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Subject: How many of the torture pictures are fake?
Blackwood    4/30/2004 9:27:14 PM
There's questions about the alleged torture pictures being passed around on the internet.

The BOTTOM set of photos on the arab site
link
that are not from
link

are obviously from a porn film and not legit
Their uniform is nothing at all like the Iraqi issue.
They're wearing jungle fatigues in a desert.
The tire props are cheap and look like from a Honda, not a Hummer
They have no indentifying insiginia of any army at all.
Some clothing is too large and ill fitting. (One guy's shirt reaches down to his knees in the third from the bottom photo, which was laughed at by a veteran looking over my soldier here.)
Their shoes are cheap and not military issue.
The women gang raped appear to be hispanic and russian, not iraqi.

But the photos on:
link
are harder to dismiss.

The guy in a hospital gown standing on a box does NOT have wires connected to his testicles, despite the earlier verbal reports.

The man "beaten to death" leaves the question, "beaten by whom"? He's certainly not in a US Army body bag, but appears to be wrapped in saran wrap from some arab deli. He may be a shopkeeper beaten to death by a gang. It definately is out of sequence with the rest of the series.

The series with the woman and hooded naked men appears to be legit, the uniform fatigues correct. But is it a training exercise with American GIs playign Iraqis that later fell into goofing off for the camera?

One man has "Rapeist" written across his buttock. He later appears stacked in a naked pyramid with this same word displayed. He may or may not also be the one miming forced oral sex to another man with a bag also still on his head.

While the guy with glasses has rubber gloves for body excavation, the girl who this exercise seems to be about does not. Her role mostly seems to be not laugh outloud at her crew appearing in the buff. The men pose for the camera and strut their stuff while keeping hooded anonymnousness.

Most importantly, all the men are in a jail cell, outnumbering the army staff 8-2, hooded, but with unobstructed hand usage. You can even see one taking off his hood in boredom in the lower right picture, carefully obscurred by a body in the front. Wouldn't prisoners undergoing a body cavity search usually be in handcuffs, at least until any concealled weapons were cleared?

There unfortunately are no tattoos visible in the pictures released. which would be a sure sign of GIs, not Iraqis. There do appear to be bikini tan lines, but that may be a trick of the pixillation. The prisoners do seem to be much more well fed and exercised than you'd expect of someone who's been in prison for a long time. And they're into American frat boy stunts like stacking in a pyramid for the camera. Arab culture also has a severe taboo about exposing the soles of one's feet that seems to be disregarded here.

Currently, I can't conclusively rule out the link photos as a training exercise, but I can say it's possible.
 
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SC29112    RE:How many of the torture pictures are fake?   5/1/2004 1:49:58 AM
Un-bloused BDU's just might give it away, but it is easily apparent to me that these are Arabs, not Americans. But does it matter to viewers on this forum, or Americans in general? We are not the intended audience. You can bet it plays well in the neigborhoods where Al Queda has recruiting offices. Having Rumsfeld in a pic talking to the female BG who ran the place is priceless propaganda fodder we gave them.
 
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realpolitik    RE:How many of the torture pictures are fake?   5/1/2004 2:38:20 AM
Gimme a break. Creating the fantasy of a training exercise to help diminish the deep embarrassment of this issue, is not productive. Why would General Kimmit and President Bush be expressing their dismay at this incident if this was a training exercise? They'd be proclaiming it TRAINING at the top of their voice if such a legitimate explanation was possible. Sad to say, but there are losers in the U.S. military, even people who would torture and kill and rape etc etc. We shouldn't delude ourselves that we are better than everyone, and every last one of us is a paragon of morality. The distinction will be that we acknowledge this tragedy (especially when it has become so public, and visually documented) and that we learn our lesson, and set the example to our people that this is not tolerated, and the consequences are severe. (oh, and yes the lower sequence of pictures look more like staged porno to me. I guess it should be expected that aggressive anti American Arab media will "extend the chili" by adding lots of bogus mystery material, and the Arab public will believe it is all part of the same issue. Showing purported photos of U.S. soldiers forcibly raping Arab women would be a propaganda work of genius to coincide with this incident. The embarrassment just keeps piling up.) P.S., I'm not one of the Anti-US-Iraq adventure whiners. But neither will I try to fantasize a bogus explanation for this event...
 
