First of all an American military doctor call fellow health professionals to keep the oath they took on themselves and oppose torture.
I urge my fellow health professionals to join me and many others in reaffirming our ethical commitment to prevent torture; to clearly state that systematic torture, sanctioned by the government and aided and abetted by our own profession, is not acceptable. As health professionals, we should support the growing calls for an independent, bipartisan commission to investigate torture in Iraq, Afghanistan, Guantanamo Bay and elsewhere, and demand restoration of ethical standards that protect physicians, nurses, medics and psychologists from becoming facilitators of abuse.
America cannot continue down this road. Torture demonstrates weakness, not strength. It does not show understanding, power or magnanimity. It is not leadership. It is a reaction of government officials overwhelmed by fear who succumb to conduct unworthy of them and of the citizens of the United States.
Even Iraqi police are still using the same methods of Saddam, it it’s confirmed by the US military.
Major General David Rodriguez, the commander of U.S. and coalition forces in the area around Mosul, says that in the “last six to eight weeks” there have been approximately “40 or so” cases of abuse.
Senior U.S. Military official confirms detainee abuse by Iraqi security forces
And the British are “concerned” about it
A British Foreign Office spokesman said the reports were serious.
“We are aware and deeply concerned by reports of detainee abuse by Iraqi police officers and of men in police uniforms committing serious crimes, whether these men are genuine policemen or not,”
Britain ‘concerned’ at Iraqi police abuse reports
After they read this report
A ‘ghost’ network of secret detention centres across the country, inaccessible to human rights organisations, where torture is taking place.
UK aid funds Iraqi torture units
But no need for more reports because the Iraq government running out of ideas to deny it
“These things happen. We know that,” Laith Kubba told a news briefing
Iraqi government admits abuses by security forces
Pingback: Keld Bach’s Press Cuttings
Well all I ever hear is how the US should
pull out of Iraq immediately …
Now lets try to be fair here, the new Iraqi
Police/army have been targets of the “insurgents“
for at least 9 months … the suffer devestating losses every day. And lets
also keep in mind that no one has come foward
and claimed these cases are political prisoners.
How many Bloggers are willing to become
Iraqi Police at this moment ???
.… everything
must be taken in the context of what is happening in Iraq now … and MOST importantly
this matter should be handled by the Iraqi government.
Hello all — I wish you all well and for the peace of Iraq and your families’ safety.
Where are your pictures of ‘insurgent’ torture and brutalizations of children? If you desire objectivity and to have veracity then you must show BOTH SETS. And yet we’ve no clue where these images are from, other than your caption; these images from who knows where, shot by who knows who..
May I simply ask — when in a state of siege, when innocents and children are being killed almost every day by ‘insurgents’ — do you think that there will be some mistakes made by those trying to bring order to some pockets of chaos? I do not condone torture — but it is hard to say what happened to these men with so many explosives going off etc. Further, how do we know that these men weren’t killed by insurgents — where are these shots from — a morgue? Also, you call them citizens, but if they are child killers and died in “resisting” arrest of their heinous acts of child killing, et al, then what are we really seeing — justice? So some justice, some abuse — what are we seeing here? We need more context then to just see a series of images from who knows where shot by who knows who for the purpose of destroying confidence in the Iraqi security efforts…I will do some reading on your blog to find out if you’ve got a ‘balanced’ approach or are just propagandistic in nature..
Dear Mr. Anderson
If you browse more in my Blog you will find many entries and images on the atrocities done by the insurgency also, they are even published on US newspapers after they asked my permission, hence …..torturing and killing children are not done by the insurgents only but also by the US troops.
Each image has it’s own story, name and identity I refer you to a website so you can find more details on the images, it is in Arabic and I am not in state to translate it because few names and occupations can add nothing to the main subject
here
TO ALL MEMBERS OF THE U.S. ARMED FORCES
By True American Patriot
Jul 3, 2005, 09:56
I hope every single member of the U.S. Armed forces will soon get to come home. You should all be home right now, and I wish all of you a safe return.
However, I do NOT support what any of you are doing right now. I DO support your well-being and your good intentions, though. You all signed on to do a legitimate and honorable job — to defend the U.S. Constitution and the United States homeland from enemies foreign AND DOMESTIC. And, many of you believe that is what you are doing. However, that is simply NOT true. What you all are doing now has NOTHING whatsoever to do with American values, the U.S. Constitution, or the U.S. homeland.
The U.S. Armed Forces is merely a tool, much like a hammer. When the hammer is used properly, by a carpenter, to bang nails into a wall, etc., the hammer is doing its prescribed function, and as such, is used “honorably”. However, when that same carpenter takes the hammer and bludgeons somebody, the hammer is dishonorably utilized. This is analogous to the U.S. Armed Forces. Currently, the carpenter (George Bush) is using the hammer (the U.S. Armed Forces) to bludgeon a nation that had NOTHING to do with 9/11, Al-Queda, or Weapons of Mass Destruction. Thus, an otherwise great tool is being used improperly, and as such, I cannot support its use.
There is ample proof now circulating the globe that Bush and his cronies lied the U.S. into this war, though maybe such news is kept from many of you. The bottom line is that all members of the U.S. Armed Forces, as well as the American public, have been spoon-fed countless lies and we’ve all been brainwashed to a degree. I know that many in the armed forces and in the American public have come to realize this, and now know that this war is unnecessary, illegal, and immoral, but it is time that ALL OF US awakens to the lies! Your very lives and the future of this once great nation are at stake!
This war, and most of the wars the U.S. has been involved in, has nothing to do with promoting freedom or democracy — our own or anybody else’s. While the U.S. Military is DESIGNED to help protect our freedoms, it is seldom USED for that purpose. Rather, the U.S. Military, unbeknownst to its members, is used to OPPRESS freedom and liberties. Think about that rationally and logically. What American freedoms are you protecting right now?
This war is NOT doing anything to thwart terrorism. Quite the contrary — this war is creating MORE terrorism and especially more anti-U.S. sentiment, which is the basis for still more terrorism. America is much less safer now than it was before we went to war, despite what Bush and his puppet regime says. More people now hate us! How can causing a larger number of people to hate the United States logically render us safer??
Don’t be in denial about these simple truths, and don’t be afraid to ask yourselves tough, logical, rational, and morally sound questions. Don’t be afraid to come to the realization that you are NOT really performing your properly prescribed functions. Rather, you must all realize that you are doing the illegal, immoral bidding of people who have geopolitical agendas — people who don’t care about any of you. You’re all “assets” to them — nothing but numbers.
The only people in the United States who care about the men and women in the U.S. Armed Forces are those who want you all home, where you will be ready to do your REAL jobs — defend the Constitution and the homeland against REAL threats, not imagined and manufactured threats.
