While there’s been some overheated partisan rhetoric over the Abu Ghraib scandal from Administration’s critics, the fact of the matter is what happened was undisputably wrong.
Which is why when Rush Limbaugh comes out with crapola like this, it only feeds further into the partisanizing of the matter (which is the last thing we need):
Folks, these torture pictures with the women torturers, I mean Marv Albert looking at those pictures would say, “Hey, that doesn’t look so bad.” You know, if you really look at these pictures, I mean I don’t know if it’s just me but it looks like anything you’d see Madonna or Britney Spears do on stage. Maybe you can get an NEA grant for something like this. I mean this is something you can see at Lincoln Center from an NEA grant, maybe on Sex in the City: the Movie. I mean, it’s just me.
Hopefully, yes, it’s just you, Rush.
Later on, he starts taking it seriously again, but instead defends it.
All right, so you got these women, and they’re torturing — those pictures showed up 60 Minutes and the best we can determine these pictures were taken by the soldiers that were there. That’s what we found out. Now, I’ll bet you, there’s a possibility, I don’t know, but there’s a possibility that what’s happening here that this is not torture; this is part of interrogation that is to come later. This is humiliation. This is the kind of humiliation and embarrassment that is taken place to soften people up for the interrogation which happens next. This is a war, Tiffany.
Yeesh. And even if it’s being done in conjuction with interrogation — so what? Does that mean it’s not torture? Do the ends justify the means? Not that folks who are to be interrogated cannot or should not be “softened up,” but there are legitimate and reasonable ways to do so.
Beyond which, the frickin’ photo gallery sure makes it look like the perpetrators were enjoying the whole thing. Which makes the justification a hell of a lot more dubious.
Eventually, though, Rush gets back to his — well, “ludicrous” is being generous — dismissal of the affair:
Now, as to my original point that these torture photos, that you can see this on stage at a Britney Spears or Madonna concert any day of the week, I stand by it.
Hey, Rush, guess what? Those folks you see rolling around and simulating sex on stage at a Madonna concert? They’re paid to do that. Really. Nobody’s (literally) holding a gun to their head. They volunteered. It’s a job. You know — entertainment, something you should certainly know something about.
If someone gets paid for being a subject of medical research, I think that’s pretty different from experimenting on a a prisoner, don’t you? If you were ever to do any time for your drug abuse and ended suffering the unwanted attentions of Big Bubba whilst in the clink, would you think it nothing worth worrying about because, well, hey, one can buy movies showing people having anal sex, so where’s the need for outrage?
Again, I say, yeesh. And, disgusting.
(via Totten)
You forgot the the one that was my Rush quote of the day yesterday.
A caller to the show compared what was going on to frat hazing when Rush said:
“RUSH: Exactly. Exactly my point! This is no different than what happens at the skull and bones initiation and we’re going to ruin people’s lives over it and we’re going to hamper our military effort, and then we are going to really hammer them because they had a good time. You know, these people are being fired at every day. I’m talking about people having a good time, these people, you ever heard of emotional release? You of heard of need to blow some steam off?”
Plus:
How the US conducts “Interrogation” and “Softening Up” is considered torture based on treaties that we have signed and ratified.
The other scary thing is that one of the guys named in the Taguba report is a prison guard in Viginia.
At the risk of actually agreeing with something Al Franken has said, Rush Limbaugh is, indeed, a big, fat idiot.
On the plus side…on CNN’s quick vote 47% (150,000+ people when I saw it) said that torture is a good thing. So maybe Rush is in the majority on this issue.
RUSH: While women are being masculinized, I contend to you that men are being feminized.
CALLER: I agree.
RUSH: Men are not staying masculine to meet up with this new masculine female.
CALLER: Absolutely.
RUSH: They are being feminized. I think a lot of the American culture is being feminized. I think the reaction to this stupid torture is an example of the feminization of this country.
So only girly-men object to torture. Got to remember that.
I wouldn’t lend much (read “any”) credence to Internet polls (just ask the American Family Assocation), let alone sidebar polls at news sites.
I have long contended that in addition to his politics, with which I voilently disagree, Rush is an elitist snob who has no compassion for anyone or anything that isn’t part of his world view.
Rush could make sliced bread sound like an awful idea …
Or at least he’d make you feel bad about enjoying it.
It speaks so well of your country that people are outraged by this and your President has the courage to give a formal apology.
I hope your president’s promise of justice doesn’t end with the few low ranking soldiers shown in the photographs.
