They know when the sheeple see (and hear) the cries of children they beat and raped and tortured, it will all be very much over.

Maybe the "physical safety" of "individuals" they are concerned about is their own.

Fallout from this will be HUGE.

Chimpy's no doubt counting on one of his whores uhm... I mean appellate judges to pull this chestnut out of the fire for him.

Hopefully the hue and cry will be sufficiently resounding to compel the disclosure and the court of appeal will not give der Shrubenfueher cover on this one. We can always hope...

Signed,
A scared citizen of New Weimar

Don't be surprised if the appellate judge is Roberts.

Shouldn't Roberts recuse himself under these circunstances?

What do I make of it? Why, is there really any making that needs to be done? I mean, isn't this pretty straightforward? Bush simply does not want more pictures (and video!) which will reflect negatively on his administration released at a time when he's already taking it on the chin over the handling of the Iraq quagmire (not to mention an ever-widening Plamegate scandal).

Bush will try to have the release of this information derailed any way he can, and meanhwile, the talking points will be faxed out that this is all "old news." [begin wingnut rant]"Why," the flatulently fulminating wingnut pundits will wonder aloud, "do we need to see any more of what happened at that time? We already know what happened, we all agree it was bad. But it was the work of a few bad apples, a phrase, I might add, which could be used to describe the current shenanigans of the liberal hatchet men in the media who are right now working to put our troops in greater harm in an attempt to smear our President for short-term political gain. They are despicable and too far-gone with Bush-hatred to be salvaged." [end wingnut rant]

How'd I do? Was that about right at capturing essence du Wingnut?

Saddam's Adult-Only Rape Rooms now replaced by Dirty Bush's All-American "Kiddie Rape Rooms."

How sweet.

I just LOVE those right-to-lifers. They're just SO pro-the life we love to live! And really, those little foreign boys--they were just ASKING for it, were they not? Ask Santorum! He knows all about--and SAYS all about--"little men"! Tee hee!

If pictures of children are a part of the latest documentation, the cry for war crimes tribunal will grow louder. Someone with a conscious needs to leak those pictures to the foreign press.

the amazing thing was that this story got zero coverage *in advance*. the june 30 deadline came and went with nary a mention, and then there were literally a couple of press reports which mentioned that they'd asked for a delay till yesterday.
given the damage that the original pix did, and given the trouble the whitehouse is in already, the imminent release of these pics should have been a story.
the outrage would be greater if we'd built this story over time.
i did my best...

the amazing thing was that this story got zero coverage *in advance*. the june 30 deadline came and went with nary a mention, and then there were literally a couple of press reports which mentioned that they'd asked for a delay till yesterday.
given the damage that the original pix did, and given the trouble the whitehouse is in already, the imminent release of these pics should have been a story.
the outrage would be greater if we'd built this story over time.
imagine bush's poll numbers on monday morning if these pics were relased.
i did my best...

This is interesting to say the least. I don't remember hearing about children being involved with respect to Abu Gharib. Now I am a card carrying member of the vast right wing conspiracy, but I don;t support the torture of children NEVER. After reading the article I don't get the impression that is the case here. Personal note here: I still believe that these sickos at Abu Gharib were just what they were: Sick HUman Beings. Since none of them claimed to be operating under some standing order or pressure to "soften up" the prisoners I can'tsee what good could come of this. It would be like publishing pics of a pediphile and that would be wrong too. I know you don't like Bush, Cheney, or Rumsfeld but none of the guards claimed that they did those things in response to an order or regulation. Yes they claimed initially to be working for some mysterious CID or CIA person (maybe Col Flagg) but at the trial they didn't cling to that story. Don't you need at least one of them to supprt the idea that tehy were working under orders from above in order to advance this conspiracy?

I am surprised that you are just now hearing about children at Abu Gharib.

The Associated Press

Friday 11 March 2005

Washington - A boy no older than 11 was among the children held by the Army at Iraq's Abu Ghraib prison, the former U.S. commander of the facility told a general investigating abuses at the prison.

