Iraqi abuse courts martial begin
 

The court martial of the 1st of 4 British soldiers accused of physically & sexually abusing Iraqi prisoners in May 2003 has begun.

The alleged abuse came to light when one of the soldiers took film containing photos of it to a shop to be developed, & a staff member at the shop contacted police due to the nature of the images.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/england/s...re/4159481.stm



The trial of the alleged ring leader in the Abu Ghraib abuse is also now underway

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/middle_east/4155375.stm

Iraq pictures
 

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk/4186581.stm

Got to say how let down I feel about are troops.:mad: Gutted and feel embarrassed about these disgusting pictures.:afire:

What makes them do this and we thought it was just the yanks.:mis:

Re: Iraq pictures
 

I don't beleive this :erm:

I thought our troops had more sense? :mad:

Re: Iraq pictures
 

No doubt this isn't the first abuse of position by a member of any armed forces, the difference these days is that it gets reported and thanks to the unbelievable stupidity of the people doing it there is proof because they seem to enjoy taking photos of their "greatness" :(
The side effect of this behaviour by a relatively small percentage of people in Iraq is that it puts a lot of good men and women in an even more dangerous and difficult position. It also has a very damaging affect on the good will built up through hard work by people on both sides of the action :(

Re: Iraq pictures
 

Re: Iraq pictures
 

We have been through the whole forceful interrogation arguments before so i'll skip that.

I think the Iraqis will realise that what the Brits and the US got caught for is nothing, nothing compared to what Saddam used to do to them. Or what Syria/Egypt still does. If only people really knew what Saddam got upto. People tend to avoid it, more often than not to justify their objection to war.

The protests to these photos would be more principled than anything else. The Iraqis (hopefully) should see the bigger picture.

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Unfortunately there are several conflicting infulances on soldiers during any operational deployment. The armies need for soldiers to follow the 'chain of command', against the rules of the Gineva Convention, and an individual soldires need to guard against following ''illegal orders''. The fact that the base commander to his troops to ''go hard on looters'', does in my view, boarder on an illegal order. But again, the manner in which British soldiers are trained to obey their superiors orders, can at times over-ride the proper conduct of war and the treatment of prisoners.

Yes it is a disgrace that British soldiers physically abused detainees.

But if they where given an order to ''go hard'' on looters by their O.C. then I hope the Rupert in question gets what he deserves, and not just the ''Other Ranks''.

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The soldiers involved should be handed over to the Iraqies, this would prove and mean, when we say they are there own power, the people have commited crimes and should be treat under the law there.

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While it may be a comendible thought, I doubt that this would be acceptable to many British citizens. Its rsther academic though, they are soldiers, and as such get tried under military law first.

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I see your point, but this would show the the iraqies that we accept them as a culture and as a country, and not as children or guests in there own land.

This was a crime on there soil, while we shall try them over it under our law, they should perhaps be also tried and sentences under there law. the stupidity and sheer brutal nature of the crime makes for such a punishment.

Re: Iraq pictures
 

Did those soldiers kill any Iraqis? 'Cos I know what the Iraqis would do to them :dozey:

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Whatever happened to the old principle of sub judice?

Whatever happened to the belief in innocent until proven guilty?

As serving soldiers they are facing right now a court martial, it is right that the Army do this but also whoever their supervising officer was must also be asked questions as well as the officer who ordered punishment against the ali babas.

Iraq, no way, Iraq has probably not sufficiently recovered to operate a judicial system and the result of your suggestion may mean their doom at the hands of an excited lynch mob. Remember, Arab TV stations are not quite like our own as public opinion may have been told all sorts of half truths.

It's a very sad affair, in war awful things can happen, soldiers undergo extraordinary levels of stress, but there is no excuse for treating prisoners badly.

Re: Iraq pictures
 

:tu::tu::tu::tu::tu:

My position on the war has been flip-floping all the time. First I supported it then a few months ago i was angry at the way it was enacted and dealt with but still supported the war, even though no WMD had been found (my support was never because of WMD).

