US Soldiers Torture Iraqi POW's

Hmm, well friend, it was my understanding that Jesus tought paciphism, compassion, and tolerance. I'm not one to contradict anybody's interpretation of faith, as it is ultimately subjective, but I believe I could safely say you're in the minority if you believe that some old testament scripture freely advocates massive war and the murder of innocents. There are passages in the old testament that also instruct for human sacrifice as I recall, as well as give proper instructions on how to slaughter a goat to honor the lord. DO serious Christians today practice such things just because it's in the good book? As a person of faith who has examined the bible, you probably know that it is a bit of a copout to pick and choose which portions to interpet literally soley in order to justify certain contemporary opinions. If you think this is an appropriate way to employ your most profound spiritual beliefs, then I suggest you sit down with yourself and have a long think over what those beliefs really are. And if you think that this god really did support the murder of every last woman and child, is this a good thing? Surely you understand the differances between the god of the old testament and the new? Do you take every word of the bible to be literal, or just what suits you? These are all troubling questions.

And, you did not answer my question, which was do you really think Jesus would have condoned such behavior? I don't think I'm out of bounds to suggest that it's probably not God's divine will and satisfaction that we brutally torture and murder one another in wars. Let's not forget the Muslim extremists themselves justify their murderous actions with holy scripture, shall we do the same? The meek shall inherit the earth, not sick their attack dogs on blindfolded prisoners of war for fun.

http://www.cnn.com/2004/WORLD/meast/05/04/iraq.abuse.main/index.html

Please note that Sen. John McCain, a former POW who suffered prisoner abuse and torture, is leading the charge to investigate and reprimand those responsible.

I can't believe that people are condoning torture in this thread.
What's to enjoy?
The Coalition claims to be fighting against the very behaviour that it is itself now perpetuating.....It kind of makes it's own noble intentions sound ridiculous now.

I've noticed that people are also confusing Saddam Hussein and his regime with the Iraqis being tortured/abused by coalition troops.
The vast majority of insurgents are nothing to do with Saddam and the Baath party. So this "eye for an eye",.."doing what they did to us",..makes no sense at all.
Many of the Iraqi prisoners are also civilians.
The prisoners are rounded up and taken in for questioning.
So many of the Iraqi's being tortured could well be innocent bystanders.

Yet some people feel that's okay?
So it would be okay if in the future, some Arab Country's army burst into a house and captured a member of YOUR family and tortured that person?..That would be an eye for an eye too wouldn't it?
That's how flawed and distorted this revenge thing is. It's a never ending cycle.
You can't expect to control people by trying to force them to fear and respect you.
If they retaliate, then maybe it was a stupid way to go about getting respect.

One may think it is okay if these prisoners are tortured,..but in reality,do you think celebrating torture and abuse is going to improve the situation?...Or make it worse?

It would be bad enough torturing prisoners of war,..but the fact is that civilians are being tortured, and from what I heard, probably killed as well.

I really wonder what the hell we're doing there. We don't know what we're doing.
We go in to supposedly "liberate" the Iraqis.
We are suposed to be there for humanitarian reasons.
And how do we do that?..we kill them in their thousands, bomb their houses and Mosques, and torture the people we're "liberating".
Can anyone be surprised if people aren't exactly grateful?...Would you be?

I honestly can't see a legitimite reason for being there now.
The only reason we can be there is for humanitarian reasons.
If it becomes so patently obvious that we couldn't give a rats arse about humanitarian rights and freedom,..then WTF are the Coalition doing there?
What?...What are they actually doing?
If Iraqi lives are cheap to us,....then it's time to get out of there because there's nothing left to do.

The torturing prisoners thing is the last straw. There's no chance that The US and the UK have any credibility left on the world stage now.
The actions shown, are against everything the occupation in Iraq was supposed to be about.
If we don't care about Iraq being free and democratic, and having the same rights that we do, and if we don't care that they are being tortured and killed,....then what exactly is the point of the Coalition being there at all?
What's it's purpose?

If Iraqis are supposed to be so bad that torturing them is fine,....then why are our troops even there?
Saddam's been captured,..time to call it a wrap.

Oh I forgot, they haven't installed a puppet dictator yet have they?

