Wednesday, July 11, 2007

Is this real?


Here we have an alleged interview with a former guard at Abu Ghraib, in which he confesses to worse abuses than we've heard about. Real or fake? Your views would be welcome...

14 comments:

Anonymous said...

Fake. The shading over the face is too efficient and it's all too theatrical- tools and blades in the background especially.

Anonymous said...

nice even if it isn't real, it shows a great mindset.
now i know why the rest of the world hates america and it ain't for our freedoms.

Anonymous said...

Joe, I'm guessing this is a fake, but I am not certain.

Apart from the visual aspects (shadowing, ostentatiously overdone hand-held jerkiness that never quite leaves the person's face), the voices are wrong.

The speaker seems to have no emotional involvement in the story he's telling (no remorse, anger, awkward pauses). He is either a perfect sociopath, or he was not there. The photographer wants to get it recorded, but seems to ask none of the questions that should come to mind (How did you feel, were there others, who knew, did anyone try to stop it, why did it not come out with the rest?).

The person who posted this has been an enthusiastic poster on live leak for the last six months. The other postings range from bloopers to police brutality, with a heavy preponderance of military related videos. There is a long one from Alex Jones (I know, I know, kibble for a month!) about army exercises in an American town and an offer of assistance to local law enforcement from an ordnance company at Fort Hood.

I'm not sure, but I think it's a fake. If it is real, though, that speaker is a scary, sub-human freak. If it's fake, he's just a really bad actor.

Jim
the reader who was once called thoughtful

Anonymous said...

I think this is for real but this guy if he is ever identified would probably lie that he ever said anything and that he had one too many beers. The tools and blades reveal that they are in someone's toolshed or garage --there is nothing theatrical about that. Obviously this guy doesn't want his face being shown for fear of retribution.

The ex-prison guard(whose face is shadowed)says being a guard was better than being a "bullet sponge" and that there was far worse torture stuff going on than making naked prisoners walk around like dogs.

Remember not all of the pictures were released to the public. When Sen Boxer was asked in a small fundraiser about the abu gharib torture, she said she could only watch no more than 10 minutes before leaving, it was so upsetting. There was apparently over 60 minutes of pictures/videos to watch, mostly of sexual torture/humiliation from her comments.

this guy talks about the women being raped and young girls being "pimped out" before they would hang themselves and the male prisoners being hooked up to electrical wires via their private parts and then shocked/electrocuted.

I have no doubts that some really bad stuff happened to innocent civilians, hence the need to cover up their torture/abuse by making sure that most of these tortured prisoners end up suiciding themselves like the young girls who got "pimped out" to the tune of 10 men a day.

The comment "if they're a raghead they're fair game" speaks volumes and reveals his ignorance, a common feature of soldiers who served in Iraq. he mentioned that since the folks in the WTC who died didn't get a chance, why should any of the Iraqi's being held prisoner be treated differently?

If anything, I think lenny is a troll for the perps.

Anonymous said...

It's likely real, IMO. There isn't any propaganda value in it, for it to be fake. What would be the point of that? Unless horrible outrages were allegedly revealed (and these are neither novel nor far more outrageous than we've heard already), so that then they can be 'disproven' by showing this to be a set up job, there isn't any value.

sofla

Anonymous said...

To Anon (1:00PM):

It's obvious that this is a very primitive interview made by a couple of pals having a couple of beers.

The cameraman wasn't in a position to ask more questions because this was done casually, in someone's garage used as a toolshed somewhere out in the midwest (my guess).

The person asking a few questions left the talking to the ex-abu gharib prison guard and you get the sense that he couldn't ask more indepth questions because the speaker didn't want to get into it.

you are left with the impression that the few examples he brings up were just the tip of the iceberg. He probably didn't want to go into much more detail because he was probably involved with the torture stuff, coverup, or participating in it himself.

Hence the need to have drink several beers and hint to his friends that the torture was worse than you thought but then not go into too much detail.

Anonymous said...

I'll vote real. The effects of alcohol seemed real, the interviewer seemed to be able to pick up on new threads. The speaker is probably suffering cognitive dissonance by still believing the purpose he was Sadaam/9-11 linked in order to remain psychically calm...but it's odd how he seems to dislike or disrespect the peoples he is ostensibly "saving". Cum Granos Salos.

Miss P.

John said...

No doubt in my mind, the guy is a fake.

For starters, he's wearing a shirt that appears to say "US Special Forces," yet he's a skinhead, and skinny as a toothpick.

He appears to be too young to have served over there, get out, and now making a video.

He offers no specific details that others could not make up.

He mentions the CIA, as if CIA guys just announce..."hey, we're CIA!"

His coldness.

Anonymous said...

I think fake. It's seems a little too studied; too perfect. But then that does make this guy, the one telling the story, a pretty good actor. And what does that say?

Q and A.

Either way, fuck 'em.

Anonymous said...

Whether or not this guy is actually fake, is not the point. If you have ever been in an army of occupation, or just in the army in general, you know this type of mindset and actions exist. Without a doubt. I have all but seen most of the things this guy talks about firsthand, having spent 3 years in the 82nd Airborne infantry, 1/508 battalion. Trust me, your morale get lower than low, because you allow people to tell you what to do, where to go and what to think all the time. And your objections are not heard.
This kind of soldier is the ideal soldier for the Captain, although he'll look back one day and regret it, he did what he was told to do. We will have another generation of wounded soldier souls haunted here back in the states. Just like Vietnam.

Anonymous said...

Fake.

This surfaced about a year ago on some other websites and it was suspected to be a planted story in order to discredit those who carried it, in the same way Dan Rather was taken down because of the fake TNG papers. .

Anonymous said...

So far we have 3 commenters saying "fake", 4 for "real" and 2 are uncertain.

I have to say that I see denial among the -fake- group regardless of any technical evidence either way. Jim notes that (if real) this "speaker is a scary, sub-human freak." Um yes that is indeed what we are dealing with here. The evidence for this has been blowing in from everywhere.

I'll add to the majority and say -real-.

Anonymous said...

Anon 6:58--THANK YOU.

I'm undecided as to whether this individual actually participated in any of the atrocities he claims to have perpetrated, but based on what else even we civilians have read goes on at Abu Ghraib and other U.S.-sponsored military prisons, the idea that this is someone's story even if it isn't Mr. Shadow-y Speaker's story, is believable to me.

Not enough to base any conclusions on in a respectable blog post, I realize, but to me, whether this individual is credible or not isn't the "point" of this video.

Anonymous said...

I say fake.

This guy is certainly old enough (we send teeneagers over there) and these stories are ALL true in some way or another and there ARE people in the military who act like this.

I say fake however because it tries to hard to look real while looking fake. Too much thought is put into it. You can't have a perfect shadow hiding someones face if its spontaneous and if its not spontaneous you wouldn't film it like it was spontaneous.

The information is all readily avaialable online. It is public knowledge that there are pictures of women in those Abu G pics. It just seems no one wants to talk about them or ask if the men in them raping Iraqi women will be punished.