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Before and After Abu Ghraib, a U.S. Unit Abused Detainees

http://www.nytimes.com/2006/03/19/in...pagewanted=all

Quote:

Before and After Abu Ghraib, a U.S. Unit Abused Detainees
By ERIC SCHMITT and CAROLYN MARSHALL

As the Iraqi insurgency intensified in early 2004, an elite Special Operations forces unit converted one of Saddam Hussein's former military bases near Baghdad into a top-secret detention center. There, American soldiers made one of the former Iraqi government's torture chambers into their own interrogation cell. They named it the Black Room.

In the windowless, jet-black garage-size room, some soldiers beat prisoners with rifle butts, yelled and spit in their faces and, in a nearby area, used detainees for target practice in a game of jailer paintball. Their intention was to extract information to help hunt down Iraq's most-wanted terrorist, Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, according to Defense Department personnel who served with the unit or were briefed on its operations.

The Black Room was part of a temporary detention site at Camp Nama, the secret headquarters of a shadowy military unit known as Task Force 6-26. Located at Baghdad International Airport, the camp was the first stop for many insurgents on their way to the Abu Ghraib prison a few miles away.

Placards posted by soldiers at the detention area advised, "NO BLOOD, NO FOUL." The slogan, as one Defense Department official explained, reflected an adage adopted by Task Force 6-26: "If you don't make them bleed, they can't prosecute for it." According to Pentagon specialists who worked with the unit, prisoners at Camp Nama often disappeared into a detention black hole, barred from access to lawyers or relatives, and confined for weeks without charges. "The reality is, there were no rules there," another Pentagon official said.

The story of detainee abuse in Iraq is a familiar one. But the following account of Task Force 6-26, based on documents and interviews with more than a dozen people, offers the first detailed description of how the military's most highly trained counterterrorism unit committed serious abuses.

It adds to the picture of harsh interrogation practices at American military prisons in Afghanistan and Guantánamo Bay, Cuba, as well as at secret Central Intelligence Agency detention centers around the world.

The new account reveals the extent to which the unit members mistreated prisoners months before and after the photographs of abuse from Abu Ghraib were made public in April 2004, and it helps belie the original Pentagon assertions that abuse was confined to a small number of rogue reservists at Abu Ghraib.

The abuses at Camp Nama continued despite warnings beginning in August 2003 from an Army investigator and American intelligence and law enforcement officials in Iraq. The C.I.A. was concerned enough to bar its personnel from Camp Nama that August.

It is difficult to compare the conditions at the camp with those at Abu Ghraib because so little is known about the secret compound, which was off limits even to the Red Cross. The abuses appeared to have been unsanctioned, but some of them seemed to have been well known throughout the camp.

For an elite unit with roughly 1,000 people at any given time, Task Force 6-26 seems to have had a large number of troops punished for detainee abuse. Since 2003, 34 task force members have been disciplined in some form for mistreating prisoners, and at least 11 members have been removed from the unit, according to new figures the Special Operations Command provided in response to questions from The New York Times. Five Army Rangers in the unit were convicted three months ago for kicking and punching three detainees in September 2005.

Some of the serious accusations against Task Force 6-26 have been reported over the past 16 months by news organizations including NBC, The Washington Post and The Times. Many details emerged in hundreds of pages of documents released under a Freedom of Information Act request by the American Civil Liberties Union. But taken together for the first time, the declassified documents and interviews with more than a dozen military and civilian Defense Department and other federal personnel provide the most detailed portrait yet of the secret camp and the inner workings of the clandestine unit.

The documents and interviews also reflect a culture clash between the free-wheeling military commandos and the more cautious Pentagon civilians working with them that escalated to a tense confrontation. At one point, one of Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld's top aides, Stephen A. Cambone, ordered a subordinate to "get to the bottom" of any misconduct.

Most of the people interviewed for this article were midlevel civilian and military Defense Department personnel who worked with Task Force 6-26 and said they witnessed abuses, or who were briefed on its operations over the past three years.

Many were initially reluctant to discuss Task Force 6-26 because its missions are classified. But when pressed repeatedly by reporters who contacted them, they agreed to speak about their experiences and observations out of what they said was anger and disgust over the unit's treatment of detainees and the failure of task force commanders to punish misconduct more aggressively. The critics said the harsh interrogations yielded little information to help capture insurgents or save American lives.

Virtually all of those who agreed to speak are career government employees, many with previous military service, and they were granted anonymity to encourage them to speak candidly without fear of retribution from the Pentagon. Many of their complaints are supported by declassified military documents and e-mail messages from F.B.I. agents who worked regularly with the task force in Iraq.

A Demand for Intelligence

Military officials say there may have been extenuating circumstances for some of the harsh treatment at Camp Nama and its field stations in other parts of Iraq. By the spring of 2004, the demand on interrogators for intelligence was growing to help combat the increasingly numerous and deadly insurgent attacks.

Some detainees may have been injured resisting capture. A spokesman for the Special Operations Command, Kenneth S. McGraw, said there was sufficient evidence to prove misconduct in only 5 of 29 abuse allegations against task force members since 2003. As a result of those five incidents, 34 people were disciplined.

"We take all those allegations seriously," Gen. Bryan D. Brown, the commander of the Special Operations Command, said in a brief hallway exchange on Capitol Hill on March 8. "Any kind of abuse is not consistent with the values of the Special Operations Command."

The secrecy surrounding the highly classified unit has helped to shield its conduct from public scrutiny. The Pentagon will not disclose the unit's precise size, the names of its commanders, its operating bases or specific missions. Even the task force's name changes regularly to confuse adversaries, and the courts-martial and other disciplinary proceedings have not identified the soldiers in public announcements as task force members.

General Brown's command declined requests for interviews with several former task force members and with Lt. Gen. Stanley McChrystal, who leads the Joint Special Operations Command, the headquarters at Fort Bragg, N.C., that supplies the unit's most elite troops.

One Special Operations officer and a senior enlisted soldier identified by Defense Department personnel as former task force members at Camp Nama declined to comment when contacted by telephone. Attempts to contact three other Special Operations soldiers who were in the unit — by phone, through relatives and former neighbors — were also unsuccessful.

Cases of detainee abuse attributed to Task Force 6-26 demonstrate both confusion over and, in some cases, disregard for approved interrogation practices and standards for detainee treatment, according to Defense Department specialists who have worked with the unit.

In early 2004, an 18-year-old man suspected of selling cars to members of the Zarqawi terrorist network was seized with his entire family at their home in Baghdad. Task force soldiers beat him repeatedly with a rifle butt and punched him in the head and kidneys, said a Defense Department specialist briefed on the incident.