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TriggaFingaz    Even if fake....   5/1/2004 11:33:33 AM
Even if the torture photos were proven fake (Which is unlikely), the Arab-Muslim world will never believe it. In their minds, the UNbeliever westerners are the ultimate liars. On the other hand, only THEIR views could be reality even though truly investigative work does not exist there. That's why Hamas propaganda can accuse Jews of creating bubble gum to make Arab women horny and the Arab reader will swallow it....
 
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Nasty German Idiot    RE:Even if fake....   5/1/2004 11:35:59 AM
I was waiting for this thread to come up ... Still, the US and British Army admitted it, so how can these fotos be fake ?
 
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swhitebull    RE:Even if fake....   5/1/2004 12:20:56 PM
That's why Hamas propaganda can accuse Jews of creating bubble gum to make Arab women horny and the Arab reader will swallow it.... Which the Arab men did, who then claimed they were unable to satify their horny women since the same Jewish gum made them permanently impotent!!! swhitebull - therefore paralleling the PA inability to take care of their own Palestinians. Great psyops campaign by Mossad, right? Easy to blame Mossad on this! Just as the the Mossad "accidently" sent a shipment of condoms "Made in Israel" to Arafat's security forces, dimensions marked 16 cm long x 4 cm wide, labeled "medium"!!! (Old Cold War joke, just change Israel for US and PA for Soviet Union. So not really, but I love the images and the effect in demoralizing the PA men!)
 
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American Kafir    RE:How many of the torture pictures are fake?   5/1/2004 2:42:35 PM
With the current fad in journalism of reporting without source or attribution, it wouldn't matter if they had 9 fake pictures and 1 real picture - they'd still report they had 10 pictures of Iraqis being tortured by Americans.
 
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American Psycho    RE:How many of the torture pictures are fake?   5/1/2004 5:15:10 PM
I don't know if any of the pictures are fake, but the bottom line is, a public congressional inquiry should be called to get to the bottom of this spectacle of injustice. The irony is beyond bitter for the USA. A war against Iraq under the guise of a war against "terrorism", purposely skewed to fool the easily-persuaded american public, then quickly shifted to be about WMD, then subsequently modified to be about rooting out WMD programmes, and now about ridding the country of a totalitarian dictator the USA was once very friendly with... and now this horrible incident of torture committed by the occupying american forces? The USA has run out of eyes to be blackened. Let's just say the whole world has now seen the real (and fallacious) face of american justice..
 
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Blackwood    Oh yeah. Congressional inquiry into arab web sites   5/1/2004 11:11:56 PM
Oh boy. That'll really make a lot of sense. A congressional inquiry into why arab web sites are showing pictures from porn films and attempting to pass them off as "US crimes". link Fortunately the average arab can't even afford a TV, much less a computer with internet access. Otherwise the jerks putting this up as news would probably be stoned to death by order of their local mullah.
 
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giblets    'british' Torture Photos, evidence of fakery   5/2/2004 5:05:48 AM
There is much doubt about the photos of the British 'torture victim in the UK, as: The Rifle is an SA80 mk1 not used in Iraq THe Soldiers are wearing a 'floppy hat', whereas soldiers in Iraq wore hard hats or Berets The type bedford Truck shown in the picture was not actually deployed in Iraq. Will be interesting if these photos turn out to be anti war propaganda.
 