Apparently the Red Cross was sounding alarms as early as last fall. It looks as if this abuse was known about for quite some time and fairly senior levels of the military (and perhaps the administration) turned a blind eye to it.
Someone told these young soldiers “soften up” the prisoners and told them how to do it. It took organization to cover this up. All these people–the people who provided the guidance to the perpetrators, and the people who covered up what was happening–have to face justice.
If they get away with it, there will be a next time. Only next time nobody will be stupid enough to take pictures.
So far it looks like wrist-slaps. If it stays that way after the CinC promises the Muslim world on TV that justice would be done… nobody will be surprised.
I’m trying to get my hand arounds this, but why is it that there is so much more moral outrage at the pictures coming out of Abu Ghraib than at the pictures of the U.S. contractors who were burned, drug through the streets, and then hung from a bridge? Is it because the pixs from the prison are more heinous? Or maybe it is because as an occupying force, we should expect this kind of treatment? It seems to me that regardless of the victim, we should be equally offended at any such type of treatment.
Adam B
a> Because we are supposed to be the “Good Guys”. If we start to behave like those we are supposed to be morally opposed to, then we have lost.
b> We have made all sorts of statements since WWII that behavior like this is wrong. Not that that stopped us in Vietnam, but we are not allowed to use the “well they did it too” defense.
c> If we are trying to show the world that Democracy is better then some form of totalitarian dictatorship, we should not act like a totalitarian dictatorship.
d> After the past century of failed US puppet dictatorships and the subversion of the democratic process whenever it suits us, it would be nice to see us get this one right. Not very probable now, but it would be nice.
e>The oppressed always have a moral advantage over the oppressor. A lesson we should have learned in Iran, the Union of South Africa, Vietnam, Yugoslavia, Poland, Czechoslovakia, Hungary, Chile, Guatemala, Honduras, Haiti, and all of the countries invaded during WWII.
f> There was “Moral Outrage” about the Merc’s being killed and defiled. But that outrage was squandered by our use of collective punishment. Again, a lesson that we should have learned.
g>If we don’t treat our prisoners within the limits of international law, why should we then expect that others will do the same for Americans that are taken prisoner. If we say that we are a ”Country of Laws” we should follow them, not ignore and subvert them because they are inconvenient, but embrace them because that is what give us the moral high ground.
h> We have already lost on this one. We are in a blood feud now with what seems to be both the Shi’a and the Sunni. There will be a civil war between the three groups in the country, but for right now they seem to be busily venting on us.
YMMV
This all makes me think of the Stanford Prison Experiment. Many people learn about it in Intro to Psych. A bunch of college kids are randomly put in two groups: prisoners and guards. Then the two groups are put into a mock prison situation over a weekend. IIRC, The guards ended up treating the prisoners heinously and the experiment was terminated early because things went downhill really fast.
The prison guards in Iraq were probably not a lot older than college kids, and from my admittedly poorly-informed viewpoint, it looks like the same phenomenon happened. One would hope that the guards had been given training on how to be prison guards in order to avoid this kind of thing, but if they were, it didn’t work. One would hope that their commanding officers would supervise things in such a way that nothing got out of hand, but that didn’t happen. One would hope that the US administration and high command would take the Red Cross abuse reports seriously, but that didn’t happen either. I try never to attribute to malice what I can attribute to supidity, but there are so many levels of stupidity and failure in this story, it is truly depressing and it begins to strain credulity.
To me, Bush and Rumsfeld’s apologies ring hollow. The punishments reportedly meted out to those involved seem woefully inadequate. Nothing has been said about how such abuses will be prevented in the future. Rumsfeld mentioned payment of reparations to the victims, but I can’t see that this will have any positive effects. The harm done to US prestige and reputation, to our future involvement in the Middle East, and to our national character is huge.
Up until this happened I thought Shrub was a low-intelligence ideologue surrounded by more intelligent ideologues. I disagreed with many of his policies, but I felt that the people around him were intelligent enough to accomplish their goals. Given the enormous stupidity evident in all this, I now believe that I vastly overestimated the intelligence of Shrub’s aides. I don’t know whether to celebrate or mourn: if they’re that stupid, presumably they can’t achieve their other objectionable goals, but if they’re that stupid, then they can make a lot of mistakes between now and whenever they leave office.
Adam, our group’s secretary has a daughter who is Marine stationed just outside of Fallujah. She is involved with the intel analysis there. Our secretary’s biggest concern for her daughter wasn’t for her physical safety since her compound is well guarded. Rather, it was the pictures she saw of the Fallujah “uprising” wouldn’t warp her for life. The pictures were that bad and they haven’t been in the press.