Some complaints were ignored or played down in a unit where a conspiracy of silence contributed to the overall secretiveness. "It's under control," one unit commander told a Defense Department official who complained about mistreatment at Camp Nama in the spring of 2004.

For hundreds of suspected insurgents, Camp Nama was a way station on a journey that started with their capture on the battlefield or in their homes, and ended often in a cell at Abu Ghraib. Hidden in plain sight just off a dusty road fronting Baghdad International Airport, Camp Nama was an unmarked, virtually unknown compound at the edge of the taxiways.

The heart of the camp was the Battlefield Interrogation Facility, alternately known as the Temporary Detention Facility and the Temporary Holding Facility. The interrogation and detention areas occupied a corner of the larger compound, separated by a fence topped with razor wire.

Unmarked helicopters flew detainees into the camp almost daily, former task force members said. Dressed in blue jumpsuits with taped goggles covering their eyes, the shackled prisoners were led into a screening room where they were registered and examined by medics.

Just beyond the screening rooms, where Saddam Hussein was given a medical exam after his capture, detainees were kept in as many as 85 cells spread over two buildings. Some detainees were kept in what was known as Motel 6, a group of crudely built plywood shacks that reeked of urine and excrement. The shacks were cramped, forcing many prisoners to squat or crouch. Other detainees were housed inside a separate building in 6-by-8-foot cubicles in a cellblock called Hotel California.

The interrogation rooms were stark. High-value detainees were questioned in the Black Room, nearly bare but for several 18-inch hooks that jutted from the ceiling, a grisly reminder of the terrors inflicted by Mr. Hussein's inquisitors. Jailers often blared rap music or rock 'n' roll at deafening decibels over a loudspeaker to unnerve their subjects.

Another smaller room offered basic comforts like carpets and cushioned seating to put more cooperative prisoners at ease, said several Defense Department specialists who worked at Camp Nama. Detainees wore heavy, olive-drab hoods outside their cells. By June 2004, the revelations of abuse at Abu Ghraib galvanized the military to promise better treatment for prisoners. In one small concession at Camp Nama, soldiers exchanged the hoods for cloth blindfolds with drop veils that allowed detainees to breathe more freely but prevented them from peeking out.

Some former task force members said the Nama in the camp's name stood for a coarse phrase that soldiers used to describe the compound. One Defense Department specialist recalled seeing pink blotches on detainees' clothing as well as red welts on their bodies, marks he learned later were inflicted by soldiers who used detainees as targets and called themselves the High Five Paintball Club.

Mr. McGraw, the military spokesman, said he had not heard of the Black Room or the paintball club and had not seen any mention of them in the documents he had reviewed.

In a nearby operations center, task force analysts pored over intelligence collected from spies, detainees and remotely piloted Predator surveillance aircraft, to piece together clues to aid soldiers on their raids. Twice daily at noon and midnight military interrogators and their supervisors met with officials from the C.I.A., F.B.I. and allied military units to review operations and new intelligence.

Task Force 6-26 was a creation of the Pentagon's post-Sept. 11 campaign against terrorism, and it quickly became the model for how the military would gain intelligence and battle insurgents in the future. Originally known as Task Force 121, it was formed in the summer of 2003, when the military merged two existing Special Operations units, one hunting Osama bin Laden in and around Afghanistan, and the other tracking Mr. Hussein in Iraq. (Its current name is Task Force 145.)

The task force was a melting pot of military and civilian units. It drew on elite troops from the Joint Special Operations Command, whose elements ******* the Army unit Delta Force, Navy's Seal Team 6 and the 75th Ranger Regiment. Military reservists and Defense Intelligence Agency personnel with special skills, like interrogators, were temporarily assigned to the unit. C.I.A. officers, F.B.I. agents and special operations forces from other countries also worked closely with the task force.

Many of the American Special Operations soldiers wore civilian clothes and were allowed to grow beards and long hair, setting them apart from their uniformed colleagues. Unlike conventional soldiers and marines whose Iraq tours lasted 7 to 12 months, unit members and their commanders typically rotated every 90 days.

Task Force 6-26 had a singular focus: capture or kill Mr. Zarqawi, the Jordanian militant operating in Iraq. "Anytime there was even the smell of Zarqawi nearby, they would go out and use any means possible to get information from a detainee," one official said.

Defense Department personnel briefed on the unit's operations said the harsh treatment extended beyond Camp Nama to small field outposts in Baghdad, Falluja, Balad, Ramadi and Kirkuk. These stations were often nestled within the alleys of a city in nondescript buildings with suburban-size yards where helicopters could land to drop off or pick up detainees.

At the outposts, some detainees were stripped naked and had cold water thrown on them to cause the sensation of drowning, said Defense Department personnel who served with the unit.

In January 2004, the task force captured the son of one of Mr. Hussein's bodyguards in Tikrit. The man told Army investigators that he was forced to strip and that he was punched in the spine until he fainted, put in front of an air-conditioner while cold water was poured on him and kicked in the stomach until he vomited. Army investigators were forced to close their inquiry in June 2005 after they said task force members used battlefield pseudonyms that made it impossible to identify and locate the soldiers involved. The unit also asserted that 70 percent of its computer files had been lost.

Despite the task force's access to a wide range of intelligence, its raids were often dry holes, yielding little if any intelligence and alienating ordinary Iraqis, Defense Department personnel said. Prisoners deemed no threat to American troops were often driven deep into the Iraqi desert at night and released, sometimes given $100 or more in American money for their trouble.

Back at Camp Nama, the task force leaders established a ritual for departing personnel who did a good job, Pentagon officials said. The commanders presented them with two unusual mementos: a detainee hood and a souvenir piece of tile from the medical screening room that once held Mr. Hussein.

Early Signs of Trouble

Accusations of abuse by Task Force 6-26 came as no surprise to many other officials in Iraq. By early 2004, both the C.I.A. and the F.B.I. had expressed alarm about the military's harsh interrogation techniques.

The C.I.A.'s Baghdad station sent a cable to headquarters on Aug. 3, 2003, raising concern that Special Operations troops who served with agency officers had used techniques that had become too aggressive. Five days later, the C.I.A. issued a classified directive that prohibited its officers from participating in harsh interrogations. Separately, the C.I.A. barred its officers from working at Camp Nama but allowed them to keep providing target information and other intelligence to the task force.

The warnings still echoed nearly a year later. On June 25, 2004, nearly two months after the disclosure of the abuses at Abu Ghraib, an F.B.I. agent in Iraq sent an e-mail message to his superiors in Washington, warning that a detainee captured by Task Force 6-26 had suspicious burn marks on his body. The detainee said he had been tortured. A month earlier, another F.B.I. agent asked top bureau officials for guidance on how to deal with military interrogators across Iraq who used techniques like loud music and yelling that exceeded "the bounds of standard F.B.I. practice."

