Accused Soldier's Journal Details Prison

[leftchick]

http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&u=/ap/20040430/ap_on_re_us/prisoner_abuse_families&cid=519&ncid=1480

HAGERSTOWN, Md. - A soldier facing a court-martial for his role in the alleged abuse of Iraqi war prisoners says commanders ignored his requests to set out rules for treating POWs and scolded him for questioning the inmates' harsh treatment.

Army Reserves Staff Sgt. Ivan "Chip" Frederick wrote that Abu Ghraib prison near Baghdad lacked the humane standards of the Virginia state prison where he worked in civilian life, according to a journal he started after military investigators first questioned him in January.

The Iraqi prisoners were sometimes confined naked for three consecutive days without toilets in damp, unventilated cells with floors 3 feet by 3 feet, Frederick wrote in materials obtained Thursday by The Associated Press.

"When I brought this up with the acting BN (battalion) commander, he stated, 'I don't care if he has to sleep standing up.' That's when he told my company commander that he was the BN commander and for me to do as he says," Frederick wrote.

[freetobegay]

1. Thats what the fucking idiot did for a living!

Don't try telling me he didn't know right from wrong.

[leQ]

7. their smiles tell it all

n/t

[Eye and Monkey]

59. And the journal will be re-worked as a book, another "tell all".

[saigon68]

58. d

d

[saigon68]

62. WAR CRIMINAL LYNNDIE ENGLAND "HE'S GETTING HARD"

At the Article 32 Hearing (like a grand jury hearing) Specialist Matthew Wisdom, an M.P under
oath stated

Wisdom said:
SFC Snider grabbed my prisoner and threw him into a pile. . . . I do not think it was right
to put them in a pile. I saw SSG Frederic, SGT Davis and CPL Graner walking around the
pile hitting the prisoners. I remember SSG Frederick hitting one prisoner in the side of its
ribcage. The prisoner was no danger to SSG Frederick. . . . I left after that.
When he returned later, Wisdom testified:
I saw two naked detainees, one masturbating to another kneeling with its mouth open. I
thought I should just get out of there. I didn’’t think it was right . . . I saw SSG Frederick
walking towards me, and he said, ““““Look what these animals do when you leave them
alone for two seconds.”””” I heard PFC England shout out, ““““He’’’’s getting hard"

http://www.newyorker.com/fact/content/?040510fa_fact




[AnnitaR]

2. This guy's a dick!

someone has to TELL him not to attach electrodes to prisoners genitals...
someone has to TELL him not to let the dogs attack the prisoners...
someone has to TELL him not to let the young prisoner be raped...
someone has to TELL him not to pose the prisoners performing sex acts on each other...
someone has to TELL him not to photograph all of these things...

If he has to have someone TELL him these things he doesn't deserve to be classified as a human being!

:puke:

[NMDemDist2]

5. GMTA Annita?? I too love that boondocks hehehe eom

[Solly Mack]

3. He's full of bovine caca

He got the training as a reservists and he's lying when he claims otherwsie.

He went to Basic Training, where he DID receive instructions in The Law of Land Warfare; which does reference the Geneva Convention, as well as the Hague.




Also, why would someone who claims he "asked about setting rules"-which would suggest a concern for the lack of them - and who also claims he was "scolded" for questioning "harsh" treatment - which would suggest he gave a damn..why would someone who did those 2 things engage in the very abuse he supposedly questioned?

He isn't the only one to blame..but he is to blame as well.

[ConcernedCanuk]

4. ChinaDaily running one of the pics on their front page

.
.
.

And there is NO way that china is going to believe that this just an "isolated incident"

Well, I don't either - these ones just got "caught"

I'm sure there's many more that didn't bother to do the "Photo-Op" thing

On China Daily's front page (on-line anyways)

A female US soldier is photographed grinning and pointing at a naked Iraqi prisoner's genitals.

http://www.chinadaily.com.cn/english/home/world.html

There's your world vision of the USA now,

long forgotten is the USA's "hero" J. Lynch.

