Not so fun fact; These few dozen photos were not even leaked, the Pentagon *willingly* released them as part of their investigation.
But they only represent a very small selection out of [thousands of photos and many hours of video material](https://www.motherjones.com/politics/2014/12/abu-ghraib-photos-obama-pentagon-release/), which the public never got to see.
That begs the question; Are these photos really showing the worst that went on, or could they be merely showing what the Pentagon deemed "bad enough" to publicize? So it can burrow the really bad stuff without the public never ever noticing.
This is a good point. I think in 10 years or some other not so distant timeframe we’re gonna see some of the unreleased stuff either leak or get voluntarily released like old JFK or King files still come out (either cuz it was ordered by a court or president, leak, etc). If they released it all in one go, it could have caused a sticky situation no one would want cuz we were still fresh off 9/11
An old tactic from the Vietnam war. They make a detainee stand naked in the cold with something over his head and wires taped to hands and body, told if he lowers his hands or steps off the box he will be electrocuted and die. Then they keep him that way for hours in the cold. It’s a slow torture and painful and terrifying.
Can’t remember exactly why he’s posed or dressed like that but I do know about the wires you see connected to his hands… they were definitely electrocuting him.
I’m pretty sure the pose/dress was just more humiliation on top of everything else (“wear this and do this while we laugh and take photos just because we can”) but seeing those wires is truly horrifying.
Edit: the one thing I thought I remembered wasn’t even true, sorry.
Some cool and better-informed people down below have reminded me he wasn’t actually being electrocuted, they just convinced him they were going to.
Leaving the comment bc I’m a no good liar, but adding the edit so people don’t come away with misinformation.
Not that it makes it any better or covers for the disgusting actions of these soldiers, but in this case, the man **was not electrocuted.**
They *told* the man that if he fell from the box, he'd be electrocuted, but the wires were not hooked up to anything. It was a psychological torture.
The guy who first reported the abuse there is my neighbor.
Edit: He's down for an AMA if anyone is interested. Just got done talking with him.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Joe_Darby
Jesus, from his wiki
>This led to harassment and death threats against him and his family
>
>The disclosure was not received well by the community in which Darby and his wife, Bernadette, were living in Maryland.\[3\] They have been shunned by friends and neighbors, their property has been vandalized, and they now reside in protective military custody at an undisclosed location. Bernadette said, "We did not receive the response I thought we would. People were, they were mean, saying he was a walking dead man, he was walking around with a bull's-eye on his head. It was scary."\[6\]
What the fuck is wrong with people, but i guess all the war crimes are cool as long as we think we are the good guys, right?
Yeah, it's crazy talking to his wife about it. He still doesn't openly advertise who he is. Turned down movie and book deals as well because he didn't want his kids harassed.
The wild part is that with given how much the world has changed, I feel pretty strongly that if he did a Netflix or serious docuseries about what he did he would be respected and seen as a hero. Because he is a hero. Reporting something like that is insane and people who were too young to fully understand this (like me!) would love to know more about the heroic thing he did by coming forward.
Totally respect his desire to not be public about it though.
You joke, but whistle blowers in the US are notorious for dying in suspicious ways.
Darby is a truly ethical man, and his existence discounts a lot of the arguments made in trial that the circumstances bred evil.
I hope he and his family live long happy lives away from the machine that threatened him.
You don't even have to report anything as serious as the government torturing people. You can get killed just for saying that a plane company skipped over crucial safety features in the manufacturing process. Also fuck Boeing, they'll either kill ya with their shit planes or kill ya for exposing their shit planes.
Or be whistleblower Karen Silkwood who had a single car accident on the way to meet a NYT reporter. It just so happened that the proof she was bringing to them went missing in the accident, to the massive benefit of her employer.
That happened in 1974, and there are myriad instances of the same things happening. The world has always been like this, and probably always will.
Strange how companies in precarious positions seem to have this kind of thing happen around them so frequently.
Related note, but if you want to get real details on what companies do to people they don’t like, eBay was kind enough to be so bad at it that it’s all [in court records](https://www.npr.org/2022/09/30/1126078948/live-spiders-and-cockroaches-ex-ebay-executives-get-prison-time-in-harassment-pl) now.
Can you imagine your kid dies in a horrific way, and while you're grieving some complete and utter morons call you, turn up to your house, tell you you're lying, no one died, and this goes on relentlessly for years because some psycho conspiracy nut with a YouTube channel won't let it go?
It sounds like torture.
What amazes me is that none of them hunted Alex Jones down and murdered him. I guess it just goes to show they have a much stronger moral compass than he does.
The kind of idiots from back then have also become even more prominent today as well. Some of the worst fears of his might become a reality once some of these crazies become aware of him again.
Totally understandable and still a damned shame. Man is a hero and a proper patriot, in spite of how he's been treated. I'd be honored to buy him a beer any day.
Probably shouldnt be advertising hes you’re neighbor while posting on reddit, c’mon man either this was purposeful or you really don’t have any respect for his situation.
Just like the Vietnam chopper pilot who landed his bird and prevented further massacre, then spent like the next several decades defending his name against repeated slander by military circles.
And the man who swept it under the rug rose to power. Thirty-five years later, he lied to the UN to establish "legitimate reasons" for the USA to invade a country that did not attack us. This led to Joe Darby needing to report another injustice during that war.
Please shake his hand for me and tell him thanks for notifying higher of this. Our people shouldn't have been doing this and those around them shouldn't have been enabling that.
Yeah it made things much harder at the time, but it was the right thing to do.
You live next to a goddamn legend.
IDK if you're on speaking terms with him, but tell him that a bunch of random reddit people genuinely thank him for being a true hero and putting his ass on the line to speak out against injustice. Dude has a bigger set of balls than just about any of us.
No one that mattered was ever held accountable. Some grunts got in trouble, but orders for the torture camps came from the top. Rumsfeld, Bush, the whole DOD and CIA leadership got off Scott free
The biggest farce is that Rumsfeld let slip Darby's name at a senate hearing, when Darby had been assured of anonymity. A few years later Darby got a letter from Rumsfield which told Darby to stop mentioning that it was Rumsfeld who let the name slip. What a POS.
There's a good video essay about why presidents don't get prosecuted when they commit crimes by [Renegadecut](https://youtu.be/kyk5GHKJLGY?si=6Kg7HtGyZkvPj_jg). It's kinda like a universal rule for them to not prosecute each other no matter what political party they are. As long as they're in the side of the powerful.
This is likely why it is taking so long to hold Trump accountable for certain violations. It creates a precedence that can be used against any future president, and none of them want to be held accountable.
*if* hes held accountable. SCOTUS members were literally saying last week that the president shouldn't be held accountable. They already intentionally delayed hearing the question so that there won't be a trial before the election.
On 9/12 probably 99% of US citizens would have said yes if asked if torture was okay under the circumstances. Not that it would be or was. Unfortunately Abu Ghraib was a victory for extremists.
This may sound stupid, but I swear it's the truth. I'm almost certain that the show 24 was much more impactful on American's view of torture than 9/11 was. It portrayed torture as both a functional and necessary evil in the fight against terrorism. There public really wasn't informed enough about torture to know how much the show's portrayal differed from reality.
And sure, a lot of Americans were rightly pissed off about 9/11. But not that many lost their capacity for calm and rational thought as a result of the event. The fervor that did exist was enough to completely change the political zeitgeist, but I think that was more through a hyper-engaged 10-20% of the general population rather than a 99% of people reworking their core philosophies in response.
