Rumsfeld approved 'harsh' interrogation

[UpInArms]

http://www.theage.com.au/articles/2004/05/12/1084289748000.html

US Defence Secretary Donald Rumsfeld approved the use of "harsh" interrogation techniques at Guantanamo Bay, including stripping detainees naked, making them hold "stress" positions and depriving them of sleep, a Pentagon official has confirmed.

Stephen Cambone, the under-secretary of defence for intelligence, also said severe interrogation techniques, including the use of dogs to intimidate prisoners, had been approved by military commanders in Iraq.

But Mr Cambone, Mr Rumsfeld's top intelligence official, insisted that all US soldiers in Iraq were under orders to obey the Geneva Convention. He denied that the US military leadership had helped create a climate for prison abuse.

<snip>

Revealing the interrogation methods allowed in Iraq, the Senate Armed Services Committee released a single page titled "Interrogation Rules of Engagement", listing two categories of measures.

...more...

[fertilizeonarbusto]

1. Rummy

thinks "stress" positions are no biggie. After all, he lives with his head up his ass 24/7.

[TacticalPeek]

17. LOL! n/t

[dArKeR]

2. Doesn't the Afghan Convoy of Death require some investigation too?

http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article3267.htm

Without jumping to conclusions and saying it is 100% true, it would seem to me a moral society would investigate this. By not investigating it it leads one to believe it's true.

I also believe Bush, Cheney, Rumsfeld announcing that they won't even going to count the killed/dead Iraqis in the war was disgraceful and started the cycle of barbarism. It's very clear to me Bush is Insane. I don't understand way all top leaders don't have to submit to psychiatric elevaluations and drug testing as I'm sure the military commanders of nuclear weapons do.

I saw 2 shows on C-SPAN about a month ago.

1. Genocide survivors from around the world. All concluded that genocide occurs when one race feels they are superior to other races/religions.

2. A panel on on Iraq with 4 American Media Whores, 1 moral American Media Whore, 1 guest from the Arab Media. Only the Arab gentleman said, 'You don't even care how many people you killed, civilian or soldiers!'

In my opinion, our media is guilty of Manslaughter both for American dead and Iraqi dead and they should be charged as such. In my opinion the journalist we see on TV are the same as the soldiers in the prisons. They are just taking orders. We need to charge the American Media's Board of Directors with Manslaughter, Conspiracy, Racketeering...


-------------------------

Abuse Allegation In Afghanistan - CBS
http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2001/09/11/world/main310701.shtml

[TahitiNut]

4. The pervasive dehumanization of Iraqis sets the context for genocide.

Iraqi lives (literally!) don't count. The American public is desensitized every single day. The constant indoctrination couldn't be better designed to enable crimes against humanity by the Busholini regime.

750 dead (armed and equipped) American soldiers? Tragic!
10,000 dead (mostly unarmed and innocent) Iraqis? Ho-hum.

"The only good _____ is a dead ____." (It's an American 'tradition.')

[0007]

19. Without a reasonable doubt George W. Bush is insane IMHO

Thank you for the links. I've watched the Afghanistan fiasco and am now convince that our media has been muzzled.

Jamie Doran is one of a kind and a very brave man.

These atrocities are war crime and must not go unnoticed by the American people.

Thank you again for the eye opener.

[Mandate My Ass]

3. by making them detainees instead of POWs

by moving a prison off American soil, and finally by hiring private contractors to interrogate prisoners in Iraq, they telegraphed their intent to commit war crimes a long time ago.

[yellowcanine]

5. Bush should fire Rummy before he can resign.

He will resign but Bush should fire him first. By allowing Rummy to resign on his own terms Bush is demonstrating a failure of moral leadership. The fact is that Bush will not fire Rummy because he knows that Rummy can sink him politically. So Rummy will either be allowed to leave for "health reasons" - he is fairly old, after all - must be something wrong with him that could be dredged up - or a position will open up somewhere that is Rummy's "dream job". CEO of Halliburton, maybe?