What us and the americas did, in my view, was a good thing. With all the anti-american and anti-war feeling going around it is easy to forget what Saddam did. Torture & murder was a daily process in Saddams Iraq, although this still happens it will slow down and stop. Punky is right that people gloss over saddams record because it makes the issue much more complex and anti-blair/bush/american protesters (not all of them, mind you) do not want a complex issue. They want black and white. War=bad & No War = Good. As many of the protesters protested on the Human rights of the Iraqi's Saddams record was a sticking point in that record.

Dispite these pictures, it is important to remember that although people may think that they are too excessive, bent on money and oil and stupid. America is on the side of good, If you have the power to stop the murderious acts commited daily by Saddam then there is already a strong arguement to do so.

We all forget that the real 'bad guys' are the terrorists themselfs and not the Americans who want to remove the terrorists. People who seem to think that america is evil and the terrorists are not to blame for 9/11 and all the other acts they commited is frankly brainless. Saddam, similer dictators, and the terrorists are the real evil here and not the americans. We should remember this next time a anti-american rant kicks off
____________

WHen ever someone posts a new item to do with a horrific act the sensible voices of Justice and Innocent until proven gulity are drowned out by the lynch mobs demanding that they are strung up by the nearest lamp post ;)

Re: Iraq pictures
 

I am not saying I would hand them over to a mob.

What I am meaning sorry if I was not clear, was that we should try them over here or there under our law, and with a fair trial.

If this trial finds them guilty of cruelty to prisoners and abuse, then the sentencing should be done with a Iraqi courtroom and with iraqis there, along with some of the UK and USA, yes they still have there rights to a fair trial. I am just saying the sentencing should be done via Iraq, to prevent upset in the country of the USA/UK doing everything and leaving them out of the loops. This was a crime on there end.

Although in admittance of the above I am not sure if this falls under war crimes. :dunce:

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Sorry, :erm: I was not targetting you, or anyone else for that matter. I knew what you meant :tu: I also would agree but i do not think the Iraqi justice system is up to that yet

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It would be a mainly usa/uk affair like you correctly state they aint upto it, however it would give them a general feeling of control and respect, rather then being treat like nothing, which is exactly what we dont wish them to feel around us.

However we have to note that this is a serious issue and although its a chance to show the Iraqies, that we are friends and are slowly handing power over to them and some independance, we do have to remember some soldiers lives are at stake and a fair trial has to take place.

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We'd have to have enough of a legal system and security for a trial to take place, the Iraqis would actually have to be in charge of their own country and there'd have to be enough electricity for people to actually be able to watch the trial on TV.

Damien - if you're flip-flopping over the war you owe it to yourself to check out:
Why Iraq is now a net *importer* of fuel,
Why the insurgency is growing despite assurances that flattening Fallujah would put an end to it,
For that matter, why is flattening cities the size of Leicester with overwhelming firepower the act of a civilised power putting an end to tyranny,
Why it's more dangerous to live in Iraq now than under Saddam,
Why, 11 days before the election, fewer than half the population live in areas safe enough to vote,
Why having an undemocratically elected Shia-dominated Parliament is going to have a cat in hell's chance of appeasing an irate Sunni minority who are well armed and well motivated and have had the Americans tied up nicely for months,
Why curfews and border closures are deemed a requirement for holding a 'democratic' election,
Why people can't get sufficient information on the candidates because of insecurity, lack of fuel, lack of electricity and dangerous streets,
Why we're having to send *more* troops in nearly two years after the invasion,
Why 20 people a day are being murdered in *Baghdad* in terrorist acts,
Why foreign journalists covering the election are going to have to avoid travelling around on land for fear of kidnap or assassination, even between the airport and the centre of US power,
Why the Iraqi security services are completely incapable of providing any security at all (despite GWB's assurances during the election, which turned out to be more downright lies)
Why there were no al-Qaeda terrorists in Iraq before the invasion, but now they and their followers are powerful and influential enough to stop the election being in any way free, fair or representative.
Why companies whose employees were involved in Abu Graibh are being rewarded with more contracts

And the big one - how is the UK in any way, shape or form better off financially, more secure or better thought of in the world after this fiasco?

Phew.

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I dont think the UK is in any of a better position. But i think iraq, in a few years, will be in a remarkible position compared to before. Obviously problems are there but that is the act of terrortists who are commiting these acts

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I think its all a storm in a teacup, just like the harry and nazi uniform story.

