Shouting Grounds

From The London Telegraph by way of ThinkProgress.org:

Maj Gen Taguba, who retired in January 2007, said he supported the President’s decision, adding: “These pictures show torture, abuse, rape and every indecency. [...]

Among the graphic statements…is that of Kasim Mehaddi Hilas in which he says: “I saw [name of a translator] ******* a kid, his age would be about 15 to 18 years. The kid was hurting very bad and they covered all the doors with sheets. Then when I heard screaming I climbed the door because on top it wasn’t covered and I saw [name] who was wearing the military uniform, putting his **** in the little kid’s ***…. and the female soldier was taking pictures.” [...]

Three detainees, including the alleged victim, refer to the use of a phosphorescent tube in the sexual abuse and another to the use of wire, while the victim also refers to part of a policeman’s “stick” all of which were apparently photographed.

Now the “kid” in the above example was male, as was the translator who was allegedly busting up his bowels.

Also from The Daily Beast:

A senior military officer familiar with the photos told me that they would likely provoke a storm of outrage if released. … Some show U.S. personnel engaged in sexual acts with prisoners and each other. In one, a female prisoner appears to have been forced to expose her breasts to be photographed. In another, a prisoner is suspended naked upside down from the top bunk of a bed in a stress position. [...]

Still other withheld photographs have been circulating among U.S. soldiers who served in Iraq. One soldier showed them to me, including a photograph in which a male in a U.S. military uniform receives oral sex from a female prisoner.

So the decision that Barack made to block the release of these photos is a little more justified. No matter how many “My Bad”‘s you issue after revealing that your government condoned and permitted sexual assault on male and female (sometimes underage) detainees in your charge, you are going to have a tough time “focusing on the future” without answering calls to prosecute military and CIA personnel and also civilian contractors. I really don’t think that there’s any way around prosecutions and further investigations, because I think that there isn’t way to ignore this any further. I read a story yesterday that said essentially Maliki was briefed on these photos and stated, “Bagdad will burn” if the world were to see these images. Releasing the photos without any actions taken to apprehend or answer to the crimes these images depict would probably rush the United States out of the region much sooner than planned, for good or for ill. The longer Obama hesitates to sort out these crimes and bring perpetrators/planners/instigators to justice the more he is complicit in the coverup.

From TalkingPointsMemo.com:

Some three dozen workers at a telemarketing call center in Indiana walked off the job rather than read an incendiary McCain campaign script attacking Barack Obama, according to two workers at the center and one of their parents.

Nina Williams, a stay-at-home mom in Lake County, Indiana, tells us that her daughter recently called her from her job at the center, upset that she had been asked to read a script attacking Obama for being “dangerously weak on crime,” “coddling criminals,” and for voting against “protecting children from danger.”

Williams’ daughter told her that up to 40 of her co-workers had refused to read the script, and had left the call center after supervisors told them that they would have to either read the call or leave, Williams says. The call center is called Americall, and it’s located in Hobart, IN.

I’ve sent an e-mail to Americall, considering they are right near my house, telling them how these tactics are to be regarded.

From my e-mail:

To whom it may concern,

It has come to my attention that personnel at the Hobart branch of Americall Group have been directed to disseminate inflammatory and slanderous messages directed at Barack Obama and other Democratic politicians to prospective voters.

http://tpmelectioncentral.talkingpointsmemo.com/2008/10/dozens_of_call_center_workers.php

Hearing that telemarketers under your employ are to be denied wages for standing up against these mercenary tactics, if true, is despicable. Being that your Hobart office is blocks away from my house this makes news of these events even more infuriating, that “hired-guns” are spreading lies and misinformation right behind our backs.

I should hope that along with your entrepreneurial aspirations for making money the same effort will be made to maintain ethical business associations, and perhaps attention be given to the accuracy of your messages. Buying into this loop-hole of the robocalling ban makes your corporation no better than paid character assassins.

There’s nothing like being forced by your employers to lie and work against the individual you wish to vote for. Gotta love the last few days in the battleground states.

AWESOME

I know that it’s scripted material but it’s still awesome that he agreed to say it. brilliant!