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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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leoinnyc    RE:Perception, Reality and Wingedhorse.   5/5/2004 7:40:13 PM
My concern with public perception in Iraq does not flow from some wishy-washy desire to that everybody like us. It stems from a simple, pragmatic desire to get our troop the HELL out of Iraq with devastating American foreign policy any more than Team Bush has already managed to do. I do not compare things to Vietnam lightly, and I have tryed mightily to avoid doing so with Iraq, but there are some terrifying similarities emerging and at the core of these similarities is the question of exit strategy. If we leave an Iraq that is unstable and hates America we will have managed to single-handedly created a brand-new breeding ground for terrorism and Islamic fundamentalism. And our foreign policy will be discredited for years, just when we need help from the rest of the world to prosecute the war on terror. And frankly, this is a political impossibility -- whoever is President next year (and especially Bush) will more or less HAVE to keep troops there until the situtation is stable. Which is actually a real problem, because the people who want to see us fail -- and there are a lot of them inside and around Iraq -- will do everything they can to prevent us from achieving a peaceful Iraq. The Baathists, nationalists and fundamentalists inside Iraq will do everything they can to get the Iraqis to hate us, and there are a lot of actors in the region who, like the Soviets and the Chinese 40 years ago, would like nothing better than to see America bogged down in an ugly, bloody, resource-draining war. Which means that we have to either run with our tail between our legs or get the Iraqis to calm down and like us at least enough for us to get out without completely losing face. Does this situation remind you of anything? Does the phrase "peace with honor" ring a bell? Another analogy might be the Israeli-Palestininan situation. Bush, like Ariel Sharon, has made the mistake (well, in Sharon's case this might be intentional, but that's another discussion) of creating a very simple objective for his enemies to acheive. Sharon refuses to engage in the peace process as long as terrorism continues. Which means that all the Palestinian opponents of the peace process have to do to derail it is blow up a bomb every now and again, thus crippling the middle east with nothing more than a couple of sticks of dynamite, and in depressingly impressionable teenager (neither are hard to find). Likewise, all of the people who want to see the US fail in Iraq know that all they have to do blow up a car bomb or take a shot at a visiting dignatary -- anything to prove that Iraq isn't really "stable" -- and the US will have to stay a little bit longer. And a few more of our guys will die, and we'll have to respond to prove that you can't kill US troops and get away with it, and some more Iraqi civllians will die, and on and on. How long do you think we can stay there, with our tanks rumbling down the streets, and our soldiers manning checkpoints, etc. before the population REALLY starts to turn against us? I mean, this is nothing compared to how it COULD be in a year if they decide they don't like us (if they haven't already). And that's why I think it matters what they think of us. We've still got a long way to go in Iraq, let's not start burning our bridges just yet.
 
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NewGuy    RE:Perception, Reality and Wingedhorse.   5/6/2004 12:29:57 AM
"Which means that all the Palestinian opponents of the peace process have to do to derail it is blow up a bomb every now and again, thus crippling the middle east with nothing more than a couple of sticks of dynamite, " This is way off topic, so to not induce off-topicism I wont answer to any reply, so take this as a counterpoint-only question: Where exactly ARE the Palestinian PRO-pponents for peace??? NewGuy
 
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leoinnyc    RE:Perception, Reality and Wingedhorse.   5/6/2004 8:03:40 AM
well, yes, that's a whole other off-topic discussion. There was a time, very recently when there were lots of pro-peace Palestinians. But now they are all so angry Isreal that it's hard to find anyone who will criticize Hamas or Fatah. But at the same time, I think many if nt most Palestinians want normalcy back in their lives, and want economic stability as well -- they just want the occupation to end even more, and don't regard Sharon as a "partner."
 
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Blackwood    Wash Post: Some of them were staged   5/6/2004 9:15:42 AM
In the newest Wash Post article, they now admit: "The new pictures appear to show American soldiers abusing prisoners, many of whom wear ID bands, but The Post could not eliminate the possibility that some of them were staged."
 
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Blackwood    Tatoos now visible, making more likely GIs, not Iraqis   5/6/2004 10:38:41 AM
With more cleaned up versions of the photos, we can see tatoos up and down the right-most of the pyramid guy's arms. This makes it even more likely that the photo is not of Iraqis than it is of American GIs. link
 
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chemist    RE:So about that Litmus test, SC...   5/6/2004 11:14:51 AM
If you're talking about the pure science of it, eh, maybe. Some friends of mine went out into 'industry' and do fieldwork for yolo county in Ca. Find something odd you want to know wether it's caustic or acidic. FOr that it's useful. But, other than that, it's stuff we torture students with. But, for finding bias in some posters it's really rather useful.
 
