Talk:Abu Ghraib prison
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Photos and Geneva Conventions
From the text of the Wikipedia article:
- "All of the alleged acts clearly violate the Third Geneva Convention regarding treatment of POWs, as do the photographs themselves."
What does this mean, "as do the photographs themselves"?
If this is regarding Article 13 - ""...Prisoners of war must at all times be protected, particularly against acts of violence or intimidation and against insults and public curiosity.", then yes, the photographs do violate the convention, as does the Wikipedia article for encouraging public curiousity. I'm referring in particular to the unhooded images where the face of the victims are clear. I wasn't going to say anything last night but I see today that another one has popped up. "A naked prisoner is threatened, or intimidated, with a dog." The other photo is the dog leash one. At the very least these photos need to be removed and replaced with blurred face photos. Or we should stop paying lip service to the Geneva Conventions. --M4-10 20:33, 9 May 2004 (UTC)
"Paying lip service to the Geneva Conventions" is, of course, precisely the point at issue. If only more than that had been done! I agree: In my view the prisoners should not be identifiable unless that is itself relevant. Paul Beardsell 20:50, 9 May 2004 (UTC)
I see the photos have gone. Rumsfeld is pissed off at the "illegal" pictures, it seems, more than he is about the activities portrayed. I'm sure none of us here feel the same. Paul Beardsell 21:05, 9 May 2004 (UTC)
Those two pictures were actually rather informative, so if someone could reupload blurred-face versions of them (preferably over the old filenames) and re-add them that would be helpful. I'm on a public terminal at the moment so don't have the resources to do so. --Delirium 21:09, May 9, 2004 (UTC)
The two pictures are now restored with blurred faces.--Eloquence* 01:00, May 10, 2004 (UTC)
I am not sure what Wikipedia will achieve by blurring the faces. If the pictures are available at most other sources unblurred - the individuals privacy cannot be protected. I HIGHLY recommend we use the unaltered, unblurred images. (See Reuters etc) --OldakQuill 21:40, 10 May 2004 (UTC)
- From Eloquence's talk page: OldakQuill reverted the photo to unblurred, I reverted it back to blurred. The man in the picture has a right to privacy from public curiousity, even if Reuters and other media don't believe it. Thanks for producing a blurred version, Eloquence. --M4-10 20:49, 10 May 2004 (UTC)
- Agree - seing the faces adds nothing to the pictures - even if others show the faces, we should not - blurring in these cases is appropriate.
Hey! Edit history?
Where has the edit history gone? Where have the other current conversations gone? Where have the open issues gone? Archinving was far too aggressive and possibly not quite yet necessary. Paul Beardsell 01:21, 10 May 2004 (UTC)
- The page was moved properly instead of copy & pasted so you can see the history on the page where the comments actually appear, /Archive 2. This is the way archiving should be done.--Eloquence* 01:45, May 10, 2004 (UTC)
- I chose to archive issues that hadn't been discussed in over a week. Issues that were still being discussed, I left remain. Kingturtle 03:25, 10 May 2004 (UTC)
- Well, a lot of them were still being actively discussed ... pir 09:18, 10 May 2004 (UTC)
How do we proceed? Not in the archived pages themselves, presumably. How easy is it to undo the archiving? Paul Beardsell 09:57, 10 May 2004 (UTC)
Torture
According to Donald Rumsfeld, many more pictures and videotapes of the abuse at Abu Ghraib exist, which include a videotape of a male minor being raped and death by torture.. Did Rumsfeld actually say that there was videotape of rape and death by torture? RickK 05:07, 10 May 2004 (UTC)
- The Sydney Morning Herald says at http://www.smh.com.au/articles/2004/05/08/1083911443001.html that Rumsfeld merely said that even more "blatantly sadistic" pictures from Abu Ghraib prison than those shown existed, and that "a US senator" said cases of murder and rape were "likely" to come out. --Stormie 05:15, May 10, 2004 (UTC)
- Thank you. In that case, I'm going to change the article. RickK 05:16, 10 May 2004 (UTC)
My fault, I was unclear about that statement, Donald Rumsfeld didnt say that they included a male prisoner being raped, Sy Hersh did, poor wording on my part. --VTEX 05:43, 10 May 2004 (UTC)
Perverted Behaviour
The perverted behaviour of the U.S. and British soldiers make me sick! Make them do the same things as their victims! But then again, soldiers are generally hard and brute with a significant low IQ and moral stature.
