Prisoner abuse v. 2.0

[Freak]

:mad: We show soldiers laughing at nekkid Iraqis, and they show the crap below. Yet we are still the bad guys. Give me a mother f****** break.

American in Iraq Beheaded by Militants (http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,119615,00.html)

Tuesday, May 11, 2004


A 26-year-old American from Pennsylvania was beheaded to avenge the abuse of Iraqi prisoners by U.S. soldiers and the militants who killed him videotaped the crime and posted it on a Web site.

U.S. officials think that terrorist Abu Musab al-Zarqawi (search) may have either authorized the execution or actually performed the act himself.

The video showed five men wearing headscarves and black ski masks, standing over a bound man in an orange jumpsuit — similar to a prisoner's uniform — who identified himself as Nick Berg (search), a U.S. contractor whose body was found on a highway overpass in Baghdad on Saturday.

"My name is Nick Berg, my father's name is Michael, my mother's name is Susan," the man said on the video. "I have a brother and sister, David and Sarah. I live in ... Philadelphia."

After reading a statement, the men were seen pulling the man to his side and putting a large knife to his neck. A scream sounded as the men cut his head off, shouting "Allahu Akbar!" — "God is great." They then held the head out before the camera.

Berg's family said Tuesday they knew their son had been decapitated, but didn't know the details of the killing. When told of the video by an Associated Press reporter, Berg's father, Michael, and his two siblings hugged and cried.

"I knew he was decapitated before. That manner is preferable to a long and torturous death. But I didn't want it to become public," Michael Berg said.

As President Bush boarded Air Force One headed back to Washington D.C., Press Secretary Scott McClellan told reporters that the president's thoughts and prayers are with Nick Berg and with his family.

"This shows the true nature of the people who are opposed to freedom and democracy in the region," McClellan said. "Those who carried out this crime will be pursued and brought to justice."

On the Web site, one of the executioners read a statement:

"For the mothers and wives of American soldiers, we tell you that we offered the U.S. administration to exchange this hostage with some of the detainees in Abu Ghraib (search) and they refused."

"So we tell you that the dignity of the Muslim men and women in Abu Ghraib and others is not redeemed except by blood and souls. You will not receive anything from us but coffins after coffins ... slaughtered in this way."

The video bore the title "Abu Musab al-Zarqawi shown slaughtering an American." It was unclear whether al-Zarqawi — a lieutenant of Usama bin Laden — was shown in the video, or was claiming responsibility for ordering the execution.

The Web site on which the video was posted is known as a clearing house for Al Qaeda and Islamic extremist groups' statements and tapes. An audiotape purportedly from bin Laden — which the CIA said was probably authentic — appeared on the same Web site last week.

Western officials say al-Zarqawi, whose real name is Ahmad Fadhil al-Khalayleh, is a lieutenant of bin Laden. The United States has offered $10 million for information leading to the capture or killing of al-Zarqawi, saying he is trying to build a network of foreign militants in Iraq to work for Al Qaeda.

In the video, the speaker threatened both President Bush and Pakistani President Gen. Pervez Musharraf (search).

"As for you Bush ... expect severe days. You and your soldiers will regret the day you stepped into the land of Iraq," he said. He described Musharraf as "a traitor agent."

The slaying recalled the kidnapping and videotaped beheading of Wall Street Journal reporter Daniel Pearl (search) in 2002 in Pakistan. Four Islamic militants have been convicted of kidnapping Pearl, but seven other suspects — including those who allegedly slit his throat — remain at large.

Suzanne Berg, the mother of the 26-year-old Berg, of West Chester, Pa., said her son was in Iraq as an independent businessman to help rebuild communication antennas. He had been missing since April 9, she said.

"He had this idea that he could help rebuild the infrastructure," she said.

The U.S. military Tuesday said an American civilian was found dead in Baghdad, but did not release his identity. State Department spokeswoman Susan Pittman said she couldn't release the name of the dead American, but said she not aware of more than one civilian found dead in recent days.

The military said there were signs of trauma to the body. Suzanne Berg said she was told her son's death was violent but did not want to discuss details.

Berg, who was in Baghdad from late December to Feb. 1, returned to Iraq in March. He didn't find any work and planned again to return home on March 30, but his daily communications home stopped on March 24. He later told his parents he was jailed by Iraqi officials at a checkpoint in Mosul.

"He was arrested and held without due process," his father, Michael Berg, told the Daily Local News of West Chester recently. "By the time he got out the whole area was inflamed with violence.

The FBI on March 31 interviewed Berg's parents in West Chester. Jerri Williams, a spokeswoman for the Philadelphia FBI office, told The Philadelphia Inquirer the agency had been "asked to interview the parents regarding Mr. Berg's purpose in Iraq."

On April 5, the Bergs filed suit in federal court in Philadelphia, contending that their son was being held illegally by the U.S. military. The next day Berg was released. He told his parents he hadn't been mistreated.

The Bergs last heard from their son April 9, when he said he would come home by way of Jordan, Turkey or Kuwait. But by then, hostilities in Iraq had escalated.

