printGI JOE AND GI HO ARE BACK IN THE NEWS. “Photographs of Iraqi prisoner abuse which U.S. President Barack Obama does not want released include images of apparent rape and sexual abuse, Britain’s Daily Telegraph newspaper reported on Thursday.
The images are among photographs included in a 2004 report into prisoner abuse at Abu Ghraib prison conducted by U.S. Major General Antonio Taguba.
Taguba included allegations of rape and sexual abuse in his report, and on Wednesday he confirmed to the Daily Telegraph that images supporting those allegations were also in the file.
‘These pictures show torture, abuse, rape and every indecency,’ Taguba, who retired in January 2007, was quoted as saying in the paper.”
[SNIP]
Yes, and as I chronicled, the story of “Redacted,” dramatized by De Palma, was all true too.
Once again we find Barack Obama only to eager to hide the horrid crimes of the war party. His administration and the Pentagon continue to deny these reports and instead deflect by making ad hominem attacks on the British media. Which begs the question, if these photographs don’t contain images of torture, sex crimes, and other criminal actions why haven’t they been released? What does the government have to hide? The lady doth protest too much me thinks.
(1) I like this quote from the Telegraph: “The newspaper said at least one picture showed an American soldier apparently raping a female prisoner while another is said to show a male translator raping a male detainee.” – remember the complaints that the Don’t Ask Don’t Tell policy was getting rid of Arabic Translators! – hmmm.
(2) Well, Cheney would point out that “we haven’t been attacked since 9/11” (untrue – look at the Anthrax and DC sniper incidents) and can attribute this to agressive questioning in Abu Ghraib.
(3) Sex abuses, of course, always seem to occur in prolonged wars – so the big culprit is the war itself. [I seem incapable of curing you from the habit of exonerating individuals from responsibility and resorting to the state-made-me-do-it error.] (4) The other issue is how much damage has been done by making violent Islamists look good (avenging abuses by Americans) in the minds of the
outraged Moslem world. (5) WHEN does the US ever leave Iraq – or Italy, Germany, Korea, Japan, …. ??