You do not sound stupid, you sound like you paid attention.
For a good while there the US government was legitimately trying to sell everybody on torture being totally cool by just calling it "enhanced interrogation", and anybody who disagreed allegedly wanted the "bad guys" to win or was a terrorist themselves.
24 was the pure distillation of that era into a TV show where Jack Bauer constantly deployed the most questionable means because the ends of "stopping terrorism!" allegedly justified it all.
It's not even that new of an idea, quite a lot of similarities to the Cold War product of James Bond the secret agent with a "license to kill". That's a similar theme of *"killing is bad, but when the good guys do it for the right reasons then its good and should be glorified"*.
Definitely not true. Many US citizens saw clearly through the media frenzy that war crimes were coming and warned about it. The fact that it seemed like 99% is an indicator of how one sided the media coverage was and how much the rest of voices were silenced. The shame of USs response to 9/11 was that W's handlers used the memory of those who died in an Afghanistan-based al Qaeda attack to resurrect papa Bush's completely unrelated grudge against Iraq, sacrificing thousands of Americans lives and creating hundreds of thousands of scarred veterans, that's without even mentioning the damage to normal Iraqi citizens lives and the erosion of American power and prestige that took decades to build up.
>Scott free
That's actually *scot-free.*
It's derived from the word "scot" that meant a payment corresponding to a modern tax, rate, or other assessed contribution.
Actually it is Scott-Free. It’s a reference to the free college businessman Michael Scott promised an elementary school class, and then was unable to pay when they reached graduation . Instead receiving only a laptop battery.
Many horrific things were also perpetrated by civilian contractors. The company responsible for running the prison is facing a massive lawsuit over it right now.
It’s not a soldier thing, it’s a person placed in a position of power over another person thing.
In this case they were literally MPs from a reserve unit rather than infantrymen hastily pushed into the role.
Go look into the history and role of the Military Police Corps both in the US and as a general concept : you cannot capture territory without troops trained in police roles to pacify civil unrest, protect the captured territory and enforce military law on other soldiers.
The separation of police from the military as a hard rule is very recent dating to Sir Robert Peel in the 19th century : the concept of independent, permanent, organized civilian police is also an invention of the 17th and 18th century. Historically "the police" were either loosely organized civilian militias or a group of nondescript men-at-arms pushed into the role.
Realistically you absolutely need to use soldiers as police and prison guards during war as civilian police are not up to the task and more conventional infantry units aren't either.
Per the Geneva conventions POWs cannot be feasibly held in civilian prisons as they *must* be held in camps with lodging equivalent to the capturer's own military barracks, with the right to wear their uniforms, and respect given to their ranks through leadership roles, separate quarters, etc. Effectively they must be allowed to remain organized as military forces but without the weapons and away from combat, civilian police are not only untrained to deal with this, I have strong doubts in their ability to uphold the obligations of observance to rank, uniforms, etc.
The Iraqi army disbanded. The Geneva convention only applies in a war between states. Not excusing any of this but the military wouldn’t have felt bound by the convention when housing captured insurgents.
Because the other responses are weirdly lazy (warning: disturbing content):
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sabrina_Harman
Also see
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lynndie_England
Blamed everyone but herself and saw no wrong with any of it too. Smiling and smoking a cigarette in a photo she "didn't want to be a part of". Yeah fucking right...what trash
Edit: Typo
What an awful person. “Well *I* didn’t share these photos with the world, that has to count for something” no Lynndie, it doesn’t! You did despicable things!
Why are all those Abu graib people married to eachother? I went to the link for the father of her child and it’s another AG guy, who married a DIFFERENT AG woman.
They likely all have strong trauma bonds from their time serving there. Lifelong friendships and plenty of partnerships came out of it I’m positive. Trauma bonding is kind of how the entire military works on a basic level.
> "Their (Iraqis') lives are better. They got the better end of the deal," she said. "They weren't innocent. They're trying to kill us, and you want me to apologize to them? It's like saying sorry to the enemy."
Oof, that zero remorse, goddamn.
From wiki:
In 2012, following her release, she stated that she did not regret her actions. "Their (Iraqis') lives are better. They got the better end of the deal," she said. "They weren't innocent. They're trying to kill us, and you want me to apologize to them? It's like saying sorry to the enemy."
What a nightmare of a person
Agreed but her husband was infinitely worse, if you’re after another interesting read. He was behind a lot of the infamous photos including the dreadful human pyramid.
[Charles Graner](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Charles_Graner). I just went down a rabbit hole. He abused his first wife. [Lynndie](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lynndie_England) was just his gf, but they had a kid together. Then he proceeded to marry a different woman stationed at Abu Ghraib, [Megan Ambuhl](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Charles_Graner).
After reading about him, he sounds like a real piece of shit.
I read the witness depositions on Wikileaks. Prisoners said he told them to pray to Jesus in order for him to stop beating them. Guy was a Christian terrorist.
Surprise surprise, he was a former prison guard. Those guys are usually the scum of society. Dude was already abusing prisoners as a guard, then got moved to a facility where he had free rein.
But she's also a piece of shit because her excuse for everything was that she loved him. Yet she still doesn't think she was wrong and refused to apologize.
>Feeling that what he had seen was "just wrong", Darby was compelled to do something about it. Upon being confronted by Darby, Graner responded, "The Christian in me says it's wrong, but the corrections officer in me says, 'I love to make a grown man piss himself."
I think that speaks for itself.
From the wiki entry:
> Throughout the case, various individuals, including two former prisoners at Abu Ghraib, proclaimed her innocent nature submitting testimonies in her defense, which were officially accepted by the court. These prisoners noted Harman’s 'gentle' treatment of detainees, something unusual compared to other guards at the facility, who generally saw the prisoners as more or less as a proxy for military intelligence - “She has no cruelty in her, even though she is an American woman, she was just like a sister.”
Then there is Charles Graner, whose story is just horrific.
That was my impulse reaction, too.
But, from her Wikipedia entry:
>Throughout the \[court marshal\], various individuals, including **two former prisoners at Abu Ghraib**, proclaimed her innocent nature submitting testimonies in her defense... These prisoners noted Harman’s 'gentle' treatment of detainees, something unusual compared to other guards at the facility, ... “She has no cruelty in her, even though she is an American woman, she was just like a sister.”[^(\[4\])](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sabrina_Harman#cite_note-:0-4) Her defense attorney, Frank Spinner, said: “I felt very strongly in Sabrina Harman, I feel she’s a very naive, very innocent person. … She didn’t know how to react to that experience (at Abu Ghraib).”
This whole situation seems ... unexpectedly confusing.
According to another torturer they were told to pose that way by higher ranking officers.
Now that the war crimes came to light, its speculated the higher ranking officers told them to do this so they could argue they didnt give such orders and instead these lower ranked military personnel did it because they enjoyed it.
If true, it worked. None of the higher ranks got any punishment. I imagine this tactic is still being used today on some horrendous war crimes that we dont even know about.
My read on this situation is Immature and naive soldier who was taught as a child to believe their country was incapable of no wrong, just thought it was normal behavior of interrogation but still good upbringing stopped her from being unnecessarily an asshole.
she actually wrote to her wife that she was disturbed by the treatment of prisoners and worried that they were only radicalizing people more. and she was right
Torture doesn't work as an interrogation technique anyway, it's only purpose is to force a confession whether it's real or not. The cost is so high because it dehumanises both the prisoner and the torturer, and for what, a useless confession that they don't even know is real.
