Nearly 200 images released by US military depict Bush-era detainee abuse

[Solly Mack]

Court ruling forces Pentagon to release photos after 12-year legal battle over abuse at military sites around Iraq and Afghanistan.


Since the ACLU first sought the photos in the wake of the international outcry over US torture at Iraq’s Abu Ghraib prison, a wall of US government resistance had long held firm. Famously, in May 2009, Obama reversed his position on the photograph’s release in May 2009, and ordered the photos to remain hidden, contending they would “further inflame anti-American opinion” if released.

Later that year, Congress passed the Protected National Security Documents Act, to suppress any Bush-era photographs of detainees in military custody unless the defense secretary could vouch that their release would have minimal consequences for US troops.

But the ACLU won a breakthrough in 2014 after a decade of litigation. A federal judge in New York, Alvin Hellerstein, rejected the government’s desired blanket ban on the photos in 2014 and required the Pentagon to individually certify images it considered harmful to national security and explain its reasoning.

[nadinbrzezinski]

1. I read the story in the mornign

and I decided not to post it here, since interest in this has ... waned.

It has not waned outside the US though.

[Solly Mack]

2. Hasn't waned with me at all.

Never will.

No justice...no silence.


My sig line says it for me each and every day.

[nadinbrzezinski]

4. Fully agreed

these were criminal acts, and just a low level soldier paying for it chaps my hide.

[Solly Mack]

7. They can point to the very few and claim justice was served and grunts going to jail satisfies the

" a few bad apples" lie.

Total sham.

[Gregorian]

3. Now this is the stuff I'll never forget. Maybe something will get traction.

[Solly Mack]

6. I know what you mean. I'll never forget.

[Gregorian]

8. Two dozen prisons just doing this? A rogue higher up? Dick Cheney's desk?

Maybe this is evidence to get a crack in he facade.

[Solly Mack]

10. Maybe. At the time (2004, Abu Ghraib) Rumsfeld said "worse (photos) still to come"

And Graham 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."

This was during a hearing just after the first photos came out.

The ACLU has been trying for years to get all the photos because the photos should demonstrate just how widespread it was, giving lie to Bush's "a few bad apples", and showing the torture and abuse was systemic.

[Gregorian]

13. Thanks for your posts.

I remember Graham's part in resisting them.

Kicking for more exposure. Where is everyone?

[Solly Mack]

14. I'm just glad that more of the evidence is coming out. I want all the photos released.

A government shouldn't be able to commit war crimes, pretend it didn't, and then treat it all as if it was something that happened so long ago that justice is no longer an option.

No government should. Not even my own. Especially not my own.

You're welcome, and thank you!

[Gregorian]

26. It's America's dilemma, whether to have an aggressive and huge military or not.

It's such an integral part of our economy that there's that bit. It's not too different than any capitalist venture in that it's a business, and it grew very large. What do you do with all of that military. Once it's combined with the wrong owner, like Bush, it does the things shown in those photos. Really, we can't afford the caliber of people who have been, and are trying to be, in office. I don't know what to do. Once again all of this really does come from the people. It's ultimately us who make the decisions. But enough people aren't involved that the unhinged can shift the course of the country to a malevolent one.

[malaise]

29. +1,000

Correct

[spanone]

5. k&R...

[CoffeeCat]

9. These things were done in our name

by a government that is supposed to represent "We The People." We have the right to know what they were doing in our name.

Furthermore, I want to know how we treated foreign detainees. Bush said, "We don't torture people." Ok, show me what we did do, and explain it.

These pictures should have never been hidden. To suggest that we must hide the photos because they are bad and will embolden our enemies is to behave as one big dysfunctional family. That's what abusive families do. They hide. They keep secrets. They don't talk about their biggest problems.

This is not healthy. We need transparency. We need to know, so we can deal with the reality, process and heal. And make changes to laws, our government and to our own psyches.

[Solly Mack]

11. Yep. It wasn't as if the people in Iraq and Afghanistan didn't know about the torture.

So the only people being kept in the dark about the torture was Americans.

Hiding the photos doesn't stop people from being angry over the torture. The photos weren't the cause of the problem - the torture was.

[gratuitous]

12. Yep, and with our money

It's a lead pipe cinch that the survivors of our torture regime or the survivors of the ones who didn't make it out alive know what we did. Hiding it, denying it, and covering it up puts our own people in danger. The righteous anger of those we tortured probably can't reach high enough to pay back the authors and architects, but they can surely visit retribution on ordinary Americans.

We have to demand accountability, for humanity's sake.

