The pictures from Iraq

[BigAl]

Frankly I think that the first step is recognising that the fact that the men under your command are upright, well-balanced, reasonable people

I'm not sure of the make-up of the forces, but I have a feeling these are career soldiers and not conscripts. To paraphrase Chris, career soldiers are trained to kill people. I'm sure that you can expect the same degree of "uprightness" and "reasonableness" from a soldier in the field as from any mugger in the downtown area of any city.

On the other hand, the pics I've seen in our media look rather fake to me. I think most folks on this forum could make pics like that. Remember, you only need a head shot - the rest can be staged. The whole war was a media event - why not take it further?

[Leah]

Al, I think you are missing my point (you only quoted half the sentence, missing the important part of the thought it represents) - what I was saying (in a longer form so less open to misinterpretation) is that

1. In general (not specific to Iraq) a given group of people may be entirely lovely, wonderful people -- people you would take home to meet your mother or be happy to have marry your daughter [OK, not all of them marry your daughter at once, obviously], etc. etc.
2. BUT they are still almost certainly capable of carrying out these type of acts.
3. Indeed, if put in a position of untrammelled power over others in the right circumstances, they are likely to carry out these acts - all the psychological evidence suggests that the majority of people will (the subjects in the Stanford experiment were well-educated students at a top-rank university, who had not been trained to kill, but it took them only days to fall into the behaviour patterns).
4. Therefore anyone in a position of command over a group of individuals who are themselves in a position of more-or-less absolute authority over another group of individuals cannot rely on the calibre of the people under his/her command to ensure that abuses don't occur -- it is essential that institutional checks are in place.

Because this (need for institutional checks) holds true for mother-meeting, daughter-marrying individuals, it holds just as true for those you wouldn't let within a mile of your daughter or mother.

Originally Posted by BigAl

the pics I've seen in our media look rather fake to me.

No one is actually denying the authenticity of the Abu Ghraib photos, though - once the photos got into the public domain the authorities admitted that this stuff had been going on. That would be an odd reaction if the photos were fake (and, conversely, those I've seen don't look fake to me).

[ExclamPt]

Everyone, including me, was outraged when Mike Tyson bit off a piece of Evander Holyfield's ear during a boxing match.

When I discussed it with a friend at work, he said, "I guess it's OK to brain damage your opponent, but you can't bite his ear."

The absurdity of my limited outrage struck me.

I think there might me a parallel here with the current events in Iraq.

[Duv]

[quote=BigAl]I'm not sure of the make-up of the forces, but I have a feeling these are career soldiers and not conscripts. To paraphrase Chris, career soldiers are trained to kill people. I'm sure that you can expect the same degree of "uprightness" and "reasonableness" from a soldier in the field as from any mugger in the downtown area of any city.

I would suggest that perhaps the opposite is true. These people are probably conscripts, bored to tears wishing they were out seeing some "real" action. To relieve the boredom, let's have some fun with the prisoners. Their commanders probably went along with it to keep the morale high.

Dave

[Leah]

The people involved in the main instances are reservists, by and large.

[chris h]

Which British army authorities admitted it had been going on?

To me it seems Iraq is ungovernable in the democratic sense. What the allies need to do is recruit a hard nosed individual with an in depth knowledge of the country and experience in dealing with political opponents. Now let me think.....

[Leah]

Originally Posted by chris h

Which British army authorities admitted it had been going on?

The Abu Ghraib photos are the US ones. I have deliberately not commented on the photos featuring the British because those have not been accepted by the authorities and I don't know enough about them to make a judgment myself.

Originally Posted by chris h

To me it seems Iraq is ungovernable in the democratic sense. What the allies need to do is recruit a hard nosed individual with an in depth knowledge of the country and experience in dealing with political opponents. Now let me think.....

I have heard (admittedly only from the Rory Bremner show, but I have found that a reliable source in the past) that the US invested a lot of time and money getting experts who really knew the area and culture to draw up a detailed plan for the sensitive short-term government of Iraq and a peaceful transition of power. Then when they actually invaded they threw away that carefully-thought-out plan and just made up a new one (not drawn up by experts, etc., etc.)

[chris h]

Remember that Iraq like most of Africa had its boundaries sketched out on the back of an envelope at the British foreign office sometime in the twenties. Probably between the pudding course and the brandy and cigars! The boundaries bear no relation to the ethnic groupings.

