There are some who assert that the American abuses in Iraq don't equate with the abuses of Iraqis by Saddam's regime before the invasion.
"Outrageous", some say, "Saddam killed and maimed thousands of Iraqis."
Nothing the Americans have done in Iraq equates with Saddam's abuses? Nonsense. There's no difference between premeditated torture, which both Saddam and the U.S. have practiced, and our military's premeditated targeting of civilians with cluster bombs, checkpoint killings of cars full of innocents, and search and destroy aggression which has claimed over 10,000 Iraqi civilian lives.
How do we know what the breadth and extent of the torture by Americans at Abu Gharib was? The only incidents that will get attention are the ones surrounding the photos. Why should we assume that torture which was approved for Guantanamo and Al Qaeda by Rumsfeld was not employed elsewhere?
On Wednesday, Mr Rumsfeld defended interrogation techniques used by the military in Iraq.
He told a Senate committee that methods such as sleep deprivation, dietary changes and making prisoners assume stress positions had been approved by Pentagon lawyers.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/middle_east/3710327.stm
_________________________________
The man brought in to run the Abu Ghraib prison is Maj Gen Geoffrey Miller, the man who ran the US detention facility at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba.
He told reporters who were shown the prison near Baghdad that sensory deprivation methods would now be used only after a general had "signed off" on them.
"We will examine very closely the more aggressive techniques," he said. But he did not say they would be stopped.
>>>>>>
The CIA and the US military developed similar coercive techniques. An American manual describing some of them and called "Human Resource Exploitation Training Manual - 1983" was released under the US Freedom of Information Act in 1997.
The methods included the threat of force on relatives, blindfolding and the stripping of prisoners naked.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/middle_east/3698965.stm
________________________________________
"Human resource exploitation training manual," 1983 (Details Torture Methods Used in Honduras)
Rough copy with attempted corrections:
http://www.gwu.edu/~nsarchiv/NSAEBB/NSAEBB27/02-01.htm
Examples:
Deprivation of sensory stimuli induces stress and anxiety. The more complete the deprivation, the more rapidly and deeply the subject is affected.
http://www.gwu.edu/~nsarchiv/NSAEBB/NSAEBB27/02-14.htm
The threat to induce pain can trigger fears more damaging than than the immediate sensation of pain.
http://www.gwu.edu/~nsarchiv/NSAEBB/NSAEBB27/02-15.htm (dogs)
"If the subject refuses to comply once the threat has been made, it must be carried out. If it is not carried out then the subsequent threats may also prove ineffective."
http://www.gwu.edu/~nsarchiv/NSAEBB/NSAEBB27/02-16.htm
More-_______________________________________
Why should we allow Bush and Rumsfeld and to draw the line of accountability for interrogation abuses with these photos at Abu Gharib?
What purpose does it serve to allow the White House and the Pentagon to further conceal the actions of the CIA, the FBI, and other branches of military intelligence? They have repeatedly admitted that they distinguish between detainees and 'adjust' their methods of interrogation according to their percieved value, between suspected Al Qaeda and others.
Why should we assume that the military has adhered to the standards under the Geneva Convention in Iraq, when they have admittedly violated those standards elsewhere?
There are currently no high-ranking officials facing charges, but some officers have been reassigned or reprimanded for their conduct at the Iraq prison. The 'investigation' and hearings have not penetrated the upper tier's culpability in these abuses. The report details the lack of a firm command structure at the prisons, with uniformed officers with access to the prisons, exercising their authority over the lower ranking soldiers.
They have a planned deniability that allows them to skirt responsibility that they gave orders to abuse the detainees. There is apparently no paper trail, but there are a number of the lower ranking soldiers who will testify that they were ordered to abuse the detainees by these rouge intelligence officers who took charge whenever they they wanted.
Who was in charge of these soldiers, and why aren't they facing court-martial along with the lower ranking abusers? As I watch these oficials line up and testify, I am struck by their assurances that these abuses will not happen again, but I wonder why the same officials that allowed these abuses to happen are being allowed to keep their positions?
Who actually believes that there is not a cover-up of the leader's culpability as we castigate the underlings? Classic cover-up, and we are allowing them to prosecute first, and possibly discredit and silence these soldiers who, to the defendant, accuse their superiors of culpability and coersion.
We are being manipulated by the same group of officials who got us in this illegal war in the first place. As we watch their testimony, we should remember that this bunch has never lent themselves or their clique to accountability.
Question everything, and demand answers. We shouldn't allow ourselves to be so chagrined by the thought that Americans are capable of such cruelty. We should realize that torture and abuse have been an integral function of war in all of our invasions and occupations.
We should also recognize that the majority of detainees that have been incarcerated at the Iraqi prisons, (and in many cases, tortured by U.S. forces) have been found innocent and released.
The soldiers actions, under command, to hold these Iraqis, is a part of a larger injustice against the sovereign nation. Most of the actions of the soldiers in pursuit of this imperialistic scheme may be accountable, but only within a flawed motive, designed and mandated from the president, through the Pentagon that guided all branches actions in Iraq.
To me, our occupation has lost any rationale or justification that was used to get us into this thing. The last straw was this moral authority, this notion of freeing the Iraqi people, which we forfeited by our disregard for innocent Iraqis in our indiscriminate bombings, shootings by our soldiers in defense or in aggression, search and destroy operations, and other abuses.
Why do some insist that they know the full extent of our abuses? Why do some insist that there is some benign motive that guides our involvement there. Everything is corrupted by our counterfeit mission.
Me Book
Printer-friendly format
Email this thread to a friend
Bookmark this thread
(1000+ posts)
Send PM |
Profile |
Ignore