- What would you know about it? Go to hell. --M4-10 17:53, 6 May 2004 (UTC)
- Internet troll
- Who is being called a troll here? How ambigious! --M4-10 19:30, 6 May 2004 (UTC)
- Sorry, figured I was being clear. Obviously I wasn't. ;) I was trying to clue you in to the fact that the original anon contributing the "perverted behaviour" comment was obviously trolling. --Dante Alighieri | Talk 23:52, May 6, 2004 (UTC)
- It's getting very difficult to separate trolls from sincere loony leftists these days. Does being sincere in one's dementia absolve one from being a troll? For example, the third link on google about Pat Tillman --M4-10 09:19, 7 May 2004 (UTC)
- Who is being called a troll here? How ambigious! --M4-10 19:30, 6 May 2004 (UTC)
- Internet troll
Well, I am not a sincere loony leftist but I happen to agree that, on average, soldiers tend to be hard and brutal - it's in the training. The evidence is plain: The average IQ is a little lower than the pop'n at large. It is difficult to have moral stature when you are trained to obey orders unquestionably. Remove command and control and what happens? When the cat is away the mice will play. Encourage misbehaviour (explicitly or tacitly) and the troops will misbehave, no encouragement needed. I am not surprised that US and UK soldiers have misbehaved. Soldiers always misbehave. And I am sickened too. In what way is any of that loony or leftist? None of my conservative sane friends think different either. M4-10 might be in the military or not. In any event I would like to make plain I am talking about soldiers on average, I am saying nothing about any individual soldier, and it would be stupid to think I am. Paul Beardsell 20:41, 8 May 2004 (UTC)
- on average, soldiers tend to be hard and brutal. Have you ever been a soldier? Have you ever received training as a soldier? -- Cecropia | Talk 21:36, 10 May 2004 (UTC)
"Encourage misbehaviour (explicitly or tacitly) and the troops will misbehave, no encouragement needed." I invite you to clarify this phrase. If George W. Bush said this it would end up as another example of how "stupid" he is. Feel free to delete this comment if you fix it. I may comment later on your comment as a whole (probably "I respectfully disagree.") --M4-10 20:57, 9 May 2004 (UTC)
Clarification: What is Rumsfeld (ostensibly) taking responsibility for? It has to be for not ensuring that this type of thing could not happen. That this was not done (by proper training, or inspections, or by example) is the tacit permission to which I refer. That the US govt and the Pentagon sanctioned some of these interrogation techniques is the explicit permission to which I refer. Very senior UK army officers have reported being disturbed by the very anti-Iraqi attitude of many US soldiers and officers. US soldiers are not naturally torturers and humiliators any more than any other army is, where did it come from? Any unsupervised group given power over others tends to cruel and inhumane treatment, as numerous psychological experiments testify. How would you explain what has occurred? Paul Beardsell 00:38, 10 May 2004 (UTC)
Or, if you simply drawing attention to my illogical sentence I would like to rephrase it thus: "Encourage misbehaviour (explicitly or tacitly) and the troops will misbehave, as often no encouragement is even needed." Also, (as this is no longer plain) I wasn't responsible for the original comment in this section. Visit the archive to see the edit history. I just thought that it was incorrect to identify it necessariy as trolling. I still feel sick about all this, as does the original commenter. I see that Bush has said the same. Paul Beardsell 10:18, 10 May 2004 (UTC)
Is stupidity a part of the military training, or is stupidity required to enter military school? Military men and women = braindead sheep! Rienzo 14:30, 10 May 2004 (UTC)
If you're not careful you'll be called a troll. (1) Those bright enough to enter the universities disproportionately do that rather than joining the military; (2) the army is used by society as a dumping ground for some otherwise unemployable people; (3) joining the army is occasionally offered as an alternative to prison; (4) people who do not like obeying orders or being in a highly structured environment do not typically join the army. But in my view any group of people will act badly if not constrained in one way or another. Paul Beardsell 14:50, 10 May 2004 (UTC)
The partisan playground that is sometimes Wikipedia
First let me say that as an American and former military policeman I am shocked, disgusted and ashamed by the photos that have come out of Abu Ghraib prison. That someone like Lynndie England could wear the uniform of any military force is a disgrace.
Having said that, I looked at this article for the first timne today, and the POV anti-American bias is incredible. I note the very little space devoted this prison under Saddam, with the economical note that "up to 4,000 prisoners are thought to have been executed there in 1984 alone."
Somehow we manage to chronicle the dismal history of this prison under Saddam in five short paragraphs. But when the US took over the prison--ah, now there's something some of our editors can really get their teeth into!
With all the horrors that occurred there, Wikipedia didn't even have an article on the subject until less than two weeks ago.
Some of my shame (and maybe some others, too) should be reserved for calling Wikipedia an "encyclopedia." -- Cecropia | Talk 21:33, 10 May 2004 (UTC)
- I think there is bound to be a problem with any article on a recent subject. This article isn't about Abu Ghraib, it's about American prisoner abuse in Iraq. I've asked a couple times for a subject split or rename but some people seem intent on calling it "Abu Ghraib (prison)". In a couple years we can come back, wipe out all the NPOV crap, and start over. Most people writing don't care much for dictatorial abuses in far-off lands where no free press publishes photos, they just care to get a "cowboy" out of the White House. Wikipedia is great, but not for contemporary American politics in particular. --M4-10 21:51, 10 May 2004 (UTC)
If you think there's a problem, remember, you can edit this page! Perhaps there need to be three articles:
- Abu Ghraib (prison)
- Abuse of prisoners in Iraq under Saddam Hussein
- Abuse of prisoners in Iraq under coalition forces
-- The Anome 21:58, 10 May 2004 (UTC)
- One thing I have learned in sadness is that bothering to buck the trend in certain articles is like spitting in the wind. -- Cecropia | Talk 22:00, 10 May 2004 (UTC)