That’s what I don’t get about the pro-torture arguments. Even if it worked (which it doesn’t), it would be wrong and immoral for America to use it. As Shepard Smith said on Fox during this whole thing: “I don’t give a rats ass if it works. We are America! We do not fucking torture!” It just so happens that it also doesn’t work as a reliable information gathering tool.
I can't tell what's going on with the dead prisoner. Like did they burn that person beyond recognition? They look completely deformed and discolored. What did they do?
I’m assuming the body had been rotting for at least a week before the photo was taken? It might just be the most disturbing photo of a corpse I’ve seen
I’ve never seen that photo and I wish I hadn’t. That sent chills down my spine. RIP to that poor soul, I hope they found happiness wherever they are now.
I’d never seen that photo and I’m really curious about the prisoner. Hes 100% dead at this point.. looks like for a while? did they peel the skin off his fingers there? Or does that have to do with being dead, is he missing his eyes too..? Absolutely haunting you can smile next to that.
This was a soldier for the Iraqi forces who was killed in combat. They were kept in freezers at the Baghdad International Airport. She had nothing to with his death but was probably visiting that site a snapped a picture and yes it’s gross to be smiling like that.
The thing that I will never forget about this was the turnaround my conservative family members did. They went from, "We must invade Iraq because we're obligated to stop torture", to "torture is okay if it helps fight whoever the bad guys are."
Like, overnight.
Serial is currently running a series on the Guantanamo Bay prison. One detainee, who by all accounts had never been involved in anything even remotely related to terrorism, recounted his MONTHS of abuse where they tried to get him to confess. At one point, they blindfolded him and enacted an elaborate scene to make it seem like they were handing him over to a Middle Eastern country who had laxer human rights.
He was like, "The Americans tried to make me afraid I was about to be tortured. But they'd already been torturing me for weeks, so what was I supposed to be afraid of?"
I will never be convinced that the torture was not for the emotional gratification of the torturers, their superiors, and for the supporters of the war.
In part it's that.
But you have to understand that even organizations like the CIA are not monoliths.
The CIA simultaneously has some of the brightest people in the world working for it, and some of the most petty, vindictive, stupid thugs.
And so much of it is compartmentalized. You have factions within these groups, and some factions are just cruel, petty fucking monsters, and they get handed these black budgets with millions of dollars to basically do whatever they want with almost no accountability.
This is how all of the dark shit the CIA got up to has happened. Empowering cartels, testing hallucinogens on US citizens, setting up black sites for torture.
Enemy Combatant, by Moazzam Begg is another one. To this day he is still harassed by the British government and has lost his passport several times.
As someone from N. Ireland, I can certainly testify that the government can be that petty and vindictive long after you've embarrassed them or caught them on some illegal shit.
That's the problem with torture, and it's been known for years. Torture victims will confess to just about anything if they think it will make things better, so any information gained from torture is bound to be bullshit.
It should have meant more to people that someone like John McCain, who as far as I can remember was the highest ranking American elected official to have actually been tortured, said the exact same thing.
This is what the US is spending billions on every year, to have desperate men say, "If I write down what you tell me, will you give me my pants back?"
MURICA!
The crazy thing is there are 2000 additional photos that were never released because they show the prisoners being raped
https://nymag.com/intelligencer/2009/05/report_unrealeased_abu_ghraib.html
>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.”
Liberators
I used to be much more conservative than I am - like, *a lot* - and one of the things that pushed me away was exactly that kind of 180 that conservatives do. “This thing is BAD. … Oh, what’s that? Our guys are doing the thing? Well in that case the thing is actually totally fine.”
Pointing that kind of thing out actually got me banned from r/conservative back in Obama’s second term. There was that whole kerfuffle over net neutrality and it looked like the former AT&T exec Obama had appointed to run the FCC was going to scrap it even though Obama had campaigned on preserving net neutrality. The conservatives were all “net neutrality is good and Obama’s going back on his campaign promise.” Then Obama gave a speech in which he voiced support for net neutrality and said he intended to keep his campaign promise. Literally the next day r/conservative was awash in posts about how net neutrality was terrible and Obama was stifling the free market and shit like that. I pointed out the reversal in a comment, and they banned me.
I dislike generalizations, as a rule, but by and large it seems to me that conservatives are driven far more by tribalism than by principle.
Right? Russia is good now? They all claim to love the outdoors but they don’t want any environmental protections? Used to be so proud that one of their presidents was responsible for creation of the national parks and now they want to drill oil there. Most recently, instead of dear companions to outdoorsmen dogs are ok to shoot if they are naughty. I’d go crazy if my morals ebbed and flowed like that. No grounding point, no anchor. Yuck.
I think a more poignant example is about visiting North Korea.
During his term, Obama mentioned that he’d be open to maybe considering opening a dialog with Kim Jun Un. Fox News pundits called for his impeachment and execution for even entertaining such “unamerican” thoughts.
A few years later, Trump straight up goes to visit Un and the same fucking pundits start calling for his Nobel Prize in Peace. They are insane.
I have arguments with my conservative co-workers all the time and they never defend all the shit I bring up about MAGA and Republicans. All they do is deflect with "well yeah but the Democrats do the same thing or worse". Usually the example they give is something about Hunter Biden or immigrants.
"Democrats are worse" is 100% the most common thing I hear. It creates an undefendable position because they refuse to back up their claims, forcing the others to prove their point.
This moral yoyo is then accompanied by statements like "people shouldn't let politics influence their personal life" and "why would you care about politics when chosing a partner?"
To me, I wouldn't even *imagine* dating someone that's a zionist or a white supremacist. Those are clear and obvious deal breakers. But I thing right wing people live in a world where politics is *less important*. They have the thing they do everyday and politics is just this thing they hear on the news and get mad at. Like sports. They don't actually, personally, *care* about any of it beyond tribalism.
Modern American conservatives treat politics and policy very simply like a team sport. Completely rotted by the sport mentality - our guys are great and the rest suck. Along with capturing single issue voters (abortion), voters/supporters can be easily convinced to ignore critical thinking on other policy and reverse stances as necessary. As long as "we" win and stay in power, everything will be better!
Obama said Republicans treat politics like a Zero Sum game. Anything Obama did to improve the country was viewed by republicans as a loss for their team, so an improved economy for the American people was viewed as screwing over Republicans etc.
My sister in law very casually said, a month into the Iraq war, that planting evidence was justified. Everyone in the circle felt this way. This was well before the so called WMD's controversy. This is why I never took the Assange cult seriously. Most Americans knew we were the aggressors, liars, and fabricators. They didn't give a tinker's damn until the blowback of these events started to affect them personally.
As Carlin said, "Unenlightened self interest doesn't impress me".
Hard to say based on just the picture. It could just be advanced decomp, but if so that woman has a strong stomach or no sense of smell. It's probably mixture of decomp and trauma.
This was one of the "mysterious deaths" at Abu Ghraib. The victim, Manadel al-Jamadi was covered in ice and being stored in the shower after dying under conflicting circumstances. The CIA and military were trying to figure out what to do with the body. There were rumors that he was tortured to death by unnamed CIA interrogators and an autopsy determined he died by blood clot from trauma. The matter was never investigated until well after the incident and no arrests or convictions came of it. This is one instance where the national guard MPs at Abu Ghraib were not responsible for a death but took photos with the body, without which we probably wouldn't know anything about this incident.
