MERGED - Prisoner Abuse

Originally Posted by scastle

Still,when has it ever been possible to put the words "Mirror","Good" and Journalism" in the same sentence without using the word not?

Are the mirror good at journalism? Hell no!

see it can be done

[Stuart]

Originally Posted by Damien

Are the mirror good at journalism? Hell no!

see it can be done

Damn....

[Tezcatlipoca]

Update on the US case:

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/mid...st/3680025.stm

US troops face Iraq abuse charges

The US military has filed criminal charges against six of its soldiers who are accused of abusing Iraqi prisoners.
The charges are now being examined by the military equivalent of a grand jury, a US military spokesman told the BBC's Newshour programme.

Six senior US officers were also reprimanded, the army said earlier.

The spokesman, Brigadier General Mark Kimmitt, said they had not taken part in the criminal actions, but had been responsible for supervising the others.


"Letters of reprimand are for their supervisors, some quite distant from their location... but who still had the responsibility of supervising their people," he said.

(snip)

Brigadier General Janis Karpinski, who was in charge of the prison as head of the 800th Military Police Brigade....(snip)...She is reportedly among the six reprimanded.

The General Office Memorandum Reprimand prohibits any further promotion and paves the way for dismissal from the army.

A seventh person has been given a "letter of admonishment", a lesser form of reprimand.

All seven are now appealing against the rulings, which were issued last month, but only made public on Monday.

(snip)

Originally Posted by punky

You reckon it is the Mirror's doing? That they created the pictures?

No, but I never said that they did.

I don't think they did.

Neither do I.

I still think it was some anti-war group, who wanted to ruin any good news to come out of the war.

Or some "chancers" who thought "we can make some money out of this, let's find an anti-war paper who will jump at these pictures and pay big bucks without worrying too much about the details".

If anyone think it is far fetched, speak to Mr. Galloway.

I'm not sure what you're trying to say here. Please can you clarify this point.

[Xaccers]

GMTV are claiming an anonymous officer they've interviewed says abuse is rife, but if you listen to the whole interview he just says things went on that shouldn't, is very non-descript, and ends with saying he's sure these things go on. So really he's just giving an opinion, never saw anything himself and is just reporting hearsay.
He did say that any allegations were thoroughly investigated.
Wonder how much he got paid.

[punky]

Originally Posted by Graham

Or some "chancers" who thought "we can make some money out of this, let's find an anti-war paper who will jump at these pictures and pay big bucks without worrying too much about the details".

Possibly, but with a topic so emotional and political, I don't think it was done for money. No evidence, just a feeling really.

Originally Posted by Graham

I'm not sure what you're trying to say here. Please can you clarify this point.

Galloway has publically and repeatedly stated he wanted the Coalition forces to be slaughtered by the Iraqis. He wanted Saddam to be victorious and to remain in power, to keep doing what he did.

I think (if it is false) it was done as a mixture of money and politics from the mirrors point of view it ties in perfectly with the papers view and sells papers. Same for those soldiers.

Also they said that british troops swapped them around, this is why is am almost certain it is fake. Theres no way these photos could have been swapped among many hands without the media getting wind of it.

To me its a cynical and horrible attempt from the mirror to cash in on the usa thing after all it was close to the release of the American photos

Originally Posted by punky

Galloway has publically and repeatedly stated he wanted the Coalition forces to be slaughtered by the Iraqis. He wanted Saddam to be victorious and to remain in power, to keep doing what he did.

Really? You can, of course, back these statements up with credible cites and facts?

(Oh, BTW, I wouldn't post links from The Sun newspaper...)

Originally Posted by Graham

Really? You can, of course, back these statements up with credible cites and facts?

(Oh, BTW, I wouldn't post links from The Sun newspaper...)

I was in Glasgow a couple of weeks ago, where Gorgeous George was once again the talk of the town following The Sun's claims about Saddam handing out bungs. He was interviewed on the radio, and didn't disguise his glee as he described how a previous libel victory against a newspaper had bought him a very nice new car.

So, Punky, watch out - he's a litigious little man who would happily drag you (and this site) through the courts, if he thought he could get anything worthwhile out of it.

[Xaccers]

Originally Posted by Graham

Really? You can, of course, back these statements up with credible cites and facts?

Bloody hell Graham, did you spend a couple of months in a dungeon this time last year?
How could you miss all the Galloway scandal?
His televised meeting with saddem, praising him so much we thought he was about to disappear up his backside. The pro saddam comments he made at anti war rallies. His call for the Iraqi army to slaughter our troops.
Missing Morgan saying he believed saddam should remain in power is understandable as it was on some afternoon political show, but the Galloway stuff was all over the media! Remember he called for the coalition forces to mutiny, something many people considered should have had him up on charges of treason

[punky]

Thanx for the warning towny, mate. Probably isn't too far fetched either.

