Reply #1: It really is. Got to e-mail the link to my home computer. Got this story [View All]

[acmavm]

on a link from that site:

http://www.opendemocracy.net/globalization-village/torture_2938.jsp
Why torture is OK
Maura Stephens
19 - 10 - 2005


How can a “civilised society” tolerate the inhumane treatment endured by the people in Abu Ghraib, Guantánamo Bay and other American prisons?

<snip>

Imagine that you are on your way to work, coffee in hand, one December morning when three men in United States military uniforms, armed with guns, approach you. They say your name; you acknowledge it.

One of them slams you in the chest, knocking your briefcase and coffee to the ground, but not before the hot beverage spills on your hand, burning you. The men throw a heavy plastic black hood over your head. You can see nothing. It is very hard to breathe. You are confused and scared out of your mind. You do not have any idea what these men might want. What happened to the quiet day you were expecting? How can you get word to your family? Nobody knows where you are. They will be paralysed with worry

<snip>

Eventually the truck stops and you are hauled off, stumbling. You go down hard on one knee because your arms are tied behind you. You are hauled up, twisted by the elbow on your already swollen arm, then herded along with the others; all are quiet except for the occasional cough or sneeze as you shuffle along, prodded in the side occasionally by something sharp and metal, and eventually you hear a huge metal door open. You are tossed inside a room, your hood removed. Your handcuffs are still very tight. Your scalded hand and your bruised knee are throbbing. The other people in the room look as terrified as you are; you count at least thirty-five other prisoners. There is no sink or running water other than one toilet, which already reeks of human excrement and urine.

<snip>

There is no way out. Over the next five and a half months you are kicked, beaten, stomped, punched, hung backward by your hands, made to go days without sleep, starved, left uncovered in the cold, sprayed with freezing cold water, your teeth chattering so hard you think your brains will simply turn to pulp. Men take turns pissing on you. They poke the barrel of a gun up your anus. They electrocute you. They gleefully pummel your infected hand. They take your photograph as they mock you. Not one of them treats you in any way like a human being. You hold onto your sanity by a thread.

<snip>

The story just touched on above is that of at least one man in Abu Ghraib – an innocent man who was tortured and abused at the hands of US military personnel in such unimaginable ways it makes me sick to contemplate them.

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