Bush and his gang of evil-doers, along with the corporate-owned media whores and the arm-chair warmongers don’t care about any of you. It’s about time you all woke up to that fact. The true American patriots are those who want liberty and peace (truth, justice, and the American Way), and will only fight the good fight. This is NOT one of the good fights! You must all realize that this is an UNJUST fight.
I’m not writing to any of you to criticize you or to say anything negative about you. So, please don’t be offended. It is those terrorist leaders of our corrupt government, and the military’s careerist, upper-brass, yes-men puppets who have all lied to you and placed you all in harm’s way for no good reason. It is THEY who I criticize. You all are fellow Americans, and as such, I want you all home where you belong. The U.S. Armed Forces should be home defending our borders and coastlines, and should never step foot in another country unless that other country really attacks us. It is up to all of you NOT to be the hammer that is dishonorably used by the evil carpenter. You are the first line of defense for this country, but you’re fighting the wrong enemy. The enemy is the callous, evil, morally bankrupt band of thieves that put you in Iraq.
I know you all have a tough job — an IMPOSSIBLE job. I commend all of you for your good intentions and your honor in joining the military under the assumption that you will actually be performing your Constitutionally prescribed, and forefather-sanctioned functions, and under the false assumption that our government is good and honest. However, I’m not going to write to you to pretend that I support this bogus war or to say that there is honor in fighting in this war. There is none. There cannot logically be any honor in a dishonorable war. This war is highly illegal and immoral, and Bush and his followers are nothing short of war criminals. The only way any of this is going to change is if you all wake up and refuse to be used as cannon fodder (pawns in a sick game of global chess). I wish you all the moral and ethical strength to come to the correct conclusions, to act accordingly, and most importantly, to safely return home ASAP!
Remember that while a coward flees from the good, just fight, the hero fights the good fight. More importantly, though, the coward FIGHTS the UNJUST fight, and the hero FLEES from the unjust fight. The debacle in Iraq is an unjust fight, and it would be cowardly to continue fighting it, and noble and heroic to flee.
True American Patriot http://www.whatreallyhappened.com/lettertoarmedforces.html
Were there really torture camps under Saddam or was that just propaganda such as WMD, human shredders, 400,000 mass graves, links with terrorism?
Whatever the answer one thing is for sure, there are NOW torture camps in Iraq and for this we have to thank American type democracy.
Revealed: grim world of new Iraqi torture camps http://observer.guardian.co.uk/print/0,3858,5230155–102275,00.html
Secret torture chambers, the brutal interrogation of prisoners, murders by paramilitaries with links to powerful ministries… Foreign affairs editor Peter Beaumont in Baghdad uncovers a grim trail of abuse carried out by forces loyal to the new Iraqi government
Peter Beaumont in Baghdad
Sunday July 3, 2005
Observer
The video camera pans across Hassan an-Ni’ami’s body as it is washed in the mosque for burial. In life he was a slender, good-looking man, usually dressed in a dark robe and white turban, Imam at a mosque in Baghdad’s Adhimiya district and a senior official of the Muslim Clerics Association.
When I first interviewed him a year ago he was suspected of contacts with the insurgency. Certainly he supported resistance to US forces.
More recently, an-Ni’ami had dropped out of sight. Then, a little over a month ago, relatives say, paramilitary police commandos from ‘Rapid Intrusion’ found him at a family home in the Sha’ab neighbourhood of northern Baghdad. His capture was reported on television as that of a senior ‘terrorist commander’. Twelve hours later his body turned up in the morgue.
What happened to him in his 24 hours in captivity was written across his body in chapters of pain, recorded by the camera. There are police-issue handcuffs still attached to one wrist, from which he was hanged long enough to cause his hands and wrists to swell. There are burn marks on his chest, as if someone has placed something very hot near his right nipple and moved it around.
A little lower are a series of horizontal welts, wrapping around his body and breaking the skin as they turn around his chest, as if he had been beaten with something flexible, perhaps a cable. There are other injuries: a broken nose and smaller wounds that look like cigarette burns.
An arm appears to have been broken and one of the higher vertebrae is pushed inwards. There is a cluster of small, neat circular wounds on both sides of his left knee. At some stage an-Ni’ami seems to have been efficiently knee-capped. It was not done with a gun — the exit wounds are identical in size to the entry wounds, which would not happen with a bullet. Instead it appears to have been done with something like a drill.
What actually killed him however were the bullets fired into his chest at close range, probably by someone standing over him as he lay on the ground. The last two hit him in the head.
The gruesome detail is important. Hanging by the arms in cuffs, scorching of the body with something like an iron and knee-capping are claimed to be increasingly prevalent in the new Iraq. Now evidence is emerging that appears to substantiate those claims. Not only Iraqis make the allegations. International officials describe the methods in disgusted but hushed tones, laying them at the door of the increasingly unaccountable forces attached to Iraq’s Ministry of the Interior.
The only question that remains is the level of the co-ordination of the abuse: whether Iraq is stumbling towards a policy of institutionalised torture or whether these are incidents carried out by rogue elements.
Six months ago, Human Rights Watch (HRW) laid out a catalogue of alleged abuses being applied to those suspected of terrorism in Iraq and called for an independent complaints body in Iraq.
But as the insurgency has grown hotter, so too, it appears, have been the methods employed in the dirty counter-insurgency war.
To add to HRW’s allegations of beatings, electric shocks, arbitrary arrest, forced confessions and detention without trial, The Observer can add its own charges These include the most brutal kinds of torture, with methods resurrected from the time of Saddam; of increasingly widespread extra-judicial executions; and of the existence of a ‘ghost’ network of detention facilities — in parallel with those officially acknowledged — that exist beyond all accountability to international human rights monitors, NGOs and even human rights officials of the new Iraqi government.
What is most shocking is that it is done under the noses of US and UK officials, some of whom admit that they are aware of the abuses being perpetrated by units who are diverting international funding to their dirty war.
Hassan an-Ni’ami may well have been a terrorist. Or he may have had knowledge of that terrorism. Or he may have been someone who objected too loudly to foreign troops being in Iraq. We will never know. He had no opportunity to defend himself, no lawyer, no trial. His interrogation and killing were a breach of international law.
And it is not only the case of an-Ni’ami but others too, all arrested by units of the Ministry of the Interior, many of whom were tortured and subsequently killed. Post-mortem images show a dozen or so farmers from the insurgent hotbed of Medayeen who were apparently seized by police as they slept in one of Baghdad’s markets and whose bodies were discovered on a rubbish dump in shallow graves to the north of the city. Like an-Ni’ami, their bodies also bore the marks of extensive torture before execution, most with a bullet to the head.
The face of the first body is blackened by strangulation or asphyxiation. Another has bruises to his forehead where he was been hit repeatedly with something heavy. Yet another, his hands still tied with cord, has been punched in the eye and had his ankle fractured. Yet another shows signs of burning similar to an-Ni’ami’s. The last two have identical puncture wounds, fist-width apart, suggesting the use of a spiked knuckle-duster.