American generals were also alerted to the problem. In December 2003, Col. Stuart A. Herrington, a retired Army intelligence officer, warned in a confidential memo that medical personnel reported that prisoners seized by the unit, then known as Task Force 121, had injuries consistent with beatings. "It seems clear that TF 121 needs to be reined in with respect to its treatment of detainees," Colonel Herrington concluded.

By May 2004, just as the scandal at Abu Ghraib was breaking, tensions increased at Camp Nama between the Special Operations troops and civilian interrogators and case officers from the D.I.A.'s Defense Human Intelligence Service, who were there to support the unit in its fight against the Zarqawi network. The discord, according to documents, centered on the harsh treatment of detainees as well as restrictions the Special Operations troops placed on their civilian colleagues, like monitoring their e-mail messages and phone calls.

Maj. Gen. George E. Ennis, who until recently commanded the D.I.A.'s human intelligence division, declined to be interviewed for this article. But in written responses to questions, General Ennis said he never heard about the numerous complaints made by D.I.A. personnel until he and his boss, Vice Adm. Lowell E. Jacoby, then the agency's director, were briefed on June 24, 2004.

The next day, Admiral Jacoby wrote a two-page memo to Mr. Cambone, under secretary of defense for intelligence. In it, he described a series of complaints, including a May 2004 incident in which a D.I.A. interrogator said he witnessed task force soldiers punch a detainee hard enough to require medical help. The D.I.A. officer took photos of the injuries, but a supervisor confiscated them, the memo said.

The tensions laid bare a clash of military cultures. Combat-hardened commandos seeking a steady flow of intelligence to pinpoint insurgents grew exasperated with civilian interrogators sent from Washington, many of whom were novices at interrogating hostile prisoners fresh off the battlefield.

"These guys wanted results, and our debriefers were used to a civil environment," said one Defense Department official who was briefed on the task force operations.

Within days after Admiral Jacoby sent his memo, the D.I.A. took the extraordinary step of temporarily withdrawing its personnel from Camp Nama.

Admiral Jacoby's memo also provoked an angry reaction from Mr. Cambone. "Get to the bottom of this immediately. This is not acceptable," Mr. Cambone said in a handwritten note on June 26, 2004, to his top deputy, Lt. Gen. William G. Boykin. "In particular, I want to know if this is part of a pattern of behavior by TF 6-26."

General Boykin said through a spokesman on March 17 that at the time he told Mr. Cambone he had found no pattern of misconduct with the task force.

A Shroud of Secrecy

Military and legal experts say the full breadth of abuses committed by Task Force 6-26 may never be known because of the secrecy surrounding the unit, and the likelihood that some allegations went unreported.

In the summer of 2004, Camp Nama closed and the unit moved to a new headquarters in Balad, 45 miles north of Baghdad. The unit's operations are now shrouded in even tighter secrecy.

Soon after their rank-and-file clashed in 2004, D.I.A. officials in Washington and military commanders at Fort Bragg agreed to improve how the task force integrated specialists into its ranks. The D.I.A. is now sending small teams of interrogators, debriefers and case officers, called "deployable Humint teams," to work with Special Operations forces in Iraq and Afghanistan.

Senior military commanders insist that the elite warriors, who will be relied on more than ever in the campaign against terrorism, are now treating detainees more humanely and can police themselves. The C.I.A. has resumed conducting debriefings with the task force, but does not permit harsh questioning, a C.I.A. official said.

General McChrystal, the leader of the Joint Special Operations Command, received his third star in a promotion ceremony at Fort Bragg on March 13.

On Dec. 8, 2004, the Pentagon's spokesman, Lawrence Di Rita, said that four Special Operations soldiers from the task force were punished for "excessive use of force" and administering electric shocks to detainees with stun guns. Two of the soldiers were removed from the unit. To that point, Mr. Di Rita said, 10 task force members had been disciplined. Since then, according to the new figures provided to The Times, the number of those disciplined for detainee abuse has more than tripled. Nine of the 34 troops disciplined received written or oral counseling. Others were reprimanded for slapping detainees and other offenses.

The five Army Rangers who were court-martialed in December received punishments including jail time of 30 days to six months and reduction in rank. Two of them will receive bad-conduct discharges upon completion of their sentences.

Human rights advocates and leading members of Congress say the Pentagon must still do more to hold senior-level commanders and civilian officials accountable for the misconduct.

The Justice Department inspector general is investigating complaints of detainee abuse by Task Force 6-26, a senior law enforcement official said. The only wide-ranging military inquiry into prisoner abuse by Special Operations forces was completed nearly a year ago by Brig. Gen. Richard P. Formica, and was sent to Congress.

But the United States Central Command has refused repeated requests from The Times over the past several months to provide an unclassified copy of General Formica's findings despite Mr. Rumsfeld's instructions that such a version of all 12 major reports into detainee abuse be made public.

its a sad comment on the current state of things that something like this has that kind of "old news" quality to it. where you consciously know its bad and that it at least deserves consideration, but it happens so often and youre so tired of it that youre just neutered by your apathy and cant bother. its like seeing an article about some other bombing in iraq that killed or wounded 200 people and just skipping over it and reading about those really cute pandas at the atlanta zoo, which is something i did before. but this stuff is really important and its pretty digusting that its even possible for people to become so numb to stuff like this. so at least browse the motherfucker, dammit

nevertheless, for the disinclined the article basically covers:

-abuses were not contained to abu ghraib (obvious, i know, but now corroborated in the same detail the abuses at guantanamo and at prisons in afghanistan were).

this is in two senses:
-one is that they (abuses of an eminently similar nature to abu ghraib) happened well before and well after the original
-and, two, that these saddamian style abuses werent just contained to some "few bad apples." the people involved in this were from rangers and seals and fucking delta force. so this -- painfully making aware that this was actually still needed -- brings to naught this notion that some low ranking hicks like lyndie england concocted this stuff

and it also mentions some salient details like the "no blood, no foul" policy of theirs, some incidents of abuse, their use of a million little essentially unregulated (a ridiculous notion in that world to begin with) "outposts" where abusers can let it all out, and their use of prisoners as paintball targets. this little image sums it up nicely, capturing some of the actual above stated things as well as the shades of pathetic childishness and stupidity that this whole thing is rife with.

http://graphics8.nytimes.com/images/.../abuse.184.jpg
thats their little logo thing

the only thing that would have made it better would have been some spelling mistake or something like that. that would have basically been so fitting that it wouldve rendered the article useless. it would capture more than the article could ever hope to

but its also depressing how much the debate surrounding these things has centred solely on questions of "yeah, but is it legal?" in other words, that the obviously depraved nature of some act, the complete absence of morals, basic humanity, or of any adherence to the implicit standards of any self respecting 1st world nation, are rendered moot when placed next to the always superseding, divine perfection of some law. this is how i read all of that stuff: "yes i absolutely agree, that is indeed an abhorrent, savage, inhumane act that shames us all... but, technically, it isnt."

