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Close Topic OptionsIraqi Prisoner Abuse? - Page 11 of 15
This is heartbreaking for me, to know there - Page 11 - Politics, Business, Civil, History - Posted: 13th Mar, 2005 - 2:33pm
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Iraq Prison TortureIraqi Prisoner Abuse? - Page 11
There is an official report now out about the Abu Ghraib prisoner abuse scandal. It comes from an independent commission, and is very enlightening.
Here is a commentary about it, from the OpinionJournal. Before anyone points it out, yes, the OpinionJournal is generally right-of-center, and a supporter of President Bush and his administration. That doesn't negate how powerful the report is, nor of what the ramifications are.
Here are a couple of quotes from this article:
| QUOTE |
| "The behavior of our troops is so much better than it was in World War II," Mr. Schlesinger told us yesterday, by way of comparison. Of the Abu Ghraib photos, he added, "It is preposterous that what these pictures show is we were prepared to use torture to get information," as Senator Ted Kennedy and others have alleged. Rather, Mr. Schlesinger characterized the photographed Abu Ghraib abuses as "free-lance activities on the part of the night shift," echoing the testimony we've heard so far during the courts martial for the accused. The Schlesinger report does place blame higher up the chain of command--including some with ex-theater commander Ricardo Sanchez--but for inadequate supervision of the detention facility and adapting too slowly to the Iraqi insurgency. Another report released yesterday by the U.S. Army and Major General George Fay likewise exonerates the military chain of command of policies that could be interpreted as sanctioning abuse, though it does say that an intelligence unit at Abu Ghraib was involved in abuses separate from those involving the now-famous Maryland National Guardsmen. |
| QUOTE |
| Worse than being wrong, these accusations have endangered the lives of soldiers by forcing a retreat in interrogation techniques so severe that it's hampering the U.S. ability to fight the counterinsurgency in Iraq. "We can't even use basic police interrogations tactics that they use in the States," a Marine officer is quoted as saying in a Journal news article yesterday by Greg Jaffe and David S. Cloud. Administration critics have had to seize on the fact that the Schlesinger report shows attempts in 2003 to transfer some coercive interrogation techniques from Afghanistan and Guantanamo to Iraq. In the former, the U.S. policy was that the Geneva Convention protections for POWs did not apply, while in Iraq they did. But in fact the timeline shows the military chain of command operating as it should to clear up confusion over what was permissible. |
I strongly urge all to read this article.
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Post Date: 27th Aug, 2004 - 12:33am / Post ID: #
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Abuse Prisoner Iraqi
Should we really be surprised?
The world was shocked by the pictures from Abu Ghraib prison. The damage to America's international reputation is deep. But is that kind of abuse of prisoners limited to Iraq and the crucible of war? Hardly. Tonight, in the wake of this week's reports on abuse at Abu Ghraib, we'll look at prison abuse here at home.
Two separate investigative reports out this week on abuse at Abu Ghraib prison in Iraq concluded that the abuse was not caused by a group of renegade military police guards, as the military and the Bush Administration had earlier argued. Instead, the reports blamed a broader systemic problem.
Prison abuses, of course, are hardly limited to Iraq's Abu Ghraib prison. Even in this country, where civil rights and legal protections exist to guard against prisoner abuse, it is not uncommon to hear reports of inmates being abused and mistreated at the hands of guards.
Ref. Sara Just and the Nightline Staff - Nightline Offices
Iraqi Prisoner Abuse? History & Civil Business Politics
How interesting that Nightline should take the actual report of the Abu Ghraib situation and immediately start spinning it so that it is now caused by ALL of America. Since the report specifically exonerates President Bush, Donald Rumsfeld, and the rest of the top leadership, then we now have to ALL bear penance for the actions of these (relatively) few foolish young people.
Oh, this is definitely caused by the "horrible" prison system in the US. It is SO MUCH worse than anywhere else in the world, like Mexico, Turkey, Iran, Saudi Arabia, Pakistan, China, North Korea, etc.
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Page 11 Abuse Prisoner Iraqi
You see? You do something and you must pay for it....
Graner sentenced to 10 years for abuses
FORT HOOD, Texas (CNN) -- Army Reserve Spc. Charles Graner Jr. was sentenced Saturday to 10 years in a military prison for his role in abusing detainees at Abu Ghraib prison in Baghdad.
He will also be given a dishonorable discharge from the Reserve at the rank of private.
Friday, the same jury found Graner guilty of 10 charges, including aggravated assault, maltreatment and conspiracy.
Prosecutors accused Graner of being a ringleader in the physical abuse and sexual humiliation of prisoners that came to light when photos of apaprent abuses were broadcast in the media in April 2004...
https://www.cnn.com/2005/LAW/01/15/graner.c...tial/index.html
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Abuse Prisoner Iraqi
While I am sure there are some, in general the finest that humanity has to offer are not prison guards. Am I suprised by this...no not really. However, show me another country that would actually stand up and put this person(s) on trial and actually convict them - to 10 years in prision. There are not many! Mr Graner will have his life ruined by these acts as well as several others in his "posse".
It is truly sad that the effort that has been expended comes down to a set of pictures. The media truly never shows the good that is done and only focus on the freak-side-show-circus. We always focus on the negative...it sells papers and gets commercials.
Mr Graner will have a lot of time to think about his actions and picure taking - 10 years. Perhaps some lessons will be learned by others. I do hope so.
Just a thought,
Vincenzo
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Iraqi Prisoner Abuse?
Here is an interesting take on the results of the first Abu Ghraib related trial.
https://www.opinionjournal.com/editorial/fe...ml?id=110006172
| QUOTE |
| The conviction of Army Reserve Specialist Charles Graner is hardly the last word on what really happened at Abu Ghraib prison. But the 10-year sentence for the abuse ringleader shows that the military justice system is taking the issue as seriously as it should. And the Army jury that handed it down clearly didn't buy his "just-following-orders" defense. We doubt Specialist Graner's peers would have packed him off to prison for so long had he produced any evidence at all that his actions had something to do with interrogation practices approved by his superiors. Particularly telling was the fact that he didn't seem to have enough confidence in his own story to take the stand and face cross examination. Senior officers are still being investigated, as they should be, but so far the military trials have done nothing to prove what writer Heather Mac Donald recently described on this page as the "torture narrative." That is, they have not supported the widely promulgated theory that Bush Administration legal discussions about the range of permissible interrogation techniques for al Qaeda detainees outside the Iraqi theater of operations somehow led to Abu Ghraib. And yet none of this evidence seems to stop the effort, in the media and Congress, to use Abu Ghraib to hamstring American interrogators in the war on terror. Senator Richard Durbin, an Illinois Democrat, went so far as to try to write language into last year's intelligence bill demanding that the CIA report to Congress on what interrogation methods it's using. The White House quietly sought to have this removed--which it reluctantly was--only to be tarred once again last week in some news reports with promoting "torture" for having done so. |
There is more to this article. I recommend it.
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Post Date: 24th Feb, 2005 - 1:46pm / Post ID: #
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Iraqi Prisoner Abuse - Page 11
2 BRITISH SOLDIERS CONVICTED IN ABUSE OF IRAQIS
A military jury convicted two British servicemen Wednesday of involvement in abusing Iraqi civilians after a monthlong court-martial that raised comparisons to abuse by U.S. forces at Abu Ghraib prison.
Ref. https://deseretnews.com/dn/view/1%2C1249%2C...14272%2C00.html
Iraqi Prisoner Abuse Politics Business Civil & History - Page 11
This is heartbreaking for me, to know there are children or there were children being held in prison in Iraq by the US. 
I recommend reading the whole article.
Documents offer details about Abu Ghraib's children
WASHINGTON (AP) -- Children held by the U.S. Army at Iraq's Abu Ghraib prison included one boy who appeared to be only about 8 years old, the former commander of the prison told investigators, according to a transcript.
"He looked like he was eight years old. He told me he was almost 12," Brig. Gen. Janis Karpinski told officials investigating prisoner abuse at Abu Ghraib. "He told me his brother was there with him, but he really wanted to see his mother, could he please call his mother. He was crying."
Karpinski's statement is among hundreds of pages of Army records about Abu Ghraib the American Civil Liberties Union released Thursday. The ACLU got the documents under a Freedom of Information Act lawsuit seeking records about abuse of detainees in Iraq.
Karpinski did not say what happened to the boy in her interview with Maj. Gen. George Fay. Military officials have previously acknowledged that some juvenile prisoners had been held at Abu Ghraib, a massive prison built by Saddam Hussein's government outside Baghdad...
https://www.cnn.com/2005/LAW/03/10/iraq.chi...s.ap/index.html
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TOPIC: Iraqi Prisoner Abuse?