Then there is Tahar Mohammed Suleiman al-Mashhadani, seized from the Abu Ghraib neighbourhood from early prayers outside a mosque with a number of other men, again by paramilitary police from Rapid Intrusion. When his body was found by family members in the morgue — 20 days after his arrest — he had been tortured almost beyond recognition.
These are not isolated cases. For what is extraordinary is the sense of impunity with which the torture, intimidation and murder is taking place. It is not just in Baghdad. In the majority Shia south, far from the worst ravages of the insurgency, there are also emerging reports consistent with the abuses in the capital.
If there is a centre to this horror, it is Baghdad’s Ministry of the Interior, and the police commando units that operate from there.
The ministry is a strange, top-heavy building, set apart in an area of open ground off the highway. Its entrance is guarded by concrete blast-walls and endless checkpoints on the dusty road that leads to its crowded reception.
I came here almost exactly a year ago, two days after sovereignty had been handed back to Iraq’s interim government. The floors were occupied by civil servants and blue-uniformed officers of the Iraqi Police Service. It was easy to wander in.
These days the ministry is a very different place. The dusty hinterland that leads to it is busy with the new paramilitary forces that most often have been accused of human rights abuses — the Rapid Intrusion brigades, most notoriously the Wolf Brigade of ‘Abu Walid’. There has been no investigation or official findings over the allegations.
It was here — 12 months ago — that there was the first intimation that something was going seriously wrong. On the second day of Iraq’s new government, US military police were forced to raid the Guest House to ‘rescue’ dozens of alleged criminals, scooped up in a sweep of the city, who were being subjected to beatings and forced confessions of their crimes.
Back then officials were happy to justify the violence — and angry at the US intervention. Criminals and terrorists expected a good beating, one official said, proud of his 100 per cent confession rate.
Now it is impossible to reach those officials as they shelter on heavily guarded floors. There are no American MPs to come to the aid of those locked in the cells.
A year ago, the worst violence was meted out in the Guest House. Now officials say the abuse happens on the seventh floor, where those suspected of terrorist connections are brought.
One of those held at the ministry for ‘terrorist interrogation’ is ‘Zaid’. It is not his real name. Since his release, the 25-year-old Sunni from the western suburbs of Baghdad lives in fear of being brought back.
A taxi driver, the college graduate stopped his car in March to buy food in a market. When a bomb exploded nearby, he went to look at the damage. Arrested at the scene by soldiers from the Iraqi National Guard, he says he was handed over to the Ministry of the Interior.
At first, said Zaid, he was put in a room, on the seventh floor, measuring 10ft by 12ft, with 60 others. He was crammed in so tightly he could not sit. In some respects Zaid was lucky. Early in his detention, a Ministry of Justice official appeared and, furious at the conditions, demanded the men be moved. ‘He said, “You can’t have this many people in a room this size,” so they moved us to somewhere with more air and fed us. He asked too whether there had been any beatings and some said yes.’
For his part, Zaid says he was hung by his arms, but not for so long that it caused any permanent damage. His ordeal was largely to be subjected to threats of violence as up to eight guards circled him during his interrogation. But Zaid claims he witnessed what happened to men brought from another detention facility, a barracks run by the Wolf Brigade, who were kept in the same area as Zaid until his parents paid a hefty bribe for his release.
‘I saw men from Samarra [another insurgent stronghold] and from Medayeen. Some appeared to have wounds to their legs,’ he recalled. ‘There were others who could not use their spoon properly. They had to hold it between their palms and move their heads to the spoon.’
His month in the ministry terrified Zaid. If the police came again for him, he said, he would rather throw himself off a balcony than go back. Zaid is not the first detainee to accuse the police of taking bribes for the release of prisoners. It is a common charge, as are descriptions of prisoners being brought from other, less accountable, interrogation facilities where the worst of the violence is taking place.
What is most important about Zaid’s testimony is that it makes clear a link exists between the Ministry of Interior and the torture being conducted out of sight at other centres. Iraqi and international officials named several of these centres, including al-Hadoud prison in the Kharkh district of Baghdad.
A second torture centre is said to be located in the basement of a clinic in the Shoula district, while the Wolf Brigade is accused of running its own interrogation centre — said to be one of the worst — at its Nissor Square headquarters. Other places where abusive interrogations have been alleged include al-Muthana airbase and the old National Security headquarters.
‘Abu Ali’, a 30-year-old Sunni scooped up in a mosque raid in central Baghdad, was taken to the latter for a week in mid-May where he says he was beaten on his feet, subjected to hanging by his arms and, when he angered his guards by refusing to confess, threatened with being sat on ‘the bottle’ — being anally penetrated.
It is not just in Baghdad. Credible reports exist of Arab prisoners in Kirkuk being moved to secret detention facilities in Kurdistan, while other centres are alleged in Samarra, in the Holy Cities and in Basra in the south.
‘There are places we can get to and know about,’ said one Iraqi official. ‘But there are dozens of other places we know about where there is no access at all.’
‘It is impossible to keep track of detentions, and what is happening to people when they are taken away,’ complained one foreign official involved in trying to building Iraq’s respect for human rights.
‘On top of that we have a whole culture that is permitting torture. The impression is the judiciary are simply not interested in responding to the issue of human rights. It is depressing.’
But it is not simply the issue of keeping track of where detainees are being taken that is a problem. Accountability has also become more opaque since the formation of the Shia-dominated government of Ibrahim Jaffari with ministers and senior officials at the Ministry of the Interior refusing to meet concerned international organisations including Human Rights Watch.
‘We have been trying to break through to someone responsible to express our concerns,’ said another international official.
‘But it is impossible to meet the people we really need to see. What is so worrying is that allegations concerning the use of drills and irons during torture just keep coming back. And we have seen precisely the same evidence of torture on bodies that have turned up after they have been arrested. There is a dirty counter-insurgency war, led on the anti-insurgency side by groups responsible to different leaders. People are not appearing in court. Instead, what is happening to them is totally arbitrary.’
There is a significance to all this that goes beyond the everyday horror of today’s Iraq. In the absence of weapons of mass destruction, the human rights abuses of Saddam Hussein’s regime became more important as a subsidiary case for war.
It has been a theme that has been constantly reiterated: it was horrific then, and it is better now. The second may still just be true. In many aspects there may be some improvement, but the trajectory of Iraq now on human rights is in danger of undermining that last plank of justification.
True, there is a question of scale of the abuses. What is also different from Saddam’s era is that Iraq is now host to multinational troops, to huge UK and US missions, and is a substantial recipient of foreign aid, including British and EU funds.
