"As of December 2008, there were 41,271 people being held in prisons throughout Iraq..."

Iraq's incarceration rate is still 1/6th that of the US.

Never criticize a man until you've walked a mile in his moccasins - Native American proverb.

The use of torture is more infectious than Swine Flu...time for Obama to give Patient Zero (the USA) the cure...prosecutions

"The only means of strengthening one's intellect is to make up one's mind about nothing, to let the mind be a thoroughfare for all thoughts." - John Keats

I saw a TV report ( I forget which one maybe Kathy Kelly was involved )that said 1/3 of all Iraqi males in USA military detention died.

it is pretty obvious that the us has dragged the whole world into a cesspool

we are slipping down the shit rope towards the mother of all latrines

stating that we have fucked up iraq is to state the obvious

as is the case with afghanistan

colombia

mexico

and so on

nothing new here

So, Iraqis with a history of US torture and Hussein's (US-supported) torture do torture?

What's interesting in all this redundancy is to see just how endemic it is. One might glance down at Robert Fisk's piece below as well and compare that with Good Old Winston Churchill's call for the chemical slaughter of resistant civilian populations (of course, the good guys in Parliament wanted to hit them with high explosives instead).

Let's prosecute the torturers, including those who authorized their work, as far up the line and out the branches of responsibility as we can get convictions. But then, let's disable the systems that allow commercial control of the US military and government.

You gotta lie in the bed you made. And this is the ugly, evil bed we made, America. I am just waiting for the first news report of an American soldier in Iraq or Afghanistan having been captured and tortured to death. Perhaps by waterboarding. And I can just hear the shrill screaming from both the left and the right to hold the evildoers to account for their blatant violation of the Geneva Conventions, the Nuremburg Principals, the UN Charter, etc, etc. And then, of course, the majority of the American sheeple will join in the chorus, ranting against the evil bastards that could do that to our brave American goodguys (tm), and so on, and so forth.

Hypocrisy is an ugly, ugly thing.

You made this bed, America. Now enjoy your long, ugly sleep in it.

"When fascism comes to America, it will be wrapped in the flag, carrying a cross."
Sinclair Lewis, "It Cant Happen Here", 1935

Apparently Mr. Scahill has not paid attention to what President Obama has said repeatedly these past couple weeks.

President Obama told us that he put an end to torture.

Therefore no torture is taking place...anywhere.

Why don't you understanding this Mr. Scahill?

United States, current reigning champions of the Apocalypse! The abuse and torture of those in prisons in Fortress Iraq and in the new Western Frontier of nations around the world is only partly an indication of abusive and sadistic minds. It may be the result of survial in the armed forces from the lowest ranks to the highest ranking officers, this being a system of inbuilt mental abuse. It can also be a cold and calulated acceptance of the blood that will always be spilt during the imperial corporate attempts to obtain ill-gotten gains.

Of course the conditions in prison are dire. Once thrown into one of the Corparate Amercian Bastilles, there is little legal hope, as communication usually is by a foreign language , and even if the prisoner speaks American English, the only language known to the occupiers, this language lacks all meaning , and unless is it given in the language of endless brutality, it usually lacks all sincerity. When there is sincerity, then American English so often lacks commitment, excepting when it promotes and aids Zionism, this being so extreme and yet so commonplace in the media.

The ranks of the low cost grunts, some of whom must be responsible for prison care, are documented as going insane by endless rounds of murderous yet boring and degrading duty. There cannot be much sympathy, and less still of resources to be had in water, food, health care, in fact any sort of duty of care, to be left over for prisoners. The combined effect of running imprisonment, plus brutal occupation, with language, ethinic and religious barriers breeds brutal guards by purposeful intelligent design. It must be hard for any International Organisation to promote a decent care just by occasional monitoring. Might as well believe that Corporations are going to pay a living wage in sweat shops.

Obama has a hard enough time of it just trying to close the highly visible prison of Gitmo in a supposed non-occupied nation. I think this move is a crafty bit of political window dressing by the master shop window dummy. All the appearance of doing something while the opposite continues in force.

In the current major theatres of national resource rape, there is a constant necessity to suppress revolt by the occupied natives. Those who dare to resist are treated in a similar historical fashion to the Native American Indian. Drive them off their lands. Blow their society apart. Blow the villages to pieces. Let disease and poison take there course. Pay one tribe to terrorize another one. The US Americans are historical masters at this game.

So the US policy remains still that of building strong fortifications to provide relief for the occupiers, and as a means of intimidation. Intimidation also means throwing a good percentage of the population in prison. Prisons and their horrific conditions are absolutely necessary to the mind set of the ruling US class. Prisons are where the druggies, darkies, towel-heads and slope heads are thrown, maybe till death, to learn who is really the master, and to discourage the others. It is a completely natural mode of thinking, practiced by tyrants down the centuries.

Escalate the Baddy-stan wars , and it is given that with a surge in policy there is an increased need for more American Bastilles. Civilians that escape death by random Predator Drones, or not otherwise blown to bits can be arrested as hostages, or at random, in case they were thinking of Suicide Bombing as the only remaining option, after losing everything. Who knows, once they are in prison, their chances of long term survival may be better than average.

Conditions outside the prison, in the Death Camps of Gaza, the Chaos of Iraq, the wilds of Baddy Stans, must be dire. There is always fighting for not enough food. There is an absence of law. Death or maiming by random explosion or bullet. Illness from bad water, by slow poisoning from the environmental ravages of western military and agricultural products. Add chemicals and depleted Uranium to the soil. But at least a neighbour might understand and sympathize with a neighbour.

Why not try a breakfast of gruel, seasoned with some Uranium dust, and washed down with water containing the best chemicals and germs? Breakfast of Champions, for the conquered nations of the US. The lifespan and healthy birth rate in the new wild west of US frontier nations is going backwards to the dark ages. Possibly this is permanent. The real climate switch is yet to hit our squabbling wastrel passengers of lifeboat earth.