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leoinnyc    RE: Where do we go from here?   5/2/2004 12:47:30 PM
The US powers-that-be have said again and again that this was just a few bad apples in a unit that was being supervised by MI and not by the actual responsible commander (BG Karpinski, if I spelled that right) . I think that this is probably true, although obviously the notion that MI approved of, encouraged or turned a blind eye needs to be investigated. Frankly, this seems very likely to me, as they are placed in a very difficult situation, in terms of trying to provide timely, actionable intel to their colleagues who are being killed daily, while also complying with the Geneva convention, etc. However, my point is that this is going to be a HUGE blow to American credibility in the Arab and Muslim world, provide a big propaganda victory to the Iraqi insurgents, and generally make to job of policing Iraq that much harder. Therefore, I believe that we should take these steps immediately: 1. Regardless of their actual culpability in these events, the senior American officials in Iraq (Abiziad, Bremer, whoever else) should make a major public apology on behalf of the US, televised in Arabic. 2. They should (again, very publicly) either turn over the prisons in Iraq to Iraqis, supported by the US, or at least bring Iraqis in to monitor conditions in the prison, and give them full access to inspect and investigate whatever they want. The Iraqi media should be allowed to come in. (Alternatively, the prisons could be privatized, ideally to an Arab or Iraqi firm.) 3. To facilitate the above, a careful review should be done of who is actually in US custody, and those with REAL, HIGH intel value (erring on the side of what's good for PR, at this sad point) should be separated from rest of the prisoners and removed to a different location, wholly under the supervision of Military Intelligence or the CIA, and directly under the responsibility of the C.C. and/or the NCA or the CPA until 6/30 so there will be real, transparent accountability. The ideally the ICRC, or at least members of the Governing Council, should be allowed to visit and inspect periodically, as long as care is taken not to compromise intelligence gathering. I make these recommendations because right now the Public Relations battle is probably MORE IMPORTANT than the intel to be gained from most of these guys, and the only way to win this battle is to get out in front of the inevitable Anti-US sentiment and propaganda that will flow from these unfortunate events. In the long run, convincing Iraqis, and the world that are troops are not depraved torturers will offer them more protection than whatever we can glean from a few captured malcontents..
 
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On Watch    RE: Where do we go from here? Suggestion   5/2/2004 5:02:56 PM
>>In the long run, convincing Iraqis, and the world that are troops are not depraved torturers--leo the lip<< Why in the world we want to do that? The Islamo-fascists, the French and Democrats have worked hard to cultivate our image. The Iraqis, Taliban, Lybians & Syrians are scared straight now! All we have to do is give them the L@@K and they start doing the Saddam SPider Hole shuffle, don't toy with our Rep, Leo... On Watch
 
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grossmufti    RE:'british' Torture Photos, evidence of fakery2   5/2/2004 6:17:55 PM
Apart from that, I have seen a few of the pictures (not all of them). And the British pictures sure look fake. I have seen the ones with the body, leg(s) and arm(s) of a "British Soldier" on the sides of the picture and a prisoner in the middle. I am not an expert on British military kit, but I do surf a lot on the internet. And these pictures resemble the staging that 3rd rate porn photographers use, they look as to be posted on the web, not to be put in the newspaper or somebody's private photo album. Furthermore, the uniform of the soldier looked really tidy, while he did have his harnas with kit strapped on. Judging from the ones I have seen; the British ones are fake. Anyone has an URL with all the pics?
 
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grossmufti    RE:'british' Torture Photos, evidence of fakery2   5/2/2004 6:19:02 PM
"Judging from the ones I have seen; the British ones are fake. Anyone has an URL with all the pics " forgot the question mark ;-)
 
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3-2-1-boom    RE:evidence of fakery   5/2/2004 8:11:15 PM
The Islamo-fascists, the French and Democrats Haha! Is this your new axis of evil? Pa-ra-noid! Not too sure if the pictures themselves need to be examined any more, no one who counts is talking about fakery. The highest levels of government and military in the USA and Britain are treating the allegations very seriously and are not entertaining the hyopthesis that the evidence is fake. It was, after all, provided by internal whistel-blowers with the moral integrity and courage to come clean on acts of savagery and debased behaviour of their misguided compatriots. But then, that's a whole other issue: most servicepeople aren't rocket scientists. Which makes sense, since they are obviously wholly expendable, which confirms the USA's willingness to allow it's young troopers to die by the dozens every week.
 
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American Kafir    RE:evidence of fakery   5/2/2004 10:44:36 PM
This is clearly a story intentionally being made worse by the insertion of images from porn films into the mix of the actual photo evidence. I guess Saddam's mass grave collection wasn't made for TV. Let's keep some perspective here.
 
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