[MattAMiller]

This looks like it's real. It's a shame these sickos have sullied the reputation of the British military.

The artist rendering of the forklift incident is amusing though.

[smith288]

If it happened...Justice will be served...

regrding the rendering, wonder if his expression was REALLY like that?

[jackbill]

The hand of a man behind the Iraqi?s head appeared to be forcing him to perform oral sex.

Was the penetrator named "Slick"?

And was the penetratee named "al Monica"?

[rwfromkansas]

Uh huh...

Sure I believe "The Sun."

Yes I do.

[ItisaReligionofPeace]

I thought that the Brits brag about how well they get along with the Iraqis and how we Americans don't know how to get along with the locals...

[mystery-ak]

This is a shame...this will not be tolerated in the military (US/British)...heads should roll no matter who is involved.

[Cicero]

Two points, one plus and one minus:

The Sun is determined to do anything to undermine the Iraqi war.

The British army, regretably, has a history of forced homosexuality in basic training as a kind of initiation ritual. I won't go into the details but there has been some pretty sadistic stuff going on.

[steplock]

This is CRAP!

[Lawgvr1955]

This is just about sex. It does not have any effect on how the soldiers do their job. They should get back to their important work for the British people. We should move on.

[sweetliberty]

Have you read anything more about this? Any comments?

[SSN558]

The traditional reason for not allowing homos in the military or classified access was their vunrability to blackmail. This was the other reason.

[Duramaximus]

Thank goodness they are stopping this now. If they hadn't who knows where these lads would have ended up. Why one of them could become a leader in government somewhere down the road, and end up having an affair with an intern!

Ooops... that has already been done.[/sarcasm]

[BagCamAddict]

Let me play devil's advocate here...

Remember the video footage we all saw of Iraqis demonstrating how they were tortured in prisons? Iraqis would show how their hands were bound and they were strung up from the ceiling and given electrical shocks on various parts of their bodies. Remember seeing that on TV news footage?

It's possible that is what these photos are - demonstrations by Iraqis, of what they were forced to do by Saddam's thugs. It's possible that these British troops were merely documenting it for evidence.

Or not. But since we don't have the other side of the story, we don't know yet.

[tlb]

“When he came into the shop, the sergeant was waiting for him and called out his name. The lad said ‘Yeah’ and confessed to the copper that the pictures were his.

“The officer showed him his badge and took him through to the back of the shop. He went straight away. He didn’t struggle or anything.

“About half an hour later an unmarked blue car pulled up outside and they took him away. "

---

Perhaps it's a minor point in the overall story but I am curious by what jurisdiction the police officer took the soldier into custody. No assault was committed in the UK, no extradition demand was issued from Iraq, nor was any army detainer order outstanding. Nor would the photos themselves be criminal since as described they show no more then can be seen on prime time British comedy shows.

Just a thought.

[Slyfox]

The Iraqi's were just demonstrating what Saddam and his sons had been doing to them for the last, what, thirty years?

[lib-r-teri-ann]

These allegations need to be seriously probed, and any guilty parties punished severely.

[Jhoffa_]

These guy's should be burned.

This is inhuman. It's the EXACT SAME THING all of FR was up in arms about over Saddam and his "sex-torture" rooms and all that stuff.

It's no better when the coalition does it. They should really nuke these guy's and send a message that there's a world of difference between coalition members and the rest of the mideast, and that we can be completely trusted to police our own and do it justly.

[razorbak]

Unfortunately, with a third of a million military personnel in a war zone, there are going to be a very small but very real percentage of soldiers who are sick enough to do something like this, if they can get away with it. This is why conservatives fear a police state and total gun control. Just look at what teenage girls did to some of their peers at a hazing in a supposedly exclusive school. This kind of behavior from Coalition troops will and should be condemned and severely punished. They will not, however, be placed in charge of the whole country of Iraq, as was true of Saddam's Ba'ath [sic?]party.

[Thumper1960]

The difference here is that alleged perpetrators of this will be punished by the governments who sent them there. In Iraq, under Saddam Hussein, it was the government who perpetrated those sorts of crimes...and more!

I trust that the accused will be tried, and if found guilty, punished to the fullest extent of the applicable laws. Had this photo shop employee worked in Husseini Iraq, she would have been the next star of the picture show.

[Delmarksman]

bump

[VOA]

Lt Col Tim Collins, former CO of the 1st Royal Irish Regiment, is being investigated
over accusations he mistreated Iraqi civilians and PoWs.

And has been cleared...as noted on threads here at freerepublic within the past week.


The Bartlam and Collins inquiries are not connected.

Well, at least The Sun gets credit for including the sort of notice a lot of
other rags would leave out (or not even think to include).
Even better, reporters for The Sun should hang out at free republic in order to keep
up with the news cycle...in the 21st Century.