Release of 2,100 Photos of US Soldiers Brutalizing Iraqi/Afghan Prisoners may threaten National Secu - Polidicks

[url]https://news.vice.com/article/up-to-2100-photos-of-us-soldiers-abusing-prisoners-may-soon-be-released?utm_source=vicenewsfb[/url] [QUOTE]Would the release of 10-year-old detainee abuse photographs, such as one depicting US soldiers pointing a broom handle at a hooded detainee's rectum, incite terrorist organizations and threaten national security? That's a question government attorneys will have to answer next week when they explain to a federal court judge why as many as 2,100 unclassified photos of US soldiers abusing Iraqi and Afghan captives should continue to be concealed from the public. The Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) case, which resurfaced last week, is part of the American Civil Liberties Union's (ACLU) long-running lawsuit against the US government to obtain documents about the treatment of detainees in custody of the CIA and military. Last week, US District Court Judge Alvin Hellerstein scheduled a hearing on the matter for September 8 and said he would allow the government to submit additional evidence to justify the withholding of the pictures before he renders a decision. But he also signaled that he may ultimately order the Department of Defense to release the abuse photographs, stating in a 21-page ruling that the government did not submit evidence to back up its 2012 claims that releasing the photographs would endanger national security and the lives of US military personnel. "The government has failed to submit to this Court evidence supporting the Secretary of Defense's determination that there is a risk of harm," Hellerstein said, "and evidence that the Secretary of Defense considered whether each photograph could be safely released."[/QUOTE] [QUOTE]...But Jameel Jaffer, the ACLU's deputy legal director, said caving into terrorist organizations like the Islamic State is misguided. "You can't give terrorist organizations veto power over the disclosure of information about the conduct of the US government," Jaffer told VICE News. "The argument that the government is making is that a disclosure of government misconduct will incite violence. The government could make the same argument about stories on the front pages of every major newspaper. Where does it end?"[/QUOTE]

You can't release pictures of our soldiers torturing people! The torturers might get hurt or something! Innocent people getting hurt is unforgivable.

Why would you even take photos of that kind of stuff?

jesus, 2100 photos is that some sort of torture porn? thats pretty excessive

[QUOTE=5/3/4/3;45903037]jesus, 2100 photos is that some sort of torture porn? thats pretty excessive[/QUOTE] I feel like it's caps from a security cam because I can't imagine someone taking 2100 photos.

[QUOTE=Emperor Scorpious II;45903026]Why would you even take photos of that kind of stuff?[/QUOTE] So they could later be released to the public to show how fucking stupid our country is, and in this context, was because of the fucking patriot act.

Limiting free speech to appease violent assholes who practice slavery never stops them from being violent. America should know this. [QUOTE=Last or First;45903021]You can't release pictures of our soldiers torturing people! The torturers might get hurt or something! Innocent people getting hurt is unforgivable.[/QUOTE] Those poor people.

[QUOTE=Emperor Scorpious II;45903026]Why would you even take photos of that kind of stuff?[/QUOTE] Who knows? Soldiers aren't saints, they're people [img]http://www.aljazeera.com/mritems/Images/2013/7/15/2013715184225399734_20.jpg[/img]

[QUOTE=draugur;45903104]So they could later be released to the public to show how fucking stupid our country is, and in this context, was because of the fucking patriot act.[/QUOTE] Is it just me or does the Patriot Act sound really fucking Dystopian.

Abu-Ghraib was fucking disgraceful. A bunch of people who went mad with power.

They're already plenty incited. That argument is like telling someone not to throw a match at a raging California wildfire.

[quote]that releasing the photographs would endanger national security and the lives of US military personnel.[/quote] Seems like this is the standard excuse for withholding information that casts the government/military in a negative light.

[QUOTE=Thomo_UK;45903142]Is it just me or does the Patriot Act sound really fucking Dystopian.[/QUOTE] It's sounded dystopian since it was created.

[QUOTE=Emperor Scorpious II;45903026]Why would you even take photos of that kind of stuff?[/QUOTE] Criminals are not generally smart people.