Suzanne Berg on Tuesday said she was told her son's body would be transported to Kuwait and then to Dover, Del. She said the family had been trying for weeks to learn where their son was but that federal officials had not been helpful.

"I went through this with them for weeks," she said. "I basically ended up doing most of the investigating myself."

The Associated Press contributed to this report.

[KrzDefKat]

:mad: B@stards!
Humiliation is a far cry from decapitating an innocent person on video.
I never felt sorry for those b@stards in the prison either. How do you compare that to what they did to those 4 contractors, among others?
And this will somehow get twisted around to be all Bush's fault again.

My thoughts and prayers are with the Berg family.

[Sideout]

Usually I'd try for something witty to add...but this pretty much just pisses me off to a level beyond words :nolike:

[Eddy's Geist]

Yeah, the idiots don't know nothing about PR. They were sitting "pretty" and then they squander any goodwill with a beheading.

As far as the abuse goes... it's still wrong if we do it. Keep in mind it's not some inconsequential thing that can be considered hazing or such. If it was you wouldn't have Bush and Rumsfield apologizing for it.

[JDub]

Keep in mind it's not some inconsequential thing that can be considered hazing or such. If it was you wouldn't have Bush and Rumsfield apologizing for it.

Unless it's an election year. :shrug:

[gopsdragon]

Have We Lost Our Warrior Spirit?

Alan Caruba / Anxiety Center -- I seriously doubt that any of the detainees in the jails in Iraq have ever read, nor even heard of the Geneva Convention. When I was in the Army, no one ever devoted a minute to discussing it, but maybe things have changed. These rules of conduct for war certainly are unknown to the terrorists who have been waging war on the United States of America.

There clearly were abuses, maybe even criminal acts committed against some of the Iraqi detainees, but the huge uproar over these isolated events is designed to (1) undermine homefront and military morale, and support for the war, and (2) to bolster the resistance to the creation of a democratic nation, Iraq, in the midst of a region that has no other true democracy other than Israel. We seem to have instantly forgotten the killing and mutilation of the bodies of US contractors and the constant danger that confronts our fighting forces. We pay scant attention to the endless bombings and murders perpetrated against the Israelis.

All of the major problems of the world these days come from the Middle East. We either change that region through force of arms and through diplomacy or none of us will ever sleep peacefully in our beds.

I have not liked the American reaction and I have not liked seeing our President publicly apologize for the acts of a few soldiers. From a public relations point of view, I suppose this was necessary, but I don't recall hearing anything from the Arab press over the three decades that Saddam was jailing, torturing, and killing millions of Iraqis. This is the same Saddam whose cousin, dubbed "Chemical Ali", gassed thousands of Kurds and used chemical warfare during the eight-year war with Iran. And people are still saying there were no weapons of mass destruction in Iraq.

Except for those extraordinary young men and women who volunteered to defend us, I fear we have lost our warrior spirit, the kind of beliefs that permit us to face danger and defeat it. Have we forgotten that the same kind of people attacking our soldiers in Iraq were the ones that attacked us on 9-11?

War is a monstrous undertaking. Americans have fought their share of wars and, most notably, have not done so in quest of an empire. In the last century, we fought to preserve freedom. In this century, we are fighting to expand it against one of its most ancient and ruthless enemies, the Islamic Jihad.

Americans need to remember how we accomplished the end of World War II. We destroyed two Japanese cities with A-bombs in order to secure that nation's surrender and in Europe we reduced the cities of Nazi Germany to rubble. That war cost the lives of an estimated sixty million people around the world. We made the sacrifices necessary to protect the world against two vile dictatorships. We did what was necessary to end it.

It is the warrior spirit that enabled the first Americans to fight the greatest military power of its time in order to found a new nation; we survived a Civil War and we emerged victorious from two World Wars. We stymied enemies in Korea and everywhere else other than Vietnam. We lost Vietnam because of too much political interference with the military and because Americans had grown weary of the conflict.

This nation gave up the notion of a citizen army after the Vietnam conflict in favor of a volunteer army. Now, in Iraq, that army, plus our National Guard units and reserves may not be sufficient to meet the challenge. If you wonder why, just think back to the eight years of the Clinton-Gore administration that did its best to decimate our fighting forces on the land, the sea and in the air.

If you watch C-Span, you can listen to generals of those units tell Congress they are undermanned, they are not battle ready. There are plans to expand the numbers of our active military forces because they are insufficient to meet our worldwide commitments. It will take three years. If we were to announce tomorrow that we will pull our troops out of the many nations we protect and assist, the outcry would be heard from every capital.

Meanwhile, our troops are on the Iraq battlefield, sometimes driving humvees that don't even have doors, let alone armor plating. They are being picked off in small, but steady numbers by mortars, roadside improvised explosives, and by small arms. Americans are watching this war on television and the news for weeks now has been bad. Despite the fact that we are having considerable success fighting the Shiite militia of the radical Muqtada al-Sadr, that news is drowned out by the PR fiasco. Thanks to the abysmal press coverage of the war there is the feeling we are bogged down. The press does not let a single death pass unnoted.