WOW WHAT A SURPRISE AMERICAN TROOPS ABUSING "TERRORISTS"

just read the first paragraph in my second post. i thought that, with that little disclaimer, i kinda would have preempted that attitude, but i forgot that people dont really read stuff, let alone read what i write, so i cant blame you

you fool, i DID read that. Im just saying, its not too newsworthy.

goddammit youre wrong. this stuff, the abuse, has never even stopped being newsworthy. and this article itself does bring up a lot of interesting, relevant stuff. fight the apathy, damn you

fuck that, im moving to europe.

are you saying that because you think civil apathy is endemic over there? it actually is, from what ive read, but is still far above the levels seen in the US and canada. voter turnout has been going down sharply across the board for years and years. i wonder what forces bring such a thing about

I think the reason shit like this becomes old news before it's even news is that we recognize, on some subconcious level perhaps, that it's not an isolated problem. It's a symptom. And it's hard sometimes to beat the feeling that we're just constantly getting outraged and terrified every time a new symptom emerges while the disease flourishes, untreated. You get a feeling like, "Well, yeah, I could've told you that was going to be the case." So why didn't we do something about it? That's the disease. It's not apathy. I don't know what it is. Selfishness, I guess. It's a selfishness I begrudge no one.

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Originally Posted by sleeper

come on, you arent taking me seriously, are you?

tortue is cool tho did yalz see hostel?

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Originally Posted by Shparticus

thats an interesting point. its hard not to be aware of the fact that these bits of news are attached to a broader feeling of hopelessness. like i dont think, were there to magically be a fully dealing with the torture issue, anything would actually be solved. but, at the same time, the general bar of things can raise and lower incrementally and the fact that absolute success is not realistically attainable doesnt mean progress isnt. within this metaphor youve begun, you dont have to totally cure something to have actually won ground and changed things, and not trying to make progress is -- more than just not solving existing issues -- inviting even more problems. or symptoms, whatever. point is that action or vigilance is always useful and right

the sad part is that i couldnt say the lack of success with stopping this isnt for a lack of trying. people arent even trying. im not just talking about your average joe (although they dont seem to really care at all, after one brief fart of indignation at the height of abu ghraib scandal, which itself was mitigated by all kinds of bush administration efforts to "reframe" and cloud the issue) but congress could care less. mccain passed that one bill that laid out a higher standard, but bush just turned around and, in true dictator style, attached to it after the fact his own outstandingly moronic "signing statement" -- effectively saying "im president, i can do whatever i want, fuck you." congressional republicans are shaping up to be even more spineless and sheepish than democrats

but i would still call it apathy. its not ideal, but i think it gets at it. the feeling to me is one of outrage on a totally conscious level, being outraged because you know, logically, that this is wrong, but then absolute quiet paralysis afterwards. i guess that doesnt make it apathy because apathy kinda means you dont really care about anything. its an odd thing. why arent any of these things stirring active unrest, as opposed to just cognitive? that gap has been bridged by lesser things, no doubt. why did the domestic spying incur serious outrage in the 70s but not now? this "terror" idea is being used as a key into so many doors that should remain locked. its so obviously a mean, not an end

but the first obvious answer to why people dont care is that they dont think the issues are even that serious or serious at all, and that, were they actually serious, people would be caring, which is just circular logic. i do think these issues are genuine and this lack of caring reflects on something bigger on the part of the people

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Originally Posted by transluscent

come on, you arent taking me seriously, are you?

i knew you werent actually packing your bags or whatever, but jokes can assume certain things like anything else can, like i thought yours did about europe. i just wanted to talk about europe's own problems with apathy. that itself is an interesting question. why do people stop voting or reading the paper or just otherwise being active in civic affairs? and i shouldnt be acting as though there are these "people" out there apart from myself or us, because i get as apathetic as anyone, but maybe the difference is that i feel huge guilt for it and force myself to at least manually replicate acts of caring sans emotional backend. i dont know if that makes the sense i want it to. or if it made sense at all. whatever man

Quote:

Originally Posted by sleeper

they're just more quickly learning the right thing to do: blindly trust your leaders

(sleeper, this is ******)

I can't believe that action and vigilance are always right. Sometimes action and vigilance are misguided and/or self-destructive. I think the reason that unrest is primarily happening at the cognative level right now is twofold: for one thing, the people have no unified guidance to help direct the airing of their grievances. Without that, we see no end, no goal to our actions. I think people are aware that impeaching (or, more accurately, deposing) Bush isn't "the answer." It still does nothing about the system and climate that allowed him and his administration to damage the country. And that system, ultimately, is a product of our own minds. So any action or vigilance we undertake must eventually turn inward. Without guidance, we complete this whole process in our heads, arriving at a state of troubled introspection, having affected no change in the world around us. The second facet of the problem is simply that we have too much to lose. We are, generally speaking, a comfortable and pampered populace. We are spoken for by corporations, celebrities, and politicians at every level of society. Even the homeless have a communal face. Even radicals, even "progressives," even dangerously controversial artists are spoken for, accounted for, and marketed to the rest of us as facets of a normal, healthy society. A shoeless, dirty, half-starved 10-year-old boy standing in front of a tank with a half a brick in his hand wields more actual power than most of us lay claim to in a lifetime. To reach that point where we embrace the fact that any assertion of power is ultimately backed by the reality of physical force, we will never take to the streets. We will never throw a brick at a tank. We will never die for our country. And when we do embrace that fact, people will die, and people will listen, and some things will change, and some things will stay the same. And afterwards we will turn inward once again, saying to ourselves, like a mantra, "There must be a better way." And this voice, our own voice, echoing, will need to be drowned out on occasion by television, and by popular music, and by USA Today, and by cell phones that do every god damned thing but let you talk to another person. And when all the music, and the news, and the small talk starts to feel awfully familiar, we will turn inward, and listen for that voice. When the tragedy and horror, as well as the joy, don't move us like we know they should, we will listen for that echo.