[QUOTE=Mr. Someguy;45903555]Criminals are not generally smart people.[/QUOTE] I dunno, Comcast had to have some intelligence to get to their position.

[QUOTE=Thomo_UK;45903142]Is it just me or does the Patriot Act sound really fucking Dystopian.[/QUOTE] Said plenty of people in 2002, and were accused of being terrorist sympathizers for speaking up. [I]Fucking[/I] told you so. :eng101:

Is the word dystopian just entering people's vocabularies or? It's popping up all over the place, like some fucking buzzword.

[QUOTE=Thomo_UK;45903142]Is it just me or does the Patriot Act sound really fucking Dystopian.[/QUOTE] There was a lot of dystopian-sounding stuff that came up in the wake of 9/11. Tightening national security during a massive surge of patriotism produces that kind of effect.

I don't understand, I mean, If I were someone trying to withhold information or to hide something, I would had deleted them all. Or is there some rule against deleting stuff like this.

[QUOTE=Dr.C;45903141]Who knows? Soldiers aren't saints, they're people [img]http://www.aljazeera.com/mritems/Images/2013/7/15/2013715184225399734_20.jpg[/img][/QUOTE] Not to lessen the gravity of their crimes, but like seen in Nazi Germany, the Milgram experiment, and the Stanford prison experiment, the power of dehumanizing your opponents and the power of deferring responsibility to higher authority figures is not to be underestimated. Is it terrible that it happened? Yes. Is it correct to blame those soldiers for doing what they did? Probably. Is it correct to think of those soldiers as terrible, morally depraved people, and to think that you would never do what they did under any circumstances? Probably not. The military is, surprisingly enough, staffed by human beings. People do not turn into monsters because they join the military or because they're assigned guard/supervision duties over prisoners. But imagine guarding over prisoners, criminals, terrorists, day after day. Sure, gitmo detained/detains many people who are likely innocent, many people against whom there is no evidence. However guards are not judges, as a guard it's not your job to figure out which one of these people you're looking over at criminals and which ones are innocent. You just gotta make sure they stay in prison and don't do anything destructive; after all, if they're in prison it has to be for a reason, right? It would not be difficult to convince yourself that by keeping these criminals and terrorists locked up, you're doing a service to the country. These are the terrorists who flew planes into the twin towers and killed thousands, these are people who are willing to suicide bomb fellow countrymen and fellow soldiers in the name of a foreign religion you don't believe in or understand. These are monsters who if not watched or contained are willing to do insane, unpredictable things because they want to see your country and your entire way of life destroyed. One day you get told you need to get information out of these prisoners by any way necessary. Through torture or otherwise; maybe thinking through the implications you might ask whether its right to torture people who may be innocent. You're told that the information you gather might save many lives; you're reassured that the prisoners here are very likely to be guilty. I mean, shit, they don't send people to a place like Gitmo for no reason, right? If there really is something wrong with the intel and the prisoner is innocent, the higher ups will take responsibility and take care of it; you don't have to worry about that possibility. You can't always take the moral high ground, after all, there are times when you need to fight fire with fire - so you hit the terrorists in the way you know will hurt and humiliate them the worst. Sometimes you gotta just stick that knife in deep and twist it until it breaks; it's ugly, but when another major terrorist attack might be around the corner, speed is of essence, and you can't always afford to do things the right way. So you do what you think you need to do in the name of the defense of your country. Now I'm drunk and talking out of my ass, but I don't think its fair to stand on top of the moral high ground with 20:20 hindsight condemning their actions like those soldiers were complete monsters. Just based on the posting in Sensationalist Headlines, I find it hard to believe that the Geneva Convention regulations on the treatment of POWs would be rigidly upheld if the grand majority of the posters here were put in charge of over seeing the detainment and interrogation of prisoners, and then subsequently told that the prisoners were various captured ISIS soldiers highly likely to be responsible for the brutal execution of the two reporters and the systematic execution of Iraqi soldiers/Christian civilians/etc. It is arrogant to imagine one would be unyielding and determined to take the moral high ground when a body of evidence exists demonstrating just how easy it is to manipulate (otherwise normal) people into doing downright horrible things through deferral of responsibility and dehumanizing propaganda. Capacity for cruelty innately exists in all human beings; all it takes to unlock it is the removal of empathy, and that is not such a hard thing to do. [highlight](User was banned for this post ("PUI" - Starpluck))[/highlight]

So, we are for or against this? I can't really tell from people's responses here.. Or are we just completely focused on the issue how is it even humanly possible to take 2,100 photos..? Which by all means and logic seems irrelevant to me. [editline]6th September 2014[/editline] Fuck it I'll just rate it funneh.