There is yet another, virtually unspoken factor. Here at home, Americans are growing increasingly fearful of another terror attack. Forget about whether such an attack would politically benefit either Bush or Kerry. It would not take much to plunge us back to the days following 9-11. The economy was severely harmed. Our airlines are still in big trouble. It took two years before consumers began to feel safe enough to spend money.

And this war is costing us about $60 billion a year while Congress continues to spend money on a whole range of other things that includes a level of pork-barrel projects that defy the imagination. This Congress is one of the worst in decades. Both sides of the aisle are selling us down the river.

The war is taking place in Iraq and Afghanistan these days, but it's here, too. Having accepted the challenge of ending the threat to this nation and the world, are we losing our nerve?

A new memorial to those who sacrificed their lives in World War II is a vivid reminder of what the last big war required of us. We call them "the greatest generation", but will we - that's all of us--be able to pick up the banner of freedom and fight the greatest enemy of this new century and defeat it?

In November, we will vote for either the President who committed us to the war after we were attacked on 9-11 or a candidate who, from week to week, can't decide if he is for or against it. If Kerry's track record means anything, he is against it. If Kerry wins, it will mean our warrior spirit, our willingness to fight for freedom will have been abandoned.

Alan Caruba writes "Warning Signs", a weekly commentary posted on www.anxietycenter.com, the website of The National Anxiety Center.

© Alan Caruba 2004

http://www.conservativemonitor.com/opinion04/54.shtml

[Sideout]

Yeah, the idiots don't know nothing about PR. They were sitting "pretty"

You got that right, Ed - all this 'abuse' exposure made it so the prisoners were home free - all they had to do was cry abuse and you couldn't even look at them funny :idiot:

[RicardoHead]

The press does not let a single death pass unnoted.
Nor should it. The rest of the article hits the nail on the head though.

Personally although I have relatives and familial connections to the Middle East, I've said for years the cultures there are deserving of nuclear annihilation, just to clean out the refuse. Not that I wish that on the vast majority of folk there who are good, but decent societies can only tolerate and resist a very small percentage of people who are evil (like maybe 1/100th of a percent, maybe) before they go bad entirely. My guess is that way more than 1 in 10,000 people over there are rotten to the core. Normally I wouldn't care if a society on the other side of the planet is effed up, but in the modern world where they are able to inflict their evil anywhere it's an issue you gotta deal with.

I remember once reading a comment to the effect of "to deal with barbarians, you have to be barbaric" and not civilized because if you try to remain civilized, you will lose. Terrorism is a barbaric cancer, and though chemotherapy sucks and no one likes it it's what you gotta do.

[Eddy's Geist]

Exactly. Home free and probably some money in hand for their "loss".

The PLO were soooo smart with this kind of crap. Send out children to throw rocks at Israeli soldiers and after the idiot israelies fired on the kids the PLO would make sure that a western journalist just happened to witness the event and the pictures of the dead little rock-throwing kiddies would be on dozens of front pages by the next day. Excellent PR!

[Freak]

Have We Lost Our Warrior Spirit?


um... yeah, I was going to type that same thing. ;)

My sentiments exactly. :worthy:

[Pistol Pete]

Where is the real, uncensored video??? I keep hearing about it, but none of the news outlets show the terrorist website, or the video.

I came really close to knocking my boss out today during a meeting. He's one of those "group hug-feel good-America is a threat to 3rd World Countries-we can't do anything about the global shift so let's accept it-left wing bastards". When I told him, and others in a meeting about Berg getting his head chopped off, the son of a bitch said, in his pussy voice, "Well, we need to stop this tit-for-tat. It only makes things worse." TIT FOR TAT?? I called for mass extermination with napalm and germs. But he, the canook, and a yankee from Bombay just couldn't see the light.
We're in a war! A war for our survival! Anything less than total victory, is a sin against free humanity. It's unfortunate that some people want to make excuses for the enemy and hold out for the never-arriving utopia. Then again, others just don't give a shit.

[Freak]

Where is the real, uncensored video??? I keep hearing about it, but none of the news outlets show the terrorist website, or the video.

It's on Hanity's website. Pretty freakin' sad. Look there.

[shotglass]

It's on Hanity's website. Pretty freakin' sad. Look there.

The links have been taken down. :fbomb:

[Pistol Pete]

The links have been taken down. :fbomb:

Well, that figures. All we get in this country is censored crap. I guess Freedom of the Press means they're free to keep us in the dark. :idiot:

[Freak]

Sorry, But It's Time to Stop Apologizing

Tuesday, May 11, 2004

By John Moody

I'm sorry to have to tell you this: We are apologizing too much.

Now that President Bush, Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld and several top officers in our armed forces have apologized for the mistreatment of Iraqis at Abu Ghraib (search) prison, it seems only fair to ask — what is the apology for?

Don't misunderstand. There's a reason to regret what happened and make sure it doesn't occur again.

I just fear that we, as a country and society, are saying sorry with the wrong motivation. The pictures of naked prisoners tethered to leashes, contorted into human pyramids and pinioned to their cell doors are distasteful to us as we sit in our living rooms.

But what if you or I were in that prison, trying not only to guard prisoners, but extract from them information that could save a loved one's life? How heavy-handed might you become if the stakes were personal?