And when we hear that echo, we will look around and say, "Someone should do something."

well, yes, of course. i hardly meant action and vigilance in itself, regardless of what its being done for or how. its more about being willing to resort to those ends in a substantial way, rather than adopting them in form. i mean "action and vigilance" is the kind of justification that fuels a lot of ugly fires. i am just reminded now of this email some rightwing radicals sent to each other about justices ginsburg o'connor that i think is too funny (and relevant to this topic, of course) to not post:

Quote:

"Here is your first patriotic assignment," the message said. "Supreme Court Justices Ginsburg and O'Connor have publicly stated that they use foreign laws and rulings to decide how to rule on American cases. This is a huge threat to our Republic and constitutional freedom. If you are what you say you are, and NOT armchair patriots, then those two justices will not live another week."

so i agree with your (implicit) characterization of vigilance as being right relative to its cause and means and not just as something in itself, because thats clearly true.

yes, great point. i was aware of a general absence of leadership on these things but i never thought it in those terms. thats crucial. you can only expect so much of people and the kind of indignations that would be needed to make your average joe get up and like start a movement or whatever himself is monumental, but if its done in the context of a broader struggle, in unison, individual efforts come about easier, definitely. easier as in there are less barriers to its happening and easier as in small efforts are then justified and can be pooled

i would still think that impeachment would be valuable. it would be a bit unfortunate if it happened like this, where it would come from the top down and not as the result of some broad, popular upswell, which would have given it a lot of its legitimacy, but i still think that it would send a usefully powerful message to all. and get rid of bush, which would be cause for some wicked parties if there ever was one

definitely, the system that people like him are nurtured in and everything. this is slight tangent, but have you been following your country's attempts at lobbying reform? its depressing as hell. when the public spotlight was on there was practically full out competition between the two parties to make the bigger, stronger, meatier piece of legislation, but now, with the publics attention saturated and asleep, theyre progressively scaling everything back and making soemthing that is practically just reform in name only. they refuse to give up their little crooked world. and with all of this stuff, i blame those who were responsible for restricting some wrong act, more than just those who commited it (in this context at least), which are the people

yes exactly, inwards. im like shouting out loud in approval, these are pretty good points.

i cant argue about how theres a lot to lose and little to gain. it wouldve all been better if there was some human element to the spying thing, for example. a vivid example of abuse that touched on innocent people. something like that could stir people to relate it to their own lives and feel threatened. the facts of the matter wouldnt have to change at all, its all just in how its presented or framed. right now only like half of the country (saw a poll but forget how it wss conducted and when and everything) thinks that its ok -- that, hey, im not a terrorist, what do i have to fear? with this in mind i see your selfishness point. action is only justified when personal stakes are affected, you cant expect people to fight for things on account of principle or soemthing. the abu ghraib thing was good for this reason. if the entire event was exactly as it was but was only communicated to the public in words, it wouldnt have been 1/10th the scandal it was. "private england then tied a leash to abu al-whalizan." people wouldve done that typical "this is it? theyre all terrorists, let them rot!" thing and then closed their mind off in spite over the perceived "pansy ass liberal terrorist lover" nature of anyone who objects. but pictures created that connection and stirred up emotions, which are a great motivator. but, as this article and a million other things since then is proof of, nothing really was accomplished at all

i see what you mean but i kind of object to this term physical force. its a good catch all working phrase, sure, but do you think thats what it boils down to in principle? i can think of all kinds of examples where it doesnt. to me its just about there being some kind of consequence attached to the issue. why would anyone listen if they dont have to? if theres no threat or consequence. that could be force making up that consequence, and maybe somewhere down any line force exists, but i dont think that consequence necessarily *******s force. i only take issue with this because its a little bit of language that i see a lot here and am hoping doesnt spread

that says a lot. that we would never die for your country. haha we, your. you know what i mean. theres no shortage of people who boast grandiloquently about how they would, and people would, indirectly, as a consequence of some war with a draft or soemthing, but they wouldnt willingly make that trade on normal terms. this isnt wrong at all in itself, but theres a general sentiment behind such a fact that your highlighting i think. that theres little feeling of personal stake inthe government that needs to be protected.

that last thing, for sure. i went to sleep last night thinking about that: about why am i saying people should care when i myself dont even care as much as im saying one should? i care, certainly, and maybe more than other people, but its not enough in itself. this is a strange sickness of mankind. that they can all collectively forfeit initiative and pass the buck like that. this stuff really does begin on a personal level. no cheesier way to end a post than quoting ghandi, but you do indeed have the be the change you want to see around you.

fortunately, i have the excuse of not being american and am exempt! have fun with that neofascist government, sucker!!!

but, i have to say, you made a lot of good points and that poetic touch at the end was apt and expressly effective. im starting to get back to viewing these things with a more human touch and less as these abstract concepts. either extreme is bad, of course. but i really am like excitedly approving and everything. that post excited me!

fuck that was longer than i thought. i hope that doesnt scare you away. normally once i post something like that people start like jumping out windows and crawling through vents to escape. uh hey, where you goin? what who me? yea nowhere, just for a quick power walk. and then i see a little middle finger pop up and some fading shout of "a fuck yoooou motherfuckaaah!" feelings of befuddlement follow. then tears

I would have expected such fine journalists such as Eric Schmitt and Carolyn Marshall to provide a little bit of substantial proof in their accusations

one question: did you or did you not even read the article? i dont think you could have both read the article and made a comment like that. they mention their sources like 4 paragrpahs down and all kinds of assertions are corroborated by the simple facts: events that indisputably happened, like, for instance(i know how much a tendency you have towards arguing one premise as if you were arguing the whole), the disproportionate number of people from task force 6-26 who were punished for abuse. you still could wave it all away with hand, but only if you adopted a corganist-level of all consuming incredulity. from any actual reasonable standpoint you couldnt.

hold your tongue peasant. eric schmitts iraq coverage is consistently fantastic and fine journalist he certainly is. dont know who that that other person is though

youre just pissed because this soils your enjoyment of socom for ps2. all these guys were the most elite of the elite and couldnt resist bludgeoning prisoners for kicks. but, come to think of it, that probably makes you like it more

i did

it's an endless statement of unsubstantiated facts

you didnt

what to you constitutes substantiation? documents? because the website itself posts copies of some documents, like:

http://graphics8.nytimes.com/images/...use2.large.jpg

and a lot of their claims arent even in dispute. a lot of them, in fact, arent even 'claims' at all, but statements of fact. events did occur, the only thing that has changed is the context theyre placed in, which serves to just give them their proper meaning and significance

you're not welcome on our continent yankee scum!

how's that for apathy

i thought you were british

interesting comment from a readers letter:

Quote:

In their place remain two questions: When, if ever, will we all reach a "tipping point" — and express the outrage that befits the most unpatriotic presidency we as a nation have ever had to endure? And when will our representatives, Republicans and Democrats, and members of the legitimate press, finally act in a way that leaves no question that this emperor has no clothes?