[QUOTE=Shogoll;45905885]Not to lessen the gravity of their crimes, but like seen in Nazi Germany, the Milgram experiment, and the Stanford prison experiment, the power of dehumanizing your opponents and the power of deferring responsibility to higher authority figures is not to be underestimated.[/QUOTE] i haven't read the rest of that but wasn't the stanford prison experiment extremely super flawed in its methodology to the point of being more or less useless as an overarching point

[QUOTE=Bat-shit;45905951]So, we are for or against this? I can't really tell from people's responses here.. Or are we just completely focused on the issue how is it even humanly possible to take 2,100 photos..? Which by all means and logic seems irrelevant to me. [editline]6th September 2014[/editline] Fuck it I'll just rate it funneh.[/QUOTE] How about having your own opinion?

[QUOTE=Thomo_UK;45903142]Is it just me or does the Patriot Act sound really fucking Dystopian.[/QUOTE] I think what happened to this country(US) after 9/11 is an eye opener. We always thought we were special, freedom/democracy/blah blah blah...then as soon as people got scared that all got thrown out the window. The simple fact they'd call it the "Patriot" Act should tell people what bullshit it is. It is such an obvious ploy to get one over on the public. They might as well have tried to fuck with the education system and call it "No Child Left Behind" if they want to title things in a way that manipulates people emotionally. edit: These photos would cause an uproar, but in the old days we'd have accused any country that was hiding such photos of hiding evidence of war crimes. But since it's us, some people want to sweep it under the rug. Hypocrisy in action.

First they torture for information, then they torture for fun. These dudes guarding and occasionally brutalising their prisoners, as dangerous as they might be, are not Jack Bauer, they are not Batman and should not be mistaken to be as such. They are people who have become deranged by their duties. Heh they're just people there's a little psycho in all of us is not an excuse even in this case.

