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Post by randombloke on Feb 4, 2011 6:47:49 GMT -4
What investigation should have been done? The Marine reported the event, should he have been investigated for reporting it? The Iraqi was not under US authority, why then should the US have investigated it? Again, who should have investigated it and what could they have done? Are the Iraqi police under US Military authority? If not, what can the US Military do about the actions of another country's security forces? Under what regulation or law is any military responsible for releasing all information about civilian deaths it knows about? So the Iraqi police are an entity unto themselves, above and beyond even local law? One would have hoped that the appropriate response was obvious; pass the report to the Iraqi's own internal investigation service(s) assuming such a thing exists. Alternatively, forwarding to the state department with a note along the lines of "this needs to be dealt with at the diplomatic level since they don't have their own Internal Affairs people."
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Post by PhantomWolf on Feb 4, 2011 8:14:37 GMT -4
when they say: no investigation required " it means that they could have investigated and that it was up to them to decide if investigation is required or not. You are missing the point, what would be the point of investigating? What would be the outcome? How would it be different to not investigating? It's 15,000 over the period of 6 years, about 2,500 a year. In context, that is apparently a little less than the number of people that die in Iraq in car accidents (about 3,000) and about 1,000 less than die in the US in car accidents in a month (about 3,500.) We also don't know how they died, just that they did. We know some were from coilition forces at check points and the like, but we don't know that all were, they are merely un-reported, and as I noted, what law states that the military are responsible for publically releasing deaths it knows about but the media doesn't?
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Post by PhantomWolf on Feb 4, 2011 8:16:52 GMT -4
So the Iraqi police are an entity unto themselves, above and beyond even local law? One would have hoped that the appropriate response was obvious; pass the report to the Iraqi's own internal investigation service(s) assuming such a thing exists. Alternatively, forwarding to the state department with a note along the lines of "this needs to be dealt with at the diplomatic level since they don't have their own Internal Affairs people." And we don't know that they didn't pass that information on to the Iraqis to deal with, we only know that they didn't investigate it themselves, and what would have been the point of that?
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Post by lionking on Feb 4, 2011 10:06:38 GMT -4
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Post by lionking on Feb 4, 2011 10:24:41 GMT -4
when they say: no investigation required " it means that they could have investigated and that it was up to them to decide if investigation is required or not. You are missing the point, what would be the point of investigating? What would be the outcome? How would it be different to not investigating? It's 15,000 over the period of 6 years, about 2,500 a year. In context, that is apparently a little less than the number of people that die in Iraq in car accidents (about 3,000) and about 1,000 less than die in the US in car accidents in a month (about 3,500.) We also don't know how they died, just that they did. We know some were from coilition forces at check points and the like, but we don't know that all were, they are merely un-reported, and as I noted, what law states that the military are responsible for publically releasing deaths it knows about but the media doesn't? so wikileaks documents were reporting on the iraqi civilian deaths of car accidents or blasts? www.huffingtonpost.com/2010/10/23/wikileaks-iraq-war-logs-casualties_n_772807.html"It said most of the newly disclosed casualties included targeted assassinations, drive-by shootings, torture, executions and checkpoint killings." these include the omes done by iraqis I guess. Nevertheless, they were not stopped or investigated
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Jason
Pluto
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Posts: 5,579
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Post by Jason on Feb 4, 2011 12:37:52 GMT -4
we all recall Abou Ghraib's prison were orders were given for abuse. USA didn't interfere until it was on media and everyone new about it. You have a copy of these orders?
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Post by LunarOrbit on Feb 4, 2011 13:32:46 GMT -4
"Why is standing limited to 4 hours?" - Donald Rumsfeld
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Jason
Pluto
May all your hits be crits
Posts: 5,579
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Post by Jason on Feb 4, 2011 14:50:10 GMT -4
Let me rephrase. You have a legible copy of these orders? Where I can read the whole thing and get an idea of the context?
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Post by LunarOrbit on Feb 4, 2011 15:55:25 GMT -4
The full memo was probably deemed classified to avoid embarrassment. I'll probably end up in Guantanamo just for reproducing that small image. Rumsfeld doesn't deny writing that note on the memo, he just doesn't see it as encouraging anyone to break the rules. Rumsfeld, Still Defiant
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Post by gillianren on Feb 4, 2011 16:13:14 GMT -4
If there were evidence that information from torture were reliably useful, I might be more sympathetic to people supporting it.
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Jason
Pluto
May all your hits be crits
Posts: 5,579
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Post by Jason on Feb 4, 2011 16:41:39 GMT -4
Methods like waterboarding and sleep deprivation worked on Khalid Sheikh Mohammed.
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Post by laurel on Feb 4, 2011 16:50:32 GMT -4
Maher Arar is a good example of the unreliability of such information, though; he confessed to attending an Al-Qaeda training camp after being held in solitary confinement for months, during which time he was beaten and threatened with electrocution (he witnessed other prisoners being electrocuted so he had every reason to believe this was a credible threat). A government inquiry found no evidence connecting him to terrorism other than the coerced confession. He was tortured for nothing.
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Jason
Pluto
May all your hits be crits
Posts: 5,579
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Post by Jason on Feb 4, 2011 18:59:35 GMT -4
If Maher Arar was tortured then he was tortured in Syria by Syrians. Nobody is being electrocuted in Guantanamo.
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Post by laurel on Feb 4, 2011 19:37:21 GMT -4
But what did the Americans who deported him to Syria for interrogation think was going to happen? Did they think that the Syrians would ask him polite questions?
The thing about Khalid Sheikh Mohammed is, he was a well-known terrorist before they captured him. There was every reason to think he had valuable information. But I'm disturbed by the use of enhanced interrogation techniques on people just on the off chance that they might know something. And I think Gillian has a valid point about people making false confessions just to stop their painful treatment.
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Post by gillianren on Feb 4, 2011 19:46:53 GMT -4
Actually, it's part of the technique we teach our own soldiers. Lie early and lie often. Give so much conflicting information that it becomes difficult, if not impossible, to sort out what's true and what isn't. And after all, people confessed to all kinds of things they couldn't possibly have done when tortured by past governments/religious organizations. It's not as though it's a new and shocking revelation that torture doesn't reliably work.
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