British and US police and military officials act as advisers to Iraq’s security forces. Foreign troops support Iraqi policing missions. What is extraordinary is that despite the increasingly widespread evidence of torture, governments have remained silent. It is all the more extraordinary on the British side, as embassy officials have been briefed by senior Iraqi officials over the allegations on a number of occasions and individual cases of abuse have been raised with British diplomats.
In Iraq’s Ministry of Human Rights, close to the Communications Tower and the location of one of the secret interrogation centres, they were marking the international day for the victims of torture. As officials gathered for chocolate cake and cola under posters that read ‘Non to torture’, some senior officials are in no doubt that torture in their country is again getting worse.
The deputy minister, Aida Ussayran, is a life-long human rights activist who returned from exile in Britain to take up this post. She concedes that abuses by Iraq’s security forces have been getting worse even as her ministry has been trying to re-educate the Iraqi police and army to respect detainee rights.
‘As you know, for a long time Iraq was a mass grave for human rights,’ she says. ‘The challenge is that many people who committed these abuses are still there and there is a culture of abuse in the security forces and police — even the army — that needs to be addressed. I do not have a magic solution, but what I can do is to remind people that this kind of behaviour is what creates terrorists.’
There is a sense of frustration too in the Ministry of Human Rights, for even as the security forces rapidly increase in size, the ministry tasked with checking abuses has only 24 monitors to pursue cases, at a time when officials believe it needs hundreds to keep Iraq’s police and army effectively in check.
If Ussayran is robust about her country’s problems with human rights abuses, others are convinced that, far from being the acts of rogue units, the abuse is being committed at the behest of the ministry itself — or at least senior officials within it.
‘There are people in the ministry who want to use these means,’ said one. ‘It is in their ideology. It is their strategy. They do not understand anything else. They believe that human rights and the Convention against Torture are stupid.
Hi, I am just wondering where these photos came from.
Layla
Look at the #2 comment
#2 comment?
This story will have no legs and I will tell you why.
BECAUSE IT IS NOT AMERICANS DOING THE TORTURING!! You can’t even in-directly point the finger at Americans because we turned the country back over to the Iraqi people. Our soldiers CAUGHT the IP torturing prisoners and took the prisoners away. They were told by the Iraqi government to give them BACK!! That equated to one little news story in one little newspaper, IGNORED by the MSM because they couldn’t cast a big enough stink bomb on Bush and the Americans.
Cindy
After 9/11 everybody wants to talk politics, nothing wrong with this but there are people how don’t have the political and historical backgrounds but they insist to have their say.
That is why we have now and then a crap opinions like yours
There are other Blogs who welcome half-educated people like you but not this one.
Good Morning LadyBird,
Looks like you have stirred up another hornets’ nest. Good for you.
DaKruser
Good morning or good evening (local time) to you also .
Being on earth you always in the hornet nest
True enough, true enough. Good article, and if the Wolf’s Brigade is really doing this, then perhaps we need a sheep-dog, but who would it be? the Resistance? (wait, let me choke on that one just a moment…they are just as bad) maybe someone has a suggestion for someone besides the Americans as the sheep-dog. I’d love to hear it.
Ah so the Americans fling their hands up in the air and claim this has nothing to do with them. :)
Well the fact that it’s little different to Gitmo or al graib is hardly a coincidence.
The bottom line however is that it’s the occupying powers responsibility under the Geneva Convention to provide security. The USA can now be called the “new world nazis”.
http://www.smirkingchimp.com/article.php?sid=21803&mode=nested&order=0
There I was — a bratty, independent kid, with a twisted sense of humor who enjoyed doing illegal things: Entrance into anyplace at all displaying the “No Dogs or Jews Allowed” signs was fun, even though it was clearly understood that — if discovered — neither dog nor Jew would ever be seen again, regardless of age. The best game of all, though, was diving into the Berlin Olympic Pool, and, hiding behind my Teutonic looks, smiling innocently at the guards. But those men were just ordinary cops. When it came to the Gestapo, it was best to quickly and quietly disappear. Oh yes. The Gestapo meant business.
When Benjamin Franklin said, “Those who would give up essential liberty to purchase a little temporary safety, deserve neither liberty nor safety,” he was right on!
In 1930’s Germany, “safety” meant “power.” The popular sentiment was: “Power will keep us safe. After all, we are the good people, the ones who want to clear the planet earth of all who hinder progress, of all who stand in the way of our good intentions — and the more power our Empire has, the safer we will be, the safer we will make the world.” The national slogan, shouted joyfully in the streets, was, after all, “Heute Deutschland, Morgen Die Welt” (translation: Today Germany, tomorrow the World).
The Germans, then, willingly gave up essential liberty to purchase that safety of power, and the Nazis did an excellent job of facilitating that. They invented the Gestapo, which was an acronym for Geheime Staats Polizei (Translation: Secret State Police). And the Gestapo was formidable, indeed.
Black, form-fitting uniform jackets, complete with epaulets; black breeches tucked into jack-boots polished to such perfection that they gleamed in all weather; Back hats with visors so glossy, they shone in the dark. Oh, yes, these men were quite rightfully feared.
In 1930’s Germany, it was completely proper, fitting and expected for persons to turn in to the authorities anyone even remotely suspected of in some way subverting the government. Neither a suspicion nor an informant was too small: Children over the age of eight, all of whom were members of the Hitler Jugend if they were boys and Bund Deutscher Maedchen if they were girls, were expected to turn in family members — including parents — if they were overheard speaking disrespectfully or seditiously of Hitler or any members of his administration. These kids were trained and propagandized to simply put the “safety” of their great country over the “liberty” of their families. Thus, if even one’s own kids were gleeful informants, can you imagine what the neighbors were?
When someone was turned in, the Gestapo showed up to do the honors; No warrant was needed. Time of day or night was irrelevant. Folks simply got hauled off, and, once taken away, never returned. Gestapo interrogation methods were simple: Torture them till they talk. Most of the time — even if these prisoners had absolutely nothing of value to report — they eventually broke under the torture and simply blurted out whatever they thought the inquisitors wanted to hear. Once they had spoken, off they went to their deaths at the local extermination camp, and if they chose not to speak, well, then the torture continued till they died in the interrogation chamber.
Now, here we are in 2005, in the United States of America, busily trading essential liberties for the safety of power…We, too, understand that “safety” means “power.” In today’s America, the administration has taught us carefully and clearly that: “Power will keep us safe. After all, we are the good people, the ones who want to clear the planet earth of all who hinder progress, of all who stand in the way of our good intentions — and the more power our Empire has, the safer we will be, the safer we will make the world.”
We do not have a Gestapo, of course. Intimidating black uniforms with jack boots and shiny hat visors to match are as out-dated as 33 1/3 RPM music albums. And, after all, the Gestapo wasn’t very secret. Our current fascist government is so much smoother, sophisticated, slicker than the Nazis ever were. We just have organizations called FBI (acronym for Federal Bureau of Investigation) and CIA (acronym for Central Intelligence Agency.)
