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Wednesday, June 09, 2004 |
Terrance Chea of the AP reported the disturbing allegations from Sgt. Greg Ford:
A California National Guardsman says three fellow soldiers brazenly abused detainees during interrogation sessions in an Iraqi police station, threatening them with guns, sticking lit cigarettes in their ears and choking them until they collapsed.
Sgt. Greg Ford said he repeatedly had to revive prisoners who had passed out, and once saw a soldier stand on the back of a handcuffed detainee's neck and pull his arms until they popped out of their sockets.
"I had to intervene because they couldn't keep their hands off of them," said Ford, part of a four-member team from the 223rd Military Intelligence Battalion that questioned detainees last year in Samarra, north of Baghdad.
Ford's commanding officers deny any abuse occurred, and say investigations within their battalion and by the Army's Criminal Investigation Division determined they had done nothing wrong. ...
Ford told The Associated Press that when he reported the problems last June to his commanding officers, they pressured him to drop his claims.
"Immediately, within the same conversation, the command said, `Nope, you're delusional, you're crazy, it never happened.' They gave me 30 seconds to withdraw my request for an investigation," Ford said. "I stood my ground."
When he insisted on an official investigation, they ordered him to see combat stress counselors, who sent him out of Iraq, he said....
So Ford asked to be relieved from his position, prompting a visit by his commander, Capt. Vic Artiga, and Lt. Col. Ryan, who "were too busy threatening me to do any proper investigation," Ford said.
9:58:45 PM  | |
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Last summer, I compared the Bush's obfuscations and secrecy to the hidden body of Polonius. In my reference, I explained that Hamlet had just killed and hidden Polonius. The King and his guards were frantically attempting to find him. When confronted about Polonius' death and the location of the body, Hamlet explained that if they could not immediately find him, they'd be able to smell him at the end of a couple of weeks.
Summer is fast upon us and the heat of current affairs in Iraq and at home are finally allowing the American public to smell the deeds of this foul president. Right now, even as America bids farewell to Ronald Reagan, the likes of which we have not seen in thirty or more years, the attention is off of the most serious of investigations of this presidency-- the investigations brought about by the evidence of torture at Abu Ghraib. What was exclaimed to be the doings of a "few bad apples" is turning out to be a systematic method of interogation in Guantanamo, Afghanistan, and Iraq. More damning though is the recent revelation that attorneys (Walker Working Group) working under the guidance of Bush made a legal justification for torture as a method of interogation. And Ashcroft is refusing to release the all of the torture memo.
What are the implications of this memo's release?
The New York Times, in their feature editorial "The Roots of Abu Ghraib" explained that Congress may have to form an investigation panel with subpoena powers to find the answers.
The Washington Post, in their feature editorial Legalizing Torture, explains that Bush's policies threaten US and international law and open the door for dictators to torture and kill detainees. Consider these incredible paragraphs:
This week, thanks again to an independent press, we have begun to learn the deeply disturbing truth about the legal opinions that the Pentagon and the Justice Department seek to keep secret. According to copies leaked to several newspapers, they lay out a shocking and immoral set of justifications for torture. In a paper prepared last year under the direction of the Defense Department's chief counsel, and first disclosed by the Wall Street Journal, the president of the United States was declared empowered to disregard U.S. and international law and order the torture of foreign prisoners. Moreover, interrogators following the president's orders were declared immune from punishment. Torture itself was narrowly redefined, so that techniques that inflict pain and mental suffering could be deemed legal. All this was done as a prelude to the designation of 24 interrogation methods for foreign prisoners -- the same techniques, now in use, that President Bush says are humane but refuses to disclose.
There is no justification, legal or moral, for the judgments made by Mr. Bush's political appointees at the Justice and Defense departments. Theirs is the logic of criminal regimes, of dictatorships around the world that sanction torture on grounds of "national security." For decades the U.S. government has waged diplomatic campaigns against such outlaw governments -- from the military juntas in Argentina and Chile to the current autocracies in Islamic countries such as Algeria and Uzbekistan -- that claim torture is justified when used to combat terrorism. The news that serving U.S. officials have officially endorsed principles once advanced by Augusto Pinochet brings shame on American democracy -- even if it is true, as the administration maintains, that its theories have not been put into practice. Even on paper, the administration's reasoning will provide a ready excuse for dictators, especially those allied with the Bush administration, to go on torturing and killing detainees.