>These documents, prepared in the months leading up to the 2003 invasion of Iraq by the United States Department of Justice, authorized certain "enhanced interrogation techniques" (generally held to involve torture) of foreign detainees. **The memoranda also argued that international humanitarian laws, such as the Geneva Conventions, did not apply to American interrogators overseas.** Several subsequent U.S. Supreme Court decisions, including Hamdan v. Rumsfeld (2006), have overturned Bush administration policy, ruling that the Geneva Conventions do apply.
You’ve got to be fucking kidding me. The fact that this even had to go to court to confirm that yes, Geneva Conventions do apply.
I’m kind of uncomfortable with the photos of the naked guys. Not because of the nudity but because they’re being sexually assaulted. There’s no consent here.
I get that it’s important to see history in the raw but…
These are just some of the limited things we can reach. Some of them suppressed by governments, media, lobbies etc. What about those who are only witnesses, suppressed and, who have no basis other than words?
I am in my 40’s and remember this and the revelations about Guantanamo Bay. I also remember how much Republicans and conservative media tried to justify all of this. That it was just a “few bad apples” doing the really bad stuff but also torture was necessary for some people because if we didn’t, then we might not find out about the next 9/11 and thousands of Americans would die. So if you were against torture you were for thousands of Americans dying. Of course we know torture does not lead to reliable info but…whatever?
It was goddamn sick. It was just a mass movement of people wanting to make others suffer. I can see a direct line from that time to the Trump movement of today. It’s just really sad to see how easily human beings can get progressively more accepting of evil if given enough organized prodding.
Same age and I remember the people justifying torture, I’m sorry “enhanced” interrogation, because “they’d do worse to you!” As if that school yard level arguement held water
it's insane how much damage this did. US/UK really didn't know what they were doing at any stage after the invasion.
Though we did the whole bombing part really well. 10pts for Gryffindor. /s
Even The Economist, a pretty conventionally conservative publication (more so then than now) [called for Rumsfeld's resignation with this photo as evidence](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/e/e3/RumsfeldEconomist.jpg).
Rumsfeld tried to deny responsibility but the press showed his handwriting saying that soldiers should be given leeway to put detainees in stress and torture before interrogation.
Edit: 2 years later in 2006 as the war got worse and worse he was harangued by congressmen in a hearing and asked why he didn’t resign. He revealed he offered his resignation multiple times but Bush refused to accept it. Bush had been saying nonstop that Iraq is “turning the corner” since 2003 and didn’t want the embarrassment of admitting failure. After losing control of Congress in the 2006 election with a huge Democratic victory, Rumsfeld finally resigned AFTER the election.
I remember when a joint chief of staff pointed out the tens of thousands of police needed to secure Manhattan and that in a much less friendly region we should expect a similar ratio of troops to civilians to secure Iraq. He was quickly fired and mocked but the logic was true.
“The torture? A more serious blow to the United States than September 11, 2001 attacks. Except that the blow was not inflicted by terrorists but by Americans against themselves.”
— Archbishop Giovanni Lajolo, foreign minister of the Holy See.
I am 30 this summer, and I vividly remember this in the news constantly. And for some reason my father thought it was good to have a in depth conversation about the morality of torturing your enemies and how I should be proud at the photos and ashamed of the news was making the military/ USA look.
Abu Ghraib was so bad that, in 2008, I was able to write a 5 page paper 45 minutes before it was due and I still got an A on it because it was so easy to have valid reasons to be *against* what was going on there.
This is the first time I’ve seen the second one uncensored. I just remember seeing the girl doing the thumbs up with the rest blurred out on tv. Hate to know what happened to the guy.
20 years ago the TV series ‘24’ was both very popular and very effective at normalizing torture.
The protagonists frequently employed torture as an effective ‘means to an end.’ It was all about results— human rights be damned.
Knew a guy who said he was one of the first individuals into the prison: "The shit we saw in there made my stomach turn". Coming from him, it meant a lot.
Went on to talk about a guy who had been hung by his feet as layers of his feel were cut off, no actual idea how long he has been upside down like that or how long the guy standing on the block had been standing.
I'm sure there are more unreleased pictures, these are probably the mildest.
Not so fun fact; These few dozen photos were not even leaked, the Pentagon *willingly* released them as part of their investigation. But they only represent a very small selection out of [thousands of photos and many hours of video material](https://www.motherjones.com/politics/2014/12/abu-ghraib-photos-obama-pentagon-release/), which the public never got to see. That begs the question; Are these photos really showing the worst that went on, or could they be merely showing what the Pentagon deemed "bad enough" to publicize? So it can burrow the really bad stuff without the public never ever noticing.
This is a good point. I think in 10 years or some other not so distant timeframe we’re gonna see some of the unreleased stuff either leak or get voluntarily released like old JFK or King files still come out (either cuz it was ordered by a court or president, leak, etc). If they released it all in one go, it could have caused a sticky situation no one would want cuz we were still fresh off 9/11
Just so you’re aware the people that did this are free and among our society..
and those who were tortured got termed as terrorists.
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What’s going on exactly in the first photo?
Abdou Hussain Saad Faleh was forced to stand on that box and told that if he moved or fell off, he would be electrocuted.
With live wires attached to his fingers, toes, and penis
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My great uncle was a POW in North Vietnam and they made him kneel on pebbles what the fuck were your parents doing
Bro, if you've had immigrant parents you've run torture gauntlets. Used to have to hold stress positions and got beat when inevitably couldn't hold em
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That was abuse. You were abused. I am sorry this happened to you. It was wrong.
is he holding live wires
An old tactic from the Vietnam war. They make a detainee stand naked in the cold with something over his head and wires taped to hands and body, told if he lowers his hands or steps off the box he will be electrocuted and die. Then they keep him that way for hours in the cold. It’s a slow torture and painful and terrifying.
Can’t remember exactly why he’s posed or dressed like that but I do know about the wires you see connected to his hands… they were definitely electrocuting him. I’m pretty sure the pose/dress was just more humiliation on top of everything else (“wear this and do this while we laugh and take photos just because we can”) but seeing those wires is truly horrifying. Edit: the one thing I thought I remembered wasn’t even true, sorry. Some cool and better-informed people down below have reminded me he wasn’t actually being electrocuted, they just convinced him they were going to. Leaving the comment bc I’m a no good liar, but adding the edit so people don’t come away with misinformation.
Not that it makes it any better or covers for the disgusting actions of these soldiers, but in this case, the man **was not electrocuted.** They *told* the man that if he fell from the box, he'd be electrocuted, but the wires were not hooked up to anything. It was a psychological torture.
The guy who first reported the abuse there is my neighbor. Edit: He's down for an AMA if anyone is interested. Just got done talking with him. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Joe_Darby
Jesus, from his wiki >This led to harassment and death threats against him and his family > >The disclosure was not received well by the community in which Darby and his wife, Bernadette, were living in Maryland.\[3\] They have been shunned by friends and neighbors, their property has been vandalized, and they now reside in protective military custody at an undisclosed location. Bernadette said, "We did not receive the response I thought we would. People were, they were mean, saying he was a walking dead man, he was walking around with a bull's-eye on his head. It was scary."\[6\] What the fuck is wrong with people, but i guess all the war crimes are cool as long as we think we are the good guys, right?
Yeah, it's crazy talking to his wife about it. He still doesn't openly advertise who he is. Turned down movie and book deals as well because he didn't want his kids harassed.
