President Bush and those around him lied, and the rest of us let them. Harsh? Yes. True? Also yes. Perhaps it happened because Americans, understandably, don’t expect untruths from those in power. But that works better as an explanation than as an excuse.
AP gets the latest documents released to the ACLU. These may be the most damaging proof yet that we are being lied to about what is happening to these prisoners in our name. This is coming from actual US government transcripts of the “military tribunals” at Guantanamo. The prisoners are asking the presiding Tribunal officers for help and escape from their torture and the false confessions they elicited.
A 24-year-old detainee said he confessed to giving a militant group the names and serial numbers of security personnel assigned to Afghanistan’s President Hamid Karzai but “I said this under torture.” He described how an American interrogator “threatened me with a gun to my mouth, to try to make me say something.”
The tribunal president asked him about the alleged torture, established it was purportedly carried out at a U.S. facility in Kabul by an American, then moved on to other questions.
Another Muslim prisoner from Uzbekistan talked of abuse he had suffered and how he was given a Bible - not a Quran.
The testimonies also brought up allegations that interrogators - hastily recruited after the Sept. 11 terror attacks - may have manipulated the confessions.
“When I was in the Kandahar prison, the interrogator hit my arm and told me I received training in mortars,” a man said, referring to the U.S. detention camp in western Afghanistan where the Taliban rose to power.
“As he was hitting me, I kept telling him, no I didn’t receive training. I was crying and finally I told him I did receive the training. My hands were tied behind my back and my knees were on the ground and my head was bleeding. I was in a lot of pain. … At that point, with all my suffering, if he had asked me if I was Osama bin Laden, I would have said yes.
“What is my crime? Because of the United States, my hand is handicapped. I can’t work.”
If this weren’t so horribly deadly, I’d compare it to the Keystone Kops. It’s obvious that these “Iraqi forces” were thrown into their “offensive” for reasons of US domestic propaganda; they are untrained, not ready, and getting bushwhacked everywhere they go. If you read the body count claims made by the Pentagon, these forces are getting killed a 3 to 1 rate compared to the enemy. This is called an “offensive?”
Update: BBC reports the top Iraqi political leader and his sons had hoods placed over their heads by US troops - Rumsfeld claimed he officially banned this practice a year ago. Story here by the AFP.
A reminder of something that happens every day, that we aren’t allowed to see.
Times of London. But their idiotic plan did not work, because Saddam had no WMD. This is more proof that they knew there were no WMD in the first place, they pushed Saddam and never got a response. That is a very strong clue. John Conyers has responded to this news with a letter to Rumsfeld.
Daily winning the hearts and minds of Iraqis with these great tactics.
Mazin Farouq, a 35-year-old photo lab technician, was held for six months. Farouq was shot by U.S. soldiers as he and two friends drove home to Baghdad one November night last year after a vacation trip to Syria. He said they did not see the checkpoint and fled in panic when they heard shots. Finding nothing, the soldiers immediately freed the two friends and took Farouq to nearby Abu Ghraib for treatment at its field hospital.
He said he received excellent medical care and expected to be released. Instead, he was placed in detention. Two months later, he was transferred to Bucca. After making numerous calls and visits to the ministries of interior and human rights, Farouq’s parents finally were told his case would be reviewed in early May. Farouq was released May 9.
In an interview, he said he believes his incarceration was a cover-up.
“They did not suspect me, but I think they made a mistake and all these procedures are to protect the soldier who committed this mistake,” he said.
And I think he is correct.
Unless the appeal courts intervene, the stonewalling is over.
With great sadness and respect we’d like to note that the son of a friend of one of our regular readers has been killed in Iraq. As I went through the chilling daily ritual of updating the title of this blog, I had no idea that one of the faceless numbers I was adding was a friend of our readers. Our heart goes out to everyone affected by this tragedy. In just a few weeks his new bride will be forced out of base housing and given a very small death payment by the Army.