[Tellurian]

6. And who told Rumy to use harsh interrogation on Iraqis? Bush/Cheney?

[lumpy]

20. Pentagon lawyers are setting the rules

regarding interrogations, according to one account. Rumsfeld approves the 'rules' used at Iraqi prisons and at the same time touts the Geneva Convention rules requiring prisoners to be treated humanely at all times. The bastard thinks he can have it both ways. We are slowly getting closer to the truth inspite of the deliberate attempts to confuse the facts. Unfortunately, the in-denial public will turn their heads and trust the corrupt bunch running the show. The orange Gitmo suit, the yellow wall; the grisly act just might have been perpetrated at the infamous prison at Abu Ghraib.

[TroglodyteScholar]

7. So is Cambone saying...

...that's it's sufficient to tell soldiers they must obey the Geneva Convention without actually teaching them what that entails?

Major ass-covering going on here.

[dArKeR]

8. U.S. opens probe into alleged Afghanistan abuse - MSRNC

KABUL, Afghanistan - The U.S. military has opened an investigation into allegations that an Afghan police officer was stripped naked, beaten and photographed at a U.S. base in Afghanistan, the American Embassy in Kabul said Wednesday.


The alleged abuse occurred in August 2003 at the American base in the eastern town of Gardez, 60 miles south of the capital, Kabul, an embassy statement said. U.S. officials had learned of the allegations from the media, it said.

"The U.S. military has launched an immediate investigation," the statement said.

The New York Times quoted the former police colonel, Sayed Nabi Siddiqui, 47, as saying he was subjected to sexual abuse and taunting and sleep deprivation.

http://msnbc.msn.com/id/4951668/

[Judi Lynn]

13. That's going to make the claim " 6 or 7 bad soldiers" a little lame,

and hard to maintain for those who would have ever dreamed it would work around sober people, anyway.

Can't see why our Congress won't be wanting to follow up on Afghanistan as it has been connected by identical personal statements.

[maddezmom]

9. Rumsfeld Backs Iraq Interrogation Methods

WASHINGTON - Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld defended military interrogation techniques in Iraq (news - web sites) on Wednesday, rejecting complaints that they violate international rules and may endanger Americans taken prisoner.


Rumsfeld told a Senate committee that Pentagon (news - web sites) lawyers had approved methods such as sleep deprivation and dietary changes as well as rules permitting prisoners to be made to assume stress positions.


Gen. Richard Myers, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, also noted that the rules require prisoners to be treated humanely at all times.


But Sen. Richard Durbin, D-Ill. said some of the approved techniques "go far beyond the Geneva Convention," a reference to international rules governing the treatment of prisoners of war.


Rumsfeld spoke after two weeks of controversy provoked by photographs of American military personnel abusing prisoners in Iraq. An American was beheaded in a videotaped execution posted to a militant Islamic web site on Tuesday — a killing that captors said was revenge for the abuse of Iraqis in the Abu Ghraib prison.

~snip~

http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&cid=542&ncid=716&e=1&u=/ap/20040512/ap_on_go_ca_st_pe/us_prisoner_abuse

[Moderator]

10. kick

[spinbaby]

11. Torture is good.

Up is down.
We have always been at war with East Asia.

[underpants]

12. Rumsfeld Backs Iraq Interrogation Methods (AP article)

http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&cid=542&e=1&u=/ap/20040512...

WASHINGTON - Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld defended military interrogation techniques in Iraq (news - web sites) on Wednesday, rejecting complaints that they violate international rules and may endanger Americans taken prisoner.

Rumsfeld told a Senate committee that Pentagon (news - web sites) lawyers had approved methods such as sleep deprivation and dietary changes as well as rules permitting prisoners to be made to assume stress positions.

Expanding his question to include detainees in Afghanistan (news - web sites) and Guantanamo Bay, he (Dick Durbin D-Ill.)asked whether such a declaration would "also serve to help American prisoners" held captive.

Rumsfeld replied that the Geneva Convention applies to all prisoners held in Iraq, but not to those held in Guantanamo Bay, where detainees captured in the global war on terror are held.

