The local college in question is my alma mater and it makes me glad that they are hosting screenings of films like this. Also it turns out that our friends Joseph F. and his lovely wife, the smartest woman in the world, Vanessa F. are both professors at the local college in question, he teaches political science and his wife is in the science department, and both were at the screening of this film as well, so it was a double treat for us. We got to see a great documentary and we got to see and chat with our friends the MENSA power couple. But that's enough about them for a moment.
This film is about what went on at Abu Ghraib in the early part of the war. The story sticks to the facts and most of the facts brought out in the film have been ignored or glossed over by the corporate media since the story first broke. The filmmakers let the people involved with the story, hacks from the Bush junta, the soldiers who worked in that hell hole, former Iraqi prisoners, and lawyers and researchers who have worked on torture issues, speak and tell their story about what went on inside those walls. It's a brutal film with images that will shock you and that may make you sick. I found some of the photos that they used in this film to be more horrendous and obscene than things I have seen in horror and porn movies. The film is well worth your time and it will give you either more reasons to be outraged over the war or it will make you question why you supported the war in the first place, if, in fact you ever did.In the film you find out about the stories behind photos like this:
The smiling soldiers in the photo above were part of the small group of people who were tried and convicted of crimes relating to the situation at Abu Ghraib. The man in the photo got two years in prison and the woman got three years for simply following orders. And yes, they did bad things to Iraqi detainees but let be clear about this, they were ordered to do those things by higher ups who were under pressure to get actionable intelligence. Now of course the officers over these two denied ever giving them orders to torture and degrade Iraqis but there is no way in hell, and they make this point in the film, that hicks like these would know how to come up with the sophisticated torture techniques that were used on the detainees.
This gal is in the film as well. When you first see her you think, "Boy, she's a cute little thing." But then as the story move son you think, "Damn, she helped do all that bad shit." It really strikes one how that they can turn everyday normal looking people into monsters. In the photo above she is posing with an Iraqi man they, and by they I mean our so called Military Intelligence and CIA, tortured to death. She said she was told he had a heart attack and died during questioning and at first she accepted that explanation but after awhile it dawned on her that that man was bleeding from parts of his body and had other injuries that were not consistent with a death by heart attack.
Stress positions are also brought up in the film The man in the picture above is in a stress position. In a nutshell, stress positions are a technique that torturers use to put their detainees in pain and to keep them disoriented so they will talk. Some are detainees are forced to stand and chained in uncomfortable positions, others are hung with their arms above their heads, others are submerged in water, the end result is always the same, the detainees are subjected to inhumane methods of interrogation.
Here's another stress position that our military and our CIA used on an Iraqi detainee. I for one can not imagine the horror of being stripped naked, then paraded in front of others while everyone laughed, and then have snarling dogs bark at me and nearly bite me. It would be like something out of a horror movie. And yet our military does it. And they do it nearly everyday, still. And they do it at the behest of the Chickenhawk in Chief, the man who avoided combat when he had his chance to serve his country during the other unwinnable useless war.****
The torture techniques used at Abu Ghraib are exactly like those used by Saddam Hussien, Kim Jong Il, Mao Tse Tung, the Nazi's, and Pol Pot. In a twisted misguided effort to get terrorists, our military has become terrorists. And the worst part is, they were told to do these things by the current administration. The thugs in power decided that since the terrorists do not represent any nation in particular, that the Geneva Conventions against torture do not apply to them, they only apply to nations who have signed the Geneva Conventions. So this means our guys can use any methods they like to extract information from said terrorists. Then to cover their lilly white Jesus loving asses, they defined torture so narrowly that anything that does not fit their new definition of torture is permissible. So again, anything goes when it comes to terrorist prisoners.
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The irony of all this is that what they did was make the world less safe for all of us. They are creating more terrorists every day they use this doctrine of torture and mayhem. If anyone who Bush and company claim is a terrorist can be put through what they put so called terrorists through, then other countries can claim the same about you and me if they label us terrorists. Also the large majority, some ninety two percent of the Iraqi detainees at Abu Ghraib were found to be innocent or not involved in any kind of terrorism, yet most all of them were put through the horrible torturous interrogations.
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As I watched this film I was shocked, disgusted, and repulsed that my government, which by no means was an angel before Bush took it hostage, could and would do such things. I wished that Bush, Cheney, Rumsfeld, and the rest of their murderous blood thirsty cabal would be put through what they put the innocent Iraqi's through, just so they could get a taste of what they've done to our country and our world. I also wanted to shout, "Impeach the bastards already!" as I watched this film, but decorum prevented me from doing so.