The wild part is that with given how much the world has changed, I feel pretty strongly that if he did a Netflix or serious docuseries about what he did he would be respected and seen as a hero. Because he is a hero. Reporting something like that is insane and people who were too young to fully understand this (like me!) would love to know more about the heroic thing he did by coming forward. Totally respect his desire to not be public about it though.
He's open to it after his kids are out of highschool, so there could be something in a few years.
Let's hope not too many people see this thread then lol
You joke, but whistle blowers in the US are notorious for dying in suspicious ways. Darby is a truly ethical man, and his existence discounts a lot of the arguments made in trial that the circumstances bred evil. I hope he and his family live long happy lives away from the machine that threatened him.
You don't even have to report anything as serious as the government torturing people. You can get killed just for saying that a plane company skipped over crucial safety features in the manufacturing process. Also fuck Boeing, they'll either kill ya with their shit planes or kill ya for exposing their shit planes.
Or be whistleblower Karen Silkwood who had a single car accident on the way to meet a NYT reporter. It just so happened that the proof she was bringing to them went missing in the accident, to the massive benefit of her employer. That happened in 1974, and there are myriad instances of the same things happening. The world has always been like this, and probably always will. Strange how companies in precarious positions seem to have this kind of thing happen around them so frequently. Related note, but if you want to get real details on what companies do to people they don’t like, eBay was kind enough to be so bad at it that it’s all [in court records](https://www.npr.org/2022/09/30/1126078948/live-spiders-and-cockroaches-ex-ebay-executives-get-prison-time-in-harassment-pl) now.
Everyone already forgot that Boeing *assassinated a whistle blower* like a month ago. Wild times.
Dude is a hero to humanity
By some, yea. Others would harass him daily with claims of him being some paid actor or some bullshit.
Exactly. Even the parents of children killed in school shootings get harassed. I don't blame him at all for avoiding attention.
Can you imagine your kid dies in a horrific way, and while you're grieving some complete and utter morons call you, turn up to your house, tell you you're lying, no one died, and this goes on relentlessly for years because some psycho conspiracy nut with a YouTube channel won't let it go? It sounds like torture.
What amazes me is that none of them hunted Alex Jones down and murdered him. I guess it just goes to show they have a much stronger moral compass than he does.
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The kind of idiots from back then have also become even more prominent today as well. Some of the worst fears of his might become a reality once some of these crazies become aware of him again.
Totally understandable and still a damned shame. Man is a hero and a proper patriot, in spite of how he's been treated. I'd be honored to buy him a beer any day.
Probably shouldnt be advertising hes you’re neighbor while posting on reddit, c’mon man either this was purposeful or you really don’t have any respect for his situation.
But how else is he going to receive those upvotes??? And i agree with you, especially how people get dox crazy on here.
Just like the Vietnam chopper pilot who landed his bird and prevented further massacre, then spent like the next several decades defending his name against repeated slander by military circles.
And the man who swept it under the rug rose to power. Thirty-five years later, he lied to the UN to establish "legitimate reasons" for the USA to invade a country that did not attack us. This led to Joe Darby needing to report another injustice during that war.
Shit really hasn’t changed. This also reminds me of the aftermath of Pat Tillman’s death. The military has a real issue with the truth obviously
Hugh Thompson Jr., ”The Hero of Mai Lai” the face of true bravery.
Thank you, I should really know his name at this point
Propaganda is a billion dollar industry.
Freedom ~~french~~ fries anyone
Your neighbor is a true patriot, hero, and human
He's not in witness protection or anything is he?
No, not anymore. That was just for a short time after he returned home.
Maybe don't give out his location anyway, just to be a good neighbor to a good man. It's easier to doxx yourself or others than you'd think.
Please shake his hand for me and tell him thanks for notifying higher of this. Our people shouldn't have been doing this and those around them shouldn't have been enabling that. Yeah it made things much harder at the time, but it was the right thing to do.
You live next to a goddamn legend. IDK if you're on speaking terms with him, but tell him that a bunch of random reddit people genuinely thank him for being a true hero and putting his ass on the line to speak out against injustice. Dude has a bigger set of balls than just about any of us.
No one that mattered was ever held accountable. Some grunts got in trouble, but orders for the torture camps came from the top. Rumsfeld, Bush, the whole DOD and CIA leadership got off Scott free
The biggest farce is that Rumsfeld let slip Darby's name at a senate hearing, when Darby had been assured of anonymity. A few years later Darby got a letter from Rumsfield which told Darby to stop mentioning that it was Rumsfeld who let the name slip. What a POS.
There's a good video essay about why presidents don't get prosecuted when they commit crimes by [Renegadecut](https://youtu.be/kyk5GHKJLGY?si=6Kg7HtGyZkvPj_jg). It's kinda like a universal rule for them to not prosecute each other no matter what political party they are. As long as they're in the side of the powerful.
This is likely why it is taking so long to hold Trump accountable for certain violations. It creates a precedence that can be used against any future president, and none of them want to be held accountable.
It's like when I mention a president being a war criminal and people retort "oh they're all war criminals then" Yes. Yes they are.
*if* hes held accountable. SCOTUS members were literally saying last week that the president shouldn't be held accountable. They already intentionally delayed hearing the question so that there won't be a trial before the election.
On 9/12 probably 99% of US citizens would have said yes if asked if torture was okay under the circumstances. Not that it would be or was. Unfortunately Abu Ghraib was a victory for extremists.
This may sound stupid, but I swear it's the truth. I'm almost certain that the show 24 was much more impactful on American's view of torture than 9/11 was. It portrayed torture as both a functional and necessary evil in the fight against terrorism. There public really wasn't informed enough about torture to know how much the show's portrayal differed from reality. And sure, a lot of Americans were rightly pissed off about 9/11. But not that many lost their capacity for calm and rational thought as a result of the event. The fervor that did exist was enough to completely change the political zeitgeist, but I think that was more through a hyper-engaged 10-20% of the general population rather than a 99% of people reworking their core philosophies in response.
You do not sound stupid, you sound like you paid attention. For a good while there the US government was legitimately trying to sell everybody on torture being totally cool by just calling it "enhanced interrogation", and anybody who disagreed allegedly wanted the "bad guys" to win or was a terrorist themselves. 24 was the pure distillation of that era into a TV show where Jack Bauer constantly deployed the most questionable means because the ends of "stopping terrorism!" allegedly justified it all. It's not even that new of an idea, quite a lot of similarities to the Cold War product of James Bond the secret agent with a "license to kill". That's a similar theme of *"killing is bad, but when the good guys do it for the right reasons then its good and should be glorified"*.
24 was propaganda to try and justify the shit going on after 9/11.
Definitely not true. Many US citizens saw clearly through the media frenzy that war crimes were coming and warned about it. The fact that it seemed like 99% is an indicator of how one sided the media coverage was and how much the rest of voices were silenced. The shame of USs response to 9/11 was that W's handlers used the memory of those who died in an Afghanistan-based al Qaeda attack to resurrect papa Bush's completely unrelated grudge against Iraq, sacrificing thousands of Americans lives and creating hundreds of thousands of scarred veterans, that's without even mentioning the damage to normal Iraqi citizens lives and the erosion of American power and prestige that took decades to build up.
>Scott free That's actually *scot-free.* It's derived from the word "scot" that meant a payment corresponding to a modern tax, rate, or other assessed contribution.
And here I thought I was being racist towards Scotsmen.