Herein lies GeeDubya's "legacy"

[74dodgedart]

12. When you start down the road of war, the evil just multiplies...

I keep thinking about the Egyptian president's statement about creating 1000 bin Ladens..What a mess

[Ripley]

18. Speaking of Jessica Lynch.

She was treated like a princess in that hospital (relatively...given OJ and a special traction bed which were both rarities) compared to this.

It sickens me that the US media reported so much BS about her situation in order to make her sound heroic and abused. When it came out she was not raped, not tortured (and neither were the other POWs)...THAT wasn't covered.

Now you have assholes like Drudge saying "oh I don't believe that's an American woman, it's probably and Iraqi" :wtf: :wtf: :wtf: :wtf:

Sometimes I think it would be better to just get a lobotomy and draw circles on paper all day.

[Misunderestimator]

27. FWIW... I believe I have read it is true that she was raped n/t

[Ripley]

30. Gimme a link mister.

Cause I saw quotes from Jessica herself that she didn't "remember" anything like that happening to her and the American doctors treating her didn't find any physical evidence of that happening to her.

So why do you believe it happened?

[Misunderestimator]

32. I will find a link...

On edit... seems there is not much info out there backing my case. So, I submit that she may not have been raped.

[Bridget Burke]

34. Now you are correct.

Jessica Lynch was not raped. She was treated well by her captors.

[Misunderestimator]

37. Yes, that it what I have been coming up with

I guess I got so sick of the whole Jessica Lynch thing that I stopped reading/listening to anything about it, but that little thing stuck in my head. -1 for me :)

[leesa]

71. It's great that you bothered to look and come to a different conclusion

Most Americans do not. The media and our government were spinning like mad to make you believe she was abused and raped. She doesn't know because she passed out and the doctors who examined her said she was not.

[Ripley]

35. There were rumors reported as "facts"

in the Washington Post I believe early on about that. But other than the RW lie-machine on Hate Radio, I have never seen a source from a doctor who said she was raped in any way.

[frankly_fedup2]

38. Yeah, on her Barbara Walters special, they stated she was

repeatedly raped. However, Jessica did not remember all of the details. They could tell by the damage done to her female genitalia. I'll search for a link; however, I do remember this being talked about on the TV Special.

[daleo]

55. How's the search going then?

Face it, this story was debunked.

[chookie]

6. His lawyer's defence

""The elixir of power, the elixir of believing that you're helping the CIA, for God's sake, when you're from a small town in Virginia, that's intoxicating. And so, good guys sometimes do things believing that they are being of assistance and helping a just cause. ... And helping people they view as important.""

Okay, let's see if I get this straight: the inhabitants of small towns in Virginia are entirely bereft of any moral sensibility. Rural life, we are supposed to believe, leads to a blatant disregard for human dignity and decency. Such rubes as Sgt. Frederick are so easily intoxicated by power, or proximity to it, that they cannot contain their inherent animality, and cannot be held responsible for their actions – any more than a cougar can be accused of murder for hunting its prey.
from
http://www.antiwar.com/justin/?articleid=2443

Apparently this is the tip of the iceberg. There are a lot of sick shits acting out in Iraq -- I know that sick shits have always acted out tthusly during wartime, but the weird twist to the present situation is that these atrocities are being photographed. The photos from Abu Ghraib showed up on a porn site, for crying out loud! Photos of soldiers raping Iraqi women have also turned up on porn sites. Such depravity. 60 Minutes has been sitting on this story for a long time -- but the photos have been circulating so widely that they felt they had to go ahead with the broadcast before everyone had heard of this from another source.

About a year ago, a similar report of British soldiers committing almost identical acts of depravity towards Iraqi POWs appeared i.e. posing them in sexual acts, etc

What gives?