The soldiers and guardsmen who are accused — not yet convicted — of abusing their captives made some questionable decisions. They will probably pay for them with their military careers, their reputations, or in some cases, time behind bars.

It's important, though, not to judge all our servicemen and women by what happened in Abu Ghraib or to judge what happened there by the standards of behavior applied to civilian society.

More than a year after the U.S. invasion deposed Saddam Hussein, Iraq is one of the most dangerous places on earth. Nothing increases the chance of falling victim to that violence more than wearing an American military uniform — the same garb we profess to admire as we thank our troops for keeping us free.

Should we revoke that admiration because some small fraction of our troops took license with others' dignity? It might be worthwhile to try to put ourselves in their combat boots for a moment.

As of this writing, 717 American soldiers, Marines and guardsmen have died trying to secure Iraq's freedom. The cheers with which they were met along Baghdad's streets in April 2003 have been replaced, at least on the surface, with a shower of roadside bombs, improvised explosive devices and hand grenades.

When confronted with violence, our troops react as they are taught. They kill some of their aggressors, wound some, and arrest others.

People who fall into the latter two categories are those who are incarcerated at Abu Ghraib. Many have either killed or tried to kill the comrades, friends or barracks-mates of the troops guarding them.

How gentle could you be with the killer of your best friend? Or someone who you saw cheering that crime?

On March 31, a van of American civilians traveling through Fallujah (search) was set upon by a band of Iraqi thugs. They were there to help the country to its feet.

In gratitude for that work, their vehicle was set on fire, they were dragged from it and hacked to pieces, and their bodies were dragged through the streets and strung from a bridge.

Many TV networks, including Fox News, deemed the pictures too shocking to air. Fox also heavily censored a videotape of torture sessions carried out by Saddam's regime.

In retrospect, that may have been a mistake. Without showing the charred bodies of Americans dangling in ignominy, or the lopped off-arms of justice Saddam-style, how can we judge the pictures we are now clucking over?

Was one worse than the other? Where was the outrage, after Fallujah, from members of Congress and other self-appointed mullahs of morality? Do we expect American soldiers to be morally superior to the people who are trying to kill them, and at the same time win a war in which there are no rules of conduct for one side? Does that somehow smack of ... racism?

Americans are living in a split-screen world of war and wealth. Since 9/11, we have conducted our lives with the nervous knowledge that we can be reached, injured and killed by fanatics who do not know us but wish us dead. For some months now, the reality of terrorism has been seen in other places: Bali, Madrid and day after day after day, Iraq.

Meanwhile, millions tut-tut over the exposed breast of an entertainer on the 50-yard line, willing themselves to ignore the amputated limbs and splattered brain matter of men and women in our nation's service.

Others fret as gasoline prices near 50 percent of what they are in Europe. Fans cry real tears because a sitcom is ending. We shriek with indignation that Iraqi suspects are humiliated, but forget the specter of Fallujah.

We can't have it both ways, I'm sorry to say. See? I'm getting the hang of this apology thing. It's a pity, isn't it?

John Moody is Senior Vice President, Fox News Editorial.

[shotglass]

Video is now here. Get it while you can.

http://www.goexcelglobal.com/homelandsecurityus/iraq2vediom.wmv

[shotglass]

Translation of what they said before killing Berg.

Sheikh Abu Mus'ab Alzrqawy slaughters an American with his hands and threatens Bush with more

A statement to the nation

The praise of Allah for all Muslims with his support and the humiliating of those who attempt to defeat Islam and who attack it and who entice the unbelievers with their cunning.

The one that appreciated the days countries with its justice and the prayer and the greeting on from above the Islam lighthouse by its sword as for after :

The Islamic nation

You rejoice at the first signs of the dawn that have started that have granted the wind of triumph. Allah was benevolent to us in Al Fallujah, granting us victory

On one of the days of Allah and that was known to Allah alone

The Islamic nation

Does any excuse for waiting remain? How the free Muslim sleeps, with his eyelids closed.

And he sees that Islam is slaughtered and can be seen bleeding its dignity

And the shameful pictures and the news of the evil humiliation of the Islam people men and women in Ghareb 's father prison then where the jealousy and where the zeal and where the anger about the Allah's religion and where the jealousy for the Muslims sanctities and where the revenge for the honors of Muslims and Muslims is in the crosses prisons .

As for you are the Islam clerics then to Allah we complain about you, you see that Allah have founded the argument on you by the Islam young man who humiliated the strongest force in the date then broke its nose and destroyed its pride

We came to you that you learn from them the reliance meanings and derive from their doing the lessons of sacrifice and redemption to when you remain as the women you master only the slapping language and know only the way of wail and weeping

Then this appeals the world freemen and this it begs Kofi Annan and a third begs Amr Moussa and fourth he demands peaceful demonstrations and as if they did not hear to his saying ( ( O you the prophet incited the believers to the fight ) )

You were fed up with the fight of the conferences and the oratorical battles ohm came to you that you take the jihad way and carry the sword that sent by it the prophets master

And we beg from you that you do not be involved as usual in the denial of what will do it satisfaction of the Americans

He has ordered the prophet - peace be upon him - and he is master the merciful are with the slitting of the necks of some prisoners and their slow killing

And for us it is an example and a good example

As for you, the Roman dog Bush, I hope you are displeased and we wait for you with God's Help tough days and you and your soldiers today who tred Iraq's land will regret it.