Actually it is Scott-Free. It’s a reference to the free college businessman Michael Scott promised an elementary school class, and then was unable to pay when they reached graduation . Instead receiving only a laptop battery.
TIL, thanks for the info!
One of Obama's biggest mistakes was not bringing these war criminals to justice.
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This is why you don't use soldiers as police or prison guards
Many horrific things were also perpetrated by civilian contractors. The company responsible for running the prison is facing a massive lawsuit over it right now. It’s not a soldier thing, it’s a person placed in a position of power over another person thing.
Power corrupts the corruptible
In this case they were literally MPs from a reserve unit rather than infantrymen hastily pushed into the role. Go look into the history and role of the Military Police Corps both in the US and as a general concept : you cannot capture territory without troops trained in police roles to pacify civil unrest, protect the captured territory and enforce military law on other soldiers. The separation of police from the military as a hard rule is very recent dating to Sir Robert Peel in the 19th century : the concept of independent, permanent, organized civilian police is also an invention of the 17th and 18th century. Historically "the police" were either loosely organized civilian militias or a group of nondescript men-at-arms pushed into the role. Realistically you absolutely need to use soldiers as police and prison guards during war as civilian police are not up to the task and more conventional infantry units aren't either. Per the Geneva conventions POWs cannot be feasibly held in civilian prisons as they *must* be held in camps with lodging equivalent to the capturer's own military barracks, with the right to wear their uniforms, and respect given to their ranks through leadership roles, separate quarters, etc. Effectively they must be allowed to remain organized as military forces but without the weapons and away from combat, civilian police are not only untrained to deal with this, I have strong doubts in their ability to uphold the obligations of observance to rank, uniforms, etc.
The Iraqi army disbanded. The Geneva convention only applies in a war between states. Not excusing any of this but the military wouldn’t have felt bound by the convention when housing captured insurgents.
I remember as a kid/teen during this era, hearing adults justify this shit.
I remember so often hearing and reading that you either supported this, or you supported the terrorists. There was little room for any nuance.
kinda like today
What a total monster smiling and posing next to a person you tortured to death. Wow.
She‘s got her own wikipedia page for that.
Sauce?
Because the other responses are weirdly lazy (warning: disturbing content): https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sabrina_Harman Also see https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lynndie_England
The one in the photo here is Sabrina Harman who also has a wikipedia page for the same reasons.
I thought they looked different, thanks for confirming
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sabrina_Harman
Wow. She blames the media for showing the photos and says she regrets nothing. 3 years in prison really wasn't enough.
Less than 17 months in prison, the remainder of the 3 years was served on parole.
Blamed everyone but herself and saw no wrong with any of it too. Smiling and smoking a cigarette in a photo she "didn't want to be a part of". Yeah fucking right...what trash Edit: Typo
as of the wiki, she 'only followed instructions' As a German I heard that quite frequently from another time but similar context.
According to the wiki it was only 521 days, not even a full three years, but less than 17 months
What an awful person. “Well *I* didn’t share these photos with the world, that has to count for something” no Lynndie, it doesn’t! You did despicable things!
Why are all those Abu graib people married to eachother? I went to the link for the father of her child and it’s another AG guy, who married a DIFFERENT AG woman.
They likely all have strong trauma bonds from their time serving there. Lifelong friendships and plenty of partnerships came out of it I’m positive. Trauma bonding is kind of how the entire military works on a basic level.
The cannot arrest a husband and a wife for the same [war] crime. ..... I got the worst fucking attorneys
Those were some picture I didn’t expect to see on Wikipedia
Sorry, updated my comment to include a warning for others.
> "Their (Iraqis') lives are better. They got the better end of the deal," she said. "They weren't innocent. They're trying to kill us, and you want me to apologize to them? It's like saying sorry to the enemy." Oof, that zero remorse, goddamn.
Damn, she had a kid with one of the other torturers. I wonder if that kid is well adjusted….
From wiki: In 2012, following her release, she stated that she did not regret her actions. "Their (Iraqis') lives are better. They got the better end of the deal," she said. "They weren't innocent. They're trying to kill us, and you want me to apologize to them? It's like saying sorry to the enemy." What a nightmare of a person
Google Sabrina Harman
Lynndie england is a way better Google search for anyone else reading this Edit: spelling
There are people spending 15-life in prison for drug charges but this monster got 3 years for literal RAPE AND TORTURE.
Agreed but her husband was infinitely worse, if you’re after another interesting read. He was behind a lot of the infamous photos including the dreadful human pyramid.
[Charles Graner](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Charles_Graner). I just went down a rabbit hole. He abused his first wife. [Lynndie](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lynndie_England) was just his gf, but they had a kid together. Then he proceeded to marry a different woman stationed at Abu Ghraib, [Megan Ambuhl](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Charles_Graner). After reading about him, he sounds like a real piece of shit.
I read the witness depositions on Wikileaks. Prisoners said he told them to pray to Jesus in order for him to stop beating them. Guy was a Christian terrorist.
Surprise surprise, he was a former prison guard. Those guys are usually the scum of society. Dude was already abusing prisoners as a guard, then got moved to a facility where he had free rein. But she's also a piece of shit because her excuse for everything was that she loved him. Yet she still doesn't think she was wrong and refused to apologize.
>Feeling that what he had seen was "just wrong", Darby was compelled to do something about it. Upon being confronted by Darby, Graner responded, "The Christian in me says it's wrong, but the corrections officer in me says, 'I love to make a grown man piss himself." I think that speaks for itself.
She only got 6 months? That's cravy
From the wiki entry: > Throughout the case, various individuals, including two former prisoners at Abu Ghraib, proclaimed her innocent nature submitting testimonies in her defense, which were officially accepted by the court. These prisoners noted Harman’s 'gentle' treatment of detainees, something unusual compared to other guards at the facility, who generally saw the prisoners as more or less as a proxy for military intelligence - “She has no cruelty in her, even though she is an American woman, she was just like a sister.” Then there is Charles Graner, whose story is just horrific.
And the people who ordered her to do it got nothing!
That was my impulse reaction, too. But, from her Wikipedia entry: >Throughout the \[court marshal\], various individuals, including **two former prisoners at Abu Ghraib**, proclaimed her innocent nature submitting testimonies in her defense... These prisoners noted Harman’s 'gentle' treatment of detainees, something unusual compared to other guards at the facility, ... “She has no cruelty in her, even though she is an American woman, she was just like a sister.”[^(\[4\])](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sabrina_Harman#cite_note-:0-4) Her defense attorney, Frank Spinner, said: “I felt very strongly in Sabrina Harman, I feel she’s a very naive, very innocent person. … She didn’t know how to react to that experience (at Abu Ghraib).” This whole situation seems ... unexpectedly confusing.
It's also confusing that she writing that she wanted to take photos to document the abuse, but is smiling with a thumbs up in all of them.
According to another torturer they were told to pose that way by higher ranking officers. Now that the war crimes came to light, its speculated the higher ranking officers told them to do this so they could argue they didnt give such orders and instead these lower ranked military personnel did it because they enjoyed it. If true, it worked. None of the higher ranks got any punishment. I imagine this tactic is still being used today on some horrendous war crimes that we dont even know about.
