The new documentary "The Ghosts of Abu Ghraib" will shake decent Americans to the core -- and yet it neglects to mention one key aspect of the scandal: Israelis were present in the prison, directing the torture. That fact was first reported, shortly after the scandal broke, by -- believe or not -- NewsMax. It was later confirmed by Brigadier General Janis Karpinski and by the prisoners themselves:This Israeli dressed in civilian clothes tortured me by inserting in turn first with a jagged wooden stick into my rectum and then with the barrel of a rifle. I was cut inside and bled profusely.Why were Israelis allowed to run rampant in an American-run military prison? Who was really in charge in Abu Ghraib? And why has the tale of prisoner abuse been allowed to run its course while every media outlet in the Western world covers up Israeli involvement?
I urge all my readers to publicize this story. Send it to your representatives and to the major media. Demand answers.
11 comments:
The Israelis are functioning as a firewall for American fascists. Fox News released the Israeli spy story right after 9/11. And then backed away from it. Why? To warn people that if you get to close to the truth of what's going on we'll pin it all Israel. Same with News Max... American Fascists put Isaelis in Abu Ghraib just like American Fascists placed Israelis in high positions surrounding Bush, Cheney, Rumsfeld and the JCS. They are a buffer to take the heat if people start going after the truth... the American Fascists can simply say, so the Pentagon lost 2.3 Trillion dollars. That was Dov Zakheims fault... what? Are you anti-semitic or something?
Sure the Israelis sure apart in ths Iraq war mess... but they are serving as Patsies for someone else.
Sure the Israelis SHARE A PART...
Well, "Seymour Hersh chimed in, claiming that the Israelis had hoped to interrogate intelligence agents who belonged to Saddam Hussein's anti-Israel units."
But the story can't say if those were the same people.
The fellow Karpinski spoke to claimed he wasn't an Arab, but who knows? Isn't that what an Arab would have said to her?
Further down the NewsMax story it reads, "The charges come after an incident in April in which an Israeli Arab working in Iraq was kidnapped and charged with spying. Nabil George Yaakob Razouk, an Israeli Arab employed by Research Triangle International, a North Carolina-based firm under contract to the State Department, was abducted by Iraqi insurgents and said to be a spy. Only the personal intervention of Yassir Arafat, who acted after pleas from the Razouk family, is believed to have saved him from execution."
The "Israelis" were running rampant? Compared to the leash girl?
Mercenaries work for whoever pays them and trying to tar Israel with whatever comes to hand has a kind of obsessiveness to it.
The second article you link to at Unbossed contains this, right at the top,
"The first question they asked me was, “Are you a Sunni or Shiia?” I answered that this is the first time I have been asked this question in my life. I was surprised by this question, as in Iraq there is no such distinction or difference."
Am not sure the story as significant as you seem to think.
The fact that some of the perpetrators were Israeli nationals, means exactly what? Are these individuals any worse than the Americans who did the same thing? And even assuming Israeli government complicity, how does that make them worse than us?
Israel has a long history of doing American dirty work, in Latin America and elsewhere, so the accusation would seem highly plausible. But we're the employer
Israel wants to provoke a gigantic war between the US (and the Western world, more generally), and that's why torture at Abu Ghraib was conducted. Just as they want to stir up hatred for Muslims in the US, they want to stir up hatred for the US in the Muslim world.
Think about it: is stacking a bunch of people naked into a dogpile really an effective means of extracting information? No, but it does make for great photos, and play on Muslim fears of Western promotion of deviant sexuality. And SO MANY photos - why are they going nuts with a camera while they're torturing people? Isn't that the kind of thing you might want to NOT take pictures of? And why are all these idiot redneck soldiers posing in these pics giving thumbs up signs in all the pictures? And then why did the photos get leaked to everyone in the damn country? Even Michael Moore had the damn pics! What, they just couldn't keep a lid on this? Get real!
The whole thing was orchestrated by Israel, to make America look bad (er, worse) in the Muslim world. The idea that "Israel is doing our dirty work", is pure crap. They conducted the torture, lured a few saps to pose for pics, then leaked them, while their involvement remained a secret. Easy as pie.