These guys go out to the gulf, they put their lives on the line (which is a damn site more than the rest of us do) They have been taught to kill, they expect to fight. Suddenly theyu have their hands on a group of people that perhapos only hours or even minutes ago were raining mortars and god only knows what else down on them and their mates.

What would you do?
Whilst making them pose for pics in daft gay poses may be humiliating its hardly devastating is it?
Being pictured bound and laid on the floor with a soldier crouching over you hardly constitutes brutality.
Being raised on a forklift truck however stupid it is is hardly torture.

Why is it that the media in this country gain such satisfaction from reporting these incidents and undermining the massive effort that the others have put in. Do they get some sick sense of importance by making headline world news showing of a bunch of young and reckless recruits misbehaving and claiming the whole british army should be ashamed. No sorry the papers should be ashamed for printing such things.
Yes its worrying that it goes on, but the pictures I saw today although not pretty, were, I consider, extremely far from torture.

The only picture I worried about was the squaddie surfing on the prisoner. But even then I dont think it adds up to anything that was more than insignificant. It was and stil is a war zone, people are bound to make errors of judgement and its easy for us to say I wouldnt do it, but we arent there.

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What position? Being in three parts?

Terrorists or patriots? Fighting against foreign occupation isn't usually terrorism - it is after all their country and we are the people who lied about the necessity of war, invaded, killed thousands of civilians, destroyed thousands of buildings, tortured detainees and sold off state owned enterprises without bothering to ask anyone living their first. Remember this 'terrorism' didn't exist before we arrived in Iraq, so it's a result of the war, not a reason for it.

I'd be a lot happier condemning the acts of the Iraqi insurgents if I had faith in our leadership and armed forces to behave themselves with moral courage. That faith hasn't just been eroded, it's been *shattered*, this latest case is merely a small, dark drop on a dripping lake of lies and violence.

They were stealing humanitarian supplies, not firing mortars, which isn't in the same league. They were looters, not fighters, unless being hit by a bag of flour is particularly lethal.

The court martial will decide whether what they did broke the laws they are bound to obey as members of the armed forces.

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It's disgusting, but it isn't some recent post Abu Ghraib thing. It happened (or allegedly happened) a fair while ago. I posted about the original story months ago in here: http://www.cableforum.co.uk/board/sh...ad.php?t=11755 It's made the news again because of the release of the pictures.
____________


True. America is not evil (although I think some members of its government may be ;) ), & terrorists *were* to blame for 9/11.

But, what has 9/11 got to do with Iraq?


And, as BBKing said, there was no terrorist problem in Iraq prior to the war.

Re: Iraq pictures
 

Well if they were stealing humanitarian aid that was meant for all people then they were **** anyway. What kind of idiot goes up against an army because they want something for nothing? To be honest if they got a good beating they were lucky, after all in lots of countries looters would be shot.

Terrorism did exist in Iraq before the war, it was called Saddam Hussain and his merry men. And they attrocities that occured there are still largely unknown. My heart does not bleed for the iraqis concerned and I believe that the soldiers do need to be disciplined, however I think court martial with pictures being released of their actions, even though they are still legally innocent is not right nor fair by the soldiers concerned.
What if they are found not guilty, in the eyes of the public they will be guilty, a picture tells a thousand stories or so theysay, however, these pictures and pictures in general capture a snapshot in time, you see neither the before nor the after.

Cant help how I feel, I just think that if you train soldiers to kill and fight, you cant blame them when things like this happen. It happens daily in HM prisons but its not headline news there is it?

Re: Iraqi prisoner abuse courts martial begin - pictures released
 

Like most things, it changes depending on how you look at it. For example, BBKing complains that it is safe to vote in fewer than half of Iraq (let's say 40%?). Well, isn't that 40% more than in 2001 which to mark me is a marked improvement over 0% in 2001

Let's not go back into the cycle of wether the war was just or not. It has been done to death. It is a subjective issue and so there can never be a conclusion. Every issue has been comprehensively covered.

I do think though, the insurgents aren't solely Iraqis. Back in the early days maybe but not now. More Iraqis die now than foreign soldiers. The insurgents (sorry, I mean revolutionaries and minutemen) think nothing of executing dozens of members of the new Iraqi security force. If it is Iraqis protesting American imperialism, then surely Americans would face the brunt of the attacks. Iraq is the excuse for Islamic fantatics to practice their perverted version of Islam, by slaughtering en masse innocent Iraqis, fundamentalists from the Iran/Shia side, and Syria/Sunni side.