And she dared in it to the Muslims fever

And another message to traitor Pervez Musharraf then we say to him that we in wait for your meeting with your soldiers

We demand of the American and will take revenge for the blood of our brothers in and Iraq and elsewhere

And as for you and the Americans soldiers wife then we say that we offered to the American administration this prisoner in exchange for some of the prisoners in Abu Ghareb prison but they refused

Then we say but if the dignity of Muslims and Muslims in Abu Ghareb prison and others is worth theur blood and souls

we tell you to know that the coffins will arrive to you one coffin after another, as your people are slaughtered in this way.........

Then you kill the polytheists where you find them and you take them and count them and place them where they can be seen.

Allah is the greatest and the honour to Allah and to its messenger and to the militants

And our last claim is that the praise of Allah is the Lord of the Worlds

Abu Mus'ab Alzrqawy
Prince of Al Tawhid group and jihad
Iraq
22 Rabi I 1425
*******************
11/5/2004

And you see the slaughter, your fighting brothers suspend the head of this unbeliever on one of Baghdad bridges so that they teach a lesson to others from the infidels and serves as a witness to the honour of the Muslims

[Dave]

Exactly what are we saving our nuclear weapons for?

[Eddy's Geist]

Ya know... nuclear bombs are cool and all but they kill really quickly.

If you really want to see the Iraqi people suffer then have the troops all come home and leave the country to the Iraqis. Within a year or so there will be yet another dictator and the people will be oppressed and live in poverty, etc... Suitable punishment.

[Freak]

Ya know, I was thinking that last night Ed. Order a complete and total withdrawl, and just see what happens. Hell, do that and threat with some nukes. We wouldn't even have to use them, just cause a bunch of panic. :cool:

[Dave]

Ya know... nuclear bombs are cool and all but they kill really quickly.

But they make pretty mushroom clouds

[JBMoney]

There's always the three state option that has been mentioned in a couple articles. The Turks and others would go bat shit, but feh...

Give the Kurds the state they've always wanted and arguably deserve, in the North. They have plenty of oil to exploit and build a new country, and are hardcore US allies. Likely a Democracy.

Give the Shiites their state in the south. They have plenty of oil to exploit and build a new country, and eventually would probably have at least the same level of relations with us that we have with say Saudi Arabia (could be better or worse).

Give the Sunnis their landlocked state in the middle, surrounded by enemies, with no fucking oil whatsoever, and let them work it out.

[Eddy's Geist]

I like it!

Broadcast the following scene:

"Dick Cheney is sitting in a darkened command center...

his index finger is hovering over a large red button...

you see he's watching a looped replay of the Berg beheading on a video monitor and his hand starts shaking with a slight palsey...

the camera pans over and centers on the shaking hand...

zoom closeup...

hand begins to violently shake and the index finger begins to jab at the red button...

freeze frame and back up camera...

Cheney removes hand from above red button and reached for a pill bottle where he angrily shakes out a nitro pill and places it under his tongue...

end shot...

Scene changes to an adjoing room with a one way mirror. Several military chiefs are standing at the mirror watching Cheney...

Money is being exchanged between the losers and the winners as laughter fills the room...

One general (who looks very much like the front man from the band "Men at work" ) exclaims "Damn, I was sure he was going to fire on the bastards THIS time" he laughs and says "I got 50 bucks that says he'll launch on Sunday!"

[Dave]

There's always the three state option that has been mentioned in a couple articles. The Turks and others would go bat shit, but feh...

Give the Kurds the state they've always wanted and arguably deserve, in the North. They have plenty of oil to exploit and build a new country, and are hardcore US allies. Likely a Democracy.

Give the Shiites their state in the south. They have plenty of oil to exploit and build a new country, and eventually would probably have at least the same level of relations with us that we have with say Saudi Arabia (could be better or worse).

Give the Sunnis their landlocked state in the middle, surrounded by enemies, with no fucking oil whatsoever, and let them work it out.

Where would the Gaza Strip go?? :shrug:
Or better yet the Las Vegas strip

[Pistol Pete]

I watched the full, disturbing, murder video today and take back all negative comments I've made towards the prison guards. I don't care what they do to enemy prisoners. My supervisor (fanatical, left-wing whiner) tried to make excuses for the killers (he has nothing but condemnation of the jailers: It's all Bush's fault). That wasn't a smart move on his part. Perhaps a stint of interrogation by the FBI will give him pause.

[Eddy's Geist]

I don't think the FBI will be all that interested Pistol Pete. There's probably 75 million Americans who think Bush is to blame and there just isn't enough agents to go around. You have to come up with a really good story for them to get interested enough to send someone out and interview the guy. I know this to be true as it took quite a bit of effort before I got some FBI guys to hassle the dick-head manager I used to work for.