"unpatriotic" was a poor word choice but the general sentiment is on. tipping points and naked emperors, both interesting ways of looking at it. i do agree that people really have to wake up and start reacting in way that is proportionate to the problem here. its a big problem and you have only these tiny fits and starts, all low volume enough in themselves, of exasperation and outrage. the new york times is now taking a much harder tack against this and i love it. theyve really gotten past this idea that attacking the president at this point is partisan, which it so, so, so, so, so isnt, and are coming pretty hard at bush. i get the sense that theyre actually trying to bring this guy down; no half measures anymore. in the past few months this paper alone has done some pretty significant damage with its investigative journalism. heres hoping for a watergate

britain is part of europe

this is rich:

Quote:

Challenge for U.S.: Iraq's Handling of Detainees
By EDWARD WONG

CAMP JUSTICE, Iraq — The blindfolded detainees in the dingy hallway line up in groups of five for their turn to see a judge, like schoolchildren outside the principal's office.

Each meeting lasts a few minutes. The judge rules whether the detainee will go free, face trial or be held longer at this Iraqi base in northern Baghdad. But Firas Sabri Ali, squeezed into a fetid cell just hundreds of yards from the judge's office, has watched the inmates come and go for four months without his name ever being called.

He is jailed, along with two brothers and his father, solely as collateral, he says. The Iraqi forces are hunting another brother, suspected of being an insurgent. The chief American medic here says that he believes Mr. Ali to be innocent but that it is up to the Iraqi police to decide whether to free him. The Iraqis acknowledged that they were holding Mr. Ali until they captured his brother.

"I hope they catch him, because then I'll be released," said Mr. Ali, 38, a soft-spoken man who until his arrest worked for a British security company to support his wife and three sons. "They said, 'You must wait.' I told them: 'There's no law. This is injustice.' "

Such is the challenge facing the American military as it tries to train the Iraqi security forces to respect the rule of law. Three years after the invasion of Iraq, American troops are no longer simply teaching counterinsurgency techniques; they are trying to school the Iraqis in battling a Sunni-led rebellion without resorting to the tactics of a "dirty war," involving abductions, torture and murder.

The legacy of Abu Ghraib hampers the American military. But the need to instill respect for human rights has gained a new urgency as Iraq grapples with the threat of full-scale civil war and continuing sectarian bloodletting. It is not uncommon now for dozens of bodies, with hands bound and gunshot wounds to the heads, to surface across Baghdad on any given day.

The Americans are pushing the Shiite-dominated Iraqi forces to ask judges for arrest warrants, restrain their use of force and ensure detainees' rights.

The Iraqi officers at this base, the headquarters of the Public Order Forces, a police paramilitary division with a history of torture and abuse, are gradually changing their behavior, American military advisers say. Cases of detainee abuse have declined in recent months, they say.

But detainees can still languish for months without any hope of a legal appeal because of a shortage of judges or, in the case of Mr. Ali, an unwillingness by the Iraqi police to allow detainees to see a judge. Overcrowding is chronic, because the Justice Ministry has been slow in building new prisons.

"The tradition in this country of a law enforcement agency that had absolute power over people, we've got to break them of that," said Maj. Andrew Creel, the departing joint operations officer here. "I think it'll take years. You can't change a cultural mind-set overnight."

Control of the Interior Ministry, which oversees the police, has become one of the stumbling blocks in forming the new national government, with Sunni Arab politicians accusing Shiite leaders of running militias and death squads from the ministry.

Last fall the American military raided at least two police prisons where it said detainees had been abused. This year's State Department human rights report noted that the police, especially the paramilitary forces, had been accused of torture and killings.

Those forces number 17,500. This base — in the heart of Kadhimiya, just blocks away from a golden-domed Shiite shrine — serves as the headquarters for one of the two major paramilitary branches, the 7,700-member Public Order Forces. An 11-member American military team began advising the Iraqi commanders here last spring. It moved into the base in October and is now handing over its duties to a new team.

Here, 650 prisoners are packed into four spartan rooms. They complain of a lack of food and regular access to showers and toilets. A foul odor wafts from each holding pen. To cope with the overcrowded conditions, the police converted the dining hall into a cell; the three other areas were originally built as storage rooms.

Camp Justice was never meant to hold prisoners for more than a few weeks. Iraqi law says prisoners to be tried are to be transferred to a Justice Ministry penitentiary after interrogation. But the ministry has been unable to build enough jails to keep pace with arrests. It has 10 centers across Iraq, which hold 7,500 detainees, and an additional 7 are expected to be built, a ministry spokesman said.

So the detainee population at temporary police prisons like the one here, separate from those of the Justice Ministry, has ballooned to more than 10,000 in Baghdad alone, spread across a shadowy network of about 10 centers, an Interior Ministry official said.

That has ignited concerns among American officials. But Col. Gordon Davis Jr., the head of Camp Justice's departing advisory team, praised the Iraqi commander here, Maj. Gen. Mehdi Sabih Hashem al-Garawi, for showing a willingness to embrace human rights. The general has, for instance, assigned the Iraqi division's only medic to look after the detainees.

"I won't say he's gone 180, but he's realized that the best way of getting information is not to beat or abuse detainees," Colonel Davis said as he stood in the operations room, the walls plastered with maps of Baghdad.

"The current generation has been brought up with a certain code and a certain tolerance for abuse," he said in another interview. "They've got to be constantly worked on."

The academy for recruits to the Public Order Forces has increased the time spent on human rights training to 20 hours from about eight last October, the colonel said.

Lt. Col. Dhia al-Shammari, the chief interrogator and a supervisor of detainee operations, said: "Beating or insults, any policeman can do. Professionals don't use them. This is not allowed, and I myself reject it."

Certain Public Order units have had fearsome reputations, and residents of Baghdad and nearby towns have complained of abuse and torture. From April to June of last year, American advisers found prisoners with bruises at the headquarters of the Second Brigade every couple of weeks, Colonel Davis said.

When confronted with incidents of abuse, the colonel said, the Iraqi brigade commander told the Americans, "Are you more worried about our enemies or about us?"

That officer was replaced at the urging of the Americans. So was a commander of the Third Brigade, in Salman Pak. Prisoner abuse has been relatively rare here at the division level, the advisers say, and became even scarcer after the American team moved in last fall. Before that, the advisers had been living at an American base. If the Americans saw a bruised prisoner back then, they often kept quiet for fear of alienating the Iraqi officers, said Master Sgt. Joseph Kaiser, a medic who regularly examines the detainees.

