Hersh: ‘Horrible Things Done to Children of Women Prisoners’
Brad DeLong posts an email he received from someone who’d seen a talk given by Abu Ghraib-exposer Seymour Hersh: Torture and rumors of torture:
He said that after he broke Abu Ghraib people are coming out of the woodwork to tell him this stuff. He said he had seen all the Abu Ghraib pictures. He said, “You haven’t begun to see evil…” then trailed off. He said, “horrible things done to children of women prisoners, as the cameras run.”
He looked frightened.
It’s been interesting to me how webloggers who support Bush have been dealing with the Abu Ghraib story. Mostly, they haven’t. The two I link to from my blogroll, Michael Williams and Donald Sensing, have covered Abu Ghraib very little, and not at all lately. When they did choose to mention it, it was in the context of pointing out how liberals were hypocrites for making a bigger deal out of the prison abuses than about the Berg beheading, or how Lynndie England’s presence in the photos highlighted the question of whether having women in the military leads to a breakdown of discipline.
Which just boggles my mind. It’s like when the Plame outing happened. At the time, I was really expecting that stalwart patriot and anti-terroist standard-bearer Donald Sensing would have to take a moment and go, whoa; the White House blew the cover of a spy working on WMD proliferation issues? Just to go after the credibility of a critic? That’s pretty lame.
But no; he saw nothing much wrong with it at all. Just politics as usual, he said. These things happen. Ho hum. Move along.
Now he and Michael, with their silence, are in essence saying the same thing about Abu Ghraib. Which is their prerogative, of course. But seriously: kids tortured in front of their mothers, to try to get those mothers to talk? You guys are willing to give your tacit okay to that?
Wow.
June 12th, 2004 at 10:23 pm
I know that at least Sensing has said in very clear terms that the abuses in Abu Ghraib are not justifiable to him. Just because he hasn’t hammered the point incessantly and jumped to include Bush in an evil web of complicity, doesn’t mean he’s okay with all that has happened. And by the way, before everyone gathers around Sy Hersh, like children at story-time, eyes wide in unconditional belief in the tales being told, let’s keep in perspective the more than slightly tarnished journalistic history of the man. Give him his credit due for being one of the first to detail these ugly actions within the US military and the Intelligence organization, but balance that with a little restraint, as his past ethical sins warrant.
June 13th, 2004 at 5:49 am
It is very sad to hear about how the americans behave in Iraq. Whenever I sit down and ask myself what Saddam would have done in their situation I come up with one answer: The same. Saddam would have killed hundreds of people in Faluja… just like Mr. Bush; And he would have tortured anyone who spoke against him including children. It is all very disturbing to see the US behave like a monster and the people responcible getting away with it.
June 15th, 2004 at 5:35 am
I would file this DeLong item firmly in the “rumors” pile, unless some obvious questions can be answered:
Where are the child abuse pictures? What news agency, particularly the Arab news services, would refrain from exposing pictures of child abuse if they are making the rounds? Why didn’t Hersh, as a man of good conscience, work to expose the pictures when he had them in his hands? Why has no one ever mentioned these photographs other than him, and why has he picked an event at the University of Chicago to come clean about them when he could have done so in a much more public forum?
Not telling you how to run your site, but I think I would have tried to pose at least some of these questions before wasting a headline on an item this unconsequential. It’s unsubstantiated innuendo like this, trumped up as some sinister revelation it isn’t, that keeps the general public in Bush’s camp.
June 15th, 2004 at 12:29 pm
1) Craig, glad to se you popping in again. Although I’m not as staunchly right as you, you do provide the service of balancing the unpallateable leftism here with some right-wing point of views.
2) Per — “One who fights monsters must be careful not to become one.” It seems JBC should follow this edict a bit closer and not post unsupported rumors such as these, or at least not complain that the right does the same.
3) Thom — Agreed. But you must be new here or haven’t been here in a while. The standard fare these days is that anything which damages the right’s reputation is Gospel on lies.com, unconfirmed or not, yet everything the right presents is lies until proven otherwise (and then the proof is an elaborate conspiracy). Hypocrisy abounds.
June 16th, 2004 at 8:40 am
Abu Ghraib story..
Here’s my take. I don’t why we are using torture when we should be shooting these prisoners when catch them. Under the geneva convention rules if they are not wearing a army uniform we are entitled to excute them as spys.
That kinda steals your thunder about the abuse doesn’t it. Can any one here please tell me of another country that we were at war at that honored the geneva convention? Come on just give one…The argument is if we don’t honor it then they won’t. Well please tell me one other country that was at war with us that did. Just one.
June 16th, 2004 at 9:00 am
Let’s see. to date I am estimating we have released at least 2,000 prisoners from the prison. The red cross estimated that 70% of those detained were innocent. Looks like that commie red cross might be right judging by the # released. yet you propose shooting all detainees and you expect anyone to take you seriously?
June 17th, 2004 at 7:03 am
Still, I think the more important issue here is the fact that there was torture going on, and it’s hard to not call it torture. many of the acts displayed in those pictures were a direct and horrible violation of Islam. But I agree, these new accusations should be looked into further…
December 2nd, 2004 at 8:46 am
I think it is very rong to do that to eneone so help us not git aubse.
i am so sorry what hapin to you people. i hope it will stop some day.
December 2nd, 2004 at 8:53 am
I hope it will stop some day and all the babys and ather people.i hope people will get out of the homes and dont date people that do that to us and i hope men will stop. so i am sorry
December 2nd, 2004 at 8:56 am
i think people should end child abuse for they’re safety and the childs.parents shouldn’t be doing what they do unless they wanna lose a child.so thats they’re decision.