Boy, did I get a good laugh!!!

Now, if your boss had ordered and read my latest book: "Smart like me" he would have found that you really have to make a huge lie to get someone to believe a scandalous whoremongering conspiracy as the god-awful truth.

Your boss should of tried this one (From chapter 1):

(Always start any Bush story with the following comment:)

"Well, you know... Bush and Co will go to any length to steal the next election...

Here's what happened with Berg. Bush and Co. needed away to get the american public angry at the oppressed Iraqis. The CIA went to Iraq and found the most militant american-hating Iraqis and told them that Berg was working as a double agent for the Mossad and he was passing information on American troop positions and Iraqi insurgents to the Israeli Mossad so they could plan an invasion of Iraq and convert all the Iraqi to Judaism. The CIA gave the militants all the information they had on Berg's movements and his current location. In fact... they even gave the militants the video equipment that was used for the filming of the beheading... "

:thumbsup:

[KrzDefKat]

Thu, May 13, 2004

Indignities hurt all in Iraq

By PETER WORTHINGTON -- For the Toronto Sun

Does the beheading of another American by al-Qaida terrorists prove America was wrong to invade Iraq and overthrow Saddam Hussein?

Was freelance telephone engineer Nick Berg, 26, kidnapped and beheaded because of American indignities imposed on prisoners held in Iraq's notorious Abu Ghraib prison?

The answer to both questions is "No."

If anything, the grisly murder of Berg on videotape, with his head being hacked off while he was still alive and screaming, justifies going to war to eliminate people who indulge in such atrocities.

Berg's death recalls the equally depraved "execution" (if murder can be called that) of the Wall Street Journal's Daniel Pearl by al-Qaida terrorists in Pakistan in 2002 and also videotaped.

For al-Qaida (or its inadvertent apologists in the West) to suggest that the murder of Berg was related to what U.S. prison guards were doing in Abu Ghraib prison is unacceptable nonsense.

Al-Qaida doesn't play by Western rules, is contemptuous of Western values.

And the murder of Berg reinforces the necessity for the civilized world to co-operate to try to eliminate or curtail such behaviour.

Nor does al-Qaida barbarism mitigate or justify what was going on in Abu Ghraib prison -- though inevitably it makes the depraved, rogue behaviour of American Military Police guards seem less offensive by comparison.

Ironically, the ghastly death of Berg may help the Bush administration weather the uproar being generated by the behaviour of guards at the prison. If so, it's a pity.

These U.S. soldiers were not only demeaning and debasing Iraqis, they were humiliating and degrading themselves, the U.S. army, and those who support America as something worthy and admirable.

These "soldiers" were even videotaping each other having sex, for heaven's sake, which shows an astonishing lack of self respect and propriety.

At the Senate inquiry, there's an attempt to explain or justify the aberrant behaviour by noting that the guards were ill-trained, not adequately instructed, poorly supervised, blah, blah, blah.

More nonsense. Your don't have to be trained or instructed to know that simulating or performing sex acts with prisoners, or leashing them like dogs, or posing them naked, or draping women's underwear on their faces is wrong.

Rather, you have to indoctrinate or persuade normal individuals that this is the way to behave. The fact that they so cheerfully and blatantly posed for cameras indicates abnormal conduct.

The gleeful assassination of Nick Berg by these al-Qaida people will probably strengthen Bush's hand at the moment.

Berg's father is on record seeming to blame President Bush for his son's death, suggesting that had not Berg been taken in custody by U.S. forces for a couple of weeks in March, he might have been able to leave Iraq safely.

This seems a father's frustration and sorrow being manifested -- having to blame someone.

Nick Berg was questioned by the U.S. military because he'd been travelling in the country without authority and Iraqis turned him over to U.S. forces.

In other words, he was on his own -- either as someone trying to help Iraqis, someone in search of adventure, or someone trying to make money in a high-risk area. Or a mixture of all these motives.

His tragedy is that he gambled -- and lost.

These things happen, and are happening more today than they used to, thanks to the sophistication and technology of the barbarians.

One cannot realistically argue with the U.S. administration for wanting a free, secure and civilized world, though one can argue with the methods used to achieve this.

The debate should focus on methodology.

By its depravity, al-Qaida has once again vindicated the need for the war against terror, which cannot be won by appeasement, surrender or misguided tolerance.

http://www.canoe.ca/NewsStand/Columnists/Toronto/Peter_Worthington/2004/05/13/457206.html
***
Thu, May 13, 2004

Beheading, prison abuses can't be linked

By SALIM MANSUR -- For the Toronto Sun

THIS WEEK'S videotaped beheading of Nick Berg, a 26-year old American civilian contractor, by al-Qaida-associated insurgents in Iraq is consistent with the practice of Muslim fascists -- as we saw in the murder of journalist Daniel Pearl in Karachi, in February 2002.

Only the misinformed, and those who wilfully dissemble facts, will concoct linkage between abuses in Abu Ghraib prison by American soldiers, and the ritual murder of a defenceless individual taped for broadcast to the world.

This is barbarism in full flight. And it has a lengthy, sordid history within the Arab-Muslim world.