[Just Me]

11. That defense is consistent with EVERY war criminal's rationalizations!

OMG!!! And this is merely the tip of the iceburg?

This is so, so very disturbing to me. :cry:

[bobthedrummer]

39. Consider the fact that Dyn Corp has the Iraq contract to run police

and corrections-it's another organized crime/mercenary training the police in the administration of George W. Bush aka The War President in my American opinion.

There is no statute of limitations on murder, the national security system is corrupt and has failed US too but the law does apply to everyone, no one is above the law even when they say it's a big secret, there is no statute of limitations for murder in the United States of America, correct?

[frankly_fedup2]

41. Yep. There is no statute of limitations for murder.

But do you think they will be brought up on charges?

[chookie]

48. Do mercenaries honor the Geneva Convention?

I think it's spooky having all of these mercenaries over there, who have not taken an oath to protect their country, and whose obligation is only to their company.

[seemslikeadream]

68. This from Hersh

“I’m going to drag every involved intelligence officer and

civilian contractor


I can find into court,” he said. “Do you really believe the Army relieved a general officer because of six soldiers? Not a chance.”

http://www.newyorker.com/fact/content/?040510fa_fact

[frankly_fedup2]

40. It's not the people . . . it's the place.

After all, this was done in Saddam's torture jail,Abu Ghraib prison.

The evil doer is gone, but the evil remains.

Hey, after everything that has happened in this world, this doesn't sound too crazy to me anymore.

What they did is total humiliation to these people. Psychologically making them believe they were going to be killed. All they know about us is we are the great Satan. Well, these six people showed them a pretty sick side of our society.

When they capture our soldiers, their throats are slit immediately. Maybe we should do that too and not take any prisoners. Either is deplorable.

These six little peons have caused the World to look at us with total disgust again. We can scream they do not represent America or our military as much as we want. This is only adding more fire to the situation.

We are now the super power of the world. However, if the rest of the world got together against the U.S., they could stomp us like an ant.

[daleo]

56. Captured soldiers throats are slit - where did you hear this?

The only report like that I have heard is one that claimed 17 marine snipers were captured and killed a short while back during the Fallujah fiasco, on an Islamic news source that most consider highly questionable. Have you heard any corroborating accounts?

Many people find it hard to believe that the U.S. military and media would be covering up the ambush and loss of 17 snipers. But, stranger things have happened in this war.

[cally]

44. This statement says it all

"Okay, let's see if I get this straight: the inhabitants of small towns in Virginia are entirely bereft of any moral sensibility. Rural life, we are supposed to believe, leads to a blatant disregard for human dignity and decency. Such rubes as Sgt. Frederick are so easily intoxicated by power, or proximity to it, that they cannot contain their inherent animality, and cannot be held responsible for their actions – any more than a cougar can be accused of murder for hunting its prey."

I don't care where you are from or how young you are, any humane person would know this is wrong. The commanders should be punished worse than the soldiers because they are ultimately responsible for training and oversight. I think only the lowest ranks have been charged although one General was ousted. Many more commanders need to be courtmartialed for dereliction of duty.

Does anyone know if this guy who wrote the journals was the whistleblower??

[chookie]

47. He was not the whistleblower

He got caught, and now his lawyer has to defend the indefensible. He is using these journals to show how his client was an innocent lamb he who merely undirected by his superiors. But we wouldn't be reading these journals unless he'd gotten in trouble.

From what I have read, the photos were sent to the US for the amusement of friends, who started spreading them around the internet, including porn sites. Apparently someone reported it, and the incident was investigated -- and the trail lead back to the sadist Frederick. He was caught.

The people who did this were savages. Mind you -- Frederick *worked* in the prison system in Virginia -- you he thinks we're going to believe that he didn't know how prisons were run? That he didn't know what the Geneva Convention entailed?

The people who did this are sadistic shits. No excuse.

Yeah, it's a tough job, but decent people don't do things like this.

Years ago I saw an interesting documentary on My Lai -- interviewing guys who participated in the massacre, who were psychologically shattered for the rest of their lives for the savagery they carried out. But there was a guy who refused to participate, and he said he KNEW it was wrong, and would not participate, and they could shoot him if they wanted to. (BTW Lte Calley was completely unmarred by the incident, and went on to own a successful jewelry business. Sociopath, you know.)

The woman in the photos -- Lynndie England -- is defended by her Mom, who says that all they were doing was just some little adolescent stunt that lots of people do and that people are making too big of a deal about this.

Savages!

[Streetdoc270]

69. Makes you wonder....

Freepers have been salivating about how 'this is better treatment than those 4 people in Fallujia got' or how this is revenge for the uprising. If the story has been out this long and/or many of the released detainees go home with these horror stories than it stands to reason that the people of Fallujia were acting out their anger...

[Just Me]

8. Fine. Pull the whole chain of command down with you!!!

ALL THE WAY TO THE TOP,...TO THE COMMANDER-IN-CHIEF!!! They are ALL responsible for this horror, every single one of them!!!

:argh:

[TahitiNut]

24. I agree 100%.

Yup.

[Bandit]

50. Yes whether they like it or not the Buck does stop with Bush*

Indict him for War Crimes and Crimes against Humanity.

[alfredo]

9. Mission accomplished

the above actions are not the actions of a well trained military. Undisciplined soldiers commit crimes. Also, the frustration of a war gone terribly wrong can lead to such actions. I blame that on our national leaders for not having a clear mission.

The lack of leadership filters down. If the commander in chief has no plan, then the generals have no plan. It works its way down. The non coms do their best to hold it together, but they are hampered by no leadership.

The soldiers see no end. They don't know if they will ever return home, and if they do, will they be sent right back. Do the soldiers know if they can leave the army, or are the feeling like prisoners.

[riverwalker]

10. my Dad was a POW for 10 months

in a Nazi POW camp. Even he said he never saw anything like the Iraqi prisoner treatment.

[kskiska]

15. My father was a POW in Germany too, for 13 months

and has said it wasn't all that bad, though he was an officer. They were even taken swimming on the Baltic and given ice skates in winter until it was discovered that some guys were using the blades as wire cutters.

[daleo]

57. My mom's brother was in the British army, captured in the fall of France

He told her that the younger German guards could be bad (not necessarily abusive, but not pleasant), as they had been indoctrinated in Nazi ideology during their teens. But he said the older guys could be quite nice - one even taught him to play the accordion.

[NashVegas]

64. Rules of Engagement Tend to Dim in Lopsided Affairs

War is a game that's supposed to have clearly defined boundaries, and finite gains (landgrab).

Because our own government denies we have a finite goal (controlling Iraq's oil and economy) in the first place, the boundaries become blurred.

[TahitiNut]

13. There's no question, however, that the behavior of these ...

... MPs was totally consistent with the dehumanizing direction of the command structure. You just don't get this many people taking photographs and engaging in this kind of behavior without a prevalent attitude within that unit and under that entire chain of command - an attitude that's completely without respect for human rights and individual dignity.

"Scapegoat"? Well, only somewhat. That term implies innocence. Frederick is NOT innocent, but he's without a doubt going to bear a greater burden of punishment than those having far greater responsibility for the attitudes and policies of that unit.

[Robbien]

14. Yes, it is the command's responsiblity

None of this could happen if it was not condoned by the people in charge. It appears to me that it was not only condoned, but encouraged.

[TahitiNut]

17. I can almost guarantee you that somewhere in that unit ...

... there's at least one MP who suffered castigation and exclusion for voicing objection or discomfort with the herd behavior of the unit personnel. That's how authoritarian subcultures create compliance, leveraging peer pressure and internal scapegoating against anyone who's "not with the program."

If there were any kind of honest investigation, such instances would be identified. There won't be any such investigation, however, "for the good of the service."

