Torture Iraq prisoners

[sfc_darrel]

The military, not CBS, discovered the outrages at Abu Ghraib.

Thursday, May 6, 2004 12:01 a.m. EDT

As President Bush and everyone else in America has said, any abuse of Iraqi prisoners is "abhorrent" and should be punished. Yet it seems to us that an overlooked story here, and ultimately the most telling, is the degree to which the U.S. military is investigating itself and holding people accountable.

This isn't a popular thought just now, with the media and politicians in one of their bonfire phases. Every accusation against U.S. troops is now getting front-page treatment. Like reporters at a free buffet, Members of Congress are swarming to the TV cameras to declare their outrage and demand someone's head, usually Donald Rumsfeld's. "System of abuse" and "cover-up" are being tossed about without any evidence of either. The goal seems to be less to punish the offenders than to grab one more reason to discredit the Iraq war.

For a sense of proportion, let's rehearse the timeline here. While some accusations of abuse go back to 2002 in Afghanistan, the incidents at Abu Ghraib that triggered this week's news occurred last autumn. They came to light through the chain of command in Iraq on January 13. An Army criminal probe began a day later. Two days after that, the U.S. Central Command disclosed in a press release that "an investigation has been initiated into reported incidents of detainee abuse at a Coalition Forces detention facility." By March 20, Brigadier General Mark Kimmitt was able to announce in Baghdad that criminal charges had been brought against six soldiers in the probe.

By the end of January, meanwhile, Major General Antonio Taguba was appointed to conduct his separate "administrative" probe of procedures at Abu Ghraib. It is his report, complete with its incriminating photos, that is the basis for the past week's news reports. The press didn't break this story based on months of sleuthing but was served up the results of the Army's own investigation.

By February, the Secretary of the Army had ordered the service's inspector general to assess the doctrine and training for detention operations within all of CentCom. A month after that, another probe began into Army Reserve training, especially military police and intelligence. Those reports will presumably also be leaked and reported on, or at least they will be if they reach negative conclusions.

This is a cover-up? Unlike the Catholic bishops, some corporate boards and the editors of the New York Times or USA Today, the military brass did not dismiss early allegations of bad behavior. Instead, it established reviews and procedures that have uncovered the very details that are now used by critics to indict the Pentagon "system." It has done so, moreover, amid a war against a deadly insurgency in which interrogation to gain good intelligence is critical to victory--and to saving American lives.

None of this is to dismiss or rationalize the abuse reports. Accountability has to run beyond the soldiers immediately responsible and up the Army and intelligence chains of command. The Abu Ghraib procedures were clearly inadequate to a situation in which interrogators were given so much control over the fates of individual prisoners. Especially in a war on terror that will be long and require effective interrogation, this is unacceptable.

Reprimands have already been issued and careers ended, but courts martial can't be ruled out. President Bush's explanation to Arab media yesterday may help our public image, especially given that their own governments rarely admit mistakes. But the best way to impress Iraqis about U.S. purposes is to show that Americans guilty of abuse are being punished, and with more than letters of reprimand.

To start impugning the entire Army and Pentagon, however, is both wrong and dangerous. The majority of American soldiers are professional, disciplined and are risking their lives to win a war. (Note to those who want to revive the draft: If this could happen in today's highly trained volunteer force, imagine the risks in Senator Chuck Hagel's Army of conscripts.)

Another bizarre notion is that Abu Ghraib happened because the Pentagon decided to hold "enemy combatants" under other than "prisoner of war" status. Those detainees are still given Geneva Convention treatment, as well as visits by the Red Cross. The Pentagon has avoided formal Geneva Convention status because it doesn't want al Qaeda and Taliban prisoners to be able to hide behind "name, rank and serial number." As terrorists who attacked civilians and didn't wear a uniform, they also don't deserve the privileges of real soldiers. In any case, the soldiers who posed in those Abu Ghraib photos were clearly too thick to know any of this.

The military has its faults and bad actors, but over the decades it has shown itself to be one of America's most accountable institutions. The Abu Ghraib episode is another test of its fortitude. But the political class would do well to heed Democratic Senator Joe Lieberman, who said yesterday that "this immoral behavior in no way eliminates the justice of our cause in Iraq."
http://www.opinionjournal.com/editor...l?id=110005044

[sfc_darrel]

I find that I cannot shake a memory of something I read years ago in one of Shirley MacLaine's memoirs. The work of Ms. MacLaine might seem an odd thing to reference here, but bear with me. I write from memory.

