Prisoners abuse

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anitram said:
And yet we still have people saying Guantanamo is Club Med.

To me, it is very possible that the only difference between Guantanamo and Iraq is that no pictures have yet surfaced from the former. I would not be surprised at all if there are abuses going on.

Me either.:mad: :censored: :censored: :censored:
 
More from the Red Cross report.

According to a February 2004 International Red Cross report, "Certain CF military intelligence officers told the ICRC that in their estimate between 70 percent and 90 percent of the persons deprived of their liberty in Iraq had been arrested by mistake."
 
MrsSpringsteen said:
He is such a sick SOB..

This is no different than what happens at the Skull and Bones initiation, and we're going to ruin people's lives over it, and we're going to hamper our military effort, and then we are going to really hammer them because they had a good time," he said on his radio show.

Limbaugh added: "I'm talking about people having a good time. These people, you ever heard of emotional release? You heard of need to blow some steam off?"


http://www.palmbeachpost.com/localn...s/sunday/local_news_04d97a1c371df1020029.html

:shocked: Thats disgusting.
 
It would have been a lot more disgusting if they had 'blown off steam' by chopping off the prisoners' heads. I do not condone what happened to the Iraqi prisoners, and it was a bad thing for America. But to me beheading is an extreme form of revenge for putting a dog chain or handcuffs and pillowcases on people, and it bothers me that people seem more outraged by what our soldiers did than the beheading and the burning of the bodies of the contractors last month, which was much more drastic.
 
Your missing the part of the report that talks about rape, including of young boys, murder, and acts against dead bodies.

What you sow - you reap

Not that it wasn't sad and disgusting. What did the admin expect when they threw the GC out the window.
 
" ... the United States, for generations, has sustained two parallel but opposed states of mind about military atrocities and human rights: one of U.S. benevolence, generally held by the public, and the other of ends-justify-the-means brutality sponsored by counterinsurgency specialists. Normally the specialists carry out their actions in remote locations with little notice in the national press. That allows the public to sustain its faith in a just America, while hard-nosed security and economic interests are still protected in secret. ": Robert Parry, investigative reporter and author
 
I think this is horrible but it demonstrates a different perception in th eArab world. Who's has not heard of honor killings or acid attacks.

Double Ordeal for Female Prisoners

By Tracy Wilkinson

May 11, 2004 " Los Angeles Times" -- BAGHDAD ? One woman told her attorney she was forced to disrobe in front of male prison guards. After much coaxing, another woman described how she was raped by U.S. soldiers. Then she fainted.

A U.S. Army report on abuses at Abu Ghraib prison documented one case of an American guard sexually abusing a female detainee, and a Pentagon spokesman said Monday that 1,200 unreleased images of abuse at Abu Ghraib included "inappropriate behavior of a sexual nature."

Whether it was one or numerous cases of rape, many Iraqis believe that sexual abuse of women in U.S.-run jails was rampant. As a result, female prisoners face grave prospects after they are released: denial, ostracism or even death.

A woman who is raped brings shame on her family in the Islamic world. In many cases, rape victims have been killed by their relatives to salvage family honor, although there is no evidence this has happened to women who have been prisoners in Iraq.

"It is like being sentenced to death," said Sheik Mohammed Bashar Faydhi, a senior cleric based at Baghdad's largest Sunni mosque.

edited to add

Focus shifts to jail abuse of women

Luke Harding in Baghdad
Wednesday May 12, 2004
The Guardian

For Huda Shaker, the humiliation began at a checkpoint on the outskirts of Baghdad. The American soldiers demanded to search her handbag. When she refused one of the soldiers pointed his gun towards her chest.
"He pointed the laser sight directly in the middle of my chest," said Professor Shaker, a political scientist at Baghdad University. "Then he pointed to his penis. He told me, 'Come here, bitch, I'm going to fuck you.'"
...

Few women released from US detention have come forward to talk about their experiences in a Muslim society where rape is sometimes equated with shame and victims can be killed to salvage family honour.

According to the New Yorker magazine the photos and videos so far unreleased by the Pentagon show American soldiers "having sex with a female Iraqi prisoner", and a secret report by General Antonio Taguba into the scandal confirms that US guards videotaped and photographed naked female prisoners and that "a male MP [military police] guard" is shown "having sex with a female detainee".

Yesterday Prof Shaker, who began researching the subject this year for Amnesty International, said she believed the woman involved had been killed.

"The girl was called Noor. When I went to her house in Baghdad earlier this year she had disappeared. The neighbours said that she and her family had moved away."

...

But five women are still in solitary confinement in Abu Ghraib's notorious 1A cellblock where as many as 1,500 pictures were taken in November and December.
...
Human rights campaigners say the US military frequently arrests wives and daughters during raids if the male suspect is not at home.

US officials have acknowledged detaining women in the hope of convincing male relatives to provide information: a strategy that is in violation of international law.

"The issue is the system," Nada Doumani of the International Committee of the Red Cross said yesterday.

"It is an absence of judicial guarantees. People are being kept in custody without knowing what for. The system is not fair, precise or properly defined."

Senior US military officers who escorted journalists around Abu Ghraib on Monday admitted that rape had taken place in the cellblock where 19 "high-value" male detainees are also being held.

Asked how it could have happened, Colonel Dave Quantock, who is now in charge of the prison's detention facilities, said: "I don't know. It's all about leadership. Apparently it wasn't there."

Journalists were forbidden from talking to the women, who are kept upstairs in windowless 2.5 metre by 1.5 metre cells. The women wailed and shouted.

They were kept in solitary confinement for 23 hours a day, Col Quantock said, with only a Koran.

Other allegations being investigated are that a 12- or 13-year-old girl had been stripped naked in the block and paraded in front of male inmates.

Yesterday Prof Shaker said after her ordeal in February her friends dragged her back into the car and drove off. "I vowed never to talk to another American soldier," she said.

She said the US and Britain should learn from the affair. "You can't treat human beings in this way. I hope they have learned from this."
 
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Wild Angel said:
It would have been a lot more disgusting if they had 'blown off steam' by chopping off the prisoners' heads. I do not condone what happened to the Iraqi prisoners, and it was a bad thing for America. But to me beheading is an extreme form of revenge for putting a dog chain or handcuffs and pillowcases on people, and it bothers me that people seem more outraged by what our soldiers did than the beheading and the burning of the bodies of the contractors last month, which was much more drastic.

Erm, not just dog chains, handcuffs and pillowcases. Rapes, being beaten to death, misconduct to dead people. Likely by order of higher ranks/intelligence. No way was it just "some rotten apples".
Do you know of the impact of nudity in Arabic world and how humiliating it is for them?

I am so done with US administration - this is the last straw for me. I will remember these images the next time US goverment starts bragging about human rights and democracy. Rumsfeld should step down and they ought to leave it to UN.

I don't condone what happened to Berg but do you equal one man with the hundreds of tortured and abused Iraquis? Western lives are worth more than Arabic, is that it?
There's worse things than dying, and sexual abuse/rape is one of them IMO.

I am outraged because
a) it looks like Berg was beheaded by Al Zarqavi, a terrorist, not Iraqui civilians,
b) the West has Rule of law, Geneva convention etc... one of the things that ought to make us know better than to use such methods
c) coalition was supposed to prevent exactly horrific things like that from happening ever again.
d) how can the West ask for human treating of prisoners when it failed to do that in the first place?
e) maybe the worst of all, the superiors were notified about it by Red cross, Amnesty international, they KNEW about it and did nothing. Punishing the direct violaters is the tip of the berg, the investigation should go all the way up to whoever knew and kept quiet = implicite condoning if you ask me.

It's sickening how some in the US (saw it on CNN) say "oh they killed those 4 guys and dragged them it's ok what we're doing to them". NEITHER was ok, but I wouldn't be surprised if more Iraquis started hating US soldiers for that - imagine the uproar in the US if that kind of abuse was to happend to American troops.
It's redicioulus to say "they didn't know the Geneva convention". It's common sense and decency not to do that kind of things to another human being.
 
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I just saw Colin Powell at the economic meeting in Jordan on CNN. It looked like even the Jordanians, usually U.S. allies, were barely tolerating the guy's presence. The King made a speech in which he made it clear that they didn't need the U.S. or any other outside power to lecture them about democracy and human rights, they'll make the changes themselves, thank you very much. I wouldn't have expected it to be any different. Our credibility is shot to hell, and it will probably take a solid *decade* to repair the damage that's been done. This was *not* just a "mistake" in a political campaign. It's an international disaster. I feel like I've been part of a monumental sin against the human race because my government was mixed up in this :censored:. Damn.:mad: :censored: :censored: :censored: :censored: :censored: :censored: :censored: :censored:
 
Guantanamo, Afghanistan, Iraq...they probably did it everywhere.

BTW, did you hear what NY Times is saying? Rumsfeld himself gave the OK for these methods. :mad:
 
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U2girl said:
Guantanamo, Afghanistan, Iraq...they probably did it everywhere.

BTW, did you hear what NY Times is saying? Rumsfeld himself gave the OK for these methods. :mad:

Do you have the link for this? I'd like to see it. I'm not surprised. I have never liked Rumsfeld, but this really is the straw that broke the camel's back. :mad: :censored: :censored:
 
The damning stuff about Rumsfeld is in the New Yorker magazine, and not surprisingly it's hitting the press in the Middle East like a ton of bricks. :mad: :censored: :censored: :censored: :censored: :censored: :censored: :censored: :censored:
 
Thanks for this Link verte!

I just wanted to add that the Jurnalist who wrote this story, mr Hersh has high reputation, he won the Pulitzer Prize and 4 George Polk Awards.

And to me his story makes sense if you look how important it was for the US that their enemies in Afghanistan were not treated after Geneva Convention but were ranked as i.c. without rights.
 
http://observer.guardian.co.uk/international/story/0,6903,1217973,00.html

US guards 'filmed beatings' at terror camp

Senator urges action as Briton reveals Guantanamo abuse

David Rose and Gaby Hinsliff
Sunday May 16, 2004
The Observer

Dozens of videotapes of American guards allegedly engaged in brutal attacks on Guantanamo Bay detainees have been stored and catalogued at the camp, an investigation by The Observer has revealed.
The disclosures, made in an interview with Tarek Dergoul, the fifth British prisoner freed last March, who has been too traumatised to speak until now, prompted demands last night by senior politicians on both sides of the Atlantic to make the videos available immediately.

They say that if the contents are as shocking as Dergoul claims, they will provide final proof that brutality against detainees has become an institutionalised feature of America's war on terror.
 
Klaus said:
Thanks for this Link verte!

I just wanted to add that the Jurnalist who wrote this story, mr Hersh has high reputation, he won the Pulitzer Prize and 4 George Polk Awards.

And to me his story makes sense if you look how important it was for the US that their enemies in Afghanistan were not treated after Geneva Convention but were ranked as i.c. without rights.

You're welcome. I agree, no wonder Bush wanted out of the jurisdiction of the International Court and also his insistence that the prisoners in Guantanomo were i.c. without rights. My parents were telling me that yesterday they were at some suburban type party and people were absolutely up in arms over the scandal. Yes, Americans are outraged!
 
Club Med indeed.

If this was Rwanda or the former YU, we'd slap sanctions on them until they turned over these people to an international tribunal. I guess what's good for the goose isn't good for the gander.
 
When was the last international tribunal that the US pushed for? Is there a history of the US pudhing for international tribunals over the handling of prisoners?

You act as if the US is not doing something about it.

I know we are all frothing at the mouth out there happy that the US is tainted by this, however, let's put it in perspective, we are putting our own on trial which in my opinion separates us from many who have committed crimes like this or worse.
 
Dreadsox said:
I know we are all frothing at the mouth out there happy that the US is tainted by this, however, let's put it in perspective, we are putting our own on trial which in my opinion separates us from many who have committed crimes like this or worse.


This is very true, minus the frothing at the mouth.
 
Yes, no, maybe so?

Reuters, NBC Staff Abused by U.S. Troops in Iraq

BAGHDAD (Reuters) - U.S. forces beat three Iraqis working for Reuters and subjected them to sexual and religious taunts and humiliation during their detention last January in a military camp near Falluja, the three said Tuesday.

The three first told Reuters of the ordeal after their release but only decided to make it public when the U.S. military said there was no evidence they had been abused, and following the exposure of similar mistreatment of detainees at Abu Ghraib prison near Baghdad.

An Iraqi journalist working for U.S. network NBC, who was arrested with the Reuters staff, also said he had been beaten and mistreated, NBC said Tuesday.

Two of the three Reuters staff said they had been forced to insert a finger into their anus and then lick it, and were forced to put shoes in their mouths, particularly humiliating in Arab culture.

You can find that here.

Best parts I wanted to highlight are:

Lt. Gen. Ricardo Sanchez, commander of ground forces in Iraq (news - web sites), said in a letter received by Reuters Monday but dated March 5 that he was confident the investigation had been "thorough and objective" and its findings were sound.

Then they admit that:

The U.S. military never interviewed the three for its investigation.

Hello???
 
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http://www.berkeleydaily.org/text/article.cfm?issue=05-18-04&storyID=18888

It has been implied that I am more anti-American then non-Americans on this board. That is not how I feel. I actually love my country but are becoming more and more disillusioned as I grow older. I also hold my native country and government to the highest standards of human rights and fairness. This may be very idealistic but I think highlighting our wrongs will help us prevent them in the future. SO...