They "can't handle the truth!" The portrayal of how such "unit cohesion" is achieved in A Few Good Men is as accurate as any movie can get. These are techniques employed right from the very beginning of military indoctrination: basic training.

[Robbien]

22. And this is only going to get worse. Dyncorp was awarded the contract

for policing in Iraq

Unleashed onto Iraq: Scandalous DynCorp

Sunday April 13, 2003

The Observer



A US military contractor accused of human rights violations has won a
multi-million-dollar contract to police post-Saddam Iraq, The Observer can
reveal.

DynCorp, which has donated more than £100,000 to the Republican Party,
began recruiting for a private police force in Iraq last week on behalf of
the US State Department.



The awarding of such a sensitive contract to DynCorp has caused
consternation in some circles over the company's policing record. A British
employment tribunal recently forced DynCorp to pay £110,000 in compensation
to a UN police officer it unfairly sacked in Bosnia for whistleblowing on
DynCorp colleagues involved in an illegal sex ring.



http://www.observer.co.uk/international/story/0,6903,935689,00.html

[Walt Starr]

16. They're going after the little guys as the scapegoats in this

The leadership is where the REAL criminal activity and if a few majors or colonels had to face court martial we'd porobably find out just how high up in the chain of command the orders to tortue prisoners originated.

[TahitiNut]

20. Frederick doesn't qualify as a "scapegoat."

Again, a 'scapegoat' is innocent .. an animal without any culpability sacrificed on the altar of power. Frederick did what the unit command structure motivated and drove. Eager to maintain the fiction of "plausible deniability," the command structure will feed upon him to cover their own butts.

If the truth be told, this is what happpened with My Lai, too. Calley was merely being compliant with the attitudes and directions of the command structure. Again, however, he cannot be called a 'scapegoat' because he wasn't 'innocent' of such compliant behavior any more than a Family hit man is innocent.

[Walt Starr]

26. You're right! Scapegoat is the wrong word.

Please replace "scapegoat" with "fallguy" and re-read. Makes more sense that way.

:D

[TahitiNut]

29. I agree. "Fallguy" is a very apt term.

Corollary to "loyalty" being the highest virtue of a fascist culture, there's the requirement that one must be willing to fall on one's own sword to protect the "leader."

Frederick will be even more harshly punished for not falling on his sword without protest.

[Just Me]

42. Oh, yeah. I am certain they are shutting-up this guy and his attorney,...

,...as we write. I mean, the defense is pointing to the chain of command. THAT will NOT be tolerated. Guarantee ya'.

[mumon]

19. 2 more bits from the article:

That wench's father:

The alleged abuses of prisoners were "stupid, kid things — pranks," Terrie England said. "And what the (Iraqis) do to our men and women are just? The rules of the Geneva Convention, does that apply to everybody or just us?"



The first defense: blame the victims of the sexual abuse. Forcing men to simulate oral sex is not a prank, sir. Would you like to be put through the same thing to find out how funny it feels?


Disgusting.

Another:


Frederick's civilian lawyer, Washington-based Gary Myers, said he has urged the commanding general in Iraq to treat the case as an administrative matter, like those of the seven officers.

"I can assure you Chip Frederick had no idea how to humiliate an Arab until he met up" with higher-ranking people who told him how, Myers said.



You know, Arabs are really some kind of dogs, and how would a human being have any idea how to humilate the Arab?

Disgusting.

[Ripley]

21. The HYPOCRISY is unbelievable!!!

I'd like to ask that man if he thinks his reaction would be "oh it's just like a frat-house prank" if he saw his son and a dozen other US soldiers naked, being forced to pile onto each other or simulate sex acts while Iraqi's smiled and gave the thumbs up.

Gee, I wonder how he would react. :nuke:

[Just Me]

25. Oh, PUKE!!! The rationalizing is absolutely mind-boggling!!!

"stupid, kid things — pranks,"

Besides, it's all the Iraqis' fault?!?!?

