Please help me collect all hard evidence on prison torture

I changed my thread title, becuase the focus is NOT on Limbaugh.

This is a quote, but I found it on media matters.

LIMBAUGH: All right, so we're at war with these people. And they're in a prison where they're being softened up for interrogation. And we hear that the most humiliating thing you can do is make one Arab male disrobe in front of another. Sounds to me like it's pretty thoughtful. Sounds to me in the context of war this is pretty good intimidation -- and especially if you put a woman in front of them and then spread those pictures around the Arab world. And we're sitting here, "Oh my God, they're gonna hate us! Oh no! What are they gonna think of us?" I think maybe the other perspective needs to be at least considered. Maybe they're gonna think we are serious. Maybe they're gonna think we mean it this time. Maybe they're gonna think we're not gonna kowtow to them. Maybe the people who ordered this are pretty smart. Maybe the people who executed this pulled off a brilliant maneuver. Nobody got hurt. Nobody got physically injured. But boy there was a lot of humiliation of people who are trying to kill us -- in ways they hold dear. Sounds pretty effective to me if you look at us in the right context.

Look first of all, of course I don't agree that it was "just" harmless humiliation. But I'm also under the impression that the "no one got hurt" thing is a lie. Is there concrete evidence of sexual assault and other kinds of physical violent abuse. I am under the impression that there is, but can some of my colleagues here point me to some good source of information and/or hard evidence.

It's not that I haven't been following, its just that I could really use a time line and some way to sort out the substantiated, evidenced supportable claims apart from rumor and allegation. In other words, what I'd like to see evidence for is what we indisputably know for proven fact. Because I believed that there was already more than enough fact to make a claim like his laughable. Is someone can help me out, my plan is to save the information in a file and keep it so that I never ever forget what was done.

Sel

They make sense only accidentally, and Rush truly has no clue what he's talking about . . . well, about anything, really, but even less so when talking about things military and strategic.

There is no question in my mind that the guy is a nutcase. I'm not posting this as a kind of "debunk limbaugh" thread. But I feel that I should have ready at my disposal all kinds of infromation about what we really know. And I believed that we really already knew that phsycal and sexual abuse happened, beyond the humilation (still torture in my book). If that's not the case, and those are only allegations, then I guess I want to know that too.

Like I said, my main desire is to have you help me find this material and then save it all, so that both I remember and also so that I have this material for any future apologists who try to pretend like it wasn't a big deal.

Sel

And I really shouldn't have even clicked on your post, but sometimes I can't help myself. I guess I was really taking myself to task more than you. I suppose there is something to be gained by knowing what sort of stupidity is being peddled by the likes of Rush, otherwise you'd just sit there goggling, and you wouldn't have a ready comeback for the concentrated blast of dumb.

Before the pictures of the corpse, before the dog attacks, etc.

Its still completely repulsive, though.

Hurt to him - means disrobing means not having a knife cut. Follow the advice above - don't linger long on this loser.

I would turn it around by educating myself more on the cultures of other people and how they feel about life - I'll be further ahead and understand what 'uneducated americans' means.

Also consider that 'Ruuussshhh' (as in a drug affect) was only following the Republican talking point memo for the day with his own brand of lunacy layered on top.

were there for petty theft and other such things ?

I'm sure some of those tortured did nothing worse than Rush's drug dealing.

of their mothers as no one being hurt then :shrug: Americans have no soul.

when blood is spilled



or death occurs

you can PM me and I can give you an email where you can send any other hard evidnece info, whether its articles or pictures that I can save so that I never, ever let people spin this into something less than what it was.

My point is, I'm looking to GATHER all articles, material and information relating to the torture - what do we KNOW FOR FACT happened? I want you to help me with links to hard evidence about those things. I'm not asking for hearsay or rumor. I'm asking for all the material I can get my hands on about what we know for sure happened. Did rape for sure happen? Did other physical violent torture for sure happen? What do we KNOW.

I'm asking not because I'm trying to down play the issue - just the opposite. I'm trying to create a repository of all the information there is on the facts of the issue so that I REMEMBER what happened and can counter those who try to deny it five years from now.

I would appreciate the help.

Here are all the photos that were released-

http://www.antiwar.com/news/?articleid=2444

Here are Senators talking about what they saw in the videos and how it is worse than what we've been allowed to see-
.....
Another Republican, South Carolina Senator Lindsey Graham, said then that "the American people need to understand that we're talking about rape and murder here. We're not just talking about giving people a humiliating experience."

http://www.theglobeandmail.com/servlet/story/RTGAM.20040512.wpics0512/BNStory/International/

The last round of Hersh threads here were all about him saying that the worst part of the videos was hearing the boys scream. Search "Hersh" at the New Yorker site or anywhere, really for the first breaking articles.

It's not always exactly clear what was going on. Whatever was going on, was bad. But what I'm interested in is understanding what is the full scope of verifiable indictable crimes that we know about for certain. Any?

It's not that I don't believe, its not that I wasn't paying attention at the time. It's that I'm trying to collect clear facts into a database that I can keep as irrefutable and unforgettable, for when we try to bury all of this and pretend it didn't happen.

I've been collecting thsi stuff for months. Hope it helps!

"I saw {name deleted} f***ing a kid, his age would be about 15-18 years. ... I saw {name deleted} who was wearing his military uniform putting his dick in the kid's ass..."

Testimony from Abu Ghraib prisoner who witnessed boy being raped
http://media.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/world/iraq/abughraib/151108.pdf


'Secret film shows Iraq prisoners sodomised'
"The boys were sodomised with the cameras rolling, and the worst part is the soundtrack, of the boys shrieking. And this is your government at war." - Seymour Hersh

http://news.independent.co.uk/world/middle_east/story.jsp?story=541472


US admits imprisoning adolescents in Iraq
The US army admits for the first time to having detained adolescents in its prisons in Iraq, according to a German press report. The TV magazine "Report Mainz," to be broadcast Monday evening on the ARD network, quoted Lieutenant Colonel Barry Johnson, a spokesman for the US troops in Iraq, as saying that they still imprisoned 58 Iraqis in the age of from 14 and 17.

The Iraqi adolescents are held in the prisons of Abu Ghraib and"Camp Bucca" and the length of their average imprisonment is half a year, Johnson said. Johnson denied that those adolescents were tortured and promised that US authorities would look into accusation of mishandling if it arose.

http://news.xinhuanet.com/english/2004-07/27/content_1653018.htm


More Iraqi prisoner abuse said to be uncovered - US senator
New cases of alleged abuse of Iraqi prisoners by US soldiers have been uncovered, a top US senator said, three months after US media broadcast photos of detainees being sexually humiliated at the infamous Abu Ghraib prison.

"We're still uncovering, as late as this morning, other incidents, other cases that will be promptly investigated by the Department of Defense," Senate Armed Services Committee Chairman John Warner said after his panel was briefed by Pentagon officials in a closed-door meeting.

http://news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&cid=1521&u=/afp/20040715/pl_afp/us_iraq_prisoners&printer=1


US report on prison abuse a 'whitewash'
http://www.abc.net.au/news/newsitems/200407/s1161215.htm


Army Calls Abuses of Detainees 'Aberrations'
The study cites 94 cases of mistreatment, but incidents at Abu Ghraib are considered a single offense.

http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/world/la-fg-prison23jul23.story



Sworn Statements by Abu Ghraib Detainees
Some of the descriptions in these statements may be disturbing because of their sexually explicit or graphic nature.

(All sworn statement links are in .pdf format. Have copied part of one here):

Translation of statement by Hussein Mohssein AL-ZAYIADI, Detainne # 19446

<snip>
Q: When you were on each other, what were the guards doing?
A: They were taking pictures and writing on our asses.

Translation of detainnee, name withheld:

<snip>
And one of the police he put a stick that he always carries inside my ass, and I felt it going inside me about 2 centimeters, approximately. I started screaming, and he pulled it out and washed it with water inside the room.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/world/iraq/abughraib/swornstatements042104.html?g


Hell On Earth
Life in Iraq's Abu Ghraib prison, newly available documents show, would have made Satan quake
In October last year, Army Capt. Donald Reese visited the Abu Ghraib prison complex near Baghdad for the first time. He had plenty of reason to be there. He had just been installed as the warden of part of the prison, and as he toured cellblock 1, he was stunned to see a bunch of naked prisoners. He would later tell Army investigators: "My first reaction was, 'Wow, there a lot of nude people here.' " Army intelligence officers assured him, he testified, that "nothing was illegal or wrong about it"--that, in fact, stripping the prisoners was a tried-and-true intelligence tactic used to make the prisoners uncomfortable. By his own account, Reese, a reservist and window-blinds salesman in civilian life, was ill-prepared for the job. He had never before set foot in a prison, even as a visitor, and he knew nothing of the Geneva Conventions, which specify conditions for humane treatment of enemy prisoners of war and others. "I, myself, have never been in a prison," Reese told Maj. Gen. Antonio Taguba, who was assigned to investigate the issue of abuses at Abu Ghraib. "So I had no experience at all as far as a warden or that type of thing."

http://www.usnews.com/usnews/issue/040719/usnews/19prison.htm


Bush Administration Documents on Interrogation
Declassified documents
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A62516-2004Jun22.html


US tortured Afghanistan detainees
Detainees held in Afghanistan by US troops have been routinely tortured and humiliated as part of the interrogation process in the same way as those in Iraq, a Guardian investigation has found.

Five detainees have died in custody, three of them in suspicious circumstances, and survivors have told stories of beatings, strippings, hoodings and sleep deprivation.

The nature of the alleged abuse indicates that what happened at Abu Ghraib was part of a pattern of interrogation that has been common practice since the invasion of Afghanistan.

"The abuses in Afghanistan were no less egregious than at Abu Ghraib, but because there were no photographs - at least to our present knowledge - they have not received enough attention," Senator Patrick Leahy, the Democratic member of the Senate subcommittee on foreign operations, told the Guardian.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/afghanistan/story/0,1284,1245236,00.html


Continuing the Cover-Up?
Military Takes Action Against Key Witness in Abu Ghraib Abuse Scandal
A witness who told ABCNEWS he believed the military was covering up the extent of abuse at Iraq's Abu Ghraib prison was today stripped of his security clearance and told he may face prosecution because his comments were "not in the national interest."

Sgt. Samuel Provance said in addition to his revoked security clearance, he was transferred to a different platoon, and his record was officially "flagged," meaning he cannot be promoted or given any awards or honors.

Provance said he was told he will face administrative action for failing to report what he knew at the time and for failing to take steps to stop the abuse.

"I see it as an effort to intimidate Sgt. Provance and any other soldier whose conscience is bothering him, and who wants to come forward and tell what really happened at Abu Ghraib," said his attorney Scott Horton.

http://abcnews.go.com/sections/WNT/Investigation/abu_ghraib_cover_up_040521-1.html


Rumsfeld Approved Torture
Defence Secretary Donald Rumsfeld's November 2002 memo approved several methods which apparently would violate Geneva Convention rules, including:

• putting detainees in "stress positions" for up to four hours;

• removing their clothes;

• intimidating them with dogs;

• interrogating them for 20 hours at a time;

• forcing them to wear hoods;

• shaving their heads and beards;

• using "mild, non-injurious physical contact" such as prodding.

Less than two months later, Mr Rumsfeld withdrew approval for those methods, reportedly on advice from military lawyers. He appointed a Pentagon panel to recommend interrogation methods.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/americas/3831399.stm


US general: I was told to treat prisoners like 'dog'
The US army general who ran the notorious Abu Ghraib jail in Baghdad complained Tuesday that she was being made a "convenient scapegoat" for the mistreatment of Iraqi prisoners.

In an interview with BBC radio, Brigadier General Janis Karpinski also said she had been told by the then-head of the Guantanamo Bay prison to treat all detainees like "a dog".

http://www.chinadaily.com.cn/english/doc/2004-06/15/content_339649.htm


Officials Accuse Each Other in Prison Scandal
http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/iraq/complete/la-fg-ghraib15jul15,1,5138590.story?coll=la-home-headlines


African Americans suffer Abu Ghraib treatment in America
http://www.rawstory.com/exclusives/contributors/media_NAACP_coverage_720.htm


U.S. admits to secret interrogation site in Baghdad
As hundreds of detainees were released from Abu Ghraib prison outside Baghdad, a senior U.S. official Friday confirmed that a previously undisclosed U.S. military interrogation facility at or near Baghdad International Airport does indeed exist.

The official said the site was run in accordance with the Geneva Conventions and all detainees were afforded their rights under that international document.

"That's not to say somebody didn't get their head dunked in the water," he said.

U.S. Special Forces participated in running the site, he added.

http://www.cnn.com/2004/WORLD/meast/05/21/iraq.main/index.html


Iraqis snap up CDs of abuse images
In his speech this week outlining a vision for a democratic Iraq, the U.S. president evoked the prison near Baghdad as a symbol of tyranny under both Saddam Hussein and the U.S.-led occupation.

"Under the dictator, prisons like Abu Ghraib were symbols of death and torture. That same prison became a symbol of disgraceful conduct by a few American troops who dishonored our country and disregarded our values."

Bush said Abu Ghraib would be replaced with a new U.S.-funded high-security prison "as a fitting symbol of Iraq's new beginning."

But in Baghdad, the scandal is still seared on the minds of many.

Among the pirated copies of Hollywood movies "Rocky 4," "Titanic" and "Terminator," there is a new blockbuster on the market stalls: a CD containing graphic images of abuse at the notorious jail.

"American Army" sits prominently on the shelves inside a Baghdad street market where men gather in silence to watch.

A voice-over of an imam extols viewers to fight against "Americans, crusaders and Zionists."

http://www.cnn.com/2004/WORLD/meast/05/26/iraq.abuse.raz/


Rumsfeld bans camera phones
MOBILE phones fitted with digital cameras have been banned in US army installations in Iraq on orders from Defence Secretary Donald Rumsfeld, The Business newspaper reported today.

Quoting a Pentagon source, the paper said the US Defence Department believes that some of the damning photos of US soldiers abusing Iraqis at Abu Ghraib prison near Baghdad were taken with camera phones.

"Digital cameras, camcorders and cellphones with cameras have been prohibited in military compounds in Iraq," it said, adding that a "total ban throughout the US military" is in the works.

http://news.com.au/common/story_page/0,4057,9643950%255E401,00.html


``I expected that these pictures would be very hard on the stomach lining and it was significantly worse than anything that I had anticipated,'' said Sen. Ron Wyden, D-Ore. ``Take the worse case and multiply it several times over.''


"There are a lot more photographs and videos that exist," Rumsfeld said at a hearing by the Senate Armed Services Committee."If these are released to the public, obviously it's going to make matters worse." "I mean I looked at them last night and they're hard to believe," he said. "And if they're sent to some news organization and taken out of the criminal prosecution channels that they're in, that's where we'll be. And it's not a pretty picture. -Rumsfeld, May 7th


Brutal interrogation in Iraq
Pentagon records provide the clearest view yet of the U.S. tactics used at Anu Ghraib and elsewhere to coax secrets from Iraqis.

The deaths include the killing in November of a high-level Iraqi general who was shoved into a sleeping bag and suffocated, according to the Pentagon report. The documents contradict an earlier Defense Department statement that said the general died "of natural causes" during an interrogation. Pentagon officials declined to comment on the new disclosure.

Another Iraqi military officer, records show, was asphyxiated after being gagged, his hands tied to the top of his cell door. Another detainee died "while undergoing stress technique interrogation," involving smothering and "chest compressions," according to the documents.

Beyond the interrogation deaths, the military documents show that investigators are examining other abuse cases involving soldiers using choking techniques during interrogations, including the handling of prisoners at a detention facility in Samarra, Iraq, where soldiers allegedly "forced into asphyxiation numerous detainees."

Also under investigation are reports that soldiers in Iraq abused women and children. One April 2003 case, which is awaiting trial, involves a reservist who pointed a loaded pistol at an Iraqi child in front of witnesses, saying he should kill the youngster to "send a message" to other Iraqis.

http://www.denverpost.com/Stories/0,1413,36%7E11676%7E2157003,00.html


Soldiers Back in U.S. Tell of More Iraq Abuses
Three U.S. military policemen who served at Baghdad's Abu Ghraib prison said on Thursday they had witnessed unreported cases of prisoner abuse and that the practice against Iraqis was commonplace.

"It is a common thing to abuse prisoners," said Sgt. Mike Sindar, 25, of the Army National Guard's 870th Military Police Company based in the San Francisco Bay area. "I saw beatings all the time.

"A lot of people had so much pent-up anger, so much aggression," he said. Sindar and the other military policemen, who have returned to California from Iraq, spoke in interviews with Reuters.

http://cnn.netscape.cnn.com/news/story.jsp?floc=NW_1-T&oldflok=FF-RTO-rontz&idq=/ff/story/0002%2F20040507%2F0741856132.htm&sc=rontz


Elderly Woman 'Ridden Like A Donkey' by US Troops
US soldiers who detained an elderly Iraqi woman placed a harness on her, made her crawl on all fours and rode her like a donkey, Prime Minister Tony Blair’s personal human rights envoy to Iraq has claimed.

Labour MP Ann Clwyd said she had investigated the claims of the woman in her 70s and believed they were true.

http://news.scotsman.com/latest.cfm?id=2884671


GI: Boy mistreated to get dad to talk
A military intelligence analyst who recently completed duty at Abu Ghraib prison in Iraq (news - web sites) said Wednesday that the 16-year-old son of a detainee there was abused by U.S. soldiers to break his father's resistance to interrogators.