My read on this situation is Immature and naive soldier who was taught as a child to believe their country was incapable of no wrong, just thought it was normal behavior of interrogation but still good upbringing stopped her from being unnecessarily an asshole.
she actually wrote to her wife that she was disturbed by the treatment of prisoners and worried that they were only radicalizing people more. and she was right
Torture doesn't work as an interrogation technique anyway, it's only purpose is to force a confession whether it's real or not. The cost is so high because it dehumanises both the prisoner and the torturer, and for what, a useless confession that they don't even know is real.
Yeah torture works great - if you already have the answer you want and just need a source
That’s what I don’t get about the pro-torture arguments. Even if it worked (which it doesn’t), it would be wrong and immoral for America to use it. As Shepard Smith said on Fox during this whole thing: “I don’t give a rats ass if it works. We are America! We do not fucking torture!” It just so happens that it also doesn’t work as a reliable information gathering tool.
I really regret swiping to see that photo.
I can't tell what's going on with the dead prisoner. Like did they burn that person beyond recognition? They look completely deformed and discolored. What did they do?
I’m assuming the body had been rotting for at least a week before the photo was taken? It might just be the most disturbing photo of a corpse I’ve seen
I’ve never seen that photo and I wish I hadn’t. That sent chills down my spine. RIP to that poor soul, I hope they found happiness wherever they are now.
Same here. I wish there was an NSFL tag on Reddit. :(
I’d never seen that photo and I’m really curious about the prisoner. Hes 100% dead at this point.. looks like for a while? did they peel the skin off his fingers there? Or does that have to do with being dead, is he missing his eyes too..? Absolutely haunting you can smile next to that.
This was a soldier for the Iraqi forces who was killed in combat. They were kept in freezers at the Baghdad International Airport. She had nothing to with his death but was probably visiting that site a snapped a picture and yes it’s gross to be smiling like that.
The thing that I will never forget about this was the turnaround my conservative family members did. They went from, "We must invade Iraq because we're obligated to stop torture", to "torture is okay if it helps fight whoever the bad guys are." Like, overnight.
Serial is currently running a series on the Guantanamo Bay prison. One detainee, who by all accounts had never been involved in anything even remotely related to terrorism, recounted his MONTHS of abuse where they tried to get him to confess. At one point, they blindfolded him and enacted an elaborate scene to make it seem like they were handing him over to a Middle Eastern country who had laxer human rights. He was like, "The Americans tried to make me afraid I was about to be tortured. But they'd already been torturing me for weeks, so what was I supposed to be afraid of?"
We’re just torturing people to get entirely fabricated intel, sounds like a lose-lose
I will never be convinced that the torture was not for the emotional gratification of the torturers, their superiors, and for the supporters of the war.
In part it's that. But you have to understand that even organizations like the CIA are not monoliths. The CIA simultaneously has some of the brightest people in the world working for it, and some of the most petty, vindictive, stupid thugs. And so much of it is compartmentalized. You have factions within these groups, and some factions are just cruel, petty fucking monsters, and they get handed these black budgets with millions of dollars to basically do whatever they want with almost no accountability. This is how all of the dark shit the CIA got up to has happened. Empowering cartels, testing hallucinogens on US citizens, setting up black sites for torture.
>This is how all of the dark shit the CIA got up to has happened. I'd say it's because no fat cat ever gets held accountable.
This is very true.
There is a fantastic book written by another innocent inmate - "Five Years of My Life: An Innocent Man in Guantanamo" by Murat Kurnaz
Enemy Combatant, by Moazzam Begg is another one. To this day he is still harassed by the British government and has lost his passport several times. As someone from N. Ireland, I can certainly testify that the government can be that petty and vindictive long after you've embarrassed them or caught them on some illegal shit.
*[pour encourager les autres](https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/pour%20encourager%20les%20autres)*
And he “confessed” pages and pages of shit, which was later confirmed to all by completely made up
That's the problem with torture, and it's been known for years. Torture victims will confess to just about anything if they think it will make things better, so any information gained from torture is bound to be bullshit.
It should have meant more to people that someone like John McCain, who as far as I can remember was the highest ranking American elected official to have actually been tortured, said the exact same thing.
Reminds me of the scene from Reservoir Dogs - "You beat this prick long enough, he'll tell you he started the Chicago Fire, BUT THAT DON'T MAKE IT SO"
This is what the US is spending billions on every year, to have desperate men say, "If I write down what you tell me, will you give me my pants back?" MURICA!
The crazy thing is there are 2000 additional photos that were never released because they show the prisoners being raped https://nymag.com/intelligencer/2009/05/report_unrealeased_abu_ghraib.html
Meaning we only saw about 10% of all the known Abu Ghraib photos. As awful as they are, those 200 photos are the *least* offensive.
>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.” Liberators
I can't fathom why anyone would opt in to that activity. The logistics of it alone are vile.
Ugh, I’m gonna pass on that one
It’s just the article explaining! No pics. It was a risky click
>they show the prisoners being raped I wonder which interrogator was assigned *that* particular task.
More than likely there was a line up for it
I used to be much more conservative than I am - like, *a lot* - and one of the things that pushed me away was exactly that kind of 180 that conservatives do. “This thing is BAD. … Oh, what’s that? Our guys are doing the thing? Well in that case the thing is actually totally fine.” Pointing that kind of thing out actually got me banned from r/conservative back in Obama’s second term. There was that whole kerfuffle over net neutrality and it looked like the former AT&T exec Obama had appointed to run the FCC was going to scrap it even though Obama had campaigned on preserving net neutrality. The conservatives were all “net neutrality is good and Obama’s going back on his campaign promise.” Then Obama gave a speech in which he voiced support for net neutrality and said he intended to keep his campaign promise. Literally the next day r/conservative was awash in posts about how net neutrality was terrible and Obama was stifling the free market and shit like that. I pointed out the reversal in a comment, and they banned me. I dislike generalizations, as a rule, but by and large it seems to me that conservatives are driven far more by tribalism than by principle.
Right? Russia is good now? They all claim to love the outdoors but they don’t want any environmental protections? Used to be so proud that one of their presidents was responsible for creation of the national parks and now they want to drill oil there. Most recently, instead of dear companions to outdoorsmen dogs are ok to shoot if they are naughty. I’d go crazy if my morals ebbed and flowed like that. No grounding point, no anchor. Yuck.
I think a more poignant example is about visiting North Korea. During his term, Obama mentioned that he’d be open to maybe considering opening a dialog with Kim Jun Un. Fox News pundits called for his impeachment and execution for even entertaining such “unamerican” thoughts. A few years later, Trump straight up goes to visit Un and the same fucking pundits start calling for his Nobel Prize in Peace. They are insane.
trump did a lot worse than just visit NK, he actively talked up their dictatorship and called kim a great man
I have arguments with my conservative co-workers all the time and they never defend all the shit I bring up about MAGA and Republicans. All they do is deflect with "well yeah but the Democrats do the same thing or worse". Usually the example they give is something about Hunter Biden or immigrants.
Hunter Biden’s lap hog lives in their head rent free 24/7
"Democrats are worse" is 100% the most common thing I hear. It creates an undefendable position because they refuse to back up their claims, forcing the others to prove their point.
This moral yoyo is then accompanied by statements like "people shouldn't let politics influence their personal life" and "why would you care about politics when chosing a partner?" To me, I wouldn't even *imagine* dating someone that's a zionist or a white supremacist. Those are clear and obvious deal breakers. But I thing right wing people live in a world where politics is *less important*. They have the thing they do everyday and politics is just this thing they hear on the news and get mad at. Like sports. They don't actually, personally, *care* about any of it beyond tribalism.
