Torture and Murder are Whitewashed by the US Army

This appears to be the conclusion of the ACLU, which has through a Freedom of Information Act lawsuit obtained some very disturbing documents detailing hundreds of allegations of abuse and torture committed by U.S. soldiers in Iraq and Afghanistan.

Here is the ACLU press release.

And there are ugly details below the fold...

The ACLU FOIA documents are mentioned in this MSNBC article, which describes an incident in Afghanistan in which Special Forces soldiers allegedly lured an Afghan civilian into an ambush in order to execute him.

Army: Soldiers shouldn't be charged

Soldiers who arrived at the scene later said Sayari's wounds looked as if he had been shot in his back and the back of his head. Sayari was clutching prayer beads in his right hand, which, according to an interpreter at the U.S. base nearby, was a peaceful gesture, not one made by someone intending violence.

We should note that other soldiers brought this incident to the attention of investigators:

One troubled sergeant, with an intelligence unit at Lwara, who was summoned to the scene, feared retribution from the Special Forces for reporting the incident to criminal investigators.

The sergeant said the soldiers' accounts did not add up. In addition, the Special Forces captain ordered the sergeant to delete some of the images he took of the scene with his camera.

Asked by an investigator why the Special Forces soldiers would have killed Sayari, the sergeant said: "How do you say just for the fun of it? I think that members of the team felt that Afghan life was less than human."

This sergeant recognizes that these racist attitudes do not belong in the U.S. military. But when the officers and others in higher chain of command do not back him up, he is one tiny voice speaking against a widespread, institutionalized tolerance of these attitudes. I once thought that these racist attitudes and abuses were not condoned by the military culture; now I am not so sure.

These types of incidents are abuses that should be condemned in the harshest way by the U.S. Army. And many of these incidents were brought to light only due to the actions of whistleblowers, i.e. other soldiers who witness these acts and do the honorable thing by reporting them to the chain of command for investigation. But too often, soldiers who try to do the right thing and report these atrocities are ignored.

A U.S. soldier filed a sworn statement that he "saw what I think were war crimes" and that his "chain of command did nothing to stop these war crimes, and allowed them to happen." The soldier reported physical assaults by U.S. troops on detainees held at Camp Red in Baghdad and the use of prolonged hooding, exposure to elements and excessive restraints. Though the soldier witnessed the abuse, the investigation was closed due to "insufficient evidence."

How do we expect soldiers to risk retaliation by coming forward to expose the abusers if their charges are not investigated by the Army chain of command?

Here are two of the dozens of incidents described in the DOD documents, which the ACLU has now posted on their website. I recommend you read through them if your stomach can take it.

http://www.aclu.org/torturefoia/released/012405.html

--An investigation into an allegation that a 73-year-old Iraqi woman was assaulted and sodomized with a stick, and that dogs were made to attack another female detainee in the same room.

--An investigation into abuse of juvenile detainees by members of the 1st Armored Division. The juveniles were allegedly beaten while in flex-cuffs with sandbags placed over their heads. These same soldiers were accused of stealing money from detainees to buy booze and food for their unit. Punishments for some of these soldiers included discharges, reduction in ranks and fines with reprimands. Charges were dismissed against others.

To me, the most troubling aspect of this story is the ACLU's conclusion that the U.S. Army has failed to conduct proper investigations into these allegations and that the soldiers involved in these incidents were rarely punished beyond written reprimands. This is simply inexcusable.

These horrific incidents must be treated as potential war crimes. The failure to take these charges seriously and to punish those responsible for abuse tarnishes the image of the U.S. military as professionals and undermines the ability of the United States to act as a leader in the world on issues of human rights.