiers fighting for their side. And surely some are Really Bad Guys.

There’s a reason why the Constitution says that prisoners are to be considered innocent until proven guilty. It’s because of kings, thugs, corrupt police, and people like YOU who say “they’re bound to be guilty of something” so who cares what happens to them?

The really STUPID part of this (as opposed to the immoral part) is that all experienced interrogators will tell you that torture doesn’t work! It gets them to talk, sure, but sympathy and rapport do a better job at that. Even with the most nasty Nazi officers after WW2 — we didn’t torture them, we interrogated them psychologically. Besides, interrogators need to be able to evaluate what’s true and what’s false, and any kind of physical coercion screws up the physical and verbal cues that let them do that.

But as guilty as England is, those who assigned her are more guilty, all the way to the top. My dream is that we’ll have war crimes trials and put Cheney and Rumsfeld away for life. Hey, I can dream.

Your faith in power and authority seems unshakeable. You do realize that 98% of prisoners at Abu Grahb were not charged, found innocent and SET FREE. In other words, think of 10 family members — your mother, aunt, cousins, your little sister etc. Of those 10 people you love, image 9 of them tortured with electric wires to their gonads, piled into sexual humiliation, hooded and having police dogs snap at their genitals, imagine that 2 of them died in the process. Now imagine that they were just released without an apology, but people like you said “They were there for a reason.”

The reason torture doesn’t work is the simple strength of Christ’s message to love your neighbor as yourself — we will all be judged and treated exactly the way we judge and treat others. Abu Grahb puts our soldiers, all of us, at risk because we behaved like animals we deserve no better treatment, nor shall we receive it from now on.

I just want to say that although torture is supposed to be wrong,…

Supposed to be? Dude, it is wrong. America has said so many times and our laws declare it so. (Yes, they do.)

Now go away and come back when you have the guts to actually sign your name to your comments.

Yeah, turns out those were war crimes, asshat.

As we have seen in America lately terror is a powerful tool, why not let the “civilized” armies use that against insurgencies and less than professional opponents.

In other words, become just like them. Gotcha.

Because of you
I never stray too far from the sidewalk
Because of you
I learned to play on the safe side
So I don’t get hurt
Because of you
I find it hard to trust
Not only me, but everyone around me
Because of you
I am afraid

I lose my way
And it’s not too long before you point it out
I cannot cry
Because I know that’s weakness in your eyes
I’m forced to fake, a smile, a laugh
Every day of my life
My heart can’t possibly break
When it wasn’t even whole to start with

And, by association, American Idol.

I’m of a mind that news like “we’re torturing people unnecessarily” sort of self-amplify’s. The media can and does make small things bigger than they are, particularly with the Imus thing, and they should be held accountable for it. However, my taxes funding the turture of Iraqi civilians is automatically pretty goddam big on its own. What you’re saying is like arguing: “The news talking about a poor economy is getting people to pull out of the market, driving prices down. Therefore, even though the dollar is falling, commodity prices are rising, investment firms are closing and banks are begging for government cheese, none of those are as bad as the fact that the media is letting us know about it. If they hadn’t told us how badly the economy is actually doing, then it would automatically be doing better!”

As bad a black eye as Abu Ghraib has been, they did manage to contain the worst of it while whitewashing it and passing the blame. All the things being done to the male prisoners was being done to the female prisoners, possibly worse things.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stanford_prison_experiment

“It’s not my fault that I’m doing 20 to life for murder! It’s the stupid judge’s and jury’s fault for convicting me!”

“It’s not my fault that the guy died! It’s his fault for being in the way!”

“It’s not my fault I shot him! It’s the ammo and gun makers’ fault! The gun just lept into my hand and the the bullet just lept out of the barrel!”

Personal responsibility is a wonderful thing, especially when it’s never your personal responsibility for anything you do.

And that’s the kind interpretation to Rumsfeld, assuming that he didn’t intend for the shit to occur in the first place.

Because the media exposing this makes it less likely that it will happen in the future.

Duh!

It’s kind of like the Imus situation. Yes, he said something stupid and bigoted, but the if the media hadn’t decided to amplify the situation 10,000 percent, most of America still would never have heard the phrase “nappy-headed hos.” Furthermore, it wouldn’t have been the lead story on ESPN or SI or any other site that spawned thousands of racially-insensitive comments.

I’m not saying that ignoring racism (or terrorism in the England case) will make it go away. I am saying that the media is far from blameless for the aftermath of a story when it trumpets the story for billions to hear.