Torture photos---can someone explain the reason why they were taken?

[Crankie Avalon]

I mean, I accept that the "reason" for why human beings committed the very acts themselves can't be put into words...but why on earth are these "soldiers" and "commanders" documenting those acts (against children!!!)???

To show their superiors that orders are being followed? For whose eyes were these photos intended?

What was the original original purpose for taking these pictures?

Sorry if this seems like a dumb question, but I really don't know.

[kliljedahl]

1. I can't possibly imagine why.

My mind boggles.


Keith’s Barbeque Central

[mopaul]

2. humiliation, intimidation, subjugation, and above all, fun.

some iraqi men and women after having been raped and humiliated beg for their relatives to come and kill them. some of the photos have been circulated locally to instill humiliation and terror to all the iraqis and all muslims.

there are perhaps millions of such photos floating out there in cyberspace.

[Crankie Avalon]

9. And then the Bushites say the reason why the photos can't be released...

...is because the sight of them would inflame the Muslim world?

[rwork]

18. When they went after Newsweek

for running the story on flushing the Koran. Scott McClellan, you have created terrible damage to the United States image.

[YDogg]

3. Souvenirs of ...

... *'s war.

[proud2BlibKansan]

4. I think some of them

were misguided and really thought they were doing something heroic and wanted to preserve their actions on film. Some were twisted and sadistic. So they took pictures just like serial killers take souvenirs from their victims. And for others, I am hoping they knew it was wrong and decided to make it a Kodak moment.

I think back to attrocities in Vietnam committed by our soldiers and how we found out about them - eye witnesses reported them. Eye witnesses who were soldiers, that is.

[Spider Jerusalem]

5. Trophies.

These are the sort of soldiers who would've collected ears in Vietnam.

[SalmonChantedEvening]

6. Leverage on a couple of fronts

Against the victims. These are crimes against Islam*, and many Muslims would never speak of these things. Use it to keep them quiet (This might also happen to someone else you know)

Against the servicemen and women. Just ask Lyddie England or Charles Ganer. Do this, that's an order, now here hold the bag for us, cuz hey, we got your face on film doing it.

Against the other inmates. Just having to watch this, or be shown the pictures, would get them saying ANYthing so that it would either stop, or in hopes it wouldn't be them next.


*Also crimes against humanity.

[Crankie Avalon]

11. Wow...

...it's amazing that they thought those things were worth the risk of easy and vivid exposure of their crimes that the existence of photos always makes possible.

[SalmonChantedEvening]

16. When you believe you are above the law

Anything is possible. The people in charge at Abu Graibh survived the first round of photos, aside from Karpinski.

Besides who's to say they were thinking in the first place? ;)

[jojo54]

7. It's just a damn shame that the military has programmed

these soldiers so well. Maybe one day, after they've been back in the real world, these atrocities will hit them like a ton of bricks and they will never be able to forgive themselves for listening to the lies.

[unrepuke]

17. Then they'l be on the roof with a deer rifle, or crashing a Jeep into

a V.A. hospital

[DistressedAmerican]

8. Alledgedly they were taken to be shown as a threat to other detainees.

they were menat to be coersive in nature. Used to show new detainees what could happen to them if they did not cooperate.

But, they also say this is not a pattern, nor was it systematic.

One or the other MUST be a lie as they are mutually exclusive explanations.

[unhappycamper]

10. Blackmail & souvenirs. n/t

[Crankie Avalon]

14. I hadn't thought of the blackmail angle until you and others...

...in this thread mentioned it.

As far as souvenirs go, it seems amazing that the guards (the "muscle" behind the operation) would be allowed to bring their own cameras into the facility. You would think that the higher up "brains" would have kept a much tighter control so that only "official" cameras would have been there.

How can they expect to keep things secret and get a hold of all the "souvenirs" after the fact?

[mrfrapp]

12. Possible Reasons

According to this article, "the photos were among thousands turned over by the key “whistleblower” in the scandal, Specialist Joseph M. Darby." My interpretation of that is that they were taken with the express purpose of blowing the whistle.

That article refers to the unreleased photos however. The photos already in the public domain look to me like souvenirs, as others have already suggested.

[MountainLaurel]

13. They're proud of what they did

And want souvenirs to show their decendents 30 years from now?

[Bucky]

15. The Army is a bureaucracy. They document everything.

It's not a complicated problem. The dehumanizing of detainees, whether they're guilty of terrorism or not, is part of the bureaucratic system that treats everything and everyone like a datapoint to be indexed. The problem is that the treatment of detainees has been so bad that we can't bring to trial even those detainees who might be guilty of actual terrorism acts. Bush and Gonzales's fuck up here has reduced us down to three untenable options.

1- eventually release the prisoners, adding fuel to the propaganda fires of al-Qaeda as first hand accounts of the treatment there comes out--along with adding any potential terrorists among the detainees to the ranks of terror groups.

2- keep the detainees at Guantanamo indefinitely, as in for the rest of their lives.

I won't discuss the 3rd option.

[Jacobin]

19. Because they are sadistic, twisted motherfuckers

And want to replay their crimes for 'fun'. I'm sure there is also a twisted sexual component to this.

[BrotherBuzz]

20. War Trophies

[ChairmanAgnostic]

21. for training purposes.

Now that the 4th amendment is but a quaint memory, at least in New York City, how long before the rest of the constitution is trashed beyond recognition.

These photos will help HSA and TSA goons learn how to do it right.