Graham: You'll love this i'm sure and rip me apart with it, but I can't seem to find the direct quote i'm thinking of. The most known one was the one that he was found guilty for and thrown out the Labour party (He was brought up on 5 charges of disrepute, he was found guilty of inciting Arabs to fight the coalition (Which in my mind did a lot of damage, he should of encouraged them to lay down their weapons and keep the body count down, or at least kept his mouth shut), and incitng the British troops to defy orders. For some reason I can found quotes on Galloway with the other charges, but not the first one, despite it being a televised interview on 28/10/03. Those are the tame ones, although I know i've heard much worse at a couple of impromptu speeches he gave at a couple of protests. I'll keep looking though.

I think we are losing sight of the point. The one I made which started this, was that there are people out there who feel strong enough about the war, (like Galloway, Stop The War), who are extreme enough to go to extraordiary efforts to undermine the war. People like this would be likely candiates to concoct pictures to cause this much damage to the British army and inflame, incite the people in Iraq and surrounding area.

Originally Posted by Xaccers

Bloody hell Graham, did you spend a couple of months in a dungeon this time last year?
How could you miss all the Galloway scandal?

I did not "miss all the Galloway scandal", however I (unlike some) took note of the fact that he was being accused of all sorts of things which later turned out to be either untrue, mis-representations of what he said or downright fabrications.

His call for the Iraqi army to slaughter our troops.

Again, please, cite *EXACTLY* what he said.

Remember he called for the coalition forces to mutiny, something many people considered should have had him up on charges of treason

No, he called on them to disobey "illegal orders". Or are you saying that British Soldiers should obey orders blindly, even if they are in violation of the conventions of International Law and the Geneva Convention?

"I was just obeying orders" has never succeeded as a defence...

hasnt it? it should......

Galloway did incite iraqis to attacks british troops and has been a downright git in all of this. He should follow Robin cooks example

Originally Posted by punky

Graham: You'll love this i'm sure and rip me apart with it, but I can't seem to find the direct quote i'm thinking of.

Perhaps because it was *NEVER* a "direct quote".

People keep claiming that GG said British Troops should "disobey orders", but his *exact* words were that they should disobey illegal orders, which is another matter entirely. Unfortunately most of our tabloid media decided not to make that crucial distinction in their headlinesand, regrettably, a lot of people didn't bother to check the details.

What he actually said about the Arab states was that Arab countries should deny American and British forces use of their land and air space and unite to repel any invasion force.

"Will they [the Arab states] send forces to defend Iraq this time in 2002 or will they allow the use of their forces, air space and land by the Crusaders and foreigners to attack Iraq and start a fire in an Arab, Muslim country that is part of their big entity?" Mr Galloway said on Al Jezeera, the Arab satellite broadcaster.

"Will they allow this entity to be torn and paralysed? If they do, then they deserve what is awaiting them in the next 100 years."

Now what it seems to me that he was saying is that the Arab states shouldn't collude with those in the West who want to re-shape the Middle East in *their* preferred image and who are quite content to do it with force.

The most known one was the one that he was found guilty for and thrown out the Labour party (He was brought up on 5 charges of disrepute, he was found guilty of inciting Arabs to fight the coalition (Which in my mind did a lot of damage, he should of encouraged them to lay down their weapons and keep the body count down, or at least kept his mouth shut), and incitng the British troops to defy orders.

So far as I can find, the charges were:

* he incited Arabs to fight British troops
* he incited British troops to defy orders
* he incited Plymouth voters to reject Labour MPs
* he threatened to stand against Labour
* he backed an anti-war candidate in Preston

and he was found guilty of all but the third charge by a three man committee of the Labour party.

Now, frankly, the last three are rather petty to say the least, the first and second are, as I've already pointed out, a distortion of what he said and that "committee" was a group picked by the leadership which sounds much more like a "kangaroo court".

I think we are losing sight of the point. The one I made which started this, was that there are people out there who feel strong enough about the war, (like Galloway, Stop The War), who are extreme enough to go to extraordiary efforts to undermine the war. People like this would be likely candiates to concoct pictures to cause this much damage to the British army and inflame, incite the people in Iraq and surrounding area.

Whilst there may be people who feel as strongly as you describe, to try to name names and ascribe these actions to people like George Galloway and Stop the War is verging on libellous, unless you have *very strong* proof (and not just supposition or innuendo) to back these claims up.

Originally Posted by Damien

hasnt it? it should......

Do I *need* to remind you of which group it was that tried to use it as a defence...???

Galloway did incite iraqis to attacks british troops

See my posts above.

He should follow Robin cooks example

George Galloway was never a Member of the Cabinet, nor a Minister, nor has sat on Labour's front benches, so he could not resign from any of those positions as Robin Cook did.

Please note, however, that Robin Cook did *NOT* resign from the Labour Party, nor give up the Labour Whip. It is an important point.