He said the distinction is that the international rules govern wars between countries but not those involving groups such as al-Qaida. "Terrorists don't comply with the laws of war. They go around killing innocent civilians," Rumsfeld added.

[underpants]

15. Link to Locked LBN thread

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=102x550065

[riverwalker]

23. "They go around killing innocent civilians"

I heard him say the Geneva Conventions don't apply "to terrorist organisations, only to nations". I thought they applied to "people", silly me. He is forgeting that most nations began as "terrorist organisations" including the US of A.

[Kadie]

14. AP - Rumsfeld rejects complaints U.S. interrogation techniques violate Gen

Rumsfeld rejects complaints U.S. interrogation techniques violate Geneva Conventions

Wednesday, May 12, 2004
KEN GUGGENHEIM, Associated Press Writer

05-12) 10:41 PDT WASHINGTON (AP) --

Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld defended military interrogation techniques in Iraq on Wednesday, rejecting complaints that they violate international rules and may endanger Americans taken prisoner.

Rumsfeld told a Senate committee that Pentagon lawyers had approved methods such as sleep deprivation and dietary changes as well as rules permitting prisoners to be made to assume stress positions.

Gen. Richard Myers, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, also noted that the rules require prisoners to be treated humanely at all times.

But Sen. Richard Durbin, D-Ill. said some of the approved techniques "go far beyond the Geneva Convention," a reference to international rules governing the treatment of prisoners of war.

more... http://sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/news/a/2004/05/12/national1252EDT0585.DTL

[Tellurian]

16. The man is absolutely INSANE!

Rumsfeld is not the first casualty resulting from being a potential threat to humanity when Humanity Rules!

[Dudley_DUright]

18. These people literally try to get away with murder

by redefining the clear meaning of words and agreements. I can just hear Rummy's justification for the dead Iraqi detainees now. Rummy: "But there not really dead, they are just thermodynamically challenged". The Geneva conventions are now the post modern conventions where the words mean exactly what BushCo wants them to mean (at a given time subject to change without notice).

[nolabels]

21. By request of the Secretary

Gen. Sanchez' Command OK'd Use of Dogs on Prisoners
by Mark Rothschild

The star witness before yesterday's Senate Armed Services Committee hearing was Army Maj. Gen. Antonio M. Taguba. Taguba carried out an investigation on the activities of the Army's 800th Military Police Brigade at Abu Ghraib prison. Afterward, he wrote a 6,000 page report, the summary of which was leaked to the press by Seymour M. Hersh and disclosed in the New Yorker magazine.
(snip)
The gun-toting Brigadier General Ricardo S. Sanchez, a native of the rough and tumble US/Mexico border region known to locals as "the valley," is the Commanding General in Iraq. Sanchez' order approving the use of dogs and the other methods was dated, October 19, 2003. But Sanchez, whose career must surely now be on the brink, was not the only official to be scathed by the revelation that specific written lists of "approved techniques" exist.

Under questioning by Senator Ted Kennedy, of Massachusetts, Undersecretary Cambone admitted that his boss, Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld also has his own list of "approved techniques," saying that when interrogators at Guantanamo Bay want to surpass the severity of the techniques on Rumsfeld's list, the permission of the Secretary of Defense himself is required.

Some have wondered why the highest ranking officer or official to be implicated is US Brig. Gen. Janis Karpinski. Senator Bill Nelson asked Taguba, "Well, what's the highest ranking officer you interrogated?" Taguba answered, "Brigadier General Janis Karpinski." Nelson then asked if Taguba had interviewed Sanchez. Taguba replied, "No Sir." Pressed further on what other officers he investigated for his report he said simply, "Sir, none. I stopped at General Karpinski."
(snip)
http://www.antiwar.com/orig/rothschild.php?articleid=2559

[lumpy]

22. Don't forget Killing fields at Kunduz,

Afghanistan and container deaths of hundreds committed by US personel. Speaking of the Geneva Conventions.