She was a young movie star. It was the 1950s. She had appeared in a film that was at least implicitly critical of the United States. She came under fire from some critics: Why can't you people in Hollywood be more positive? Your work encourages anti-American propaganda. She didn't think this was true, but she wasn't exactly a world-class thinker so it didn't matter. What did matter is what she threw away at the end of her story. She went to an international film festival and talked with an anti-American intellectual. He told her something like, "The first time I ever thought maybe your country was something special was when I saw your movie and saw how critical Hollywood is allowed to be. You must really have some kind of freedom."

When I read this I believed it, and still do. You do reveal something about yourself by telling uncomfortable truths. You reveal good faith. You reveal that you're trying to get it right. This is not so terrible. It is something the dim might miss, but the intelligent are likely to get. And God bless this earth, there are a lot of intelligent people.

The president said of the U.S. on Arab TV that "we have nothing to hide." He no doubt meant there are things that we would wish to hide, but that we refuse to.

http://www.opinionjournal.com/column.../?id=110005043

[Boats]

SFC Darrel,

Your quote: You do reveal something about yourself by telling uncomfortable truths. You reveal good faith.

I believe this too - but its very uncomfortable to have to deal with such things.

[Seascamp]

As a general situation, I don?t know that the POWs we rounded up had much of interest to speak of or not. Mostly they were contraband runners and/or pirates for sale to the highest bidder. The most they could talk about was the embarkation point and destination. The contraband spoke for itself, as there weren?t all that many places they could get a cargo of brand new Czechs made weapons/ ammo, and other assorted East Block bullets, beans and band-aids. But once in a while a treasure trove like 20 odd cases of JD with US Military Commissary notation on the carton was repatriated, sans our ?finders fee? of course.
The PAVN in Eastern I Corps were a sorry looking mob and I almost felt sorry for them, almost. Duty at the way east end of the HCM trail supply line was mega Spartan evidently and by the looks of the general health situation, clothing, footwear, weapons, ammo, grub and condition of wounds, etc., those guys wouldn?t have had a lot to say about much except ?WTF am I doing here? kind of thing. I have no clue if intel got anything useful out of them or no, probably not would be my guess. By the looks of those PAVN dudes, they were likely the least desirable cannon fodder in the Red inventory and didn?t have return orders coming or even considered.

Scamp

[39mto39g]

I think I would be looking into the motives of whoever took and released the pictures.
This person had to know what they were doing. So the motive would be important. Either He/she was very stupid or had a plan. After all, one of our Army guys through a gernade into a tent of his fellow Army guys in the name of Alla or somebody. So it wouldn't be to far feched to think this was staged. But then the investigations should reviel.

Ron

[SparrowHawk62]

I feel we here (at P.F.) have blended the issue of interrogation and housing prisoners.
Interrogations are done to get results, answers. I don't care what the interrogators do to some rag head, sand hopping P.O.S.
There are special people to do this kind of work be it CIA, CID, Special operations, who ever. Interrogations on a grand scale are not normally done by "normal" grunts.
The conduct displayed by the "Jailers" (for lack of a better term and this is a derogatory term!) was uncalled for. How do you think our people will now be treated if taken P.O.W.? If they live long enough to be taken! House them, feed them, provide showers. Soft hearted, liberal, democratic? No way! Let me explain this from a professional stand point. Being an Ex Sworn Deputy Sheriff/Correction Officer, let me give you my side of the coin. I've heard all the tough guy B.S., why give them this and that? Food= It's a basic, it prevents death and disease. Sick prisoners require more man power, and medical resource's! You have to house prisoners, basic shelter should be provided. Yes, cells work best, as compared to a fenced compound. Showers to cut down on the stench of having numerous bodies confined to one area. (Ever been in a room with some one who hasn't showered for a while? multiply that times the number of prisoners you have!) Most things given to prisoners are to make the lives of the people watching them easier. People that are mistreated tend to act out, get enough of them to do it and you have a riot.
Sorry, but these A/H's were-are wrong and should be made to answer for their actions. The well it was done to us stories, don't make the situation different. The United States sets the standard, we don't bow down to the worthless ways of others.

[sfc_darrel]

Latest rumor is the commander took the pictures.