We have seen images of such barbarity as in the ritual killings of veiled women in crowded public stadiums of Afghanistan under the Taliban, and the sadistic killing in public of Najibullah, the former Afghan leader, with his testicles removed and his orifices stuffed with cigarette stubs.

We see it in the cold-blooded murder of a eight-months- pregnant Israeli woman, Tali Hatuel, 34, and her four young daughters, by Palestinian jihadists in Gaza -- and, again in Gaza, in the desecration of the bodies of six Israeli soldiers killed in an explosion.

The fascism of those Muslims, sometimes abetted by power holders in the Arab-Muslim world, who victimized Muslims in Afghanistan or Pakistan without the world paying attention, has gone global.

The dissemblers of this history, and the ostrich-like lib-left crowd in the West, are in denial of what is at stake in the war on terror since 9/11.

But the outrage over abuses in Abu Ghraib, legitimate as it is, is also a backhanded admission that the rest of the world demands and expects from the United States a model of behaviour it is incapable of on its own.

It may well be that the American public may decide to throw in the towel on Iraq and the war on terror, un-elect the sitting president, push a new president to set the pace for isolationist policies, outsource America's responsibilities for peace, security and development to the United Nations, and turn within itself -- while enemies of freedom and civilization dance to the noise of their cult of nihilism and death.

Then again, the same American public, presented with pictures of smoke and debris from Ground Zero in New York and those from Abu Ghraib, may decide there are inevitable costs in defeating enemies of civilization, and stay the course with the present administration.

Bismarck, the iron chancellor of Germany in the 19th century, reputedly remarked that those fond of sausage also avoid seeing how it is prepared. The same applies for those living in a liberal democracy who disdainfully avoid knowing its history and requirements for its defence.

Those living under various types of dictatorships can be excused for their limited understanding or ignorance of what constitutes a liberal democracy, with its fine balance between individual rights and the requirements of security.

But citizens of a liberal democracy cannot be excused for refusing to understand how delicately balanced such a political system is, how great has been the cost of its making, and to what length its enemies are willing to go to destroy it.

The U.S. is not merely another country, or even another liberal democracy. It is the first-born of the great experiment in the political ideas of Enlightenment, a child of modernity itself in whose mature embrace rests the hopes of all those wanting individual rights and freedom for themselves.

This is why so much more is expected of Americans, and not of anyone else, and why the rebuke by those faulting America (who shed no tear for victims of Saddam Hussein) has been so exaggerated.

http://www.canoe.ca/NewsStand/Columnists/Toronto/Salim_Mansur/2004/05/13/457209.html

[KrzDefKat]

Radio hosts fired over beheading jokes

AP

PORTLAND, Oregon -- Two disc jockeys were fired after playing an audiotape of the beheading of American Nick Berg in Iraq, and cracking jokes about the grisly death. Listeners called the radio station to complain after hearing Berg's screams in the broadcast of the tape, followed by the DJs laughing and playing musical accompaniments.

The DJs, known as Marconi and Tiny, were fired Thursday from their morning-show perch at Portland's KNRK-FM, which is owned by Pennsylvania-based Entercom Communications Corp. Station employees would not release the legal names of the DJs.

The station's manager sent an apology out over the airwaves, saying: "The actions of the KNRK news morning show were insensitive, inappropriate and repulsive. On behalf of Entercom Portland and KNRK, I apologize to our listeners."

One of the DJs apologized on his website, posting a statement that read, "I have become so numb to the horrific things that happen in this world that I sometimes forget there are still people who feel. I in no way meant to be insensitive to anyone. My comments on this were inapropriate (sic)."

Berg's headless body was found Saturday in Baghdad. Three days later, a videotape posted on a website linked to al-Qaida showed him decapitated by hooded, armed men.

http://www.canoe.ca/NewsStand/EdmontonSun/News/2004/05/15/460496.html
***
:nolike: :idiot:

[VoiceOfReason]

My friend and I were arguing about the torture methods in the Iraqi prison. He told me that he was surprised and disappointed that I wouldn't sanction any method that might provide information that could prevent another attack and thus make my wife and child safer. Here are my thoughts on this...

I think that if we were fighting the Nazis, or the Russians, or the French, or the Canadians, I might agree with it. With that kind of war, the conflict is geo-political; the enemy is a well-defined, single nation, and the cause of this kind of war is generally political in nature. If the Bobians from Bobsland want to conquer the world and attacked the US because we're in the way, torturing captured Bobians (while still wrong and morally repulsive) WOULD help to eventually ensure the safety of my wife and child, assuming that we were able to extract information from them that would help us in defeating the Bobians and ending the war. With that reasoning and under those circumstances, I agree with you, wholeheartedly.

The trouble is that we are not fighting a geopolitical war, my friend.