And, as reported by the Associated Press (June, 2005), we also have an expanded, broader version of the Patriot Act, which gives the government more liberties with our liberties than ever before. The purpose of this expansion “Has, as its significant purpose, the collection of intelligence.”
On June 29, 2005, CNN TV, along with the LA Times-Washington Post News Service, announced that, In June, 2002, President Bush directed the creation of a new National Security Service within the FBI. This little gem specializes in intelligence and other “national security matters” under the grim direction of John Negroponte, who — given his background of association with South American terrorists — is pretty savvy when it comes to such matters.
The new service combines counterterrorism, intelligence and espionage units, and has been mandated to operate in secrecy as needed. “It will give control of all human intelligence operations to the CIA.”
This new department is enthusiastically endorsed by FBI Director Robert Mueller, Attorney General Alberto Gonzalez, CIA Director Porter Goss, and Homeland Security Director Michael Chertoff. What a great new way to prevent terrorism. Now, we not only have secret agents who can conduct all business in secret, but can also use torture“
Torture?” You ask, “Now where did you get that from?”
Our current administration clearly understands the value of torture. After all, when the populace found out about the torture in Abu Ghraib and at Guantanamo — amongst other places — there was no public outcry. Those inquisitors were — and continue to — simply keep us all safe from terrorists. Good job. Not only that, but, now, torture is an officially sanctioned governmental procedure.
The very purpose of the international Geneva Conventions, formulated in 1949 by the Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human rights, was created to prevent — ever again — the kind of insane torture and ruthless extermination perpetrated by Nazi Germany. When interrogated, “No physical or mental torture, nor any form of coercion, may be inflicted on prisoners of war to secure from then information of any kind whatsoever.” The Geneva Conventions, as a matter of fact, were updated in 1977 to provide greater protections for victims of armed conflict. To wit: “The presence within the civilian population of individuals who do not come within the definition of civilians does not deprive the population of its civilian character.” (Article 50)
But, just this spring, Alberto Gonzales, our own Attorney General, opened the door to torture when he stated, “The Geneva Conventions are quaint: They are obsolete.”
We all know that torture techniques such as “water boarding,” electroshock, the use of attack dogs on naked prisoners were/are commonplace at Guantanamo. In an article by Robert Zeller (06/24/05 “The Triangle”) the USA torture system is made even clearer: The USA, now, routinely sends persons for interrogation to nations that openly condone torture. “Flogging, anal rape, fingernail extraction, amputation, submersion in boiling water and mock executions are standard procedure, often under the eye of American agents” Agents — from the FBI and CIA — are sent as escorts with these prisoners, in order to note all information resulting from these techniques. According to Robert Zeller, “In so doing, the officials who direct these agents are in direct violation of the federal War Crimes Act, a 1996 statute that carries the death penalty.”
America, on June 28, 2005, officially refused to back a United Nations protocol against torture, because of fears that this could allow international monitors to visit terrorist suspects in Guantanamo Bay. But, is the secrecy of our “new” FBI/CIA actually new? On June 6, 2002, the Portland Oregonian reported that former University of South Florida professor, Sami Al-Arian, had his phones bugged, microphones planted in his office, and faxes as well as computer conversations recorded. And, all this took place well before the official conversion of the FBI to “Secrecy.” Matter of fact, it was done for nine years, and no evidence was ever discovered making him in any way less than a good US Citizen.
On July 1, 2002, FBI agents searched the San Diego home of Rep. Randy “Duke” Cunningham. No reason was given. No reason HAD to be given. No one is exempt from these new secret agents and what they choose to do. Ordinary citizen or legislator — it doesn’t matter. In they come, and away we go
And who gets hauled off in the night? France Sénécal, who hosts a weekly interview program at Radio Station KDVS 90.3 FM at University of California, Davis, http://www.kdvs.org reports the horrifying family experience of “Sitara,” a long-time member of “Critical Resistance” who has often been interviewed on France’s program.
With no advance notice, with no warning whatsoever, Sitara’s aunt and uncle were taken away by government agents during the week of June 22, 2005. They have since been locked away in a detention prison in West Virginia. Sitara states, “They came from Afghanistan about ten years ago, and have since been involved in a long asylum attempt.”
“Aunt, uncle and 19 year-old cousin were home after cousin’s graduation from High School on June 22. Suddenly, on graduation day, the doorbell rang, and there stood the government officials and police, saying, “We need to take you for questioning about an investigation we are doing at Dulles airport (where my aunt worked, and my uncle also, until his work permit expired and wasn’t renewed.). They told my 19 year-old cousin that his folks would be back that evening, but, instead, they simply disappeared.”
In their West Virginian detention camp, the story they are told regarding the reason for their detention keeps changing, and no one knows what’s going to happen to them. Will they be deported? And, is the young cousin also in danger? No one knows.
So, how far are we removed from the Gestapo of Nazi Germany? As Robert Zeller states, “It (fascism) comes through creating legal non-persons of citizens and non-citizens alike. It comes through violating human rights standards, sanitizing torture and condoning murder.“
Hermann Goering stated at the Nuremberg trials: “Voice or no voice, the people can always be brought to the bidding of the leaders; that is easy, all you have to do is tell them they are being attacked and denounce the pacifists for lack of patriotism, and exposing the country to greater danger.”
On June 14, 2005, Senator Dick Durbin, D-Ill compared US interrogators at Guantanamo with Nazis and other historically infamous figures. By June 21, 2005, he had been pressured by the administration to the point that he issued the following: “Some may believe that my remarks crossed the line. To them, I extend my heartfelt apologies.” In this regard, Durbin represents the entire nation: All of us see what sits in front of us. All of us are aware of what is going on. All of us understand that our endorsement of the Patriot Act, the new FBI/CIA does away with our essential freedoms. But, none of us want to “cross the line.” Are we that close to the mentality of the German citizenry of the Nazi era? Seems that way, doesn’t it.… Heil Hitler.
Speaking of evil empires and occupying countries and nazi’s …When will the British be leaving Northern Irelend Michael…?
Del norte Irlanda? Qué hacer usted mean ex alumno?
American troops’ optimism diminishes
here
Some feel frustrated and discouraged as death and injury tolls climb and American support wanesTIKRIT, Iraq — At Saddam Hussein’s vast palace complex that is now the U.S. Forward Operating Base Danger in Tikrit, Army Maj. Gen. Joseph Taluto contemplates the war American soldiers under his command are now waging.
“The enemy is intrinsic,” said Taluto, who heads the 42nd Infantry Division and the Army units attached to it in Iraq. “They’re infiltrating the Iraqi security forces as we speak. I don’t know how big (the insurgency) is, but I think their capability is constantly replenished.”