Re: Iraqi prisoner abuse courts martial begin - pictures released
 

From BBKings post :

From MattD's post:
Has anyone watched 9/11 ? ok its a Michael Moore film but he possits in the documentary that we went to war on Iraq for one reason. That was becasue we could not go to war on the Saudi's who harbour the bin Laden's. THey jsut happen to be a most powerful and money doctrined middle east family who have the chief of Al'Qaeda Osama within their mists.

There were NO Iraqi's involved in the 9/11 bombing. That is a fact easily looked up on the net or within other media. Most of the terrorists involved were from the Al'Qaeda network working directly for Osama bin Laden.

Audaciously America suggested that IRAQ was responsible for the 9/11 bombings and decided that they had WMD's, that we now know to be flawed intelligence, and off they went charging up their tanks, boats and missiles to invade the terrorist nation. Islam is not an awful religion. Most of it, from what little I have read, concerns being good to one another. Just like the Christianity that Bush preaches and practises in his corner of the world. The problem stems from the way some of the clerics interpreted the Koran. They decided, no one else, how muslims were going to potray themselves in THEIR areas of the world. Saddam was deeply in the hands of the clerics. He was what we in the West term a dictator and a tyrant but there again I don't begin to understand how his mind and religious beliefs functioned. The only good thing to come out of that was was the dethronement of Saddam.

Another fact. Special ops forces probably had their sites on him in the last Gulf war but were called out. Why ? Due to the US helping Saddam with weapons, money and oil.

Bush was in business with the bin Laden family when he ran a huge US company. He wasn't going to hurt people who are valuable to him.

Politics is a nasty business especially when there are times of misinformed war. The biggest reason the "insurgents" are rebelling is because we are not rebuilding their country quick enough. As for the pictures from May 2003 they are disgusting. Sexual explitation has always been used as a torture device. Mostly against women. Look at the Croatian war, the holocaust and our treatment of POW's in Kenya one of our long lost colonies. It should not happen in a developed country. It shouldn't happen at all and there are no excuses for treating looters in that way. The court decision will have to set an example to the world and to the Iraqi people so that they know that at least the BRitish are not tyrants.

I'll shut up now :)

Sian

Re: Iraqi prisoner abuse courts martial begin - pictures released
 

Put out the fecking bunting. It's not a free and fair representative democracy if only 40% of the country are allowed to vote. It's not free and fair representative democracy if you have to keep the position of polling stations secret, have a curfew, bring in thousands of foreign troops and shut the borders. It's a militaristic police state, which curiously enough it was before, although they had more electricity then.

Face it, large parts of the Iraqi population will be unrepresented in the new parliament, which, as all parliaments do, will be run by the majority for the majority, which in this case is Shias with strong links to Iran and extreme fear and loathing of the mad al-Qaeda end of Sunni Islam taking root at the other end of the country. These unrepresented Iraqis are, however, extremely well represented in the insurgent forces currently giving the Americans and the useless Iraqi security forces a hard time. So the election will not result in a democratic Iraq, it will result in polarisation and eventual civil war between those who have been undemocratically 'elected' and those who feel better represented by the men of violence than the alleged parliament. Remember the troubles in Northern Ireland started because of perceived (well, fairly obvious) disenfranchisement of the Catholics by the Protestants. You can add South Africa and the South of the USA to this, too, with their legacies of racial hatred and violence, fortunately they had men like Martin Luther King and Nelson Mandela, but if someone of that calibre pops up in Iraq these days he'd probably be thrown into Guantanamo.

Partial democracies are no better than no democracy - while the latter leads to tyranny the former leads to civil war. Pick a demon.

Don't trot out the old 'it's foreign fighters' one, it's long discredited - obviously there are a few nuts who want a go at the Yanks, but the heady brew of Iraqi nationalism, religious tribalism and perceived forcible disenfranchisement is quite enough to get the Sunni hardmen out and fighting until the US ups and leaves. Of course Iraqi collaborators are targets, they always are in wars against occupation, they're less well guarded and obviously figures of extreme hatred by those opposed to the invasion. After all they *chose* to collaborate and fight their fellow countrymen. How would you feel about Brits fighting in Nazi uniform? There are innumerable examples throughout history.

