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

[sleeper]

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

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.

[sleeper]

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."

[transluscent]

WOW WHAT A SURPRISE AMERICAN TROOPS ABUSING "TERRORISTS"

[sleeper]

argh

[transluscent]

dude, just saying

[sleeper]

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

[transluscent]

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

[sleeper]

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

[transluscent]

fuck that, im moving to europe.

[sleeper]

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

[Shparticus]

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.

[transluscent]

Originally Posted by sleeper

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

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

[TuralyonW3]

tortue is cool tho did yalz see hostel?

[sleeper]

Originally Posted by Shparticus

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.

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

[sleeper]

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

[neopryn]

Originally Posted by sleeper

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

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

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

[Shparticus]

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."

[sleeper]

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:

"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!

[sleeper]

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

[Nimrod's Son]

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

[sleeper]

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

[sleeper]

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

[Nimrod's Son]

i did

it's an endless statement of unsubstantiated facts

[sleeper]

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

[dean moriaty]

you're not welcome on our continent yankee scum!

[dean moriaty]

how's that for apathy

[sleeper]

i thought you were british

[sleeper]

interesting comment from a readers letter:

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

[dean moriaty]

britain is part of europe

[sleeper]

you said continent