On a couple of occasions, I entered interview rooms to find a detainee chained hand a foot in a fetal position to the floor, with no chair, food, or water. Most times they had urinated or defecated on themselves and had been left there for 18 24 hours or more. On one occasion, the air conditioning had been turned down so far and the temperature was so cold in the room, that the barefooted detainee was shaking with cold. . . . On another occasion, the A/C had been turned off, making the temperature in the unventilated room probably well over 100 degrees. The detainee was almost unconscious on the floor with a pile of hair next to him. He had apparently been literally pulling his own hair out throughout the night.
Sensitive but Unclassified FBI Memo Apr 2, 2004
italics and bold added by the diarist
More details into what is not considered torture below the fold, if you can stomach it.
The fact that the people who cry fascist defend torture should be the worst insult to the intellect imaginable.
Until you see how they have truly insulted human decency.
The moral majority lost all their claims on morality the moment they defended torture.
Hypocrisy, thy name is Conservative.
Key phrases here.
- On a couple of occasions
- Most times they had urinated or defecated on themselves and had been left there for 18 / 24 hours or more.
Not just once, but on a couple of occasions. This is not an isolated incident, This is the systematic implementation of a torture program ran by the USA. This is an undeniable fact.
Let's not just focus on water torture. One technique is not the issue here. The issue is the fact that the USA, under the Bush/Cheney Administration, permitted and encouraged this to happen. What happened was torture, and were war crimes.
The Bush/Cheney Administration did not consider that torture, or this
DOD Contract Linguist stated that he was involved in at least two questionable interrogation techniques while on duty in Iraq. An unidentified interrogator choked a detainee with a rope noose, lifting the detainee up slowly until the detainee stated he would talk if let down. The interrogator then lowered the detainee to the ground, whereupon the detainee gave a confession. An "AFOSI Agent (NFI)" placed a gun to the temple of a detainee until he confessed.
DoD CITF memo May 2004
bold added by diarist
A DoD Contractor is allowed to torture people? My tax dollars went to pay no-bid contracts to outsource for mercenaries to torture? Where is the outcry on that? Is this Fiscally-Conservative?
The Bush/Cheney Administration and the Republican party didn't think that was wrong, or this
On Nov. 14, 2003, soldier provided a sworn statement saying that while he was deployed to Iraq, he "saw what I think were war crimes.... In my mind, my chain of command did nothing to stop these war crimes, and allowed them to happen."� The soldier stated that at Camp Red, Baghdad, he had seen Iraqi detainees "with sand bags on their heads, standing on a brick with their hands behind their head, and concertina wire all around them. If they got off the brick they were manhandled. A lot of pictures were taken at the time .... Many show the mistreatment or crimes against the people that were caught at Camp Red. ... [Detainees] were put out in the open pavement where they would be made to sit for 6 to 12 hours at a time in the heat and sun. Their hands would be tied behind their backs, sometimes turning their hands purple. We were told by our [NCO] not to give them food or water...." The soldier said he had seen detainees being pushed and kicked by U.S. troops "every day [he] went down there." The soldier was also told that a Bradley fighting vehicle was sometimes backed up towards detainees who had been put on the ground in order to "spook" the detainees. Three soldiers and an officer from B Co., 3rd Batallion, 7th Inf. Rgt., which was in charge of Camp Red (apparently a former nuclear research facility), acknowledged that detainees were hooded and restrained at times, but denied mistreating them. Investigation closed for "insufficient evidence to prove or disprove" the allegations.
US Army CIC Dec 2003
bold text added by diarist
The words "insufficient evidence" come up a lot in the ACLU's requested FOIA archives. Nearly all the cases of abuse were dropped for reasons such as "insufficient evidence". Even if that evidence is a US soldier who states
On Nov. 14, 2003, soldier provided a sworn statement saying that while he was deployed to Iraq, he "saw what I think were war crimes.... In my mind, my chain of command did nothing to stop these war crimes, and allowed them to happen."<</p>
Insufficient evidence? Well, by Bush/Cheney's definition, that is not torture, and neither is this.
Investigation into allegation by detainee that he was tortured at a U.S. facility in Mosul. Detainee indicated that after being arrested but before arriving at the facility, his captors -- American men in civilian clothes -- bent his thumb backwards, kicked him, and hit him with the butt of a weapon in the back of the neck. At the facility, which was very cold, he was stripped; allowed only two limited periods of sleep in seven days, and prevented from sleeping by being subjected to loud recordings and being doused with cold water; given only eight biscuits to eat in seven days; assaulted by a translator; and pressed on his joints by U.S. personnel in a manner causing severe pain and temporary paralysis. After his head was hit against a wall, causing him to bleed from his nose and mouth, and causing permanent loss of balance, he was taken to a hospital. However, he was later retreived by the same team of captors and "I had the same ways of previous torturing, as well as pouring hot liquid on my back, and sitting me close to fire, which resulted in burning a part of my right leg, and they put a very hot lamp on my thigh for a very short time. At the end they threatened me that they would bring my wife and my mother and that they would rape them if I did not confess. When I asked them to bring a paper and write whatever they want, I would sign it without any objection." Detainee displayed healed burn scars on knees and "unusual scars" on feet, and an interviewer noticed that he "walked with a wobble". Investigation revealed that the detainee had been arrested and initially detained by Navy SEALs from Naval Special Warfare Squadron 7. Notations in the investigative file indicate that a medical screening record generated on the day of capture showed several abrasions and bruising consistent with a "rough capture" and that a medical record generated thirteen days later showed second degree burns and singed tissue "after being interrogated the evening prior." Moreover, the Army NCO who initially processed the detainee on his arrival at the Mosul facility noted that the detainee "was scared, crying, and upset," and that when he made a hand gesture that the detainee interpreted as indicating that he would be sent back to the SEAL team, the detainee said "I am not going back with them, you might as well kill me now." The NCO said that he suspected that the SEALs may have abused the detainee. The SEALs denied abusing the detainee, stating that he threw himself on rocks and rubbed himself against walls, and faked illness. A 15-6 investigation concluded that there was no wrongdoing by any of the persons involved in the apprehension and subsequent detention and (inconsistent with other reports in the file) indicated that the alleged burns were not consistent with thermal burns. CID similarly concluded that the "[i]nvestigation did not develop sufficient evidence to prove or disprove the allegations made by Mr. [REDACTED]."
US Army CIC July 2004
bold text added by diarist
Threatening to rape someone's wife and mother is not torture according to the Republican party during the Bush/Cheney administration, it is just an "enhanced interrogation method".
This is insanity.
These are only four examples of torture out of hundreds and hundreds. Most of the complaints placed by soldiers who objected to torture were ignored or labeled as "lacking sufficient evidence".
The issue is not how we tortured or why, the issue is that we tortured people . What techniques we used are a secondary issue compared to the fact that these techniques were used in the first place. Techniques which are unconstitutional and illegal in the eyes of the USA and the civilized world.
The party of "personal responsibility" MUST be held responsible for their actions. We have to fully investigate these matters to get at the truth, which is that we tortured people under the Bush/Cheney Administration, and then we have to prosecute those people who are found to be personally responsible.
If we fail to do so, history is certain to repeat itself.
Can we risk having a Condi or a Cheney in a position of power again under the next Republican Presidency?
Can the world?
People from the Bush/Cheney Administration need to go to jail, one with all of the protections of the Constitution and the UN.
That is what civilized justice looks like, and what is should and must be if we are to continue as a civilized society based on the equal rule of law.