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Madinat al-Muslimeen Islamic Message Board
| *Torture's Chain Of Command* |
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| thezman |
| 06/17/05 at 20:01:57 |
| Bismillah [slm] 'Bush & Rumsfeld's Crime In Tortures Chain Of Command.' (Steve Weissman). Friday 27 August 2004. How much Torture will it take before someone in power asks the right question: 'Who gave the Orders that put the Torturers to Work?' Forget, for a moment, the failure of leadership, prison over crowding, and personal sadism and brutality that led to much of what we saw in all those dirty pictures from Abu Ghraib. Put aside even more horrific tales of forced s-e-x involving women, children, and dogs, both in Iraq and Afghanistan. Focus, if you can, on how Torture started. Though you would never guess it from either Official Army Investigations or former Defense Secretary James B. Schlessinger's Blue-Ribbon Commission, America's Major Newspapers and Magazines-and several Writers-documented the answer. weeks and months ago-President George W. Bush gave the go-ahead in the days after 9-11, when he signed a series of Presidential Directives giving the CIA Authority to Kill or Capture Suspected Al-Qaeda leaders and make "Disappear" those who Survived into a Network of Secret Torture Centers around the World. Richard C. Clark, the President's Chief of Counter-Terrorism, summed up the White House mood. "I don't care what the International lawyers say," he quotes Bush, "we are going to kick some a-s-s." To be fair, CIA and Special Forces had used what he called "Stress & Duress" Torture Techniques at least as far back as the early days of the Vietnam War, as you can see in the CIA's KUBARK Counter-Intelligence Interrogation Manual (1963) and their Updated Human Resources Exploitation Training Manual (1983). He also signed off on Secret Justifications, accepting the argument made by White House Counsel Alberto R. Gonzalez, that the need to obtain information quickly to prevent terrorist attacks "Render Obsolete Geneva's Strict limitations on questioning enemy prisoners and Render Quaint some of it's provisions." Denying POW status to suspected Taliban and Al-Qaeda captives in Afghanistan and elsewhere, Mr. Bush sought to deprive them of the "Humane Treatment" the Geneva Convention requires. He also walked away from joining the International Criminal Court, fearing that american soldiers and political leaders might face prosecution for War Crimes. The President knew what he was doing. All the while, Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld delighted in the harsh treatment his soldiers were handing out. While the Schlessinger Commission faults him for sowing confusion about which interrogation techniques he would-and would not-permit, he publicly defended harsh interrogations, often with glee. He also defended the handling of captives at Guantanamo Bay, or Gitmo, where Major General Geoffrey Miller routinely subjected them to torture. Rumsfeld's protege Dr. Stephen A. Cambone, now Deputy Secretary of Defense for Intelligence, then sent Gen. Miller to Iraq to "Gitmoize" interrogations at Abu Ghraib and other american prisons. "At Gguantanamo Bay we learned that the prisoners have to earn every single thing they have," Miller said to Brig. General Janis Karpinski, as she recalled on BBC's Radio 4. "He said they are like Dogs and if you allow them to Believe at any point that they are more than a Dog then you've lost Control of them." The Schlesinger Commission, which Sec. Rumsfeld handpicked, acknowledged that the interrogation techniques he approved at Guantanamo "Migrated to Afghanistan and Iraq, where they were neither limited nor Safeguarded." But the four Commissioners-two former Defense Secretaries, a former Republican Congresswoman, and a Retired Air Force General- Refuse to Condemn the techniques or hold anybody responsible for ordering them. "The report talks about management failures when it should be talking about Policy failures," said Reed Brody, Special Counsel with Human Rights Watch. "The report seems to go out of it's way not to find any relationship between Sec. Rumsfeld's approval of interrogation techniques designed to inflict pain and humiliation and the widespread mistreatment and torture of detainees in Iraq, Afghanistan and Guantanamo." Schlesinger even warned of the "Chilling Effect" that Abu Ghraib's excesses might have on attempts to obtain better intelligence through interrogations. "One consequence of the publicity that has been associated with the activities at Abu Ghraib and the punishments that prospectively will be handed out is that it has had a chilling effect on interrogation operations," he said. "It is essential in the War on Terror that we have adequate intelligence and that we have effective interrogation." Significantly, the panel