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We've all seen the subject of the photo below before -- it may well become the lasting image of the Iraq war. However, as with most of the other prison abuse photos being displayed by the media, you've mainly been seeing heavily cropped versions up to now. The version below is uncropped, and suddenly we have a mystery guest in the frame! Apparently it's just another boring day at the office for our new friend on the right, seemingly picking at his fingernails -- while the prisoner with wires hanging from various body parts balances precariously in the background, having been told that he'd be electrocuted if he fell. What will other uncropped photos from the CDROMs of infamy show, one wonders? --Lauren--
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As we were all expecting, hundreds more Iraqi prisoner abuse photos are now in the hands of the media, and some of the "milder" new ones are already beginning to appear publicly, along with associated videos. Official statements by prisoners regarding their abuse are also now circulating -- they make for sickening reading. --Lauren--
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Two more photos from Iraq's Abu Ghraib prison (now newly and ironically renamed "Camp Redemption" by the U.S.) have surfaced. These photos, displayed below, show U.S. soldiers "paying respect" to a dead Iraqi prisoner's body. This appears to be the same body seen by itself in earlier photos. Reports have suggested that this prisoner died while in custody, apparently from being beaten to death. This may also be the same body that reportedly was snuck out of the facility with fake intravenous lines after the prisoner had already been killed. --Lauren--
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Greetings. Reuters and NBC staff have now revealed charges that they were abused by U.S. soldiers in Iraq months ago in manners similar to those with which we are now all too familiar. After the accusations of abuse against these news organization staffers were reported to officials in January, the U.S. claimed that the charges were unfounded, but it appears that in light of recent events a new investigation into this matter is not unlikely. The alleged victims say they did not come forward publicly earlier due to the humilating nature of the abuse, but given the release of the Iraqi prisoner photos felt it was now appropriate to do so. --Lauren-- |
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Greetings. The official statement of Pfc. Lynndie England is now available. She of course is the female soldier seen holding the leash in the infamous Iraqi prisoner abuse photo and featured in other related photos. --Lauren-- |
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Greetings. Seymour Hersh of The New Yorker, who exposed so many aspects of the Iraqi prisoner abuse story, now reports that U.S. Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld and national security advisor Condoleezza Rice secretly approved the expansion of a clandestine program that encouraged physical coercion, sexual humiliation, and blackmail of Iraqi prisoners, setting the stage for the abuses that these same officials have recently been condemning so publicly. According to the report, President Bush was kept informed regarding this program. The Department of Defense called the accusations in the story "outlandish, conspiratorial, and filled with error and anonymous conjecture." --Lauren-- |
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Greetings. The accusations and counter-accusations between U.S. soldiers and others implicated in the Iraqi prisoner abuse scandal are already entering high gear. The soldiers themselves, military intelligence personnel, and "other government agencies" operatives, are all being implicated. It will be some time before we can understand who is telling the truth, who is trying to protect their own behind, and how far up the chain of command this all really goes. Spc. Jeremy Sivits' actual official statement for his upcoming court-martial has already been made public by the U.S. government. Sivits is expected to plead guilty and is facing lesser charges than the other soldiers who are currently accused. He has been cooperating with prosecutors and (perhaps not coincidentally) seems to be implying that major higher-ups were not involved, in sharp contrast to the reported statements of the other defendants. --Lauren-- |
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Greetings. The abuse photos from Abu Ghraib prison in Iraq have caused some wags to dub this the U.S. "S&M" war, suggesting that some of the images seen publicly so far are reminiscent of those seen on Web sites for sadomasochism enthusiasts. I'll leave it to persons experienced in such recreations to judge the validity of those comparisons, though it seems to me that it's quite a stretch to make any linkage between what is presumably consensual activities between adults vs. the images of abuse and torture that we've already seen, and the others we will eventually see, whether the Bush Administration chooses to release them officially or the photos and movies filter out from other sources. The topic of torture has been big in the news lately of course, and the horrific beheading of a U.S. civilian