[sorefeet]

15. I still say that Bush, Cheney, Rummy

will be put on trial someday. If not here then the U.N. These were real crimes and the whole world is aware of it. You can't cover it up forever. A lot more than those three were involved also. Some day Cheney might wish he never had that heart transplant as he sits in his prison cell wishing he were dead.

[Solly Mack]

16. I'd like to see that happen.

[lovuian]

17. Torture is a crime and against the Geneva Convention

It is considered to be a violation of human rights, and is declared to be unacceptable by Article 5 of the UN Universal Declaration of Human Rights. Signatories of the Geneva Conventions of 1949 and the Additional Protocols I and II of 8 June 1977 officially agree not to torture captured persons in armed conflicts, whether international or internal. Torture is also prohibited by the United Nations Convention Against Torture, which has been ratified by 158 countries.

I've noticed Hollywood and TV Series are walking the line on Torture....I turn it off when ever I see it

[Solly Mack]

19. I've noticed that too. Scripted for ambiguity, as if there isn't a clear right and wrong regarding

torture. Sadly, it's been a reflection of the argument made, and position held (by too many), for years in America regarding torture - that it's only torture if you're politically motivated to call it torture...otherwise, it's just a policy difference. Nothing more than a matter of debate. A matter of opinion. That "good" people can disagree.

All codswallop, of course.

[JEB]

18. Full and vigorous prosecution at the highest level

is the only way to ease our shame.

[Solly Mack]

20. That's what needs to happen.

It's the only just thing to do.

[hunter]

21. I remember so many posters here on DU insisting it just wasn't possible...

... gallantly proclaiming "We the People wouldn't do that!"

As evidence became overwhelming these same pople claimed it was just a few miscreants responsible. That seems to be the "official" explanation now.

But it's a lie. Same as the "just a few bad cops" lie. These horrors are institutional.

The U.S.A. still stinks of racism, genocide, misogyny, religious fundamentalism, political corruption and many other forms of extreme rotteness. Until we acknowledge our faults as a nation, progress will be impeded.

[Solly Mack]

23. The "few bad apples" lie allows people to forget and pretend it was an aberration.

Which is what my sig line speaks to - people willingly swallowing the lies just to feel better about it all.

[Tierra_y_Libertad]

22. What's disgusting is that the perpetrators and their bosses aren't behind bars.

American Justice = oxymoron.

[Solly Mack]

24. I fully agree.

[Octafish]

25. They're still holding on to a thousand or more images.

Good bet whoever and whatever's in those pictures would make some people fighting mad. Torturing and raping innocent women and children, for instance, in order to get "intelligence" from a guy who before the US invasion was no threat to the USA.

[Solly Mack]

31. Yes, true. There are more photos.

And from everything others have said - those who have seen them - they are worse. Much worse.

[Octafish]

36. There must be a really important Reason for them to remain classified.

In addition to being undemocratic, it lets America's war criminals off the hook.

[Solly Mack]

38. I don't know about an important reason - well, unless it's important to not prosecute war crimes.

Those who were tortured know they were tortured. Their families know. Their neighbors know.

It's not as if it's a secret. It's not as if Bush and Cheney haven't already confessed.

But the U.S. wants to pretend it's somehow above it all.

[Major Nikon]

27. I don't think they are going to find much photographic evidence of torture

The Bush administration seemed to be quite careful about approving methods of torture that couldn't be revealed in photographs.

[Solly Mack]

32. Graham said in 2004 that at Abu Ghraib there was rape and murder - and since he was referencing the

photos at the time, I kind of think he meant he saw evidence of both from photos he and other members of Congress viewed, but that have never been released to the public. (as of yet)

We know there were videos of waterboarding, and I'd wager copies still exist - as well as stills.

I think the Bush administration was depraved enough to document its crimes.

It's not as if anyone was going to do anything about it.

[malaise]

28. Truth will out

Rec

[Solly Mack]

33. Hope so.

[hifiguy]

30. There is no statute of limitations on war crimes IIRC.

[Solly Mack]

34. They could still be prosecuted for torture and should be.

[hifiguy]

35. Damn straight.

[Solly Mack]

37. Bush and Cheney have both already confessed - on video and in print. The CIA confessed.

The United States tortured people knowing full well it was illegal (both by federal law and by international treaty) to do so.

For the U.S. to pretend it now knows better and will act accordingly in the future is pure bullshit.

The U.S. already knew better and did it anyway.

Our government would demand prosecutions and accountability for other countries committing the same acts - but the U.S. wants to be seen as the good guys who lost their way and should get off with no more than a "my bad".

Rancid bovine caca.