The George W. Bush Poll

United States Army Major General Antonio Taguba, who investigated allegations of torture at Abu Ghraib, reported incidents of punching, slapping, and kicking detainees and jumping on their naked feet; forcibly arranging detainees in various sexually explicit positions for photographing; arranging naked male detainees in a pile and then jumping on them; positioning a naked detainee on a MRE Box, with a sandbag on his head, and attaching wires to his fingers, toes, and penis to simulate electric torture; a male MP guard raping a female detainee; breaking chemical lights and pouring the phosphoric liquid on detainees; pouring cold water on naked detainees; beating detainees with a broom handle and a chair; threatening male detainees with rape; allowing a military police guard to stitch the wound of a detainee who was injured after being slammed against the wall in his cell; sodomizing a detainee with a chemical light and perhaps a broom stick and using military working dogs (without muzzles) to frighten and intimidate detainees with threats of attack, and in one instance actually biting and severely injuring a detainee amongst other transgressions.

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/4894001/

The New York Times reported on January 12, 2005, incidents of urinating on detainees; jumping on detainee's leg (a limb already wounded by gunfire) with such force that it could not thereafter heal properly and continuing by pounding detainee's wounded leg with collapsible metal baton.

One prisoner died within hours of his capture, while being interrogated by the CIA. A military autopsy ruled the death a homicide. The photo of his battered corpse with grinning soldiers crouched over it was widely distributed.

http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=4977986

http://www.time.com/time/archive/preview/0...1129601,00.html

 

That's right, in the power vacuum that was formed during our occupation.
Al Quaida in Iraq is GWB's child.

 

I was being sarcastic about Bataan. There was no torture at Abu Ghraib. Some distasteful pictures yes, torture no way.

 

Which won't happen in our lifetimes. The last thing Hamas wants is the success of any geopolitical settlement. What would they DO tomorrow? Get jobs, raise families and watch soccer on TV?

 

No sarcasm at all! I just like folks to know where I stand. Reread the post, whats not true?

 

it won't happen because the conflict is a great deflector for the repressive regiemes in the middle east. They love it because it's a great pressure value for their oppressed subjects.

BTW, Bush wasn't even at the first debate so he couldn't have whipped Kerry. The pod standing in for him did a poor job. I saw the second debate. I'd hardly say that Bush won. Kerry didn't slaughter him like the first one. Bush isn't a good speaker. He's awkward and clumsy. He doesn't think well on his feet. Whether you agree with Kerry's politics or not (I don't) he's a much better speaker than Bush. The Jury's still out on the economy.

 

You are right about Bush, he is a lousy speaker and does not think well on his feet. His secret is that many people relate well to him and he uses all the condescension(?) from the elitist left to his advantage. He is dumb, he is a nitwit, he is a puppet, he is a moron. If he is really all of these things, how has he done all of the things that imnotacrook listed in an earlier post. I voted for him both times, but if there would have been a populist democrat who I could have believed in he probably would have gotten my vote. I score Bush about a 5.5 out of 10 after 5 of 8 years. He was been amazingly solid leading the country after 9-11 and supreme court nominees(2 out of 3), but I have been left cold by his attempt at SS reform, and his handling of the energy bill(long-term) and mini energy-crisis(short-term).

 

Whew, sorry, I am glad I caught myself. My apologies!

 

You provide a great example of why there is such divisiveness in this country. We all SEE and HEAR the same things but we interpret them differently. How we are raised, who our friends are, who we listen to for our information ALL result in how we see things. If we were ALL honest with each other and truly were the independent minded people we think we are, it would be boring because our arguments and disagreements would actually be pretty small.

So we make Bush either the GREATEST or the WORST.

There has been the "Bronze age", the "Victorian Era", the "Stone Age", etc.
I declare our current age the "Age of the Superlative"

Imntacrook, I lean into your camp. Also, History always judges our leaders, the present does a lousy job. We'll see.

All you "out of Iraq" people should feel somewhat responsible for our failure to help the Genocide in Dafur....Isn't ANY life precious enough to DIE for?????

 

OK, I'll buy it. Any indication if this was systematic and "condoned" by the "upper" command or more likely individuals and small groups acting outside the scope of their orders (no conspiracy theories here, solid evidence)

Because this same stuff occurs in US prisons and in inner city and outer city neighborhoods...we don't caall that Torture, we call it criminal.

It isn't just semantics, it creates an attitude and "point of view". We (the American people) are evil vs. we have bad people in our midst.

 

Nope, that is the same as "street justice" in my job...and I've seen what it does....makes us as bad as the bad guys...I can't go there.

 

The problem with your question is that unlike what's happened at Abu Grahib as well as probably several other places is that we don't know for sure that a lot of these guys know anything. Second, what we do know is that torture rarely provides accurate information. I've got another question for you. If your brother is over in Iraq and is captured, how would you like him to be treated? Would you want him tortured so that he can provide information on potential troop movements and strengths etc.? We're doing a terrible injustice to potentially innocent individuals because we can't tell the difference between the good guys and the bad guys. We're also compromising the principles that this country HAD come to signify. We are now exemplifying a double standard with the result that we are alienating a majority of the folks who share this planet. It is disturbing to see people refer to these prisoners of war as "sub-human". This is exactly the kind of thinking that allows the terrorists to destroy the lives of innocent people. They dehumanize them just as I'm afraid that our administration has dehumanized our troops. They're troops, they're soldiers, they're tools to achieve an end instead of someone's son, daughter, sister, spouse. These lives should all be valued. If people could somehow avoid the dehumanizing process, I think that much of conflicts including the Israeli/Palestinian conflict could be dealt with.

 

I saw this great letter to the editor in the Los Angeles Times: