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Related: Editorials & Other Articles, Issue Forums, Alliance Forums, Region ForumsHave you heard the screams of a prisoner who is being tortured in America’s war on terror?
Have you heard the screams of a prisoner who is being tortured in Americas war on terror? I cant forget them.
They pierced the walls of a detention center I visited in Samarra during an offensive by American and Iraqi forces in 2005. In a small room, I was interviewing a frightened detainee whose head was bandaged from an injury he unconvincingly attributed to a car accident during his capture. Bloodstains dripped down the side of a desk, and there was an American military adviser with us, as well as a portly officer of Iraqs special police commandos.
Suddenly there was a chilling scream.
Allah, someone wailed. Allah! Allah!
As I wrote at the time, this wasnt a cry of religious ecstasy. It was the sound of deep pain, coming from elsewhere in the town library, which had been turned into a detention center by Iraqi security forces who were advised by American soldiers and contractors. I was embedded with the Americans for a week, and I had already heard two of them, from the Wisconsin National Guard, talk about seeing their Iraqi partners trussing up prisoners like animals at a slaughter. During raids, I had seen these Iraqis beat their detainees muggings as a form of questioning while their American advisers watched.
...........
Repression is the gut instinct of institutions that have something to hide, and I came across that in Samarra, too. Shortly after I witnessed the threatened execution of a detainee (an Iraqi soldier pointed his AK-47 at a prisoner who was against a wall with his hands up), an order came down from the American command to get me out of Samarra. I was told to pack my backpack for the next convoy out of town. After I made a flurry of calls on my satellite phone, the order was rescinded. Someone wanted the truth to come out.
........
more tears here:
https://firstlook.org/theintercept/2014/12/16/american-torture-things-still-dont-know/
MannyGoldstein
(34,589 posts)If these advanced techniques were available in WWII, we'd have won that war.
They're *that* important.
Regards,
TWM
Doctor_J
(36,392 posts)Evildoers
Luminous Animal
(27,310 posts)sabrina 1
(62,325 posts)done about it.
At least back then the 'left' was outraged.
Release all of it, or it appears the report was just a ploy to try to show that the US does investigate war crimes, when in fact, they don't. So far what I have seen from the report is mild to what we knew all along. All the redactions make a mockery of any claim that the US is a civilized nation.
Civilized nations don't torture!
Bandit
(21,475 posts)Said Senator Inhofe referring to people's outrage over the news of American Torture..
countryjake
(8,554 posts)Everyone should read that NYTimes piece that's linked to in Maass' article. He wrote it in mid 2005, and I remembered it as an eye-opener back then, but now, in light of everything that's since been revealed...dirty wars, simply dirty filthy war. I wonder how many "detainees" actually were murdered just over the course of Shock and Awe?
The Way of the Commandos By Peter Maass May 1, 2005
http://www.nytimes.com/2005/05/01/magazine/01ARMY.html?pagewanted=all&position=&_r=0
Lots of good links and good reading at your link, kpete. Thanks for posting this!