triggered the usual "isn't torture sometimes justified?" arguments from the spooks and apologists affiliated with Other Government Agencies such as (insert your favorite three-letter agency acronym here). The short answer is no, torture is never justified, for a myriad of reasons that have been widely discussed in the past. We know that terrorists kill and do other horrible things. They don't need excuses to perform their reprehensible acts. But neither should we stoop to activities that even begin to approximate their mindset in any way. It might be illuminating to revisit a Reality Reset satire column that I wrote back in November, 2001 -- just two months after the nightmare of 9/11. It appears that approximately as I was writing that column, the Bush Administration was establishing new standards for tortu... uh, interrogations, that likely set the stage for the Iraqi prisoner abuse that has now created a global firestorm. The column is called "The Convincing Business". --Lauren-- |
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Greetings. Sometimes technology plays unexpected roles in global events. The latest Fact Squad Radio short mp3 audio feature explores the way that technology, specifically the digital camera, has triggered the current furor over the abuse of Iraqi prisoners. It's called "Technology vs. Iraqi Prisoner Abuse" and is playable via: http://www.factsquad.org/radio Thanks very much. --Lauren-- |
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The full Red Cross Report (February, 2004) on Iraqi prisoner abuse is now being widely circulated. It indicates that abuses by Coalition Forces (U.S and British soldiers and operatives) in the Coalition-controlled prisons of Iraq have been widespread, not merely the work of "a few bad apples" as Bush administration officials have repeatedly stated. --Lauren-- |
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More photos (this story has only begun) are now emerging from the CDROMs filled with digital images from Abu Ghraib prison in Iraq. Below is one of a set showing U.S. soldiers terrorizing a naked Iraqi prisoner with guard dogs. Slightly later photos in the sequence reportedly show this same prisoner prostrate on the floor bleeding, apparently from dog bites. The timestamps embedded in these images are providing investigators with useful data regarding when and by which cameras various photos were captured. The abuses portrayed in the new set of photos are reported to involve a different group of soldiers at the prison than was the case with the earlier images. --Lauren--
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The main text of the Pentagon ("Taguba") Report regarding Iraqi prisoner abuse has been released and made available for public viewing. --Lauren-- |
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More graphic photos -- apparently of prisoner abuse in Iraq at the hands of U.S. personnel -- have now emerged. The ubiquitous presence of digital cameras has now assured that what otherwise might have only been rumor is now a very visual reality, and the full scope of the damage is displayed for everyone to see. This Washington Post story has the sordid details and the photos. I warn you, I felt like vomiting after reading the piece and viewing the images. Earlier this evening, I wrote a Reality Reset commentary column called "The Monster in the Mirror" where I discussed dehumanization and related behaviors. This was before I saw the Post story, complete with its image of what appears to be a naked Iraqi prisoner being dragged by a leash around his neck, held by a U.S. soldier. How much worse can this situation get? --Lauren--
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Greetings. Over on "fair and balanced" Fox News a couple of days ago, one of their resident celebrity talking heads editorialized that CBS should indeed have reported the story of Iraqi prisoner abuse, but should not have shown the photos. Showing the photos, he suggested, went too far and did too much damage. He couldn't be more wrong. The photos exist, and sooner or later they would have appeared. In the interconnected era of the Internet, they were impossible to suppress. More importantly, it has become clear that knowledge of the abuses had been present in some U.S. government circles for months (it had even been earlier mentioned publicly in oblique and generic terms). But until the photos appeared, the public had no idea of the scope or disgusting intensity of the criminal acts involved, apparently running the full range from sexual humiliation to torture to murder. Nor does it appear that the higher echelons of our government were particularly concerned (the critical report had long been available but had reportedly not been read by key people who should have been among the first to see it). A pair of Washington Post articles put much of this into perspective here and here. If the photos had not been made public, the odds are that the entire situation would have been effectively swept under the rug, and the probability of such events continuing or recurring would have been greatly increased. Even though they show us things that some might prefer not to see or know about, the photos in this case are worth more than all the pontifications of our military leaders and politicos combined. --Lauren-- |
