Abu Zubaydah’s drawings expose the US’s depraved torture policy | Hacker News Reader

Abu Zubaydah’s drawings expose the US’s depraved torture policy

theguardian.com

40 pointssandebert15 comments

Whenever there's coverage of this in US/western media (a relatively rare phenomenon considering the hundreds of cases like this in just the past decade), the reaction is usually minimal. At best, a few outraged centre-left will say it's a shame that the people responsible were never prosecuted. But this sidesteps the fact that this issue is systemic, the US culture and legal system allows this to happen over and over, and the entire government is criminal.

>Whenever there's coverage of this in US/western media (a relatively rare phenomenon considering the hundreds of cases like this in just the past decade), the reaction is usually minimal.

I feel exactly opposite, the relatively minor fuckups or even mishaps are way overblown, while it's being equated into tens of millions yearly deaths caused by enemy dictatorships.

The US illegally invaded Iraq under fraudulent pretences and killed million of people. Many parts of Iraq are littered with depleted uranium that will poison generations to come. The US spent $300 million per day in Afghanistan for 20 years, enriching defence contractors and building little in the way of useful infrastructure. And many other smaller conflicts that got essentially no coverage in the media.

How are these a few minor fuckups? These are the actions of an imperial power that lies about enforcing a "rules based order" and whose agents face no repercussions for war crimes.

>killed million of people

No, US killed relatively few. Millions died in resulting civil war, but those were extremely overwhelmingly Iraqi-on-Iraqi deaths. US generally did what it could to stop that, but it's hard to stop suicide bomb attacks.

On the other hand, russian hands itch when they can deliberately target children. https://i.imgur.com/rX4U5Mv.png

To further simplify for you: russia == evil, US == incompetent.

> Many parts of Iraq are littered with depleted uranium that will poison generations to come.

Not really, DU does not work like that.

The fact that you’re dismissing such violence as a “relatively minor fuckup” is sort of the point OP is making..

Guantanamo and these black sites have been in operation for decades.

It's relatively minor fuckup compared to the oppression of millions and even billions. Russia has been responsible for deaths of hundreds of thousands in a year and you're focusing on single instance of terrorist torture here - which I agree is wrong and perpetrators should be tried and locked - but does not make "USA" or "west" anywhere close to them.

Why is this story flagged? It should not be, it's an important piece of history and I think meets all the criteria for an interesting HN story submission.

Hard to pretend this is the actions of a few bad apples when the US still won’t join the International Criminal Court [1], going so far as to threaten retaliation if US officials are brought before an international tribunal [2].

1: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_and_the_Internat...

2: https://www.hrw.org/news/2002/08/03/us-hague-invasion-act-be...

Anyone who lived through the cultural zeitgeist in the US after 9/11 and the Bush Administration (and right wing media) attempts to normalize torture as "enhanced interrogation" and the like knows it isn't anomalous, it's part and parcel of the racist brutality of American imperialism that's usually hidden under its glossy Hollywood pop culture mask, and sometimes slips.

Like so many things I see on HN, it ruined my day, but I'm glad to have seen it. Appalling.

Absolutely horrid. Are those people going to be tried for war crimes, or because the victims are "third world" citizens then it doesn't matter?

Warning: the images and descriptions of torture in this article are extremely graphic

As always, the human scum that did that to these people get away with it..

This cannot go on

Why is this Guardians story flagged? That's a true story not a fake news.

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