did not have "full access to information involving the role of the CIA in detention operations." Critics will see the panel as an effort to save Rumsfeld's Job, and Schlesinger has indeed warned that firing the Secretary, or asking him to resign, "would be a boon for all of America's Enemies." But the bigger goal is to save the System of Torture that America will Continue to use to gather the information it wants. "Abuses Performed at the Secret Torture Centers" Forced Confessions..Electrodes..Physical Assault..Mental Abuse..Intimidation/ Threats..Suppressing Religious Functions..Isolation..Deception..Involuntary Drugs.. Abrogation of Rights..Medical Services Denied..Insufficient Food.. "U.S. Bases & Interrogation Centers" Camp Whitehorse..Jalalabad..Packhorse..Kohat..US Base at Adhamiya..Palestine Street Base..Kabul..Al-Qaim..Sednaya..Camp Bucca..Gardez..Camp Iron Horse..Fire Base Tycze..Bagram Air Base..Ariana..Al Jafr..Diego Garcia..Sheberghan..USS Batan..USS Peleliu..Kandahar..Asad Abad..Camp Rhino..Camp Cropper..Abu Ghraib..Far' Falastin..Guantanamo..BIF..LSA Diamondback..Khazakstan..Uzbekistan..Jordan..Syria..Egypt..Algeria..Morocco.. "Testimonials" 1. BIF (Battlefield Interrogation Facilities)- "It's the scene of the most egregious violations of the Geneva Convention in all of Iraq's prison's. A place where the rules of interrogation don't apply. Run by Delta Force Counter Terrorism Commando's." (Cnn, 5/20/04). 2. LSA Diamondback- "An Iraqi POW is beaten while being interrogated by members of the Navy Seals at the LSA facility in Mosul, Iraq. He is later found dead in his sleep. The Death Report concluded that the man died from 'Blunt-Force Trauma to the Torso and Positional Asphyxia." (Denver Post, 5/18/04). 3. From the harshness and amount of abuse, many muslims attempted to commit Suicide: A former detainee, Hameed Abder Rahman Ahmed from Spain, Saw several prisoners try to hang themselves with their clothes. (The Guardian, 8/4/04). 4. Muhammad Naim Farooq personally witnessed two attempts, one involving an Afghan and the other an Iranian. "They tried to hang themselves with clothes. Both survived and were punished with solitary confinement, without clothes. I could not see for how long." (Amnesty International, 8/19/03). 5. One former detainee, interviewed by Human Rights Watch in Pakistan, said "He tried to Kill himself at Guantanamo Bay three times." (1/9/04). 6. Huda Al-Azzawi and her siblings are detained at Abu Ghraib. Numbered 156283 she is to spend a total of 197 days in prison, of which 156 days will be in solitary confinement. She will be interrogated thirty times. In the first weeks at Abu Ghraib, Al-Azzawi witnesses many instances of torture. "The guards use wild dogs. I saw one guard allow his dog to bite a 14-year old boy on the leg, the boy's name was Adil." "I saw other guards frequently beat the men, I could see the blood running from their noses." Possibly the worst she sees, are incidents of rape. "I saw men that had water bottles forced up their rear by soldiers." (Le Monde, 10/12/04). 7. "The uncertainty these detainees face as regards their legal status and their future does have a very adverse impact on their physical and mental well-being, alot of them are pushed to despair" said Red Cross Spokeswoman, Antonella Notaria. (The Guardian, 7/19/03). 8. Gita Gutierrez, a lawyer for one of the remaining British detainees at Guantanamo, says "I don't see how their sanity, much less their physical strength, will survive. It's bad there, they will be broken and will experience permanent mental and physical deterioration when they leave." (Independent, 12/12/04). "Quotes" 1. Secretary of State Colin Powell says in a Television Interview that he believes the U.S. treats the detainees at Guantanamo "In a very, very Humanitarian way." and he adds, "Because we are Americans, we don't abuse people in our care." (the Guardian, 3/13/04). 2. During the Invasion of Iraq to Topple Saddam's Regime: "The POW's I expect to be treated humanely, just like we're treating the prisoners that we have captured humanely. If not, the people who mistreat the prisoners will be treated as War Criminals." (President George W. Bush at a White House press conference-March 23, 2003). 3. Appearing on CBS's Face the Nation, U.S. Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld Said, "The footage of captured soldiers was a violation of the Geneva Convention." "A time comes when Silence is Betrayal. Even when pressed by the demands of inner truth, men do not easily assume the task of opposing their Government's policy, especially in a time of war. Nor does the human spirit move without great difficulty against all the apathy of conformist thought, within one's own bosom and in the surrounding world." (Martin Luther King Jr.). Fi Amanillah Ziad. |
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