:argh:

WTF is the matter with these people?
Geez-us, I am appalled at the denial and "rationalization" and BS excuses!!!

:grr: :grr: :grr:

[mmm]

46. Cruelty is magnified x 10 when you are being held in a cage,

with locked doors between you and the outside world.
When heartless jailers who already control your food, water, light and
movement say they intend to randomly torture the men in your cell block, even a blind fold and a hat placed on your head can trigger intolerable anguish.

These prisoners have no idea what is to come -
no idea what is in the mind of their tormentors.
All with no chance of recourse.

These are horrible crimes.

[TahitiNut]

23. I predict a "trailer trash" damage control P/R effort from the Busholinis.

From the article ...

A (Baltimore) Sun reporter on Thursday showed a photo of one of the nude prisoner scenes to Terrie England, who recognized her daughter, reservist Lynndie R. England, 21, standing in the foreground with her boyfriend.

"Oh, my God," she told the newspaper from the stoop in front of her Fort Ashby, W.Va., trailer home. "I can't get over this."

Take it to the bank. Even in investing the newsprint, it has begun.

[Ripley]

28. What do you mean?

They'll blame the reservist because she comes from "trailer trash?" Yeah, I guess I could see them passing the buck one more time...but then that kind of blows the Commander in Chief/CEO President bs doesn't it?

Will these jerk-offs take responsibility for even one thing?

[TahitiNut]

31. They already are.

Please note that there's no other reason for the article to characterize the residence of the parent as a "trailer home." Why would one waste the newsprint? What's the point? Why not identify the genus and species of whatever shade tree was close by? That would be every bit as relevant. The only reason that term was included in the story is to plant the seeds of social division and class-consciousness. (Hell, they might as well describe the mother's clothing.)

[Ripley]

33. And the reservist's mother said...

while smoking Winston cigarettes, standing in her housecoat with curlers in her hair, in the doorway to the trailer with stained curtains...

Yeah, you're right. If the reservist were from a nicer neighborhood would they say "McMansion" or "two-story, 4 bedroom 2 1/2 bath home?"

[RebelOne]

53. I live in a mobile home and I do not consider myself "trailer trash."

Why is it that because you live in a mobile home., you are classified as a low-class, beer-swilling redneck? I bought a mobile home because as a single woman, who was not making a gigantic salary, and could not afford high house payments. I own my home and am now making a fairly comfortable salary. But I will stay in the mobile home because I do not have any house payments.

[Kool Kitty]

60. Thanks for saying that, RebelOne.

I grew up in a trailer and I think I turned out all right. That phrase, "trailer trash", makes me furious. It's so ignorant.

What a disaster this whole unnecessary war is. This administration has more than blood on its hands. Mr. Bush, you should pray, you hypocrite. You're pro-life? Don't make me laugh. You are responsible for all this death and destruction and the horror of all these acts. I don't think you deserve any forgiveness for this. You and all the rest of your administration have so very much to answer for.

[TahitiNut]

61. No do I.

I lived in a mobile home once, myself. It's clear to me, however, that the corporatist media is ensuring that the public has plenty of fodder for viewing this person with bigoted, "class-oriented" disdain.

[leftchick]

45. was she the one with the cig hanging out of her mouth....

giving the thumbs up? :grr:

[TahitiNut]

49. Yup. I guess that just shows the evils of smoking, huh?

:eyes:

[leftchick]

51. was that intended as sarcasm...

in response to my question? I hope not! Also, someone noted in another thread that that gal was not giving the thumbs up but using her hands as guns! I had not noticed that the first time I saw it. Disgusting!