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wingedhorses    RE:leoninnyc: Perception, Reality and Wingedhorse.   5/6/2004 8:21:00 PM
"Which means that all the Palestinian opponents of the peace process have to do to derail it is blow up a bomb every now and again, thus crippling the middle east with nothing more than a couple of sticks of dynamite, and in depressingly impressionable teenager (neither are hard to find)." No, each time the derailment has been caused by a lot more than one or even two suicide bombs. If you'd follow the coverage in any day-to-day detail in an Israeli paper, you'd know that each time peace has been derailed by **myriad**, **simultaneous** abbrogations of the agreement: like not ending incitement, like not rounding up known terrorists, like not changing your PA charter so that it no longer calls for the destruction of Israel. A lot of stuff on a lot of levels. Each time. But enough about Israel. Sure, sitting there in your Columbia U. library, you can find all the "terrifying" similarities to Vietnam you want. If you're into that kind of intellectual masturbation. Tellling yourself ghost stories. Around the camp-fire. Oooooh scarey!! But.. It...Ain't Vietnam. You're committing the usual liberal sin of underestimating the "noble savages" of the third world. I think the Iraqi people have the intelligence to understand that some very despicable sexual harrassment (promptly apologized for most fulsomely by none other than the President of the United States) is A BIT different than dipping people head first into acid baths or feeding them into wood chippers and etc. Don't condesend to the Iraqi people. They're not babies.
 
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leoinnyc    RE:leoninnyc: Perception, Reality and Wingedhorse.   5/6/2004 10:32:27 PM
Yeah, becasue the conservatives have done such a bang-up job of "estimating" the Iraqi people. And certainly they don't condescend to them. They weren't condescending when they allowed Saddam to gas the Kurds without making a whisper of protest. They weren't condescending when they allowed Saddam to put down the Shia uprising after GW1. They weren't condescending when they didn't try to stop the looting after GW2. They're weren't condescending when they completely failed to plan for the post-war reconstruction. They weren't condescending -- they were profoundly irresponsible. And you are making the same, stupid mistake that the Bushies are making: you're so enamored of America, so convinced that we can do no wrong that you can't see anything from anyone else's point of view. This was the mistake that Bush made (and one that Kennedy and LBJ made in Vietnam, by the way) with Iraq. He listened to the Pentagon instead of State; getting foreign-policy advice from a part of the government that by it's very nature has to be all patriotism, and "America is a shining light on a hill crap," instead of heeding the part of the gov. that exists to figure out how other societies will react to thing we do. I don't think the Iraqis dislike us because they're all gullible children who believe anything Al-Jazeera tells them. I think they don't like us because they have good freakin' reasons not to. We had a piss-poor track record with regard to "loving the Iraqi people" before we invaded, we've done a sh-t job with the post-war; they have every reason to be extremely wary of us. They're happy that Saddam is gone and grateful to us for getting rid of him, but they've had decades of unnaccountable men with guns running around controlling their lives and their country. Why would they, or anyone else be pleased with the status quo? Plus, it is impossible to ignore Israel in this. Like much of the population of the middle east, many Iraqis are pro-Palestinian and view America as supporting Israel. Again, with every mistake we make, we give ourselves the benefit of the doubt -- we know that we're aren't just there to steal their oil, we know that America doesn't hate the Palestinians. But after 20 years of Saddam's propaganda, bolstered by Al-Jazeera and other voices in the Arab and Muslim world, they view us as morally suspect because we support what many Iraqis see as the illegal occupiers of an Islamic population. And they're afraid they're next. Iraqis have their own worldview and their own priorities -- expecting them to thank us for imposing our values and traditions on them, on our timetable, is worse than condescention -- it's dumb and patronizing. Oh, and I've been out of college for quite some time now, thanks.
 