The problem is of course that the US didn't expect to be fighting this war (few armies do, of course) and is thus unprepared. In that past (Korea for instance) it's taken a couple of years for the right leadership to float to the top, but in this case the intellectual weakness and vanity of the executive is preventing the men at the top from making any kind of sensible decisions.

And 'draw a line and move on' is the line trotted out by the very people who got us into the war in the first place on lies and illegal grounds, I don't accept their reasons for going to war so I'm certainly not going to accept their demands that we put our fingers in our ears and go 'la la la I'm not listening' like a spoiled toddler. Their crimes need to be kept under the spotlight until they pay for them.

Well, if you're going to redefine terrorism to mean anything you want, please let the OED know so the rest of us can keep up with the English language. Anyway, you're confusing terrorism, which espouses political/cultural aims by means of violence, generally in small, focused groups, with unpleasant paranoid toughs who are willing to kill to get into power and willing to kill to stay in power. The difference with terrorists is that they aren't actually in power and aren't actually a threat to the existence of nations.

Seti is quite right to reiterate that 9/11 was nothing to do with Iraq - it was nothing to do with Iran* either, since that country is a Shia theocracy and one of al-Qaeda's aims is the elimination of Shias. Quite what attacking countries unconnected with al-Qaeda does to help fight al-Qaeda sponsored global terrorism I'd be interested to hear.

*Or North Korea, to complete the set

Re: Iraqi prisoner abuse courts martial begin - pictures released
 

I for one feel that these images should not be visable to the public. All investigations should be done behind closed doors.

Do you not think that these images incite even more hatred from the muslim countries ?

What these soldiers allegedly did was despicable. If they are found guilty they deserve everything they get.

Re: Iraqi prisoner abuse courts martial begin - pictures released
 

No, the acts themselves do, but not as much as the original invasion.

Re: Iraqi prisoner abuse courts martial begin - pictures released
 

And if we did that and word got out about it ( like it invariably does ;) ) it would be classed as a cover up and would get even more bad publicity, I applaud the USA and UK goverments for letting the public know about this shocking bad behaviour, no matter what these people was doing to our troops, this kind of behaviour is as barbaric as when Sadam was in power, and will only make them hate us even more.
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Sadly I think that it needed doing the country was being abused by Sadam, and as for WMD's well aint a ak47 being carried by kids and teenagers terrorising the streets of Iraq a WMD, they kill hundreds of people. Just because they dont affect us dont mean they aint weapons which are killing thousands. We did right by attacking, but its the mess ups since then which have p'ssed off the Iraqies and quite rightly so.

Re: Iraqi prisoner abuse courts martial begin - pictures released
 

:clap:

Ok, I have tried to stay out of this one, as most regular posters here know, I served out in kuwait/Iraq in 2003, and saw the state of the country both before and after. (and I have a number of friends who are either there, or just got back.just going)

As such I have very strong opinions on this subject, so I hope I don't offend anyone with my replies.

Too right, and he is apparantly giving evidence today.

If he gave the order, and it was an illegal order, then he should be punished.

However, there is an element of culpability on the soldiers - they have the right to refuse to carry out an illegal order (and I know that people rarely do for fear of reprisals/career wrecking).

Again - spot on. The evidence presented by these pictures should not have been released until the court martial has been completed, and then only if it would serve the public interest.

IF these soldiers are found guilty, they will end up in colchester for a very long time, and then back in civvie street with a dishonorable discharge, and their lives will be ruined - and they will deserve that. If, however they are found not guilty, then they will still have the stigma attached to them because the public have already decided that they are guilty, based on a few photos.

because the insurgents keep blowing up the transport pipes !!!!
because the assurance was crap - you might as well say we could have solved the IRA problem by destroying belfast.
I don't agree with the flattening of a city, but then if the city is held by people who are killing more Iraqis than the war did - would you rather let them sit there and gather arms for the next strike......
care to back that up ?
Again, who is causing the instability, who is blowing up the IRAQI forces ?
so we bow to terrorists :afire: (sorry but blowing up your own civilians makes you a terrorist, and a large amount of the people involved are either foreign (non-Iraqi) or Saddams old cronies who are trying to get their old power back)
Again - who is causing this - are we blowing up our own people - no !
always the same basic point, Iraq is not secure - we know this....

