The abuses at Abu Ghraib are part of American culture

Post #154,744 by bluke 5/12/04 2:21:41 AM Reply	The abuses at Abu Ghraib are part of American culture [link\|http://www.nationalreview.com/lowry/lowry200405110847.asp\|Abu Ghraib & Us] "... the perpetrators of these acts were Americans. That is not an incidental fact. Soldiers always reflect their societies. ... So it is that in Abu Ghraib and its aftermath we see some of the seamy undercurrents of America magnified in a horrifying fashion \ufffd in particular, the celebration of cruelty, the ubiquity of pornography, and a cult of victimhood. ... Consider the iconic film of the 1990s, Quentin Tarantino's Pulp Fiction. It includes a scene of the rape of a man imprisoned and kept as a sexual slave, which prompted laughs in theaters. The victim, "The Gimp," became a figure of fun. Tarantino's latest, the Kill Bill movies, present the same romance of power and violence, arbitrarily and stylishly wielded. Cruelty, Tarantino tells us, can be fun. ... Then, there is the very fact of the pictures. The American jailers, who live in a country where pornography is a $10 billion-a-year business, became amateur pornographers. They videotaped themselves having sex with one another. One of the officers disciplined at Abu Ghraib allegedly took pictures of female soldiers showering. The Americans sexually humiliated Iraqi prisoners, forcing them to masturbate, to wear women's underwear, and to commit (or feign committing) unnatural acts, and captured it on film. If they had done this stateside in different circumstances, they might be very rich and perhaps even up for an Adult Video Award."
Post #154,746 by Ashton 5/12/04 2:49:21 AM Reply	Thou sayest. As does National Review [!!!] Me too. The flip side of our Puritan Heritage - as with the young girls fondled and probed by The Elders in Salem (to find marks of That Ol Debbil, while fantasizing but still preaching) - is just as Mr. Lowry opines. It's Kewl to flaunt one's mechanical / military / Nuke Power over - just anyone _{smaller, weaker, 'lower', less-White}. Our 'games' betray our preoccupations. Donald Trump, Billy et al: our Heroes. You're Fired!! is Trump's popular theme - and 'ours'. Odd to be in company with National Review, but then it's always a Strange time when chickens come home to roost.
Post #154,835 by lincoln 5/12/04 12:37:27 PM Reply	Here's a very difficult question who live in a country where pornography is a $10 billion-a-year business What's the difference between "Erotica" and "Pornography"? I don't think anybody has come up with a good definition that a majority will agree with. The best one I've ever heard came from Hugh Hefner years ago: "What turns me on is erotica; what turns you on is pornography." In this case, I side with your word of pornography because of the situation and people being forced to participate against their will. In the USA, the erotica industry is overwhelmingly populated with willing participants. lincoln "Windows XP has so many holes in its security that any reasonable user will conclude it was designed by the same German officer who created the prison compound in "Hogan's Heroes." - Andy Ihnatko, Chicago Sun-Times [link\|mailto:bconnors@ev1.net\|contact me]
Post #154,839 by mmoffitt 5/12/04 12:51:35 PM Reply	Erotica is what College Grads are in to, others porn. ;) bcnu, Mikem If you can read this, you are not the President.
Post #154,869 by tablizer 5/12/04 3:31:03 PM 5/12/04 3:33:41 PM Reply	Most other cultures are hardly angels deep down [link\|http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/middle_east/3631743.stm\|http://news.bbc.co.u..._east/3631743.stm] ________________ oop.ismad.com Edited by tablizer May 12, 2004, 03:31:18 PM EDT Edited by tablizer May 12, 2004, 03:33:41 PM EDT Expand All History
Post #154,929 by rcareaga 5/12/04 10:19:23 PM Reply	few other cultures —have the capacity or inclination to project their brutality to the four corners of the earth. Nothing the Saudis do... nothing the Iraqis do... nothing the Taliban does... nothing Al Qaeda does... —exempts us from our humanity, and from our obligation to repudiate the torturers. My god, listening to Rumsfeld talk about "abuses" (apparently the Rove-approved euphemism du jour for what we used to call "atrocities") today made me want to puke. Friends, if this criminal conspiracy disguised as an American presidential administration is returned to power in November we will all, as one recent commentator has put it, be wearing the blue dress. I swore after 1980 that henceforth I would treat politics as entertainment and spectacle only...but now I'm quite unable... despairingly, Die Welt ist alles, was der Fall ist.
Post #154,986 by boxley 5/13/04 12:44:09 PM Reply	dont worry if george cant do it jeb can 12 more years Time for Lord Stanley to get a Tan questions, help? [link\|mailto:pappas@catholic.org\|email pappas at catholic.org]
Post #154,937 by rcareaga 5/12/04 11:48:20 PM Reply	a little more on American culture from the NY Times The Central Intelligence Agency has used coercive interrogation methods against a select group of high-level leaders and operatives of Al Qaeda that have produced growing concerns inside the agency about abuses, according to current and former counterterrorism officials. At least one agency employee has been disciplined for threatening a detainee with a gun during questioning, they said. In the case of Khalid Shaikh Mohammed, a high-level detainee who is believed to have helped plan the attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, C.I.A. interrogators used graduated levels of force, including a technique known as "water boarding," in which a prisoner is strapped down, forcibly pushed under water and made to believe he might drown. These techniques were authorized by a set of secret rules for the interrogation of high-level Qaeda prisoners, none known to be housed in Iraq, that were endorsed by the Justice Department and the C.I.A. The rules were among the first adopted by the Bush administration after the Sept. 11 attacks for handling detainees and may have helped establish a new understanding throughout the government that officials would have greater freedom to deal harshly with detainees. Defenders of the operation said the methods stopped short of torture, did not violate American anti-torture statutes, and were necessary to fight a war against a nebulous enemy whose strength and intentions could only be gleaned by extracting information from often uncooperative detainees. Interrogators were trying to find out whether there might be another attack planned against the United States. The methods employed by the C.I.A. are so severe that senior officials of the Federal Bureau of Investigation have directed its agents to stay out of many of the interviews of the high-level detainees, counterterrorism officials said. The F.B.I. officials have advised the bureau's director, Robert S. Mueller III, that the interrogation techniques, which would be prohibited in criminal cases, could compromise their agents in future criminal cases, the counterterrorism officials said. [link\|http://tinyurl.com/37awp\|source] So, too much for the FBI to stomach? Be afraid. cordially, Die Welt ist alles, was der Fall ist.

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