Brig. Gen. Janis Karpinski did not say what happened to the boy or why he was imprisoned, according to a transcript of her interview with Maj. Gen. George Fay that was released by the American Civil Liberties Union.

The transcript of the May 2004 interview was among hundreds of pages of documents about Iraq prisoner abuses the group made public Thursday after getting them under the Freedom of Information Act.

Karpinski, who was in charge of Abu Ghraib from July to November 2003, said she often visited the prison's youngest inmates. One boy "looked like he was 8-years-old," Karpinski said.

"He told me he was almost 12," Karpinski said. "He told me his brother was there with him, but he really wanted to see his mother, could he please call his mother. He was crying."

Military officials have acknowledged that some juvenile prisoners had been held at Abu Ghraib, a massive prison built by Saddam Hussein's government outside Baghdad. But the transcript is the first documented evidence of a child no older than 11 being held prisoner.

Military officials have said that no juvenile prisoners were subject to the abuses captured in photographs from Abu Ghraib. But some of the men shown being stripped naked and humiliated had been accused of raping a 14-year-old prisoner.

The new documents offer rare details about the children whom the U.S. military has held in Iraq. Karpinski said the Army began holding women and children in a high-security cellblock at Abu Ghraib in the summer of 2003 because the facility was better than lockups in Baghdad where the youths had been held.

The documents include statements from six witnesses who said three interrogators and a civilian interpreter at Abu Ghraib got drunk one night and took a 17-year-old female prisoner from her cell. The four men forced the girl to expose her breasts and kissed her, the reports said. The witnesses - whose names were blacked out of the documents given to the ACLU - said those responsible were not punished.

Another soldier said in January 2004 that troops poured water and smeared mud on the detained 17-year-old son of an Iraqi general and "broke" the general by letting him watch his son shiver in the cold.

On another subject, Karpinski said she had seen written orders to hold a prisoner that the CIA had captured without keeping records. The documents released by the ACLU quote an unnamed Army officer at Abu Ghraib as saying military intelligence officers and the CIA worked out a written agreement on how to handle unreported detainees. An Army report issued last September said investigators could not find any copies of any such written agreement.

The Pentagon has acknowledged holding up to 100 "ghost detainees," keeping the prisoners off the books and away from humanitarian investigators of the International Committee of the Red Cross. Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld said he authorized it because the prisoners were "enemy combatants" not entitled to prisoner of war protections.

The ACLU has sued Rumsfeld on behalf of four Iraqis and four Afghans who say they were tortured at U.S. military facilities. Rumsfeld and his spokesmen have repeatedly said that the defense secretary and his aides never authorized or condoned any abuses.

Six enlisted soldiers have pleaded guilty to military charges for their roles in abuses at Abu Ghraib, and Pvt. Charles Graner Jr. was convicted at a court-martial this year and sentenced to 10 years in prison.

Karpinski, one of the few generals to be criticized in Army detainee reports for poor leadership, quoted several senior generals in Iraq as making callous statements about prisoners.

Karpinski said Maj. Gen. Walter Wodjakowski, then the No. 2 Army general in Iraq, told her in the summer of 2003 not to release more prisoners, even if they were innocent.

"I don't care if we're holding 15,000 innocent civilians. We're winning the war," Karpinski said Wodjakowski told her. She said she replied: "Not inside the wire, you're not, sir."

-------

I am not surprised about holding kids, but first heard there were photos of any kind about them. If they are like the other released I see no redeeming value to have them in public, unless you are a sick pedophile that gets off on that. If you think people will follow the conspiracy theory into the White House I think you are sorely mistaken. I know you want to make Bush responsible, but sensible people wont see it that way.

There is evidence that Gonzales and Rumsfeld felt that torture was okay, since they are detainees and have no rights. I can't believe you are not getting that fact.

Second of all, the only way to get these practices stopped is for a full a exposure of what we are doing, and what we have been doing. You can't do that by keeping it a secret. Photos speak louder than words, as we have found out.

