PBS/FRONTLINE/THE TORTURE QUESTION

PBS/FRONTLINE ^ | 10/18/05 | PBS/FRONTLINE

[FilmCutter]

Latest effort for your review. If you go to the link there is a five minute clip to watch now.

Brought to you by the same team that presendted "The Man Who Knew" and "Rumsfeld's War."

This film is scheduled to run on the Arms Service Network on the 20th.

I hope you watch it - It's why we work so hard on them.

[ClearCase_guy]

The military needs to prosecute this guy. I have no evidence that anyone else did anything, so right now I would not anticipate prosecuting anyone else -- but this guy needs to be in the stockade ASAP. And since his confession is videotaped, I'm guessing his trial will be short.

[Madeleine Ward]

Well, just remember that John Kerry testified before Congress to acts that soldiers didn't really do.

[RedRover]

What's to prevent anonymous sources from making up whatever they want? Why does this have any value?

[Rodney King]

Lagouranis tells FRONTLINE that he was using military dogs to threaten prisoners in Mosul in the spring of 2004. “These are big German shepherds. When I would ask the prisoner a question and I didn’t like the answer, I would cue the handler so the dog would bark and jump on the prisoner,” Lagouranis said. “They wet their jumpsuits because they were so scared, especially because they’d have a blindfold and they can’t figure out—you know, that’s a pretty terrifying position to be in.”

That's torture?

[ozzymandus]

Frontline, eh? Lemme guess, Amerika is evil, right? I hate those PBS commies.

[Meadow Muffin]

War is not pleasant, its aim is to kill people and destroy things. Every soldier, sailor, marine and airman is at risk if information is not obtained. The way to stop the long term death and destruction is to make it so unbearable for the enemy that they will quit.

[navysealdad]

People get hurt and some die during a war.

[Hayzo]

Boy! Fontline is pulling out all the stops, recently, to bring down this administration and, quite frankly, America as a superpower.

Perhaps we are still in the throws of a Soviet plot to take down America from within!

[Meadow Muffin]

We only hope that more of them die than us.

[Rapscallion]

"Tony Lagouranis, a former Army interrogator at Abu Ghraib and member of a special intelligence team in Iraq, has given FRONTLINE a firsthand account of his involvement in the harsh treatment of prisoners."

Lagouranis should be arrested immediately. Prisoner abuse is a crime in the military and he seems to be saying he was at least an abbetor if not a participant.

This story yet may prove to be untrue or overstated. PBS and the Corporation for Public Broadcasting are liberal front organizations. Historically, they act as if they hate America.

[Rapscallion]

"Tony Lagouranis, a former Army interrogator at Abu Ghraib and member of a special intelligence team in Iraq, has given FRONTLINE a firsthand account of his involvement in the harsh treatment of prisoners."

Lagouranis should be arrested immediately. Prisoner abuse is a crime in the military and he seems to be saying he was at least an abbetor if not a participant.

This story yet may prove to be untrue or overstated. PBS and the Corporation for Public Broadcasting are liberal front organizations. Historically, they act as if they hate America.

[squarebarb]

Yes! Why hasn't he been arrested? That would be the best PR move the military could make.

And why wasn't Kerry arrested for his admissions? And if they weren't true, why was he not arrested for lying to Congress?

How few people ask these questions.

[trisham]

I hope you watch it - It's why we work so hard on them.

***************

You work for Frontline? Did you work on this piece?

[herkbird]

I might consider it torture if one of them big dogs wrapped his teeth around my head or throat and clamped down real good to draw plenty of blood and screams. Now if the big dogs also decided to chew on a hand or foot until it was a bloody stump might be considered torture.

They could make one of them guys piss themselves if they had a Mexican Chichuawa's (sp) bark and yap at them. Give me a brake on calling that painful and shocking torture. A car battery hooked to the right places could be defined as torture, not a barking dog pawing you.

[ghostcat]

"“It’s all over Iraq,” Lagouranis told FRONTLINE. “The infantry units are torturing people in their homes. They would smash people’s feet with the back of an axhead. They would break bones, ribs. That was serious stuff.”"
If it is all over why is he the only one reporting it? Iraq is currently full of reporters who would give their eyeteeth for stories of this type yet we aren't hearing them! Methinks he is a lying sack of Kerry!!!!

[RedRover]

Hey FilmCutter, care to respond to the posts? Or did you mean to post this on DU?

[roses of sharon]

LOL, thats why we see thousands of Iraqi citizens streaming out of Iraq as refugees screaming that soldiers are brutalizing them. PBS should be sued.

[FilmCutter]

Well I guess I thought that the film could speak for itself. I like to explain it as a documentary that looks at the huge tsunami of effort and will that occurred after September 11th and how that lead to the scandals of Abu Ghraib.

This is not a "moore-ish" Bush-bashing film. Watch tonight and tell me what you think.

[RedRover]

"the huge tsunami of effort and will that occurred after September 11th...lead to the scandals of Abu Ghraib."

Uh-huh. Nice try with the Barry Goldwater quote.