[QUOTE=Shogoll;45905885]Not to lessen the gravity of their crimes, but like seen in Nazi Germany, the Milgram experiment, and the Stanford prison experiment, the power of dehumanizing your opponents and the power of deferring responsibility to higher authority figures is not to be underestimated. Is it terrible that it happened? Yes. Is it correct to blame those soldiers for doing what they did? Probably. Is it correct to think of those soldiers as terrible, morally depraved people, and to think that you would never do what they did under any circumstances? Probably not. The military is, surprisingly enough, staffed by human beings. People do not turn into monsters because they join the military or because they're assigned guard/supervision duties over prisoners. But imagine guarding over prisoners, criminals, terrorists, day after day. Sure, gitmo detained/detains many people who are likely innocent, many people against whom there is no evidence. However guards are not judges, as a guard it's not your job to figure out which one of these people you're looking over at criminals and which ones are innocent. You just gotta make sure they stay in prison and don't do anything destructive; after all, if they're in prison it has to be for a reason, right? It would not be difficult to convince yourself that by keeping these criminals and terrorists locked up, you're doing a service to the country. These are the terrorists who flew planes into the twin towers and killed thousands, these are people who are willing to suicide bomb fellow countrymen and fellow soldiers in the name of a foreign religion you don't believe in or understand. These are monsters who if not watched or contained are willing to do insane, unpredictable things because they want to see your country and your entire way of life destroyed. One day you get told you need to get information out of these prisoners by any way necessary. Through torture or otherwise; maybe thinking through the implications you might ask whether its right to torture people who may be innocent. You're told that the information you gather might save many lives; you're reassured that the prisoners here are very likely to be guilty. I mean, shit, they don't send people to a place like Gitmo for no reason, right? If there really is something wrong with the intel and the prisoner is innocent, the higher ups will take responsibility and take care of it; you don't have to worry about that possibility. You can't always take the moral high ground, after all, there are times when you need to fight fire with fire - so you hit the terrorists in the way you know will hurt and humiliate them the worst. Sometimes you gotta just stick that knife in deep and twist it until it breaks; it's ugly, but when another major terrorist attack might be around the corner, speed is of essence, and you can't always afford to do things the right way. So you do what you think you need to do in the name of the defense of your country. Now I'm drunk and talking out of my ass, but I don't think its fair to stand on top of the moral high ground with 20:20 hindsight condemning their actions like those soldiers were complete monsters. Just based on the posting in Sensationalist Headlines, I find it hard to believe that the Geneva Convention regulations on the treatment of POWs would be rigidly upheld if the grand majority of the posters here were put in charge of over seeing the detainment and interrogation of prisoners, and then subsequently told that the prisoners were various captured ISIS soldiers highly likely to be responsible for the brutal execution of the two reporters and the systematic execution of Iraqi soldiers/Christian civilians/etc. It is arrogant to imagine one would be unyielding and determined to take the moral high ground when a body of evidence exists demonstrating just how easy it is to manipulate (otherwise normal) people into doing downright horrible things through deferral of responsibility and dehumanizing propaganda. Capacity for cruelty innately exists in all human beings; all it takes to unlock it is the removal of empathy, and that is not such a hard thing to do.[/QUOTE] You see, the problem with your argument though is that the conventions were routinely followed in almost every single war till then with the exception of the Vietnam War. We didn't torture German prisoners during WWII, nor did we do so in any other war aside from the Iraq War and the Vietnam war. And we still won all of those wars. The fact of the matter is that torturing people doesn't help, doesn't do anything but make people talk - and say anything they want. There's[I] far more efficient methods[/I] of getting more relevant information, and the fact of the matter is that to [U]rationalize[/U] torture as acceptable and normal is not only morally wrong, but unacceptable. It goes against our own principles and to say that "people will be people" is absolutely correct, it doesn't change the fact that it shouldn't be an offense worthy of discipline, so that when people do these horrible things and get disciplined they're made an example so that unacceptable behaviour doesn't happen and tarnish our image. To rationalize something absolutely horrid as acceptable when there's absolutely no reason to do so with far better alternatives is dumb. And frankly, this whole torture-is-acceptable thing that has happened in the wake of 9/11 is not only wrong, it's a fucking rationalization made after the terrorist attacks to justify cruelty against our opponents, despicable as they might be. To see it as anything else is delusional. Before 9/11, nobody would have even begin to make the suggestion that torture was justifiable. Save lives? Sure, maybe that bullshit they're spewing while their ass is getting a broom shoved up has some relevance, but don't even tell me that you couldn't find the same thing out by simple investigation, mental probing, or psychological pressure.

How about -- the deliberate coverups (despite Obama's promises) and prevention of holding the chief individuals who oversaw and ordered torture accountable is what ultimately threatens national security, not the disclosure of such abuses.

[QUOTE=Starpluck;45910304]How about -- the deliberate coverups (despite Obama's promises) and prevention of holding the chief individuals who oversaw and ordered torture accountable is what ultimately threatens national security, not the disclosure of such abuses.[/QUOTE] I'd cut him some slack because the ultimate reason he couldn't shut down Guantanamo was that congress blocked the funding, and half the population supports keeping it open. I remember the first day in office he pulled an executive order to close it and congress blocked the funding for that order, so to say that he doesn't want this stuff prosecuted is not considering the inertia of the massive system that's been built up under him during the Bush administration preventing him from doing that.

[QUOTE=minilandstan;45903879]I dunno, Comcast had to have some intelligence to get to their position.[/QUOTE] The best criminals are the ones who avoid being labelled so by shaping the law itself.

It's kind of tangential, but if the judge rules that the documents have to be released (which seems likely), I wonder how many people here are going to remember that decision the next time some government agency is in the spotlight and everyone accuses the judges of being corrupt government shills doing everything they can to cover up wrongdoing. You don't get to be a judge by throwing the law out when it suits politics, and it's nice to see a story every once in a while that reaffirms that principle.