"I think that they caused his death indirectly by detaining him without any rights," Michael Berg told reporters. "Even after detaining him I think they at least had an obligation to get him safely out of the country."
... Berg was in Iraq on his own, not in the employ of the U.S. government or a contractor, and had refused to heed advice to leave Iraq, a U.S. official told the Associated Press, speaking on condition of anonymity. The official refused to elaborate and said more information on the case would be available later Wednesday.
Bloomberg article
... Berg was in Iraq on his own, not in the employ of the U.S. government or a contractor, and had refused to heed advice to leave Iraq, a U.S. official told the Associated Press, speaking on condition of anonymity. The official refused to elaborate and said more information on the case would be available later Wednesday.
And here's a common sentiment that I feel the need to comment on:
Australian Foreign Minister Alexander Downer said, "There's no excuse for what those Americans have been doing in those prisons but there's no doubt that some of the people they're dealing with are barbaric."
Channel News Asia article
Can we get it through our thick skulls that "barbaric" is a relative term? That "those people" view our depravity as photographed at Abu Ghraib as "barbaric". In order to begin to have any effectiveness in world relationships, we have to understand that values differ. "Those people" have expressed many times that they view the forced acts of (particularly homosexual) sex as worse than death. (Which, if this turns out to be a calculated MI or CIA program, will be precisely why those particular acts were chosen.) And that is barbaric.
First item of order. Realize that there are different values in different cultures. There are no absolute good or bad values. It all depends on your history. And, if you think your values are the right values, when dealing with people who have different values, you are going to clash. Violently, if you insist on them accepting your ways.
As they say, this is not rocket science.
And one last thing, for Mr. Downer - perhaps you haven't yet heard about the Americans' rape, torture and snuff films that are yet to come out of the prison investigation? Barbaric?