[TahitiNut]

52. I was merely parodizing the kind of commentary we'll probably

... see on this story, with inapppropriate focus and all manner of distraction from the major culprits: the military command structure, as chopped and tuned by the Busholinis. We just wouldn't see anywhere from seven to fourteen MPs in this primary unit, guarding the most politically significant POW facility in Iraq, engaging in this kind of behavior, and being photographed(!) if it weren't symptomatic of a corrupt command structure. On top of this, the DoD shut down (covered up) the reporting of the story for at least two weeks!

The administration, in collusion with a complicit US media, is furiously sweeping this shit under their Persian carpets.

I continue to 'support the troops' knowing from experience how military indoctrination, an increasingly authoritarian American culture, and being "stop lossed" in a war zone puts all the blame on the grunts and ground pounders and none on those who are the biggest REMFs of all: the command structure. (I saw it in Vietnam, too.)


On edit: And yes, I agree, that gal was mimicking the shooting off of the prisoner's genitals, not just pointing. It shows a "Bonnie & Clyde" attitude, imho.

[frankly_fedup2]

36. Yeah, I saw one soldier on the news last night claiming they had

had no training for keeping POWs. Well, common sense tells me you do not stack naked prisoners on top of each other to make a pyramid. You do not have men simulating sex on each other for laughs. I'm surprised they didn't make them eat pork!!!

Also, they reported there were only 7 soldiers for 900 prisoners. Now that seems impossible. They couldn't even feed that many a day by getting the food to them, much less the stupid, high-school hazing bull they were trying to pull. Idiots!

[ze_dscherman]

43. Amnesty international report from summer 2003

Published on Wednesday, July 23, 2003 by Reuters
Amnesty: Iraqis Complain of Torture by U.S. Forces


BAGHDAD - Iraqis detained by U.S. troops have complained of torture and degrading treatment, Amnesty International said Wednesday.

There were also reports of troops shooting detainees, the London-based human rights watchdog said in a report based on interviews with former prisoners of the Americans across Iraq.


Amnesty staff heard complaints that included prolonged sleep deprivation and detainees being forced to stay in painful positions or wear hoods over their heads for long periods.

"Such treatment would amount to 'torture and inhumane treatment' prohibited by the Fourth Geneva Convention and by international human rights law," Amnesty said.

U.S. military officials were not immediately available to comment on the report.

http://www.commondreams.org/headlines03/0723-01.htm


Iraq: The US Must Ensure Humane Treatment and Access to Justice for Iraqi Detainees
Amnesty International called on the United States today to give hundreds of Iraqis detained since the beginning of the occupation the right to meet families and lawyers and to have a judicial review of their detention. The organization also called on the US to investigate allegations of ill-treatment, torture and death into custody.

The conditions of detention Iraqis are held under at the Camp Cropper Center at Baghdad International Airport - now a US base - and at Abu Ghraib Prison may amount to cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment, banned by international law," Amnesty International said.

Detainees arrested by US forces after the conflict have included both criminal and political suspects. Detainees held in Baghdad have invariably reported that they suffered cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment immediately after arrest, being tightly bound with plastic handcuffs and sometimes denied water and access to a toilet in the first night of arrest. Delegates saw numerous ex-detainees with wrists still scarred by the cuffs a month later.


More: http://www.amnestyusa.org/news/2003/iraq06302003.html

[dArKeR]

54. US soldier accused of abuse in prison slams his superiors - TT

AP , HAGERSTOWN, MARYLAND
Saturday, May 01, 2004,Page 7

A soldier accused of abusing Iraqi war prisoners wrote that his commanders ignored his requests for rules of conduct and silenced his questions about harsh, humiliating treatment of inmates.

In a journal he started after military investigators looking into the abuse approached him in January, Army Reserves Staff Sergeant Ivan "Chip" Frederick wrote that Abu Ghraib prison, near Baghdad, was nothing like the Virginia state prison where he worked in civilian life.

