Does anyone have any good links about the severed cat heads at Abu Ghraib?

[Khephra]

Preferably a mainstream source. I've tried looking for one, but I'm not having any luck.

I have a freeper friend of the family who doesn't believe that one aspect of the story. (Yeah, I know it's strange that she's only interested in animals, but what can you do? Anything that might wake them up is worth it to me.)

[GreenPartyVoter]

1. Sorry. Hadn't heard about that before.

[SayitAintSo]

2. ewwwwwwwwwww

Hadn't heard of that one .....

[rooboy]

3. Severed cat heads????

Are you sure this isn't some cross-pollenation of stories?

There was a case in the Australian military (about 2 weeks ago) where some soldiers took a litter of kittens and killed them in some very inhumane ways (setting them alight, dragging behind motorcycles etc). This all took place on our soil, though.

Just a hunch...

[gristy]

4. Google News is your friend

www.news.google.com

[DemMN]

5. Washington Post Article

"Rather, the humiliation of the Iraqis seems of a piece with photos depicting a baby cat whose head has been severed and burned. Everybody seems to be having a ball as the cat head is posed stuffed into a bottle of Clorox; atop a can of Fanta with a cigarette in its mouth (the caption reads, "Pothead Cathead"); with containers of Off! over the words, "Cathead Hates Flys." " (more) ...

http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/wp-dyn/A22685-2004May12?language=printer

Here are a couple more, not exactly mainstream, though:

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/main.jhtml?xml=/news/2004/05/07/wtort107.xml

http://www.thisislondon.com/til/jsp/modules/Article/print.jsp?itemId=10612311

(edited to add more links)

[Mikimouse]

7. Good for them!...

By extension, I would expect that they'll get a hearty chuckle out of it when someone does something similar to them or their children. What a fun-loving buncha frat boy types!

[DemMN]

9. Just good old American porn

What's porn without a severed cat and cow head? Gosh darn kooky soldiers, just lettin' off some steam. :puke:

[Mikimouse]

11. LOL! Aye, just letting off some steam...

n/t

[Eric J in MN]

8. based on the Washington Post article, the cat photo was separate from

Based on the Washington Post article, the cat photo was separate from Abu Ghraib.

(Edit: It is ambiguous whether the cat was at the prison. Maybe there, maybe some place else)

The Wash Post reporter is saying troops in one photo (not (edit: not necessarily) at Abu Ghraib) were callousl passing around the head of a cat which had benn blown off, and similar callousness is in the Abu Ghraib photos.

[DemMN]

10. I stand corrected.

Thanks Erik J.

[Eric J in MN]

13. I edited to correct myself. It's ambiguous. Maybe the photos

I edited to correct myself. It's ambiguous. Maybe the photos were taken at the prison or maybe not.

[Cocoa]

12. I emailed the Post article to PETA

Rummy thinks he has problems now, wait til PETA sets their sights on him.

[troublemaker]

14. See... this is why people admire Hannibal Lecter

He's an educated psycho sadist who would know how to spell "Cathead Hates Flys"

[bobthedrummer]

6. I don't know about links, but a severed cat's head, a murder involving

steel cable, gang rape of male and female Iraqis, cutting off body parts, anal penetration of male Iraqis with various objects, necrophilia and satanic ritual abuse were all spoken about openly as being on the cd's-no urban legend to the spinmeisters here because returnees, their social networks and professional folks and their social networks have been discussing some of these horrors for at least a year.

On edit: something about scorpions being used too.

[troublemaker]

15. People are funny about animals

I remember a story about a British audience at a Jack the Ripper movie. They watch impassively as Jack butchers a prostitute. Then police whistles are heard and Jack took off running. In his flight, needing a diversion, he strikes a horse pulling a delivery cart in its face to make it bolt. The audience erupts... "No! No! Shame!"

[bobthedrummer]

16. It's an example of regression, imho.

To primal things.

[seabeyond]

17. was going to say, i have run into a lot of people

that have more empathy to animals than to human. i havent heard about cat heads in prison. i have heard soldiers on the outside getting a glee in killing animals, cats specifically. so when i saw your title, wow, if there are pictures of cat heads, the whole nation may stand up in anger. arent we pathetic

[Straight Shooter]

18. About the issue of having more empathy for animals than for people

I think it's because humans, for the most part, are programmed to protect defenseless creatures. Also, by not having empathy for other humans, we are keeping them at arm's length and rationalizing that such a thing could not happen to us. It's a way of saying, "There but for the grace of God go I." It's the reason why many women will have no pity on a woman who was raped. ("She asked for it.")

Weird, isn't it? Also, a lot of people just can't stand most of the general population and consider that the human race is basically selfish and cruel. Sometimes it seems the evidence points that way.

[The Stranger]

23. Kittens don't behead humans, but humans behead kittens.

Tigers and eagles elephant and rhinos and and gorillas don't destroy human habitats or threaten humans with extinction. But humans destroy all of these habitats nearly completely, to the point where there are a few hundred gorillas and over five billions humans left on the planet. In fact, humans destroy nearly every other animals' habitat, and threaten thousands of species with extinction. Humans, lastly, destroy one another in something called war. In the scale of this destruction, they are unique.

So maybe all of this has something to do with it.

[FizzFuzz]

24. yes and maybe the pure malevolent joy

they take in killing animals, a carnival of unrepentant slaughter performed on small, weak creatures 1/10th the size of the scum that did it. Bet they enjoyed the screams too, screams that surely sound very much like a woman or child being torn limb from limb. Just look at the goddamned description of what they did--what a joke they thought it was.

Not too far to go to do that kind of thing to people too--people who abuse animals rarely stop there, as the saying goes.

[AntiCoup2K4]

19. Perhaps they were cutting off kitty heads as practice for....

...that staged Nick Berg video production that was taped at the very same prison?

Frist killed cats as practice, so maybe these assholes took the example from him.

[FizzFuzz]

20. double posted oops

[FizzFuzz]

21. I'm sorry but I'm one of those weirdos

who cries at cruelty to animals.
Some of us have in our lives, been treated more lovingly by animals than by people. Emotions, psychological trauma, trigger experiences.

animals hold deep symbolism and touch people in ways they often can't express with other people--the dark and the light side.

But that's not my point. I don't know what my point is, except that I'm glad I didn't look at the photos, the description was horrible enough, animals are innocent I'm crying hard I need to pull myself together.

[Sterling]

22. Why care for them any less is what I want to know?

We are the dominant species on the planet. I think we are obligated to treat the others as kind as possible. In many casses animals are helpless to us and to see humans abuse them is rightfully painful. Not only do you witness an animal suffering but it is at the hands of a human so it's even more troubling.

What is most troubling is that many humans think it's ok. It's hard for me to consider them worthy of being part of the same species as the rest of us.

[booley]

25. isn't that what serial killers do?

torture and kill small animals for fun? isn't that what serial killers do before moving on up to human prey?

[bobthedrummer]

26. Jeffrey Dahmer certainly did start with animals. Was Dahmer a MP?

:puke:

[curse10]

27. Oh man, I hadn't heard this

what the fuck were these people doing over there?

What they did, to both those poor Iraqi people and the animals, is disgusting on so many levels. It makes me sick to my stomach.