In more optimistic days, after the 2003 invasion, the Bush administration believed that American troops would be helping to rebuild schools, hospitals and water systems, and maintaining security while Iraqis set about establishing a new, democratic government. Then the troops could go home, with the thanks of the Iraqi people.
Instead, Iraqis now hold the soldiers responsible for the condition in which their country finds itself.
In conversations and interviews over the past month, U.S. soldiers under the command of the 42nd Infantry Division in Samarra and Tikrit came across as frustrated, sometimes disheartened, though still largely unbowed.
Some of them say that Iraqis will never accept the American presence. Others do not believe democracy can work here. The declining support in the United States for the war provokes anger. The mounting U.S. death and injury toll is depressing.
“I’m tired of going to my buddies’ funerals,” said Spc. Joshua Forman of Sammamish, Wash., referring to memorial services the military holds for soldiers killed in Iraq.
Nearly 9,000 U.S. troops dead? A NATIONWIDE CALL FOR INFO FROM SURVIVORS.
http://baltimore.indymedia.org/newswire/display/10554
Has the Bush administration drastically understated the U.S. military death count by redefining “death”? The following article suggests that it has, and it calls for a nationwide campaign to honor deceased service members by naming and counting them.
According to the article: “…DoD lists currently being very quietly circulated indicate almost 9,000 [U.S. military] dead”; this far exceeds the “official” death count of 1,831. How can this be? It’s largely because “U.S. Military Personnel who died in German hospitals or en route to German hospitals have not previously been counted.”
In other words, “death” has been redefined.
WHAT YOU CAN DO RIGHT NOW:
1. If you know (or know of) service members who’ve died in Bush()‘s wars, look for their names on the full, alphabetized “official” Pentagon death list, at http://www.tbrnews.org/Archives/list.htm. IF THEIR NAMES ARE NOT INCLUDED, PLEASE SEND A REPORT TO: tbrnews (at) hotmail.com. You’re also encouraged to notify your Congress members, your local newspaper, and other interested parties.
( Note that the alphabetized list is updated regularly at tbrnews.org. It currently includes deaths reported up through early June. )
2. FORWARD THIS WEB PAGE TO ANYONE YOU KNOW WHO MAY KNOW SERVICE MEMBERS WHO’VE DIED.
3. Forward this web page to veterans’ groups, other organizations, responsible journalists and respectable elected officials.
///////////////////////////
“The Bush Butcher’s Bill: Officially, 80 US Military Deaths in Iraq() from 1 through 21 May, 2005 – Official Total of 1,831 US Dead to date (and rising)”
( THE FOLLOWING TEXT IS FROM http://www.tbrnews.org/Archives/a1682.htm )
U.S. Military Personnel who died in German hospitals or en route to German hospitals have not previously been counted. They total about 6,210 as of 1 January, 2005. The ongoing, underreporting of the dead in Iraq, is not accurate. The DoD is deliberately reducing the figures. A review of many foreign news sites show that actual deaths are far higher than the newly reduced ones. Iraqi civilian casualties are never reported but International Red Cross, Red Crescent and UN figures indicate that as of 1 January 2005, the numbers are just under 100,000.
by Brian Harring, Domestic Intelligence Reporter
Note: There is excellent reason to believe that the Department of Defense is deliberately not reporting a significant number of the dead in Iraq. We have received copies of manifests from the MATS that show far more bodies shipped into Dover AFP than are reported officially. The educated rumor is that the actual death toll is in excess of 7,000. Given the officially acknowledged number of over 15,000 seriously wounded, this elevated death toll is far more realistic than the current 1,400+ now being officially published. When our research is complete, and watertight, we will publish the results along with the sources In addition to the evident falsification of the death rolls, at least 5,500 American military personnel have deserted, most in Ireland but more have escaped to Canada and other European countries, none of whom are inclined to cooperate with vengeful American authorities. (See TBR News of 18 February for full coverage on the mass desertions) This means that of the 158,000 U.S. military shipped to Iraq, 26,000 either deserted, were killed or seriously wounded. The DoD lists currently being very quietly circulated indicate almost 9,000 dead, over 16,000 seriously wounded* (See note below. This figure is now over 24,000 Ed) and a large number of suicides, forced hospitalization for ongoing drug usage and sales, murder of Iraqi civilians and fellow soldiers , rapes, courts martial and so on –
I have a copy of the official DoD casualty list. I am alphabetizing it with the reported date of death following. TBR will post this list in sections and when this is circulated widely by veteran groups and other concerned sites, if people who do not see their loved one’s names, are requested to inform their Congressman, their local paper, us and other concerned people as soon as possible.
The government gets away with these huge lies because they claim, falsely, that only soldiers actually killed on the ground in Iraq are reported. The dying and critically wounded are listed as en route to military hospitals outside of the country and not reported on the daily postings. Anyone who dies just as the transport takes off from the Baghdad airport is not listed and neither are those who die in the US military hospitals. Their families are certainly notified that their son, husband, brother or lover was dead and the bodies, or what is left of them (refrigeration is very bad in Iraq what with constant power outages) are shipped home, to Dover AFB. You ought to realize that President Bush personally ordered that no pictures be taken of the coffined and flag-draped dead under any circumstances. He claims that this is to comfort the bereaved relatives but is designed to keep the huge number of arriving bodies secret. Any civilian, or military personnel, taking pictures will be jailed at once and prosecuted.
…This listing program is finished so act accordingly. If there is an actual variance of, say, 10 names, that is acceptable. 50 would indicate sloppiness and anything over 100 a positive sign of lying. As of June 16, TBR has received 32 new, unlisted names
*The latest on the wounded: “Landstuhl Regional Medical Center in Germany, is a 150-bed hospital that’s already seen over 24,000 wounded military patients from Iraq and Afghanistan since the commencement of hostilities “. Knight Ridder Newspapers June 6, 2005 (Note: The Pentagon refuses to publish accurate lists of any wounded. Ed)
LINK TO FULL, “OFFICIAL” ALPHABETICAL LIST: http://www.tbrnews.org/Archives/list.htm
(The list is updated regularly.)
Why, Micheal…
Your editorialism is becoming quite extra=ordinary. I would invite EVERYONE to read the actual article. It seems that Micheal forgot to past this in bold font.…
”…came across as frustrated, sometimes disheartened, BUT LARGELY UNBOWED”…end quote
speaks volumns eh?
“Unbowed” in this case means that they are keeping their heads.
Ladybird have you deleted some threads including the Grider atrocity?
I see it, sorry to bother you.
Actually, in this case, the word “Unbowed” means their morale is not shaken. Of course Soldiers become frustrated when they see individuals run around and blow up every Electrical Grid, and kill innocent women and children. Of course they want to go home when the work is completed. Of COURSE they don’t like to go to friends’ funerals.