Now the Americans can be more direct, advisers say. The Americans have trained a 32-man guard force. Sergeant Kaiser helps supervise the Iraqi medic who examines the detainees daily.

The Iraqi division's intelligence chief "said we have to treat detainees, since they're subjected to visits by the press and human rights groups," said the medic, Hazem, 32, who declined to give his full name for security reasons. "He said to me, 'Your main job is to treat the patients, not to check if they're terrorists.' If I know they're terrorists and I'm told to kill them, I'd kill them. But I do what my job requires."

Checking on the Detainees

On a balmy afternoon, as Sergeant Kaiser walked up to a holding pen to make one of his daily health checks, a blindfolded man in a brown leather jacket squatted outside the metal door. The man was awaiting interrogation, said several guards with Kalashnikov rifles.

The guards went into the cell and brought out Mr. Ali, the man whose brother is being hunted by the Iraqi police. Dressed in a blue and pink tracksuit and a black ski cap, he shuffled up to the sergeant. Because Mr. Ali speaks English, he serves as an unofficial cellblock leader.

"How are the people inside?" Sergeant Kaiser asked.

"We need to have more food," Mr. Ali said. Mr. Ali said he dreaded the idea of American advisers leaving this base one day. "That's bad," he said, shaking his head. "That's very bad. We need the sergeant or another American officer here. When we see them we say, 'Please stay here.' "

A reporter asked Mr. Ali whether detainees had been abused or tortured. "Don't ask these questions," he said, lowering his voice. "You know that."

Sergeant Kaiser said that since September, when he joined the advisory team, he had found only "a few" cases of abuse. He recalled two that he had written up. Prisoners have been brought in with baton marks, he said, but they might have been resisting arrest.

Sergeant Kaiser and Mr. Ali stepped into the cell. Some sunlight streamed in through three small windows near the roof. Three ceiling fans whirred. The 140 detainees mostly sat up on blankets; there was not enough room for them to lie down without touching each other. By the door, one detainee used an electric hair clipper to shave the head of another. A man with glasses sat reading the Koran.

The detainees complained that family visits occurred only once every couple of months. The sick lay on blankets. Sergeant Kaiser gave medicine for diarrhea to a man in gray robes and tablets for oral fungus to an inmate with yellowing teeth. He poked at the torso of a man with rib pains.

"Some are innocent," said a guard, Sabah Ali, 21, as he looked around the room. "But some have given their confessions and they are guilty. Those who are innocent, we'll release them."

But those detainees sometimes end up waiting months before being freed, because the division prefers to release detainees in large groups.

Prisoners from the division's field units are funneled to this base "so you can exploit intelligence and take any opportunity for abuse out of the field," said Lt. Col. John Shattuck, the deputy commander of the advisory team.

Seeking Arrest Warrants

Since his appointment to Camp Justice in February, Judge Majid has come for several hours almost every day. He is a nervous man dressed in a dark suit who prefers that his full name not be printed.

Detainees are marched from cells in groups of five to see him in an office. The ringing of his cellphone can keep him up at all hours — he is expected to be on call around the clock to approve an arrest warrant if the Iraqi forces suddenly come up someone they want to detain.

Arrest warrants were mandated by Interior Ministry officials starting last July to provide some accountability, especially among the paramilitary forces. It is unclear, though, how closely field units stick to the requirement.

The Iraqi operations officer at Camp Justice says warrants are needed only for apprehending people on the Interior Ministry's wanted list, not for instances in which the police may be responding to a report of suspicious activity.

Colonel Davis says the warrant policy has had some effect. Because of it, and because the Iraqis are improving their intelligence gathering, the Public Order Forces no longer round up hundreds of people on each raid, he said. On a typical operation, he added, they may take in a dozen.

After being brought here, the detainees are fingerprinted and have their retinas scanned. A photograph is taken, partly to record their condition at the time of arrest. The Americans have asked the Iraqis to deliver a daily report accounting for all detainees held throughout the division; one recent printout listed 896.

The law says detainees are entitled to have their cases reviewed by a judge every two weeks, but there are not enough judges, said Colonel Shammari, the chief interrogator.

The main question, one impossible to answer for now, is whether respect for rule of law will become deeply rooted in the Iraqi forces, despite a tradition of tyranny in this country, as the guerrilla war continues to rage.

Outside one of the prison cells, a blue-uniformed guard, Salim Abdul Hassan, 35, watched as his colleagues led blindfolded detainees to a row of outdoor toilets.

He said that the American training had been of great help, but that "it would be much better if the Iraqis worked on their own without the Americans."

"We wouldn't be tied down," he said. "Three-quarters of the terrorists ask for the help of the Americans. They want to be in the care of the Americans, not the Iraqis."

Khalid al-Ansary and Max Becherer contributed reporting for this article.

it brings up an interesting point, which is that americas moral authority is absolutely shot and that they cant even really convincingly tell someone to stop torturing, mistreating, and secretly detaining without trial or charge someone who they deem to be -- even as the iraqis say -- "terrorist." its such an fascinating little parallel. the iraqi police, and their many, many constituent militias, are all using what the article correctly characterized as "dirty war" tactics and the US can clearly see why thats wrong and has to be stopped, yet at the same time the americans themselves hardly differ in any substantial way from those same practices, apart from scale. and even that, you dont know. its like a convicted murderer trying to credibly lecture a hitman on the heinousness of his crimes. but they do differ in one other way, which is that americans are held to a much higher standard that iraqis, who were born into and know nothing but iron-fisted rule and corruption. the iraqis at least have an excuse for their horrible excesses.

but the point is that the US is setting untenable precedents in its wake in this "war" and this is just one example of how these things will come home to roost. its undercutting american credibility to such ridiculous extents. thats a real worry not only for americans but for the world, i think. its probably gone for good

some key quotes, i think

Quote:

"We need to have more food," Mr. Ali said. Mr. Ali said he dreaded the idea of American advisers leaving this base one day. "That's bad," he said, shaking his head. "That's very bad. We need the sergeant or another American officer here. When we see them we say, 'Please stay here.' "

Quote:

When confronted with incidents of abuse, the colonel said, the Iraqi brigade commander told the Americans, "Are you more worried about our enemies or about us?"

Quote:

ZBIGNIEW BRZEZINSKI: I think the benefits have been, in fact, very few, beyond the obvious one: the removal of Saddam Hussein. But we have undermined our international legitimacy. That's a very high cost to a superpower.