We are fighting a war against terrorism, a badly named war that is really a war against violent, extremist Islam (to be rightly differentiated from mainstream Islam). The people we are fighting live in the Phillipines, Saudi Arabia, Kosovo, Nigeria, Palestine, Egypt, Iraq - the list goes on and on and includes, sadly to say, the United States. It is an ideology we are fighting. Followers of that ideology are convinced, morally and religiously, that the USA is an evil nation, with evil practices and evil people. To them, murdering our people and those who support us is a sacred thing to do, since they are backed by God and we are the evil ones. How could it be wrong, they argue, to fight to destroy the United States, a nation that (again, according to them) has committed immoral acts that are repugnant to their religion? They flood the streets, countrysides, and the mosques in search of those who agree with their philosophy and recruit those who, generally, already have anger in their hearts. All it takes is for them to point out some of the things that United States has supposedly done to blaspheme their religion (which they are FAR more fanatic about that most of US) and they have recruited yet another terrorist willing to sacrifice his life flying an airplane into a building for Allah.

Because this is the war we are fighting, because I DO want to protect my wife and child, I cry out passionately against acts of torture that we commit against the people we think are against us. When we do this, we create three effects. First, the world stops believing us that we are standing on the side of all that is good and starts to view us suspiciously, which is a dangerous thing to happen if we are to "win" the war on terrorism, thus increasing the long-term danger to my wife and child. Second, the stories and images of torture (or anything else we end up doing like it) spread about the Islamic world like wildfire, causing those extremists whose philosophies we are fighting to point a finger and claim that they were right all along, that the United States is a sinful, immoral country who treats Muslims like dirt. This has the indirect result of causing more people to respond to the recruiters of Al-Qaeda and other similar organizations, more people willing to give their lives for the goal of our destruction, thus increasing the danger to my child. Lastly, it's been shown (and admiitted by the Department of Defense) that many of the people who were tortured were actually not connected to terrorists or the former regime in any way, and were simply in the wrong place at the wrong time. We are talking about ordinary Iraqis, who normally might look at their liberation from Saddam as a good thing and view the US, perhaps reluctantly, as liberators. However, now that they have been unnecessarily tortured by the United States for information they never possessed in the first place, now that they have been humiliated and tortured in the ways that Islam finds most shaming, they hate us. They hate us with a passion that is not unjustified. Their families hate us. Their friends hate us. Some of them may have hated us already, for reasons that are ideological and subjective, but now they all hate us, and they hate us for reasons that make sense, for reasons that would make you and I hate, as well. This increases the danger to my wife and child greatly.

So if the goal of having "dogs eat the genitals of prisoners so that they talk and explain the next attack", whether they actually KNOW anything about the next attack or not, causes our allies to view us with suspicion, gives our enemies actual, substantiated reasons to hate us, and helps the terrorists to recruit members by the mosque-ful, I don't see how that helps to reduce the danger to my wife and child, or to my best friend, for that matter. We have done nothing but increase the danger to ourselves, to our children, and possibly to our children's children. The best thing we can possibly do right now in this particular brand of war is to treat our enemies with respect, regardless of how little respect they show for us. How can it hurt now, especially when we know that the humiliation, torture, and general disrespect hurts us more, the long run?

[Eddy's Geist]

...Perhaps the president's lawyers have no interest in the global impact of their policies -- but they should be concerned about the treatment of American servicemen and civilians in foreign countries. Before the Bush administration took office, the Army's interrogation procedures -- which were unclassified -- established this simple and sensible test: No technique should be used that, if used by an enemy on an American, would be regarded as a violation of U.S. or international law. Now, imagine that a hostile government were to force an American to take drugs or endure severe mental stress that fell just short of producing irreversible damage; or pain a little milder than that of "organ failure, impairment of bodily function, or even death." What if the foreign interrogator of an American "knows that severe pain will result from his actions" but proceeds because causing such pain is not his main objective? What if a foreign leader were to decide that the torture of an American was needed to protect his country's security? Would Americans regard that as legal, or morally acceptable? According to the Bush administration, they should.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A26602-2004Jun8.html

[Freak]

I think that if we were fighting the Nazis, or the Russians, or the French, or the Canadians, I might agree with it.

Sorry KDK and others, but that was funny. :laugh: ;)

[KrzDefKat]

:p Made me think of the South Park movie... :laugh:

[shotglass]

The Democrats ain't gonna like this. It will break the chain they had expected to climb to try to impeach Bush for the 'abuses' of these terrorists we had captured.

MyWay News. (http://apnews.myway.com/article/20050422/D89KOOI80.html) - WASHINGTON (AP) - The Army has cleared four top officers - including the three-star general who commanded all U.S. forces in Iraq - of all allegations of wrongdoing in connection with prisoner abuse at Abu Ghraib and will not be punished, officials said Friday.

Lt. Gen. Ricardo Sanchez, who became the senior commander in Iraq in June 2003, two months after the fall of Baghdad, had been faulted in earlier investigations for leadership lapses that may have contributed to prisoner abuse. He is the highest ranking officer to face official allegations of leadership failures in Iraq, but he has not been accused of criminal violations.

After assessing the allegations against Sanchez and taking sworn statements from 37 people involved in Iraq, the Army's inspector general, Lt. Gen. Stanley E. Green, concluded that the allegations were unsubstantiated, said the officials who were familiar with the details of Green's probe.

Full story. (http://apnews.myway.com/article/20050422/D89KOOI80.html)