However, the term is really an important part of the article, and you picked and chose the parts of the article to put in BOLD, but left the most telling comment in small, normal font as if it were of negligable importance.
Are you saying that you’re Queer? or are you saying “Thank God for the Alamo?”
cindy, all you have to be able to do is copy and paste like michael and it will get you far on this blog…watch this…
US delight as Iraqi rebels turn their guns on al-Qa’eda.
American troops on the Syrian border are enjoying a battle they have long waited to see — a clash between foreign al-Qa’eda fighters and Iraqi insurgents.
Tribal leaders in Husaybah are attacking followers of Abu Musab Zarqawi, the Jordanian-born terrorist who established the town as an entry point for al-Qa’eda jihadists being smuggled into the country.
The reason, the US military believes, is frustration at the heavy-handed approach of the foreigners, who have kidnapped and assassinated local leaders and imposed a strict Islamic code.
Fighting, which could be clearly heard at night over the weekend, first broke out in May when as many as 50 mortar rounds were fired across the city. But, to the surprise of the American garrison, this time it was not the target.
If a shell landed near the US base, “they’d adjust their fire and not shoot at us”, Lt Col Tim Mundy said. “They shot at each other.” Source: The Telegraph
See, I’m just like Michael :-) Well, except I like to leave a source link, where as Michael likes for you to think that he is well educated and writes all the shit (and it is shit) himself.
you see cindy, It’s really quite simple…
Another report of US type interrogation methods being introduced into Iraq.
http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20050706/ap_on_re_mi_ea/iraq_abuse_allegations
Iraqis Say Security Forces Use Torture By MARIAM FAM, Associated Press Writer
Wed Jul 6, 5:28 AM ET
As she tells it, security forces put her in solitary confinement for days on end, whipped her with electric cables and accused her of having sex with a stranger. Humiliated and fearful for her life, the 46-year-old Iraqi housewife went before a TV camera and “confessed” to helping insurgents.
It didn’t matter that her confession was a lie, Khalida Zakiya said.
“If you don’t say what we tell you,” she claims one interrogator told her, “I will rip your clothes off and leave you naked in front of everyone.” Another threatened to sodomize her with a bottle, she said in a phone interview Tuesday from her home in Mosul.
Zakiya appeared on a much-touted Iraqi TV program that airs confessions of alleged insurgents. The show has won the praise of security officials who credit it with boosting Iraqis’ confidence in security forces, hurting the insurgency.
But the program has come under criticism from Iraqi lawyers, former detainees and families of suspects who accuse security officials of abusing suspects to extract the confessions, a practice reminiscent of Saddam Hussein’s era.
Iraq’s acting human rights minister, Nermine Othman, said she was aware of the allegations and has written to the interior and justice ministries about them.
Laith Kuba, spokesman for Prime Minister Ibrahim al-Jaafari, acknowledged there have been “cases of detainees subjected to pressure.” But Kuba said there also were cases “where judges confirmed that these were real and complete confessions.”
The program, which airs nightly, began in February. Officials say they don’t know exactly how many alleged confessions have been televised, and some episodes have been repeated. But they believe the number is in the hundreds.
The Iraqi lawyers association, however, has criticized the show and suggested the purported confessions are based more on fear than on fact. In a recent report, the association named 27 people it says are alive despite televised statements by people claiming to have killed them.
Iraqis who watched the show in February might have seen Zakiya, her pale face framed by a black veil, claiming to have given insurgents money and explosives.
She said the elite Interior Ministry force known as the Wolf Brigade arrested her to try to force her brother to turn himself in. He is now in detention on suspicion of being a high-level insurgent in Mosul, but she claims he is innocent.
After she had spent 11 days in solitary confinement, two men appeared at her cell door, blindfolded her and dragged her away. “Shut up! We will tear you to pieces and throw you in the river if you utter a word,” she claims they said.
She was taken to a room where interrogators confronted her with a man she says she had never met before. The man said he had sex with her and that she gave him money and explosives to attack Americans.
“How can you say such things?” she asked him when the officials weren’t looking. He raised his pants and showed her blood running down his legs, she claimed. “I knew he said this because he was tortured.”
She was then blindfolded again, handcuffed and gagged as about six men whipped her with electric cables for 15 minutes, she said.
Two days later she was escorted to a room and handed pieces of paper with a scripted confession, she claimed. She recalls saying into the TV camera: “When my brother is not around, I give the people working with him money and dynamite.”
Freedom came when the brigade left Mosul and transferred her to local authorities who, believing her to be innocent, released her 10 days later, nearly three months after her detention, she said.
Another former detainee, Khalid Ahmed Ibrahim, said he admitted to killing Iraqi security forces because he believed the alternative was to die of torture. Ibrahim’s photo ID appeared on the program as he was branded a terrorist and a drug dealer, he said.
Ibrahim claimed he was tied to a ceiling fan and whipped on the chest, legs and head. He was released when he proved to his investigators, also from the Wolf Brigade, that he had three relatives who had been members of Iraq’s security forces, two of whom were killed by insurgents.
A spokesman for the Wolf Brigade, Ali Aboul-Hassan, denied the claims of physical abuse, saying they were designed to tarnish the reputation of the security forces, who are frequently targeted by insurgents. He said his force treated Zakiya well and insisted she was guilty.
Aboul-Hassan said investigators do not need to coerce detainees because they usually have enough evidence, such as confiscated CDs showing taped attacks or testimonies of other militants.
Brig. Gen. Wathiq al-Hamdani, deputy to Mosul’s police chief, said the people of Mosul owe much to the Wolf Brigade, which helped restore order in the city, and said individual mistakes shouldn’t be used against the whole force.
“These people (militants) used to rape women, slaughter them and throw them on the street. How should we respond?” al-Hamdani said. “In many instances, force is required.”
Al-Hamdani added, however, that there were “many misunderstandings” in Zakiya’s case.
After Zakiya’s release, Mosul’s police chief visited her at home, apologizing to her on local television.
“She’s an honorable and pure woman,” Zakiya remembers him saying.
Zakiya was troubled the most by the sexual allegations against her. “I wish they had executed me and not tarnished my honor. In a way, they have killed me, at least socially, in the eyes of the people.”
___
Associated Press reporter Sindbad Ahmed contributed to this report from Mosul.
Hey shit for brains…
“Security Forces” = Iraqi Police…
So let me see numb nuts…Iraqi insurgents behead innocents and “it’s ok”…
Iraqi police use standard Arab torture pratice and it’s “Not ok”…
Click Here for video proof of Iraqi’s (Saddam) torturing way before the US was there.