We have destroyed our credibility; no one believes anything the president says anymore. We have tarnished our morality with Abu Ghraib and Guantanamo. These are phenomenal costs. And there's, of course, blood and money and tens of thousands of Iraqi killed.

definitely a very high cost. i dont think its possible to overestimate that. this a consequence of the war that isnt so visible or flashy, but is real, big, and long term. legitimacy and credibility. those are near-priceless things to have. theyre certainly of much greater importance than some would have you believe. the worst part is that losing it was all so senseless too. it didnt even have to be this way. it was the incomprehensibly gratuitous behaviour on the part of the bush administration that brought it about. just plain stupid, stupid decisions -- where decisions were even actually made, that is. what tactless morons there are running things

fines range from 35 cents to a live goat

Did you hear about that guy, apparently the one who was famously photographed with the black hood standing on the box, trying to do a publicity tour around the world to speak about his ordeal? I saw a report about him on the news a few weeks back, but it's hard to find any real information on the internet. I think he was a lawyer or something

yeah i read about him, i can link you to the nyt's article on that guy if you want

http://www.commondreams.org/headlines06/0311-01.htm

the original is on that pay part of the nyt's site

but there was an unfortunate mini scandal with that: that guy has been saying hes the guy in the photo for a long time and vanity fair and some other sources did pieces on him. the times then did a story on him and questions were raised about if it was really him. apparently the one in the famous image actually isnt him. the guy isnt an impostor or something, he verifiably was there at that prison, the US's own records show, and has, you know, the scars to show it, but the idea is that that just isnt him in that exact photo. he maintains that he was put in that position and had photo taken of him, and i dont doubt that he did, but not in that particular photo. its a really inconsequential issue but you shouldve seen how rabidly people on the right came down on the times for it. the times published a brief apology for it and i checked some of the backlinks to that page and there were all these blogs saying like "the nyt's is at it again, lying through its teeth..." and so on. its pathetic. but its interesting because the paper, being as closely scrutinized as it is, has pretty much the exact same amount of errors as it does scandals. an error that wouldnt merit a peep from some other paper, rightly so, is scandalous there. which is good, it keeps them in check. but im just saying that there are like 4 instances like this a year, tiny or large, and that just shows what a high level of a quality the paper is kept at

Yeah, it seems that whenever people hear things that they don't want to be true, they'll jump for anything to discredit it - even if it's some tiny, technical detail - and act as though the entire case or account relies on that one piece of information for its validity. It's cognative dissonance taken to a real extreme. I think the more embarrassing or difficult these things are to deal with, if they actually end up being true, the more angry people become in their denials and the more ridiculously unbalanced their reactions seem compared to the one point they actually address head on. It's like when someone's emotionally unstable and they open the fridge, see the milk's run out and start shouting 'WHERE IS THE FUCKING MILK?!!!' and end up breaking everything in sight. This ain't about the milk, man

Were you able to watch that Question Time broadcast I linked you to, by the way? I was wondering if it's actually available outside the UK

yes and they take that logic one step further: one inconsequential flaw discredits an entire article, and that same one article discredits an entire paper. there is specifc fallacy for this, im sure, but i dont know what. its kind of straw man-ish, because theyre taking one aspect, its weakest, and acting like its indicative of the whole (and acting like a refutation of that one weak point counts as a refutation of the whole) but it seems like theres something, a fallacy, more tailored for something like this. maybe this? http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Biased_sample
the spotlight one

i used to post on this really overzealously conservative forum for the fun and experience of it (where everyone spent, without really any exaggeration, probably 99% of their time talking about how much they hated these mysterious "liberals") and i asked them all once, after they were bashing the times again, who read the paper and not a single one actually read the paper. not just once, but ever. not even an article. its that kind of thinking that makes me lose my mind.

yeah definitely. it becomes personal. its not longer an assualt an idea, its assault on them because they identify with whatever idea. i see stuff like that all the time. i do it too sometimes though, but in a different way because i dont really identify with too much. some ideas i really find totally repulsive and cant help but feel some kind of deeper affront to. like ive been saying a bit rececntly, this kind of cynical attitude on things. that really makes me freak out

i checked out that link right as i was reading it to see if it worked and it did, but i just totally forgot about it since then and havent watched anything from it. should i just watch the latest episode or a certain one? ill watch one today and get back to you

Quote:

Originally Posted by sleeper

But I think you guys are just showing the opposite and equally inappropriate reaction: instead of overblowing errors in reporting that you disagree with the message of, you tend to disregard or minimize errors in the reporting you tend to believe. Thus all this talk of "inconsequential" flaws. You'll sing an aspect of a story to high heaven, and then when some question is raised about it, you pretend that it wasn't that big a deal and that the story is probably still true even without the evidence. The guy who claims he was in the Abu Ghraib picture wasn't really in it? "Oh well, there's probably another picture somewhere that does have him in it. No big deal. Still no question whatsoever about this guy's credibility! Nope, none at all!" CBS presents fake documents showing that Bush got preferential treatment? "So what? There are probably real documents out there that say the same thing the fake ones said. Doesn't cast any doubt on the story as a whole at all! No sirree!"

Seems to me that liberals are just as succeptible to narrowly focusing in on the things that are favorable to them in a story and carrying them out far past what reason will support as conservatives are.

I think it's this one
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trivial_objections

It's like adding weight to this one aspect of the article, to the point where it's portrayed as being the entire basis of the thing, and then knocking that way and saying 'this entire article is flawed! LIES!' And yeah, once the paper's discredited, well obviously everyone who's ever agreed with anything in that paper is discredited and blablabla. It's just bizarre how vehement people can be though - like if you were there in person, they'd be stabbing a finger at the bit that claims he was in that specific photo, shouting 'LOOK at THIS! LOOK! NO DON'T READ THE REST, LOOK!! LIES!' It's pretty childish actually, reminds me of school

You know, I'd like to see if that's reflected in a similar, liberal-themed forum. We've probably all heard that liberal types tend to be represented more in academia, but obviously that means those people are more likely to read the paper, just because they have an education or are more interested in following the news. I'm not saying that liberals are all intelligent educated people and that conservatives are all dumbass hicks, but there does seem to be a skew in that sense. Man I'm gonna get shouted at for this.

Actually they apparently have like a 'best of' clips reel thing on there now, so that might be worth looking at - I haven't seen it myself. I haven't seen this week's show either so I don't know how good that is - the last one was pretty nice though. Someone started a spiel, saying all these positive things and appealing to emotions when it didn't really have anything to do with the question, and the the host interrupted and said 'yes, but so what?' Oh man, they were talking about this leaflet from years back where the government had encouraged people to invest in works pensions, saying they were safe and so on, and people lost a lot of money with them. The minister for pensions was on and she said 'well if I had a copy of the leaflet here I could show you where we stated the risks' and the host produced one and offered it to her. Preparation defends against bullshit, yes