Swank said:

http://www.cnn.com/2004/WORLD/meast/05/04/iraq.abuse.main/index.html

Please note that Sen. John McCain, a former POW who suffered prisoner abuse and torture, is leading the charge to investigate and reprimand those responsible.

Click to expand...

Also the personal thoughts of John Nicol a former British POW who suffered abuse and torture in the first Iraq war.

http://edition.cnn.com/2004/WORLD/meast/05/03/iraq.nichol/

Swank said:

Hmm, well friend, it was my understanding that Jesus tought paciphism, compassion, and tolerance. I'm not one to contradict anybody's interpretation of faith, as it is ultimately subjective, but I believe I could safely say you're in the minority if you believe that some old testament scripture freely advocates massive war and the murder of innocents.

Click to expand...

I didn't say that it freely advocates anything. I said simply that God ordered that. So your claim about Jesus is now kinda not relevant.

There are passages in the old testament that also instruct for human sacrifice as I recall, as well as give proper instructions on how to slaughter a goat to honor the lord. DO serious Christians today practice such things just because it's in the good book? As a person of faith who has examined the bible, you probably know that it is a bit of a copout to pick and choose which portions to interpet literally soley in order to justify certain contemporary opinions. If you think this is an appropriate way to employ your most profound spiritual beliefs, then I suggest you sit down with yourself and have a long think over what those beliefs really are. And if you think that this god really did support the murder of every last woman and child, is this a good thing? Surely you understand the differances between the god of the old testament and the new? Do you take every word of the bible to be literal, or just what suits you? These are all troubling questions.

Click to expand...

Nowhere in the Bible is there any instruction on human sacrifice. Show me where. But yes, there are verses about animal sacrifice. Verses like that were made null and void after Christ. Kinda like an ammendment to the Bible. Only certain parts of the Old Testament no longer apply.

And, you did not answer my question, which was do you really think Jesus would have condoned such behavior? I don't think I'm out of bounds to suggest that it's probably not God's divine will and satisfaction that we brutally torture and murder one another in wars. Let's not forget the Muslim extremists themselves justify their murderous actions with holy scripture, shall we do the same? The meek shall inherit the earth, not sick their attack dogs on blindfolded prisoners of war for fun.

Click to expand...

If it is out of God's will for us to torture and murder each other in wars, then why did He Himself order that people do it a few thousand years ago?

Meek does not mean weak. Meek means, as one wise pastor put it, "knowing when and when not to flex one's muscles."

Last time from me, I dont care about what happens to the Iraq POW's ... let um rot, its MHO, big deal I dont agree with you.
Let them all get torutured and shot, they aint innocent they are *supposed* tobe hardened soldiers, saddam always said they were strong lol LMFAO
As for all these vets and peeps from the US/UK saying its bad, cause there gunna say that ... its OUT IN THE OPenis EnlargementN NOW, they HAVE to look into it to SHUT peeps like you up, I dont think Mr Powell,Bush and Co will care about them Iraqi POWs, but they must show they are against what the US troops did, to save face.
I say give them troops a bonus lol god bless them.

Call me all ya want, drag my history into this if ya want i.e when I got attacked ... cos I belive what I belive, let um rot ... they aint innocent, they were and would KILL our soldiers .... this is war, bad things happen .... DEAL WITH IT and dont moan about it.
If Iraq wasnt so fuckin Pre-Historic with its views on life they would never of had to ov been ass wiped by us.
We did the world a favour; the US and UK, by getting saddam out of Iraq, just like we did with Hitler.
Oneday ya'll thank us, we dont fuck about thats our problem and no one likes it.
I agree with a few things however,

#1 why are we there??? I aint a clue, its a joke ... let the Iraqi people rot and get our lads/gals home, enough time has been wasted.
#2 why did we really goto war???? Lots of lies here about that.
#3 Are we really interedted in gettin the country back on its feet??? I dont think we are.....just went after the Oil and saddam, we got that so fuck it.
#4 Is Iraq as bad as Bush and Blair said it was, i.e a World threat??? nah, they probbaly made it all up about the bio weapons, so they could kill some Iraqi soldiers and kick saddams ass, plus do what daddy failed on.
#5 Did we create terrorism in our own countrys, i.e 9/11???? I think so, cos we run into the china shop like a bull, without thinking ... poor management from the gouvernments, if it was thought abouit we could have done a better job and Penis EnlargementRHAPS avoided 9/11 from fuelling arab hatred, yet saying this these peeps, terrorists are just jelous of the western way of life and say we had things easy.