Judith, According to their own testimony the guards were unaware of any directive that condoned torture. I am surprised you don't know that fact. These seven or so rouge soldiers didn't torture these prisoners in response to a request they did it for kicks because they were bored and unsupervised. The reason we found out about it was because of a brave soldier knew he had to stop it and that it was WRONG. These prisoners were not terrorists they were mostly common criminals, rapists, and murderers. Besides stacking them in a pyramid sounds more high schoolish that anything else. As for torture or how far we can interrogate a prisoner, I think that the memo and ruling was very forward thinking. I don’t think that asking the terrorist “Prety Please” will get you any information, but if they think that they are danger or pain maybe we can get something that will save lives. Personally I think that since they are not POW and not accorded protection from any law I would support summary executions. Now if they feel talkative and want to help us maybe we can allow them additional time at club gitmo. Question for you: If they tortured some guy and he told about a plot to bomb a bus, train, plane that someone you loved was on and we foiled it, would that make you feel bad?

Why are they not considered POW's, Sarge? Because bush said so?!??

Is bush the law now? Funny, I thought it was the Constitution that was the law, and I also could've sworn there was something about NO ONE being above the law in this country.

And do you seriously expect me to believe that in that place, in that time, under that microscope, with that much pressure in the region, that a bunch of would be terrorists are going to be guarded by a bunch of high school fuck-ups with no supervison, no controls, no nothing, in the military that has rules and procedures for everything, up to and including how to wipe your ass after taking a shit?

You say that the torture memo was very forward thinking. It wasn't torture!! Everybody gets outta jail free card! Perfect!

But the guards didn't testify about getting tortured okayed. But it wasn't torture, remember? But if they did torture them it would be okay, because they might tell the truth under torture. But it wasn't torture, okay?!

Now, we all know how good torture is in getting information. Just ask John McCain. Or any other tortured prisoner of war or terrorism hostage.

Here's an example for us today. See if you can figure it out.

We tortured this guy about a plot the Border Patrol and FBI had broken up, imperfectly unfortunately. A truck crossed the El Paso Border loaded with explosives and was headed towards a major American city. The tortured guy said it was heading on Interstate 8 north towards the first major city they would find.

So what city were they headed towards?

“And do you seriously expect me to believe that in that place, in that time, under that microscope, with that much pressure in the region, that a bunch of would be terrorists are going to be guarded by a bunch of high school fuck-ups with no supervision, no controls, no nothing, in the military that has rules and procedures for everything, up to and including how to wipe your ass after taking a shit?”
First off Duckman you have obviously never served in the armed service or at least the U.S. Armed Services. They aren’t regulated that much and often lower ranking NCOs and Enlisted personnel are put into leadership positions. Such is the case with SP4 Grainer and his gang of fools. They were left for the most part alone, at night, and with little guidance. That is precisely why General Karpinski is now a Col and retired.
Second, what they did to these Iraqi prisoners was abuse clear and simple. Torture is used to extract information and these idiots were only trying to demean the prisoners, not extract information.
Third, yes the courts have ruled that they are NOT accorded POW status and therefore have no protection under the Geneva convention. Also, we would have been operating within the existing convention if we had lined them up against the wall and shot them. Additionally the conventions allow for interrogation of prisoners upon capture. I think the Bush administration WAS forward thinking in getting a legal brief that outlined how far we could go in these interrogations. I don’t think that Bush even needed to get that and could have settled the whole matter with an executive order but to be on sound legal footing. You may not agree with the brief but it is legal and they are not some common criminal that we should lock up in Sing Sing or Folsom.
Finally, I was attempting to dispute is the apparent “connect-the-dots” from SP4 Grainer to President Bush, with a side trip to the infamous “torture Memo. I know it’s hard for you to grasp but the guilty party here is SP4 Grainer (among others) and he is now in jail. I think the case is closed, but you believe whatever you want.

This is the most horrible thing yet, and no time to hide one's head in the sand. If this is only what the White House says it is, then WHY are they trying so hard (witholding action on the ENTIRE defense budget, for instance) to keep it from surfacing any further? And using such ridiculous excuses? (The delay WAS to prevent any identification of individuals. So that's covered.)

These terrible atrocities happen only two ways: no supervision of people who they should have known had problems, OR orders from above. And either way, higher ups ARE responsible.

Period.