[Leah]

The same program had a long strand on that, as well - drawing some fairly obvious parellels.

[chris h]

What we have now is a country the bulk of who's populace have little to lose and as their situation deteriorates move away from logical remedies and lean towards fundamentalism. Military technology falls down in an urban environments like Bagdhad as the US army has found out over the past few weeks and one wonders what has to be done, will Bush hang in there to save face and let it become an American Stalingrad?

[winwintoo]

Long before this organized conflict started, I began following theWhere's Raed blog. I don't pretend to understand all (any?) of the issues, but I was always moved by the quote appearing on his blog page:

"the West won the world not by the superiority of its ideas or values or religion but rather by its superiority in applying organized violence. Westerners often forget this fact, non-Westerners never do."
Samuel P. Huntington

I remember when the Viet Nam war ended and the soldiers returned from combat and the problems they were having re-integrating into society were becoming apparent, a rather blunt individual of my acquaintance commented "at least they had the humanity to shoot the dogs that they used over there" - On the surface a cruel remark, but what he meant was that those poor soldiers are changed in ways we can't even imagine and then we expect them to come home and behave as though nothing had happened (and behave while their there as if they were out for dinner in a fancy restaurant)

Who knows what drugs they have to take to avoid illnesses - some of those drugs have already proven lethal.

Ah it's a sad sad situation, I wish I had an answer, no, I wish I could even begin to understand the problem,

Margaret

[rondon]

Big Al :

I'm not sure of the make-up of the forces, but I have a feeling these are career soldiers and not conscripts. To paraphrase Chris, career soldiers are trained to kill people.

I keep hearing reservists.... but worse yet many are prison guards back home.

[BigAl]

That would be an odd reaction if the photos were fake

For several years, I've been testing how my students react to faked photographs - even with all the clues given, 95% of them do not believe that the composite image is faked (this was discussed on this forum several years back). I doubt whether the majority of those out there (including the politicians) will have a different viewpoint to these students.

(and, conversely, those I've seen don't look fake to me).

Have a close look at the shadows in the picture with woman with the cigarette in her mouth (US pics), especially the shadow of her arm, compared to the shadows of the "prisoners" and the shadows on either side of her. Even the cigarette looks fake to me.

In "defense" of the soldiers, they are degraded, denigrated and humiliated during their basic training as a means to get them to accept, without question, the authority and commands of anyone with a higher rank. To the rank and file, similar treatment is often the only means for them to get anyone to accept their authority...

[Leah]

Originally Posted by BigAl

95% of them do not believe that the composite image is faked ... I doubt whether the majority of those out there (including the politicians

But in this case there are specific named individuals identified in the photos, many of whom are now up on court martial charges (including Lynndie England, who is the woman in the photograph you mention), and so far as I understand (and admittedly I am relying on the media reports of the cases here so this may be wrong) they are not arguing that the pictures are fake, or that this did not happen - they are arguing that they were obeying orders from higher up the chain of command (which, of course, has historically not been a great defence either).

I've only seen the photo you mention at very low res so I don't feel able to comment on it specifically, although at the low res it looked OK to me. I have noticed, though, that once I've got used to manipulating photos I start to see things that look "fake" everywhere, even in pictures I know are straight out of the camera with no manipulation. And I've seen similar comments from others on RP about how something that was actually there in the original photo - some trick of lighting or shooting angle - looks unnatural or fake. I'd be very reluctant to trust my eyes/judgment on anything other than the most blatant manipulation - I think these days provenance is almost everything in judging the reliability of a photograph.

[rondon]

also there may have been many bright light sources.

On the prison guard thing ... here in the usa .. there was mention of that on one of the networks last night... even the bags over the head... supposedly to keep prisoners from spitting at them.

must be strange growing up in a small prison town ... the talk around the dinner table. I surmise no kid hears "my dads a fairer guard than your dad".

anyhow! Google news had this from a San Francisco paper..

Rumsfeld is a problem, but he is not the problem in an administration that thinks it can set its own rules without having to answer to anyone, whether the issue is its formation of an energy policy with industry lobbyists behind closed doors, the indefinite detention of prisoners at Guantanamo Bay without regard to the Geneva conventions or its resistance to various international treaties. It is worth remembering that this very invasion and occupation of Iraq was launched in defiance of the United Nations.

the whole article is attached