You’re just upsetting yourself again Jeffrey, your link didn’t work but in any case I doubt that it could prove something which simply didn’t happen. Torture was introduced into Iraq by the USA and the collaborators have obviously been trained using American methods.
it works…I just tried it…
Click Here
wow, you’re really stupid.
you see Michael, I use video proof. Also, if you remember, you girlfriend “Iraqi Lady” said that beheadings and such pratices were “laws of the land” around there.
The citizens of London are experiencing today what life in Baghdad is like on a daily basis.
you know, I’m actually starting to feel sorry for you michael…I guess pity would be a better word for you.
do you know what that means michael…pity. Here. I’ll help you…
Actually Iraqi Lady said quite the opposite. Truth was never your strong point. Your link still doesn’t work.
yada, yada, yada…Go jump on a double decker bus…you’re freedom fighters are hard at work right now in London.
and yes, the link works…you just don’t know how to click on it.
If Blair hadn’t followed Bush’s script on lying about Iraq and the oil invasion, this clearly would not have happened.
Really, what about all the years of IRA bombings in England, shit for brains…
So again, when will the british be leaving Northern Irelend?
When the war with Iraq began, I marched in protest in Miami Florida, USA. We were spat upon and cursed. People would say, “What about September 11th? — as if Iraq had anything to do with 9–11.
Protesting the war was considered unpatriotic.
Now, more and more Americans are questioning the war.
Is it worth it?
Did we do the right thing?
Right or wrong in starting the war — what do we do now? What should America do?
The US Government now claims it would be a contravention of the Geneva Convention to release these photographs. Just how funny is that? Since when have they been concerned about the Geneva Convention?
http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?file=/c/a/2005/07/23/MNGC6DSK7Q1.DTL&type=printable
Lawyers for the Defense Department are refusing to cooperate with a federal judge’s order to release secret photographs and videotapes related to the Abu Ghraib prison abuse scandal.
The lawyers said in a letter sent to the federal court in Manhattan late Thursday that they would file a sealed brief explaining their reasons for not turning over the material, which they were to have released by Friday.
The photographs were some of thousands turned over by Spc. Joseph Darby, the whistle-blower who exposed the abuse at Abu Ghraib by giving investigators computer disks containing photographs and videos of prisoners being abused, sexually humiliated and threatened with dogs.
The small number of the photographs released in spring 2004 provoked international outrage at the American military.
In early June, Judge Alvin Hellerstein of U.S. District Court in Manhattan ordered the release of the additional photographs, part of a Freedom of Information Act lawsuit filed by the American Civil Liberties Union to determine the extent of abuse at American military prisons in Iraq and Afghanistan and at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba.
The government has turned over more than 60,000 pages of documents on the treatment of detainees, some containing graphic descriptions of mistreatment. But the material that the judge ordered released — the ACLU says there are 87 photographs and four videos — would be the first images released in the suit. The judge said they would be the “best evidence” in the debate about the treatment of Abu Ghraib prisoners.
“There is another dimension to a picture that is of much greater moment and immediacy” than a document, Hellerstein said in court.
He rejected arguments from the government that releasing the photographs would violate the Geneva Conventions because prisoners might be identified and “further humiliated,” but he ordered any identifying features to be removed from the images.
In the letter sent Thursday, Sean Lane, an assistant U.S. attorney, said that the government was withholding the photographs because they “could result in harm to individuals” and that it would outline the reasons in a sealed brief to the court.
The ACLU accused the government of continuing to stonewall requests for information “of critical public interest.”
Can there be any doubt that the world is experiencing a threat to civilisation itself on account of the “NewWorldNazis”. The Americans must be defeated in this oil war, it’s not just for Iraq but for the whole world that these thieves, murderers, liars and perverted torturers get what they deserve.
Pentagon Blocks Release of Abu Ghraib Images: Here’s Why http://www.editorandpublisher.com/eandp/news/article_display.jsp?vnu_content_id=1000990590
By Greg Mitchell
Published: July 23, 2005 6:00 PM ET
NEW YORK So what is shown on the 87 photographs and four videos from Abu Ghraib prison that the Pentagon, in an eleventh hour move, blocked from release this weekend? One clue:
The Pentagon lawyers said in a letter sent to the federal court in Manhattan that they would file a sealed brief explaining their reasons for not turning over the material. They had been ordered to do so by a federal judge in response to a FOIA lawsuit filed by the American Civil Liberties Union. The ACLU accused the government Friday of putting another legal roadblock in the way of its bid to allow the public to see the images of the prisoner abuse scandal.
One Pentagon lawyer has argued that they should not be released because they would only add to the humiliation of the prisoners. But the ACLU has said the faces of the victims can easily be “redacted.”
To get a sense of what may be shown in these images, one has to go back to press reports from when the Abu Ghraib abuse scandal was still front page news.
This is how CNN reported it on May 8, 2004, in a typical account that day:
“U.S. Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld revealed Friday that videos and ‘a lot more pictures’ exist of the abuse of Iraqis held at Abu Ghraib prison.
“’If these are released to the public, obviously it’s going to make matters worse,’ Rumsfeld told the Senate Armed Services Committee. ‘I mean, I looked at them last night, and they’re hard to believe.’
“The embattled defense secretary fielded sharp and skeptical questions from lawmakers as he testified about the growing prisoner abuse scandal. A military report about that abuse describes detainees being threatened, sodomized with a chemical light and forced into sexually humiliating poses.
“Charges have been brought against seven service members, and investigations into events at the prison continue.
“Military investigators have looked into — or are continuing to investigate — 35 cases of alleged abuse or deaths of prisoners in detention facilities in the Central Command theater, according to Army Secretary Les Brownlee. Two of those cases were deemed homicides, he said.
“’The American public needs to understand we’re talking about rape and murder here. We’re not just talking about giving people a humiliating experience,’ Republican Sen. Lindsey Graham of South Carolina told reporters after Rumsfeld testified before the Senate Armed Services Committee. ’We’re talking about rape and murder — and some very serious charges.’
“A report by Maj. Gen. Antonio Taguba on the abuse at the prison outside Baghdad says videotapes and photographs show naked detainees, and that groups of men were forced to masturbate while being photographed and videotaped. Taguba also found evidence of a ‘male MP guard having sex with a female detainee.’
The military later screened some of the images for lawmakers, who said they showed, among other things, attack dogs snarling at cowed prisoners, Iraqi women forced to expose their breasts, and naked prisoners forced to have sex with each other.In the same period, reporter Seymour Hersh, who helped uncover the scandal, said in a speech before an ACLU convention: “Some of the worse that happened that you don’t know about, ok? Videos, there are women there. Some of you may have read they were passing letters, communications out to their men….The women were passing messages saying ‘Please come and kill me, because of what’s happened.’
Pingback: Iraqi police torture Iraqi citizens (in pictures) - Codewolf Systems, Inc.
Pingback: Revealed: grim world of new Iraqi torture camps - Ummah.com