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NewGuy    RE:leoninnyc: Perception, Reality and Wingedhorse.   5/6/2004 11:29:20 PM
"They weren't condescending when they allowed Saddam to gas the Kurds without making a whisper of protest." You are repeating a bald lie. The US issued a strong condemnation against the use of chemical weapons by Saddam against the Kurds, along with a number of other nations. Look it up -- I won't do your homework for you. "They weren't condescending when they allowed Saddam to put down the Shia uprising after GW1." Pray tell -- how would the "Arab and Muslim world" that you seem to think are so important to us reacted if the US invaded Iraq & removed Saddam post GulfWar? Because -that- is the only real way we could have been assured of stopping Saddam from his goal of putting down the Shia revolt. Would YOU have supported this? Yeah... "They weren't condescending when they didn't try to stop the looting after GW2." You speaking of the 'museum looting' that even the blood-hungry media later admitted was mostly overblown? Right. "They're weren't condescending when they completely failed to plan for the post-war reconstruction.". Prove it. I'll compare the statistics of power, water, education, health-system, and related human-support items restored/improved in one year in Iraq with that of any other such effort in recent history. Just provide the other comparison point -- I dare ya :-) NewGuy
 
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On Watch    LMAO Leo!!!   5/7/2004 12:52:39 AM
>>There was a time, very recently when there were lots of pro-peace Palestinians. But now they are all so angry Isreal that it's hard to find anyone who will criticize Hamas or Fatah.-leothelip<< I suppose "Once upon a time" the elves made your shoes too! Now for the Facts! The Palis are rolling over on Hamas & Fatah so often that they've gone Anon to avoid an IDF greeting card via air mail! Further, how do you suppose the Israeli's are knocking off 97% of the meatbombers before they even suit up? By crystal ball? Get real Leo, being nice about it, your stuff is pure fantasy! On Watch
 
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American Kafir    RE:A few idiots.   5/7/2004 9:05:56 AM
>>Will Rumsfeld get the axe because of this?<< Honestly, I think not. The last thing Bush would want to do is try to push through a new SecDef nomination through the Senate. I don't think the Democrats would let Wolfowitz or Feith take his place, given their tendency to use the word "neocon" to thinly veil their get-the-Jews-out-of-the-Defense-Department-and-onto-trains mentality as they pile on the DoD about how the State Department is running the CPA.
 
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wingedhorses    RE:leoninnyc: Perception, Reality and Wingedhorse.   5/7/2004 9:30:22 AM
Leon, I think you should be able to glean one thing from the posts to you from Newguy, Onwatch and etc. You have a bad habit of making sweeping generalizations and jumping to conclusions. You think like a television news writer--hystericaly and reflexively NewGuy is absolutely right about the goood things we do everyday for the Iraqi people and unless you've been to the country recently and tramped all around using your eyes and ears, I challlenge you to tell us that that stuff isn't working. 2. Why did you immediately turn this conversation into some partisan thing. How do know what I think about Bush's understandings of Arab culture? As a matter of fact, all along I've thought the Bush's didn't "get" some aspects of Arab culture. They beleived guys like Chalabi, for one thing, when everybody knows in the Arab Mideast often what one says is just a "first offer" kind of thing, meant to be the beginning of negotiations. You're supposed to follow say Chalabi's assurances by saying "Oh come on, you know you're full of s*&^" whereupon Chalabi or whoever will then say...."Ok, what I meant was..."
 
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leoatwork    RE:newguy, on watch   5/7/2004 12:40:26 PM
I have done more than enough homework; I don't consider a "strong condemnation" to be a serious response to genocide, any more than a "strong condemnation" of Osama would be an adequate response to 9/11. "Pray tell -- how would the "Arab and Muslim world" that you seem to think are so important to us reacted if the US invaded Iraq & removed Saddam post GulfWar? Because -that- is the only real way we could have been assured of stopping Saddam from his goal of putting down the Shia revolt." First of all, if we weren't going to support them, we shouldn't have asked them to "rise up" against Saddam. Second, I've never advocated going to Baghdad in GW1 and I wouldn't. That wasn't our only option or even a good option for dealing with the post GW1 situation. You have to remember, we allowed Saddam's army, and in particular the Republican Guard units who massacred the Shias, to escape back to Baghdad unharmed becasuse we wanted Iraq to remain a counterweight to Iran. In addition, we allowed them fly helicopters which they used extensively in the quelling of the uprising. We could have further decimated his army and grounded his helicopters to degrade their ability to threaten the population, and threatened to resume bombing Baghdad if he attacked his people. Or we could set up "protected enclaves" within Iraq for the Shia, much like the very sucessful "no-fly" zones that have denied Saddam control over a huge swath of his territory. And your comment about the museum looting more or less proves that you don't have a clue what you're talking about. I'm not sure I should even respond -- I'll just let you go off and do some research on your own. "I'll compare the statistics of power, water, education, health-system, and related human-support items restored/improved in one year in Iraq with that of any other such effort in recent history. Just provide the other comparison point -- I dare ya" yeah - I can't provide a comparison point, because no one in recent history was stupid or arrogant enough to try to do what the US is doing in Iraq. I mean, my god, who just ups and invades and occupies another country when he doesn't absolutely have to? Oh wait, George W. Bush and Saddam Hussein both fit that description... In any case, saying that our occupation is better than another occupation is just silly. What difference does it make that it's "better" than some other occupation if it doesn't work? So I've go a question for you: Why the hell are we in Iraq? I mean, if you think everything is going so great and I'm so shrill -- tell me what we're doing there and how we're getting out. Obviously it ain't WMDs, we have no realistic plan for a transition to democracy at this point (June 30 takes us to "some kind of interim authority")and right now the Middle East sure doesn't seem more stable. So this was all to "liberate the Iraqi people?" Wow, that sure is steel-jawed, realpolitik, huh? So soothe me, explain to me why this is a good foreign policy and everything is fine in Iraq. Address the real concerns in my previous post instead of nit-picking about whether the looting was a little bad or a lot bad..
 