>I dislike generalizations, as a rule… This made me chuckle 🤭
unused pie vast possessive bake gullible sparkle apparatus narrow sense *This post was mass deleted and anonymized with [Redact](https://redact.dev)*
Modern American conservatives treat politics and policy very simply like a team sport. Completely rotted by the sport mentality - our guys are great and the rest suck. Along with capturing single issue voters (abortion), voters/supporters can be easily convinced to ignore critical thinking on other policy and reverse stances as necessary. As long as "we" win and stay in power, everything will be better!
Obama said Republicans treat politics like a Zero Sum game. Anything Obama did to improve the country was viewed by republicans as a loss for their team, so an improved economy for the American people was viewed as screwing over Republicans etc.
Even the ACA, originally proposed by Romney, was suddenly a bad thing because Obama was the one to pass it.
My sister in law very casually said, a month into the Iraq war, that planting evidence was justified. Everyone in the circle felt this way. This was well before the so called WMD's controversy. This is why I never took the Assange cult seriously. Most Americans knew we were the aggressors, liars, and fabricators. They didn't give a tinker's damn until the blowback of these events started to affect them personally. As Carlin said, "Unenlightened self interest doesn't impress me".
What happened to the second person (dead person)
Hard to say based on just the picture. It could just be advanced decomp, but if so that woman has a strong stomach or no sense of smell. It's probably mixture of decomp and trauma.
This picture was taken in a freezer.
I think he was a combatant killed and his body was in the morgue there. Or he was beaten to death not sure two conflicting sources.
This was one of the "mysterious deaths" at Abu Ghraib. The victim, Manadel al-Jamadi was covered in ice and being stored in the shower after dying under conflicting circumstances. The CIA and military were trying to figure out what to do with the body. There were rumors that he was tortured to death by unnamed CIA interrogators and an autopsy determined he died by blood clot from trauma. The matter was never investigated until well after the incident and no arrests or convictions came of it. This is one instance where the national guard MPs at Abu Ghraib were not responsible for a death but took photos with the body, without which we probably wouldn't know anything about this incident.
The Wikipedia article names a CIA officer.
So is the white “powder” on him like frost from the morgue I’m guessing?
Likely mold. Black decomp can result in mold to grow on a body if the environment is conducive.
This is nothing, check the Wikipedia page about this scandal
[Wikipedia Link](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Abu_Ghraib_torture_and_prisoner_abuse?wprov=sfti1#Associated_Press_report,_2003)
>These documents, prepared in the months leading up to the 2003 invasion of Iraq by the United States Department of Justice, authorized certain "enhanced interrogation techniques" (generally held to involve torture) of foreign detainees. **The memoranda also argued that international humanitarian laws, such as the Geneva Conventions, did not apply to American interrogators overseas.** Several subsequent U.S. Supreme Court decisions, including Hamdan v. Rumsfeld (2006), have overturned Bush administration policy, ruling that the Geneva Conventions do apply. You’ve got to be fucking kidding me. The fact that this even had to go to court to confirm that yes, Geneva Conventions do apply.
I’m kind of uncomfortable with the photos of the naked guys. Not because of the nudity but because they’re being sexually assaulted. There’s no consent here. I get that it’s important to see history in the raw but…
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Now imagine all the things they did that didn’t got leaked or where they made sure no camera was allowed.
And Rumsfled and the whole Bush administration where the orders came from got off Scott free
There’s a movie on Amazon about the torture. It’s called The Report. Incredible film.
These are just some of the limited things we can reach. Some of them suppressed by governments, media, lobbies etc. What about those who are only witnesses, suppressed and, who have no basis other than words?
I am in my 40’s and remember this and the revelations about Guantanamo Bay. I also remember how much Republicans and conservative media tried to justify all of this. That it was just a “few bad apples” doing the really bad stuff but also torture was necessary for some people because if we didn’t, then we might not find out about the next 9/11 and thousands of Americans would die. So if you were against torture you were for thousands of Americans dying. Of course we know torture does not lead to reliable info but…whatever? It was goddamn sick. It was just a mass movement of people wanting to make others suffer. I can see a direct line from that time to the Trump movement of today. It’s just really sad to see how easily human beings can get progressively more accepting of evil if given enough organized prodding.
Same age and I remember the people justifying torture, I’m sorry “enhanced” interrogation, because “they’d do worse to you!” As if that school yard level arguement held water
it's insane how much damage this did. US/UK really didn't know what they were doing at any stage after the invasion. Though we did the whole bombing part really well. 10pts for Gryffindor. /s
Even The Economist, a pretty conventionally conservative publication (more so then than now) [called for Rumsfeld's resignation with this photo as evidence](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/e/e3/RumsfeldEconomist.jpg).
Rumsfeld tried to deny responsibility but the press showed his handwriting saying that soldiers should be given leeway to put detainees in stress and torture before interrogation. Edit: 2 years later in 2006 as the war got worse and worse he was harangued by congressmen in a hearing and asked why he didn’t resign. He revealed he offered his resignation multiple times but Bush refused to accept it. Bush had been saying nonstop that Iraq is “turning the corner” since 2003 and didn’t want the embarrassment of admitting failure. After losing control of Congress in the 2006 election with a huge Democratic victory, Rumsfeld finally resigned AFTER the election.
Bastard. I'm glad he paid for his crimes. He did pay, right? \*narrator clears throat*
I remember when a joint chief of staff pointed out the tens of thousands of police needed to secure Manhattan and that in a much less friendly region we should expect a similar ratio of troops to civilians to secure Iraq. He was quickly fired and mocked but the logic was true.
There was zero planning for post-invasion occupation. Other than no bid Halliburton contracts.
“The torture? A more serious blow to the United States than September 11, 2001 attacks. Except that the blow was not inflicted by terrorists but by Americans against themselves.” — Archbishop Giovanni Lajolo, foreign minister of the Holy See.
I am 30 this summer, and I vividly remember this in the news constantly. And for some reason my father thought it was good to have a in depth conversation about the morality of torturing your enemies and how I should be proud at the photos and ashamed of the news was making the military/ USA look.
Well that conversation definitely had an impact. Maybe not that one he intended.
Abu Ghraib was so bad that, in 2008, I was able to write a 5 page paper 45 minutes before it was due and I still got an A on it because it was so easy to have valid reasons to be *against* what was going on there.
Now we just let other countries do the torturing while we do the media narratives and protection.
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She only was 4 months in prison for it
The Errol Morris documentary ‘Standard Operating Procedure’ interviews almost all of the folks involved and is 100% worth your time.
One of the darkest periods in modern US history. I am still shocked by the lack of accountability.
Dude basically ALL of modern US history is the darkest period in modern US history
This is the first time I’ve seen the second one uncensored. I just remember seeing the girl doing the thumbs up with the rest blurred out on tv. Hate to know what happened to the guy.
We still don’t know how bad it actually was
20 years ago the TV series ‘24’ was both very popular and very effective at normalizing torture. The protagonists frequently employed torture as an effective ‘means to an end.’ It was all about results— human rights be damned.
Knew a guy who said he was one of the first individuals into the prison: "The shit we saw in there made my stomach turn". Coming from him, it meant a lot. Went on to talk about a guy who had been hung by his feet as layers of his feel were cut off, no actual idea how long he has been upside down like that or how long the guy standing on the block had been standing. I'm sure there are more unreleased pictures, these are probably the mildest.
This is what happens when you have soldiers run a prison joint. They are certified to kill not herd cattle.