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Now we have sufficient sources to prove that the systematic
torture and humiliation of prisoners in the tender mercies
of the Americans and British in Iraq was not simply
ignored; heads were not turned away, the Administration
was not un- or under-informed. It was all done purposely
despite the spin-doctoring and damage control we’re
being given instead of the truth. For example, take
a look at this:
“Top
brass 'picked man who ordered torture'
By William Lowther in London
May 10, 2004
THE torture
tactics used to "soften up" Iraqi detainees
at Baghdad's Abu
Ghraib jail began under orders from the highest level
of the US defence
administration, it was claimed yesterday.
The creation
of torture units was the consequence of orders by the
Defence
Department — headed by Secretary Donald Rumsfeld
— to prise information out
of prisoners.
Last August,
the Department ordered General Geoffrey Miller —
then in charge
at Camp X-Ray in Guantanamo Bay — to go to Iraq
to find ways to improve the
flow of intelligence from detainees, an investigation
by Britain's Mail on
Sunday newspaper has found.
The
general recommended creating a single central interrogation
unit at Abu
Ghraib. It was in this unit where the degradation of
Iraqi prisoners — now
graphically exposed by more than 1000 photographs —
took place.”¹
Most people I have spoken to or heard from, and many
quoted in the popular press, think that we’ve
seen the only perpetrators of what appears to have been
largely “mild” maltreatment.
An alternative, common view of the man on the street
is, ‘so what, we do whatever we have to do to
these terrorists.’
The fact that the Pentagon has already admitted that
90 percent of the Iraqi detainees were innocent of any
wrong-doing does not dent these beliefs. They think
that one is anti-American even to suggest that this
goes far beyond a handful of stressed-out, undereducated,
young military personnel. Under the 1949 Geneva Conventions
collective punishments are a war crime. Article 33 states:
"No protected person may be punished for an offense
he or she has not personally committed," and "collective
penalties and likewise all measures of intimidation
or of terrorism are prohibited."²
An elementary understanding of Muslim beliefs and culture
should tell anyone who is paying attention that sexual
humiliation of naked Muslim males by fully-clothed American
females would be extremely disturbing and odious to
them. One has but to look at how strict Muslims treat
their women to know this.
And worse things than that have been done in our name
to the Iraqis we imprisoned. At least 20 prisoners in
Iraq have died in prison, with one killed trying to
escape, and two apparently murdered in the prison. As
to the rest, we may never know what killed them.
And there is no doubt that even if electro-shock was
not used on the man in the black robe and head covering
in the photographs first shown by CBS News; he was terrified…he
was told that if he stepped off the box he would be
electrocuted, and he could not see that the electrodes
were not attached to electricity.
Prison guards, acting on orders from above, carried
out the sexual sadism, homosexual rape, and multiple
abuses which have shamed the US in the eyes of the world
— and those of us here who realize that the Iraqis
are human beings; and there is still worse to be revealed,
that the Bush administration, Republican congress and
Pentagon do not want us to know see.
Unreleased images from Baghdad are reported to show:
American soldiers beating an Iraqi to a bloody heap;
a male soldier having sex with a female Iraqi inmate;
soldiers acting inappropriately with a dead body; and
a video allegedly showing Iraqi guards raping young
boys.
Secretary Rumsfeld has apologised for the abuses at
Abu Ghraib "on my watch" but
has taken no responsibility for having incited the process.”³
Can you say, “cover-up?” Can you say, “George
W. Bush and Donald Rumsfeld generally smile or smirk
when they’re lying?” Ronald Reagan, at least,
was a slightly more believable liar, perhaps because
he’d been a Hollywood and television personality
for most of his working life. He apparently had better
writers, as well. Other Presidents have taken the time
and effort at least to tell believable lies to the American
public.
These actions would have gotten any recent Democratic
Administration investigated by an independent counsel
and at least impeached, if not imprisoned, by a Congress
largely composed of Republicans.
James Carville’s new book is entitled “Had
Enough? A Handbook for Fighting Back”. Well, I
and many other people I know have definitely had enough,
to the point where we are going to vote for John Kerry
whether we like him or not, just to get the Republicans
out of the White House.
¹ www.news.com.au
² From Wikipedia, the free online
encyclopedia
³ www.news.com.au
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