Torture Photos, Videos a Time-Honored CIA Tradition
By PETER DALE SCOTT Pacific News Service (05-18-04)

Shocking visual images have dominated the Iraq news in the past weeks. First, of criminal torture of prisoners by Americans, and then of the beheading of American Nicholas Berg by a group the CIA alleges is headed by the Al Qaeda leader Abu Musab al-Zarqawi. Many stories have raised the rather absurd question of whether the practice of torture by Americans is an aberration. There is abundant proof, however, that both the abusive interrogation practices and the photographic documentation of them are techniques that the CIA has sanctioned and taught over more than 30 years.

By the way, I've watched the hearing and while MI's are often brought up the questions on the CIA's participation have been badly lacking. I guess since 911 they have been given a free reign.
 
Say cheese,....


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Maybe she can speak french, he is not responding anyway.
 
Scarletwine said:
By the way, I've watched the hearing and while MI's are often brought up the questions on the CIA's participation have been badly lacking. I guess since 911 they have been given a free reign.

What do you expect out of the CIA? Should they mail nice questionnaires and build terrorist reports based on the responses?

There is a dark underside to the intelligence community - one that has existed for decades, if not centuries. One that makes us sick to acknowledge, but we are DAMN happy when they produce the results we want.

So, I guess I'd like to know exactly how you would like the CIA to work.
 
Easy - within international law, our own recognition of the Geneva Convention, and our own constitution.

I think it is bullshit that people think their tactics seemed to have have saved us from "the Communists", or other acts against the US.

They only broke international law in SA and Africa bolstering horrible Dictators (like Saddam).

They should be held to the same standardds as any other gov't agency.

They aren't worth the money we pay them.
 
http://www.guardian.co.uk/women/story/0,3604,1220673,00.html

I know many of you think the Guardian is biased - probably but the women's picture should be told. Usually female abuse is more 1 on12 and less reported.

The other prisoners

Most of the coverage of abuse at Abu Ghraib has focused on male detainees. But what of the five women held in the jail, and the scores elsewhere in Iraq? Luke Harding reports

Thursday May 20, 2004
The Guardian

The scandal at Abu Ghraib prison was first exposed not by a digital photograph but by a letter. In December 2003, a woman prisoner inside the jail west of Baghdad managed to smuggle out a note. Its contents were so shocking that, at first, Amal Kadham Swadi and the other Iraqi women lawyers who had been trying to gain access to the US jail found them hard to believe.
The note claimed that US guards had been raping women detainees, who were, and are, in a small minority at Abu Ghraib. Several of the women were now pregnant, it added. The women had been forced to strip naked in front of men, it said. The note urged the Iraqi resistance to bomb the jail to spare the women further shame.

Late last year, Swadi, one of seven female lawyers now representing women detainees in Abu Ghraib, began to piece together a picture of systemic abuse and torture perpetrated by US guards against Iraqi women held in detention without charge. This was not only true of Abu Ghraib, she discovered, but was, as she put it, "happening all across Iraq".

In November last year, Swadi visited a woman detainee at a US military base at al-Kharkh, a former police compound in Baghdad. "She was the only woman who would talk about her case. She was crying. She told us she had been raped," Swadi says. "Several American soldiers had raped her. She had tried to fight them off and they had hurt her arm. She showed us the stitches. She told us, 'We have daughters and husbands. For God's sake don't tell anyone about this.'"

Astonishingly, the secret inquiry launched by the US military in January, headed by Major General Antonio Taguba, has confirmed that the letter smuggled out of Abu Ghraib by a woman known only as "Noor" was entirely and devastatingly accurate. While most of the focus since the scandal broke three weeks ago has been on the abuse of men, and on their sexual humilation in front of US women soldiers, there is now incontrovertible proof that women detainees - who form a small but unknown proportion of the 40,000 people in US custody since last year's invasion - have also been abused. Nobody appears to know how many. But among the 1,800 digital photographs taken by US guards inside Abu Ghraib there are, according to Taguba's report, images of a US military policeman "having sex" with an Iraqi woman.

Taguba discovered that guards have also videotaped and photographed naked female detainees. The Bush administration has refused to release other photographs of Iraqi women forced at gunpoint to bare their breasts (although it has shown them to Congress) - ostensibly to prevent attacks on US soldiers in Iraq, but in reality, one suspects, to prevent further domestic embarrassment.

...
 
Scarletwine said:
Easy - within international law, our own recognition of the Geneva Convention, and our own constitution.

Then everything is okay cause there are lawyers who argue that they are abiding by international law, the Geneva convention and the US Constitution.

Another issue resolved :up: :wink:
 
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