The Iraqi prisoners were sometimes confined naked for three consecutive days without toilets in damp, unventilated cells with floors 1m by 1m, Frederick wrote.

http://www.taipeitimes.com/News/world/archives/2004/05/01/2003138750

[SoCalDem]

63. There is ALWAYS a way to give an anonymous tip to the media

This could have been done on DAY ONE.. It would have saved lives, careers, and avoided the humiliation of the Iraqis, and now, US.

Wrong answer, dude:(

[Jack Rabbit]

65. SSG Frederick may have a defense in his court martial

At least I can see some mitigating circumstances in his case.

The story that is emerging is one of a soldier who knew something was wrong and attempted to alert his superiors to the matter, only to find that they were part of the problem.

When I was in basic training (1976), we spent an afternoon being indoctrinated to the Geneva Conventions; we were made aware that there were certain things that could not be done to prisoners (like summary execution, use of human shields, torture and so forth). The educational film we watched made it look so easy: disobey the order (one is obligated to disobey such orders, as a matter of fact), go up one's chain of command, talk to the chaplain.

It seemed that SSG Frederick was doing at least part of what I learned one should do in his situation. It didn't work because, it would appear, no one in his chain of command thought there was anything wrong with violating the Third Geneva Convention.

If this is indeed the case, justice would best be served if SSG Frederick were treated far more leniently than those up his chain of command who dismissed him when he sounded the alarm. It was their responsibility to put a stop to this abuse.

[seemslikeadream]

66. I believe this needs its own thread TORTURE AT ABU GHRAIB

TORTURE AT ABU GHRAIB


by SEYMOUR M. HERSH


Last June, Janis Karpinski, an Army reserve brigadier general, was named commander of the 800th Military Police Brigade and put in charge of military prisons in Iraq. General Karpinski, the only female commander in the war zone, was an experienced operations and intelligence officer who had served with the Special Forces and in the 1991 Gulf War, but she had never run a prison system. Now she was in charge of three large jails, eight battalions, and thirty-four hundred Army reservists, most of whom, like her, had no training in handling prisoners.

General Karpinski, who had wanted to be a soldier since she was five, is a business consultant in civilian life, and was enthusiastic about her new job. In an interview last December with the St. Petersburg Times, she said that, for many of the Iraqi inmates at Abu Ghraib, “living conditions now are better in prison than at home. At one point we were concerned that they wouldn’t want to leave.”

A month later, General Karpinski was formally admonished and quietly suspended, and a major investigation into the Army’s prison system, authorized by Lieutenant General Ricardo S. Sanchez, the senior commander in Iraq, was under way. A fifty-three-page report, obtained by The New Yorker, written by Major General Antonio M. Taguba and not meant for public release, was completed in late February. Its conclusions about the institutional failures of the Army prison system were devastating. Specifically, Taguba found that between October and December of 2003 there were numerous instances of “sadistic, blatant, and wanton criminal abuses” at Abu Ghraib. This systematic and illegal abuse of detainees, Taguba reported, was perpetrated by soldiers of the 372nd Military Police Company, and also by members of the American intelligence community. (The 372nd was attached to the 320th M.P. Battalion, which reported to Karpinski’s brigade headquarters.) Taguba’s report listed some of the wrongdoing:

Breaking chemical lights and pouring the phosphoric liquid on detainees; pouring cold water on naked detainees; beating detainees with a broom handle and a chair; threatening male detainees with rape; allowing a military police guard to stitch the wound of a detainee who was injured after being slammed against the wall in his cell; sodomizing a detainee with a chemical light and perhaps a broom stick, and using military working dogs to frighten and intimidate detainees with threats of attack, and in one instance actually biting a detainee.




way more
http://www.newyorker.com/fact/content/?040510fa_fact

[Calico Jack Rackham]

67. The sad thing is....

That all this crap is going on because they got caught. There are hundreds if not thousands of incidents such as this that are going unreprted simply because no one has blown the whistle or provided evidence.

[leesa]

70. State prison guard? Maybe that's part of the problem. Thought he could

do the same things done to US inmates.