Perhaps the president's lawyers have no interest in the global impact of their policies -- but they should be concerned about the treatment of American servicemen and civilians in foreign countries. Before the Bush administration took office, the Army's interrogation procedures -- which were unclassified -- established this simple and sensible test: No technique should be used that, if used by an enemy on an American, would be regarded as a violation of U.S. or international law. Now, imagine that a hostile government were to force an American to take drugs or endure severe mental stress that fell just short of producing irreversible damage; or pain a little milder than that of "organ failure, impairment of bodily function, or even death." What if the foreign interrogator of an American "knows that severe pain will result from his actions" but proceeds because causing such pain is not his main objective? What if a foreign leader were to decide that the torture of an American was needed to protect his country's security? Would Americans regard that as legal, or morally acceptable? According to the Bush administration, they should.
And in Michael Froomkin's (Discourse Net) commentary on the Torture Memo, prepared by the Walker Working Group, he unequivocally states:
If anyone in the higher levels of government acted in reliance on this advice, those persons should be impeached. If they authorized torture, it may be that they have committed, and should be tried for, war crimes. And, as we learned at Nuremberg, "I was just following orders" is NOT (and should not be) a defense.
9:52:28 PM | |
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My friend, Shawn, shared with me a letter he wrote to the arrogant and contemptuous Ashcroft today. I say ditto!
Dear Mr. Ashcroft:
Though I've lowered my expectations of your office manifold over the course
of your tenure, I still find it behooves me to write and chastise you for
your hypocrisy and lack of ethics in stonewalling congress. On which count,
you ask? Good point. After all, you've done so on numerous occasions and
subjects. The one to which I refer is your refusal to release the memo
containing legal counsel/rationale for torturing prisoners deemed of high
value in the war on terror.
What more can be said than, "Shame on you!" Will the pathetic partisanship
and cover ups of blatant administration fallibility--evident to every
perceptive citizen with even an average IQ--ever stop? Never mind. I have
little hope you will see the depravity of your hypocritical views and your
unethical loyalty to an administration complicit in incredible damage to
America and its interests.
Yet I have no fear. Though the Bush/Cheney reelection campaign has proven
quite adept about misinforming the public and covering up gross failures and
lapses of judgement, even they cannot stem the tide gathering to sweep you
and the rest of your viral cabal out of office this November.
8:09:23 PM | |
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From the Center of American Progress daily report, news out of the Los Angeles Times explains that the annual report on global terrorism was inaccurate. :
"The State Department is scrambling to revise its annual report on global terrorism to acknowledge that it understated the number of deadly attacks in 2003." The document was criticized as "inaccurate and...politically manipulated by the Bush administration." When the report was released it April, "senior Bush administration officials immediately hailed it as objective proof that they were winning the waron terrorism." Now State Department officials acknowledge "they underreported the number of terrorist attacks in the tally for 2003." The revised figures are expected to reveal that in 2003 terrorist attacks rose to the "highest level in 20 years."
You know, there comes a time when you wonder why anyone in their right mind believes anything this administration says. They have not been right about their tax cuts; they were not right on the weapons of mass destruction in Iraq; they were not accurate in the Niger uranium claim; they were not right about the war in Iraq decreasing terrorist activity; they were not right about their relationship with Ahmad Chalabi; and they were not right about the Iraqi people welcoming us with open arms. On top of this, it is coming to light that they were lying about Bush's foreknowledge of torture being used against detainees.
I read today in the Salt Lake Tribune that there is going to be a new reality tv show in which contestants will be running against eachother to be the next People's Choice Candidate for President. No matter how you look at this idea, it is a sad commentary on America and the perception of what it takes to be president. Whoever conjured up this TV idea must have realized that if Bush can do it, than any reality tv show candidate is competent enough to do the job.
7:45:20 PM | |
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