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NewGuy    RE:newguy, on watch   5/7/2004 1:39:57 PM
Now leo or len (both?) you seem to be getting a bit desperate: a) First you claim "they allowed Saddam to gas the Kurds without making a whisper of protest". I pointed out that was an untrue statment. You then claim we should basically have occupied the bulk of Iraq after GW1 to help the Shia...but you avoid facing the consquences of that action, both in the Arab world and at home. b) You claimed "they didn't try to stop the looting after GW2." I pointed out that the looting was not nearly as bad as it was first reported, and there were media stories that freely admited this later on. Your rebuttal to this consisted of "I'm not sure I should even respond". Lets try this tack, see if you can "respond": prove to us that the looting was a significant issue that caused Iraqis to hate or distrust the US -- that is the base issue you are raising. c) You stated that "they completely failed to plan for the post-war reconstruction." I challenged you to find any effort that was more successful in restoring basic human services after one year. Your reply was to bash Bush and avoid the challenge. Ok, lets try another one: Prove that the US has -not- make significant progress, in only one year, on restoring the Iraqi human-support infrastructure, and that this is currently making most Iraqis hate the US. Lets now examine some of your other statements, shall we? 1) "In any case, saying that our occupation is better than another occupation is just silly." I never said that. You implied we did a bad job of reconstruction in Iraq -- I stated that we did a good job of reconstruction and asked you to compare the job we did in Iraq after a year with other reconstruction efforts. You whimped out on that one, so now you claim I said something I didnt say: why? 2."What difference does it make that it's "better" than some other occupation if it doesn't work?" Your claim is that it is "not working". However, I and others here maintain the opposite. Is not this statement the base argument here? If so, explain to us how can the argument itself be evidence one way or another in the argument? In other words, your above statement is basically "you cant be right because I am right"...very poor debate logic on your part. 3."we have no realistic plan for a transition to democracy at this point (June 30 takes us to "some kind of interim authority")" Excuse me, would you like some 'instant democracy' with your cookies len? So do -you- expect full democracy to be achieved in Iraq in one year? Oh, and what plan would you have that can cover every possible permutation of events in Iraq? There is an old saying I recall from my years in the military: No plan survives contact with the enemy. Plans are just templates: a good commander will adjust the plan as the situation changes, and if need be alter it drastically. This is a sign of a *good* commander, not a poor one, as you seem to imply. "Address the real concerns in my previous post instead of nit-picking about whether the looting was a little bad or a lot bad.' So, did you mislead us on purpose? You put down "they didn't try to stop the looting after GW2" as one of your main points that (you claim) shows why the Iraqis hate or distrust us. If the looting was exceptionally bad and sorely affected Iraqi life, then it stands to reason you may have a point, right? But if it was not as bad as claimed, then it is less likely to be a factor, right? You cant have it both ways, sport: if its one of your casues as to why Iraqis dont trust us, we are allowed to show that it was not sufficient to casue such an effect. NewGuy
 
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wingedhorses    RE:for leoninnyc, we've done sh*% with the post war...   5/8/2004 11:55:53 AM
and anyone else who believes "they have every reason to be extremely wary of us " , read this: link
 
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