So, according to Anonymou: 6:07 AM, the "whole thing" was orchestrated by Israel to "make us look bad".
Do you really think Bush, Rumsfeld and Cheney (and ignorant, poorly trained soldiers who thought the invasion was "pay-back" for 9/11), needed any help in making the U.S. "look bad"?
Isn't it a bit ludicrous to blame the Israelis for our own depravity, and the quality (or lack thereof) of our elected leadership? Particularly when we're the ones dictating Israeli policy, and not the reverse? Or didn't you notice?
I agree completely: It is ludicrous to blame the Israelis for our own shames. Too many people seize upon the Israeli angle as a way of trying to blame America's troubles on some outside force.
That said, we do have every right to ask what the Israelis were doing in that prison.
Particularly when we're the ones dictating Israeli policy, and not the reverse?
No, I'm quite certain it is the reverse. The Israel lobby completely controls our Middle East policy, and Israel has certainly never done us any favors.
Do you really think Bush, Rumsfeld and Cheney (and ignorant, poorly trained soldiers who thought the invasion was "pay-back" for 9/11), needed any help in making the U.S. "look bad"?
Well, evidently, yes. As much as the whole war has been a huge embarrassment, I think most people would recognize Abu Ghraib as the biggest embarrassment of all - and strangely Israelis were directing it, yet managed to entirely escape responsibility in the eyes of the media.
And my explanation for Abu Ghraib may sound farfetched, but I've never heard a good explanation for why these bizarre things were done, why so many pictures were taken, why so many of the pictures had smiling soldiers giving thumbs up signs and the like, and why they were leaked to everyone on the planet. Any suggestions? I'm open to other possibilities, but the idea that the torture at Abu Ghraib was nothing but an efficient means of extracting information that the government just couldn't keep a lid on is a joke. The release of these photos and the enormous attention given to them by the media was deliberate. The only question is, why?
to Anonymous : 1:14 AM:
In case you didn't notice, the U.S. has a long and various history of torture and mass-murder in parts of the world with no connection (whatsoever) to Israel. Examine U.S conduct in Vietnam, Cambodia, Angola, Philippines, Latin America, etc., and you'll see a trail of blood and misery on a mind-boggling scale. We're talking about millions of murdered civilians, countless more maimed for life, and tens of thousands of victims of torture. And entire countries destroyed.
If you still think "we" need help from Israel, or that the current administration isn't depraved and incompetent to commit its present atrocities, well ... dream on, if it makes you feel better.
I don't dispute that the US has done all kinds of nasty things without Israeli assistance, and as I've already said the war has certainly been bad enough even without Abu Ghraib.
Yet, to repeat myself yet again, nobody seems to be able to explain why these particularly bizarre forms of torture were used, why so many pics were taken, why there are so many soldiers smiling in the pics, and why these pics were leaked to everyone on the planet, and why the media gave them so much attention. I argue that it was done deliberately to play on Muslim fears of homosexuality and perceived Western depravity.
All right then, one at a time:
1. "Yet, to repeat myself yet again, nobody seems to be able to explain why these particularly bizarre forms of torture were used"
It's well established in the psychological literature, going back to at least the 1950s, that seemingly "normal" and "decent" people will heap the most monstrous abuse on those completely within their power. The most notorious studies include volunteers who were induced to give life-threatening "shocks" to experimental subjects simply because they were told to do so ("the experiment must go on"--see the study by Stanley Milgrim), and "prisons", with arbitrarily assigned "guards" and "prisoners". The most famous of the latter, using college students, had to be abruptly cancelled, because of the abuse which took place. Add this to the use of sexual humiliation in the *official* interrogations, the explicit instructions these soldiers received to "soften up the prisoners", their unfitness in training and temperament to serve as prison guards, and their conviction (promoted by BushCo) that Iraq was responsible for 9/11, and you've got your answer.
2. "why so many pics were taken, why there are so many soldiers smiling in the pics"
Because all these soldiers had cameras, and thought it was great fun. Simply enough?
3 "and why these pics were leaked to everyone on the planet, and why the media gave them so much attention. "
These pictures were in many individual hands and, being sensational, the media loved them. There's no mystery at all. Or do you expect national news organizations to censor information, because it might embarrass the BushCo?
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