Data available on the guards...
Reporting from Cumberland, Md., the New York Times profiles some of the soldiers implicated in abuse of Iraqi prisoners at Abu Ghraib, and to be honest, they sound like a bunch of losers:

Specialist Charles A. Graner Jr. is a guard at one of Pennsylvania's most heavily secured death row prisons, accused by his former wife of violent behavior.

Pfc. Lynndie R. England was married and divorced before she was 21, worked at a chicken-processing plant in West Virginia and wanted to attend college to become a storm-chasing meteorologist.

And Staff Sgt. Ivan Frederick, another prison guard, planned to quit the Army Reserve this year to spend more time fishing near his rural home in central Virginia. But he did not get out soon enough. . . .

Specialist Graner, who wears a Marine Corps eagle tattoo on his right arm, served in the corps from April 1988 until May 1996, when he left with the rank of corporal, according to military records. He went to work immediately at the State Correctional Institution Greene, in southwestern Pennsylvania, where he has held an entry-level corrections officer position ever since.

Two years after he arrived at Greene, the prison was at the center of an abuse scandal. Prison officials declined to say whether Specialist Graner had been disciplined in that case, citing privacy laws.

Inmates and advocates for prisoner rights asserted in 1998 that guards at the prison routinely beat and humiliated prisoners, including through a sadistic game of Simon Says in which guards struck prisoners who failed to comply with barked instructions.

After an investigation, the warden was transferred, two lieutenants were fired and about two dozen guards were reprimanded, demoted or suspended.

Specialist Graner was involved in a bitter divorce. In court papers, his wife, Staci, accused him of beating her, threatening her with guns, stalking her after they separated in 1997 and breaking into her home. Since 1997, local judges have issued at least three orders of protection against him, records show.

[39mto39g]

The cell block in Iraq that we are talking about is off limits to everyone except MI personnel, even the Gen in charge couldn't go in that area, So she says, Thats why I would question the motive of who released the pictures. Prisoners, in general, most always clame they are abused, The prisoners that are shown in the pictures aren't being hurt, they are being humiliated, for a reason, This is a small part of the prison that SPECIAL prisoners go to, MI directs the interigation which could include some womens panties, I could care less if they are piled up naked, I don't want to see pictures, I just want information. the rest of the prison world is treated differently.
The release of pictures is what I would like to know the motive of.

We took prisoners ( not my idea) but the bets VC is the ones laying in front of the prisoners.

Ron

[Desdichado]

The shame and revulsion I feel beggars description. That so many would attempt to justify it is more disturbing still. Are we Americans, or a race of sadistic sexual predators?

I don't give a pinch of coon shit what other countries do. That shit is just wrong on every level, and everyone knows it.

[skeeter]

This excerpt from the Birds Of A Feather forum!

"Testimony from a soldier suggests that as one of the prisoners was forced to masturate in front of a friend", PFC Lynn England age 21, shouted: "He's getting hard." Friends in her home town describe Ms England as independent-minded, somone "not afraid to break a nail", but her mother insisted her daughter was not trained as a guard. "She didn't guard them, she booked them. She just happened to be there when they took the photographs." At the time when the prisoners were being abused, at the end of last year, the people of Fort Ashly and the surrounding area were starting to think of Ms England and her colleagues as heroes. Knowing they were helping provide security at the prison made notorious by Saddam Hussein. Friends post pictures of them in a local courthouse and in the Wal-Mart supermarket.

But Mrs England said her daughter telephoned from Baghdad in January with the news that would shatter that pride. She said the US Army had launched an investigation into the alleged abuse at the prison. "I just want you to know there might be some trouble," she told her mother.

PFC England has not be charged with any offence but she has been detained at the huge military base at Fort Bragg, North Carolina, for several months.

Her mother said she has lost 25 lbs and has been sick, spending most of the time sleeping. She had been on the phone to her daughter one day last week while the television news was on. "You're on every channel," she told her daughter. "There you are and there's a naked Iragi and there's you with your thumb up."

She said her daughter told her: "Mom, I was in the wrong place at the wrong time." PFC England's family will not comment on her pregnancy or her relationship with Charles Graner, a former prison guard from Uniontown, Pennsylvania, one of the six soldiers from the regiment facing court-martial.

There were also excerpt on Charles Graner, which SFC darrel has listed above.