The other Abu Ghraib photos

Jeff at Rigorous Intuition has a fine post that you should read in its entirety, but here are some excerpts:

From German television, via DailyKos, here is an artist's rendering of one such photograph, depicting the beating of an apparently naked eight-year old girl:

George Orwell wrote that "the nationalist not only does not disapprove of atrocities committed by his own side, but he has a remarkable capacity for not even hearing about them."

The images exist, and are as real as the torture they document. But since the government contends - and it must be with a delicious smirk - that their release would violate the Geneva Conventions, Americans may never see them.

[...]

You see, it's quite simple really: it's the evidence of torture, not the torture itself - including, reportedly, child rape - that violates the prisoners' rights. It's their images which are protected by the Geneva Conventions. They themselves are not.

[...]

"We will export death and violence to the four corners of the earth in defence of our great nation, and rid the world of evil," said a member of US Special Forces on an Afghan hillside early in 2002, while consecrating a memorial to the victims of September 11. That's his mission.

Last year, Donald Rumseld said regarding the unreleased images, "I looked at them last night, and they're hard to believe.” They show acts "that can only be described as blatantly sadistic, cruel and inhumane." And yet the White House, led by Dick Cheney, is thwarting Republican efforts to regulate the treatment of detainees.

What is the mission, again?

Other pictures.

I believe, after reading most of the Daily Kos post that these are an artist's rendering of eye-witness accounts, not of photographs. And, as Jeff says, the American public isn't likely to see the photos and videos. Not in the next couple of generations, if ever.

And here's the report from the German site: The fall from grace in Iraq -
Reports on maltreated children in the torture prison

Update 2:45 pm: From the original release of photos:

The unreleased images show American soldiers beating one prisoner almost to death, apparently raping a female prisoner, acting inappropriately with a dead body, and taping Iraqi guards raping young boys, according to NBC News.

Republican Sen. Lindsey Graham of South Carolina said the scandal is "going to get worse" and warned that the most "disturbing" revelations haven't yet been made public.

"The American public needs to understand, we're talking about rape and murder here," he said. "We're not just talking about giving people a humiliating experience; we're talking about rape and murder and some very serious charges."

  Veterans for Peace article