I also reckon we should BAR ALL Iraqi immagrants from coming into the UK cos they cant be trusted IMHO, ya cant trust them.
Fuckin upto summut if ya let um loose here, like those Paki extremeists who build mosqs here and preech terrorism when they supposed to be praying .... bar the fuckers.

I don't get it, who ever gave Bush the right to decide what is a correct way of governing a country?Who gave him the right to overthrow anyone? Saddam was an evil bastard, but he was chosen by his people, and if his people were unsatisfied enough they themselves would get rid of him. That's the way it's been through all of the history. And what the hell do you mean pre-historic? It's a normal pattern for a country to go through an age of prosperity and then to an age of decadence. That happened and will continue happening to the U.S, Britain and every other nation on the face of this planet. Morales is something that we all must respect, or else who knows maybe in a hundred years Arab countries(or China) will be torturing British and U.S prisoners and saying that they don't give a fuck, since they think you have prehistoric views on life. I'm quite surprised REDZULU2003, i've always viewed Brits as good sports.

lol give it up mate, I aint gunna change my views.
I agree bush has no right doing what he does in Iraq, bursting in etc but we got Saddam and all this POW shit is normal war stuff .... they DID IT TO US REMEMBER, so we do it to them and its multiplied 1000's of times and made worse.
I dont care, as I say let them Iraqi bad ass'es die.
My views, just like you have yours.

If these prisoners who were tortured were ALL guilty,....how come we see some of them walking around free getting interviewed on camera about heir ordeals?

Torturing innocent civilians?
That's what the West keep banging on about. OTHER countries are evil because of their human rights records.

Many innocent Iraqi civilans actually supported the coalition.
Now I wouldn't blame any of them if they didn't trust us anymore.
Why should they?....I don't even trust us.

I dont care, have better things to worry about mate.

What makes you think everyone is talking to you?

Just like you, we are just giving our thoughts as well.

Every time you post saying you don't care, someone might just want to post to say that they do care.

Cyclops, I get the feeling you're trying much harder just to refute my statements than to think about what I'm asking you, but I hardly have time or inclination to open up a debate on the topic or lecture on critical thinking skills. In the vein of 'na na' behavior, however, I would point out that Pope John Paul II released a statement proclaiming prisoner abuse to be "offensive to God." I know you may not be Catholic, but either way, I might suggest that JP and the Vatican hold a somewhat more scholarly pedigree when it comes to interpreting the bible, and as I recall Catholicism depicts God as a bit more surly than most protestant flavors of Christianity.

It reminds me of that experiment they did at Stanford University in America during the seventies.

They set up a fake prison environment where some students were prisoners, and some others were prison guards.
The results had disasterous consequences.
It all went a bit "Lord of the Flies".
In a matter of time the "guard" students started abusing the "prisoner" students.
Many students needed therapy after the experiment and were seriously affected.
Many of the students were friends of each other before the experiment started.

So what did it prove?
That ANYONE is capable of just degenerating and committing terrible acts on people in the right situation.
That should have been thought of in the planning before the war.
It's a bit arrogant to expect that we are better people than another set of people, and that we can just do a job like that which requires proper training.

And as soon as we start throwing words around like "Evil" to demonize the enemy, that's where the problems start.

The prison should have been run by people who were trained for the specific job in hand.

Assuming we had the moral high ground was a massive mistake.
Everyone is capable of acts of atrocity...The enemy, the Americans, the Brits.
Assuming that we are GOOD, simply because we deemed the enemy to be EVIL, was a recipe for disaster.

People are people. There's capactity for hate in people, and most people have traits of "goodness" such as love for friends and family.

It seems that somehow the image that was portrayed of Saddam Hussein was transferred onto Iraqis as a people.
Soldiers, like us too would have had opinions formed through what they had seen in the media.
All this coupled with people asked to do a job they were poorly trained for was probably bound to end in tears at some point.

Got to admit that I was surprised by the images though. They just seemed to display a particular type of cruelty and sadism that was in the mindset of the soldiers.
I don't know how practical this is, but maybe they shouldn't have had soldiers doing a job that they weren't trained for.