would you rather we pull out and let a bloody (in the sense of the red stuff) civil war take place, and have the country run by whichever group has the biggest guns, and go back to the days under Saddam ?
we have already established that the reasons given for the invasion were based on (at best) suspect intelligence.
so just because you built a prison that someone abused prisoners in, that makes you a bad person ?
Interesting priorities....
financially - no we are no better off, but we did not go to war for money.....
security - probably no better or worse - you forget that although Saddam had no WMD (that we found) we know he had the capability - how - we taught him, and supplied the basic materials (albeit many years ago). Just because a killer does not have a gun in his hand, it does not mean he cannot make/get a gun later...
Reputation - The british army is one of the (if not the) best in the world, we train the armies of more countries than you could know.
We have been seen in the international community as Americas lapdog, but only by those who either supported Saddam actively (france, etc) or those who could not decide what to do.
Even those that disagreed with the invasion stated that Britain did what it had to do based on the information it had.

I really believe this, and hope to be proved right..

When we went in, unless you were a Saddam Crony (or relative) you had very basic ameneties - Electricity (free IIRC) and a roof - most outying villages had no running water, and had to travel miles to get drinking water.

If we can improve the life of these people then we have done something good..
If we fail to do this, then we have wasted a lot of lives.

Re: Iraqi prisoner abuse courts martial begin - pictures released
 

Since when? All I still keep hearing and seeing is that whenever an insurgents' nest is neutralised they find a load of Syrian passports. If they are punishing Iraqis for cooperating with the 'enemy', then why are they blowing up their own water/electricity/plants? Rather masochistic. [/QUOTE]

And I wasn't trying to censor you, or putting my fingers in my ears and not listening, but it is really pointless going over the same old stuff that we have already been over multiple times. It is also past mind numbingly dull, but if you want to do that, they go right ahead.

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Of course they are no longer their own water/electricity plants - they, or what's left of them after the US bombing, have been farmed out by the US to co-operative US corporations (entirely without a democratic mandate from the Iraqi people, of course). Blowing up civilian infrastructure of course achieves two key aims for the insurgents - it illustrates that the US aren't in charge and keeps the perceived blame for not having any power or water on the US, who are after all supposed to be in charge.

It's a mistake to think that the insurgents are merely bloodthirsty fanatics and criminals - they actually seem to understand the situation in their own country rather clearly, as well as being bloodthirsty fanatics and criminals, of course.

I don't believe there was a mandate from the Iraqi people to start selling their oil in dollars instead of euros either.

Oh, and
"Of the more than 1000 men aged between 15 and 55 who were captured in intense fighting in Falluja last week, just 15 are confirmed foreign fighters, General George Casey, the top US ground commander in Iraq, said on Monday."

Like I said, discredited, even the US military admit that.

I'd like to thank zovat for taking the time to reply properly - I have no objection to people holding strong views, after all I hold them myself, it's holding strong views while not being in charge of the facts that's dangerous, as George Bush proves every single day.

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Seems to have changed his mind somewhat. Also, the fact that Iraqis are protesting is an amazing change. Not a big deal to us, but to them it is. You should know what would have happened to them if they did that with Saddam. They would have gone to Abu Gharib and would have had more than someone pointing at their genitals and laughing. Also check out: http://www.csmonitor.com/2004/1223/p01s01-woiq.html I think Casey was probably trying to save relations and not antagonise Syria when he said your quote. It isn't only the US military that believe Syria is unduly helping the insurgency. I am not saying it is solely foreign fighters though. Not everyone was tortured under Saddan as someone had to do the torturing, and there was masses of people involved in the regime people underestimate the amount of supports I think. I certainly don't believe many, if really any of the fighters are non-ba'athist Iraqis who only want what is best for their country.

If foreign fighters came from somewhere, then they can obviously go back somewhere, especially when they had a 3 week warning of a hitherto-unseen amount of sheer explosive force being concentrated on them. They moved onto Mosul apparently.