The analyst said the teenager was stripped naked, thrown in the back of an open truck, driven around in the cold night air, splattered with mud and then presented to his father at Abu Ghraib, the prison at the center of the scandal over abuse of Iraqi detainees.

Upon seeing his frail and frightened son, the prisoner broke down and cried and told interrogators he would tell them whatever they wanted, the analyst said.

The new account of mistreatment came as Army Spec. Jeremy Sivits was sentenced in Iraq to a year in prison Wednesday and a bad-conduct discharge after pleading guilty in the first court-martial stemming from the abuses at Abu Ghraib.

http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&cid=2027&e=5&u=/chitribts/giboymistreatedtogetdadtotalk


U.S. avoiding 'torture' to describe soldiers' actions
The U.S. military has been careful to make sure none of the seven soldiers charged in the prisoner abuse scandal has been officially accused of torture.

Instead, they're facing charges that include maltreating detainees and failing to protect detainees from abuse.

The United Nations defines torture as "any act by which severe pain or suffering, whether physical or mental, is intentionally inflicted … (to obtain) information or a confession…"

Robert Goldman, an expert on the law of war at American University in Washington, says Rumsfeld is being deliberately unclear about what was going on. "Rumsfeld's a smart guy," said Goldman, "this is not fuzzy."

http://www.cbc.ca/stories/2004/05/13/world/torture040513


Accused Soldier Paints Scene of Eager Mayhem at Iraqi Prison
When a fresh crop of detainees arrived at Abu Ghraib prison one night in late October, their jailers set upon them.

The soldiers pulled seven Iraqi detainees from their cells, "tossed them in the middle of the floor" and then one soldier ran across the room and lunged into the pile of detainees, according to sworn statements given to investigators by one of the soldiers now charged with abuse. He did it again, jumping into the group like it was a pile of autumn leaves, and the highest-ranking officer called for others to join in. The detainees were ordered to strip and masturbate, their heads covered with plastic sandbags. One soldier stomped on their fingers and toes.

"Graner put the detainee's head into a cradle position with Graner's arm, and Graner punched the detainee with a lot of force, in the temple," Specialist Jeremy C. Sivits said in his statements to investigators, referring to another soldier charged, Cpl. Charles A. Graner Jr. "Graner punched the detainee with a closed fist so hard in the temple that it knocked the detainee unconscious."

http://www.nytimes.com/2004/05/14/national/14SIVI.html?hp


Military Personnel: Don't Read This!
How a Pentagon email sought to contain the prison abuse scandal
It's not exactly every day that the Pentagon warns military personnel to stay away from Fox News. But that's exactly what some hopeful soul at the Department of Defense instructed, in a memo intended to forbid Pentagon staff reading a copy of the Taguba report detailing abuse of detainees at prisons in Iraq that had been posted at the Fox News web site.

http://www.time.com/time/world/article/0,8599,634638,00.html
Find the report here: http://msnbc.msn.com/id/4894001

US soldiers abused young girl at Iraqi prison
The US military has said it will investigate claims by a former inmate of Abu Ghraib prison that a girl as young as 12 was stripped and beaten by military personnel.

Suhaib al-Baz, a journalist for the al-Jazeera television network, claims to have been tortured at the prison, based west of Baghdad, while held there for 54 days.

...He said: "They brought a 12-year-old girl into our cellblock late at night. Her brother was a prisoner in the other cells.

"She was naked and screaming and calling out to him as they beat her. Her brother was helpless and could only hear her cries. This affected all of us because she was just a child.

http://www.itv.com/news/623337.html


Prisoner-abuse soldier pictured having sex with guards
THE female soldier at the centre of the Iraqi prisoner abuse scandal was photographed having sex with other military guards, sometimes in front of detainees, United States senators said yesterday.

Private First Class Lynndie England has become the face of the scandal, with photographs showing her pointing at a naked Iraqi and holding another by a leash.

She has claimed she was following orders from senior personnel and that the pictures were used to terrify other inmates into talking.

But unpublished photographs show Pte England engaged in sex acts with other soldiers, some senators told the US television network NBC.

http://news.scotsman.com/international.cfm?id=547922004


A Timeline of the Abuse Controversy
http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&cid=542&ncid=542&e=7&u=/ap/20040507/ap_on_go_ca_st_pe/prisoner_abuse_timeline

Props to you and Welcome! :toast:
A :kick: Back to the front for Selwynn. :kick: