Iraq's Child Prisoners (warning very distressing)

[WhiteTara]

I hesitated to post this as I am physically ill after having read it.

snip
It was early last October that Kasim Mehaddi Hilas says he witnessed the rape of a boy prisoner aged about 15 in the notorious Abu Ghraib prison in Iraq. “The kid was hurting very bad and they covered all the doors with sheets,” he said in a statement given to investigators probing prisoner abuse in Abu Ghraib. “Then, when I heard the screaming I climbed the door … and I saw who was wearing a military uniform.” Hilas, who was himself threatened with being sexually assaulted in Abu Graib, then describes in horrific detail how the soldier raped “the little kid”.

snip

It’s not certain exactly how many children are being held by coalition forces in Iraq, but a Sunday Herald investigation suggests there are up to 107. Their names are not known, nor is where they are being kept, how long they will be held or what has happened to them during their detention.

snip

“I saw a camp for children there,” he said. “Boys, under the age of puberty. There were certainly hundreds of children in this camp.” Al-Baz said he heard a 12-year-old girl crying. Her brother was also held in the jail. One night guards came into her cell. “She was beaten,” said al-Baz. “I heard her call out, ‘They have undressed me. They have poured water over me.’”

http://www.sundayherald.com/43796

I am weeping for our lost humanity.

[marylanddem]

1. This is horrific

Is Congress investigating this? I think I will e-mail my congress people (Maryland) & demand an investigation. If we do not raise our voices we are culpable

[kestrel91316]

3. Somebody is investigating already, and the Pentagon is in open

defiance of a court order to turn over relevant photos/videos.

[babylonsister]

4. Yes, ACLU filed an FOIA to get the pics and videos, and

this admin has stonewalled their exposure, though no one really knows for sure how legal that is. Last I read, something is happening Aug. 15th but don't remember what. Here's info from the ACLU:
http://www.aclu.org/SafeandFree/SafeandFree.cfm?ID=18842&c=280

[WhiteTara]

5. A hearing has been scheduled in federal court in New York

for August 15 to address two issues: whether the public has been improperly denied access to information as a result of the government's redacted briefs, and whether the government should be compelled to release photographs of abuse at Abu Ghraib.

[babylonsister]

7. Thanks, BNL! I knew I had heard that date; thanks for

clarification.

[bluestateguy]

8. Swell. More hearings (and appeals) and more rounds of pushing paper

Fucking lawyers! :grr:

[WhiteTara]

25. the wheels of justice grind slowly and fine

or at least they used to

[54anickel]

12. Right now I give a shit about releasing the photos - MAKE IT STOP!!!

That should be the priority. Write whom ever you want and demand they stop this BS immediately. They won't release the pictures? Will they tell us our demands to stop are unfounded - PROVE IT release the pics. Can't? Guilty as charged until otherwise proven. They may still drag their feet on releasing pics and answering to an investigation, but I believe they'd mind their P's and Q's if people finally became F'ING OUTRAGED and called and e-mailed every f'ing day.

Sheesh, I just came back to DU from a time out and now I've gotta take another. :grr: :nuke:

[WhiteTara]

24. I am trying meditation to calm down

but I still feel like I am going to have a nervous breakdown over this whole thing. I'm reading Louise Hay "you can heal your life"...I just read that my arthritis is caused by unresolved anger...hahahaha. It's true, I am filled with it. It would be resolved if chimpy went to the Hague. :hug:

[saigon68]

35. THE WAR CRIMINALS AT THE PENTAGON DON'T GIVE A FUCK

WHAT ANY OF US THINK-- THEY ARE TOTAL LAP DOGS OF THEIR NEOCON MASTERS.

THERE IS NO HONOR THERE

[WhiteTara]

6. I took your advice

and emailed my senators and rep this afternoon. I am so horrified, I am having trouble focusing.

[Son of California]

2. oh god, if this is true

I don't want to be an American any more.

[converted_democrat]

51. Here are some more links.........

http://releases.usnewswire.com/GetRelease.asp?id=50803

http://www.veteransforpeace.org/Rueful_Rumsfeld_050704.htm

http://www.indymedia.org.uk/en/2005/07/319471.html

http://media.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/world/iraq/abughraib/151108.pdf

http://informationclearinghouse.info/article6492.htm

http://www.nytimes.com/2005/07/23/politics/23abuse.html?pagewanted=print

http://www.sundayherald.com/print43796

http://www.newyorker.com/fact/content/?040510fa_fact

I have been saving the articles, because when I tell people they don't want to believe it. I don't want to believe it either, but it seems to be true.

On edit--I'm adding a quote from Sen. Lindsay Graham (R)

"’The American public needs to understand we're talking about rape and murder here. We're not just talking about giving people a humiliating experience,’ Republican Sen. Lindsey Graham of South Carolina told reporters after Rumsfeld testified before the Senate Armed Services Committee. ’We're talking about rape and murder -- and some very serious charges.’ -------Quote of Sen. Lindsey Graham

[HockeyMom]

9. A n Iraqi woman's story

http://www.countercurrents.org/iraq-nadia230704.htm

Well, I also hesitate to talk about this too.

I came across a site with pictures. The majority of the pictures were the ones we have all seen, except for 3 additional pictures: two involving what appeared to be a bleached blond teenage boy of around 14 and one of an Iraqi woman. I will not go into detail of what they were, but they were very sexually graphic and gruesome. If just these three pictures were authentic, and I assume so given the grouping with the others and what we are now hearing, I can understand why this administration won't release them.

I bookmarked both the site for the woman's story and the pictures. When I tried to link to the pictures site, it just cane up Website Not Responding every time I tried.

My guess is that it has been shut down because of those additional pictures.

[phusion]

13. sometimes archive.org keeps images of old sites.

http://www.archive.org

Type in the complete address...

[HockeyMom]

17. I tried and can't

The last posting I could get up was October 26, 2004. All of the gallery pictures and postings regarding them are after that date.

According to this page I brought up, there were 39 gallery pictures. I don't think I viewed all 39 though. As I said before, majority were ones we have seen. You can see from where picture #2 and picture #3 were, they have the most number of viewings and the most recent (July 2005) comments. Maybe those were the two new pictures that I saw?

This is all I could get. Maybe you will have more luck playing around with this than me.

http://64.233.161.104/search?q=cache:wrv5C1NUhkQJ:billandkent.com/gallery/abu-gharib-torture-photos++site:billandkent.com+abu+gharib++pictures&hl=en&ie=UTF-8

[aint_no_life_nowhere]

10. This is a story from 2004 but I assume the same thing continues in Iraq

Why would it stop? Supressing the pictures and videos of child abuse in Iraq will only encourage the US to continue these kinds of practices.

[ninkasi]

11. I have read the article

I am sitting at my computer, wondering how our country was hijacked with so little resistance. Am I in the 1930's in Germany, is this what it was like there, in that time?

We are paying for this torture, this abuse, and this inhumanity. I by God want the pictures, and the videos released, made public, and seen by every adult America. Could even the most ignorant knuckle-dragger still endorse this crime against humanity?

I have 3 grown children, who I gave birth to; I have a grown stepdaughter, who is precious to me. I have grandchildren who are 20, 18, and 12, (cousins), I have a one year old great-granddaughter. The thought of anything even remotely resembling the abuses going on (in my name, illegally), and paid for by my taxes (not the corporations who not only pay nothing, but receive refunds), makes me physically and emotionally ill.

There is really nothing left to discuss. Do we stay in a country who did nothing to attack us, who allowed the weapons inspectors (who found nothing) in, and who swore they did not possess WMDs; do we still stay there, causing more and more death and carnage? For what?

The chickenhawks who were having wet dreams about this invasion can strap on weapons (they can afford them, they have lots of stock in those companies), and go to Iraq themselves, or send their own children, if they believe all this death and destruction is warranted.

Let the rest of us go, and arrive back in this country. Let the rest of us heal, and let the children of the wealthy who love this war go fight it. Remember if troops are ordered to do things, even things they would never have dreamed of doing here, it could be that they are scared witless, or have been brainwashed, or both.

We need to go; not tomorrow, but today. Leave this poor country to work out their differences, pay them reparations, but for the love of whatever God or person or thing we hold sacred, let's get the hell out, and do it now.

Torturing children...did any of us ever dream that our once proud country would come to this? I surely did not. When I was born, WWII was still going on, and FDR was president. More and more, lately, I have become ashamed of our country, and most especially of the so-called leaders.

I also feel shame that enough people voted for the moran, that Diebold was able to twist the figures enough to give him a win. The only win that cretin deserves is a one way ticket to the Hague, where he can stand trial for war crimes. The rest of his high ranking cronies can go with him.

What have we become? This is NOT the America I was born in, and it is not a country I want to leave my children in. People,, (not DUers, we know), but the rest of you....WAKE UP!!!!

[GetTheRightVote]

14. This is not my nation but * owes so much to so many

I am weeping for the lost of humanity we all share now.

:kick:

[54anickel]

15. Is this a reprint or a typo in the date? Look at the end of the article.

[WhiteTara]

23. good catch 54anickel

I read it and my mind saw 2005...as in Sunday's paper (tomorrow is today in Europe). Must be a reprint. :shrug:

[54anickel]

38. Yeah, I googled around a bit. Found this story referenced at a lot

of different sites. Most naming the article and author. I did find this German news clip with the interviews quoted in the story that was aired July 5, 2004. No reference to this author, so I think this author got the story from that. Might have been working together on it. :shrug:

http://www.writers-against-war.org/iraq/abuse_iraq_children.html

Hard to find any follow up to it though. Came across this discussion from last year that had many of the same questions on this report. I don' know what to make of it.

http://www.lies.com/wp/2004/07/11/american-leftist-on-abuses-of-children-at-abu-ghraib

[54anickel]

16. Remember the hoop-a-la when troops rolled into Baghdad and freed

150 Iraqi child prisoners? How ironic is that?

http://www.news24.com/News24/World/Iraq/0,6119,2-10-1460_1344832,00.html

Iraqi child prisoners freed
08/04/2003 19:43 - (SA)

Baghdad - More than 100 children held in a prison celebrated their freedom on Tuesday as US marines rolled into northeast Baghdad amid chaotic scenes which saw civilians loot weapons from an army compound, a US officer said.

Abound 150 children spilled out of the jail after the gates were opened as a US military Humvee vehicle approached, Lieutenant Colonel Fred Padilla told an AFP correspondent travelling with the Marines 5th Regiment.

"Hundreds of kids were swarming us and kissing us," Padilla said.

"There were parents running up, so happy to have their kids back."

"The children had been imprisoned because they had not joined the youth branch of the Ba'ath party," he alleged. "Some of these kids had been in there for five years."

more...

[barb162]

21. check my post 20 and tell me what you think. I remember

the soldiers were liberating people from the prisons. To say I am confused.... I can't make sense of this

[54anickel]

39. Check my post 38. Yep, it's confusing...n/t

[Judi Lynn]

58. Remarkable look at recent history. My God.

I just saw your article after missing it the first time I glanced at this thread.

It's amazing. How ironic knowing we've taken more child prisoners than the number cited in this article. Lieutenant Colonel Fred Padilla sounds a little windy, claiming they swarmed up and kissed the Americans. I'm sure! Right after they threw Perle's rose petals, and sang and danced with joy.

[Imajika]

18. Why would this be such a shock?

Any medium or maximum security prison in every state of America is rife with abuse, torture and rape. I'd bet Gitmo is a cakewalk compared with some maximum security facilities in the US. Whether it be by prison gaurds or other inmates, people confined in US penetentiaries are subject to horrible abuse on a continual basis - and have been for decades.

Why is everyone so excited about this when it comes to Abu Ghraib, yet no one seems to care when it happens on a constant basis in our own backyard?

This is pretty typical of how Americans run prison systems right here at home. And we are surprised we do the same thing elsewhere?

Based on the treatment of those in US criminal prison facilities throughout the United States, I am not in the least bit surprised at what has gone on at Abu Ghraib.

Imajika

[WhiteTara]

27. you're right. Graner came from the US prison system.

There was a report about a prison system in TN the other night that showed the same type of terrible treatment of the inmates there. I have heard about Pelican Bay, which sounds like a torture chamber in itself.

[Lecky]

30. Well first of all this war should have NEVER happened it was WRONG...

Meaning, we shouldn't even fucking be there. 2nd of all, if the stories I've heard are true...it seems as though children are also being sodomized and tortured, there's a story of this happening in front of their parents. There are women and men being beaten and raped...all because Saddam HAD NO WMDs.

The torture that goes on during wartime is a bit different than what goes on in our prisons. It's not like these prisoners are given a lawyer and a fair trial like they do in U.S.

So yeah, I was a bit surprised to find out the we are torturing children in Iraq...and you know what? I think most people will be shocked and horrified if this ever gets out into the mainstream.

[RaulGroom]

19. This is sickening on so many levels

But I'll point out one no one has yet - when the photos (and, if Sy Hersh is to be believed, it's the videos that will really curdle the blood) are finally released to the public, it will be sickening to listen to the apologists continue to try to justify our invasion on the basis of our high moral vision for the future of Iraq.

You know, the future of the Iraqi children we didn't rape.

[Judi Lynn]

34. It's also almost too wry remembering how much was made of the children

the administration claimed had been kept in Iraq's prisons by Saddam Hussein. They rattled on about it at great length and volumn. Here's the first google item which appeared on a search:

Prisons For Children Discovered in Baghdad
By Notra Trulock | April 24, 2003 Children have been routinely and repeatedly arrested to force their parents to confess to crimes against the regime.

On April 8, the French news service AFP reported that U.S. marines had liberated a children's prison in Northeast Baghdad. The report said that 100 to 150 children poured out of the unlocked prison gates and swarmed around their marine liberators. A marine officer told an AFP embedded reporter that the children looked undernourished and were wearing threadbare clothing.
(snip/...)

http://www.aim.org/media_monitor/A366_0_2_0_C

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Astonishingly scary info. on Saddam from _Bush's own White House site:

Saddam Hussein's Abuse of Children

• Saddam Hussein has held 3-week training courses in weapons use, hand-to-hand fighting, rappelling from helicopters, and infantry tactics for children between 10 and 15 years of age. Camps for these "Saddam Cubs" operated throughout the country. Senior military officers who supervised the courses noted that the children held up under the "physical and psychological strain" of training that lasted for as long as 14 hours each day. Sources in the opposition report that the army found it difficult to recruit enough children to fill all of the vacancies in the program. Families reportedly were threatened with the loss of their food ration cards if they refused to enroll their children in the course. The Supreme Council for the Islamic Revolution in Iraq reported in October 1999 that authorities were denying food ration cards to families that failed to send their young sons to Saddam Cubs compulsory weapons-training camps. Similarly, authorities reportedly withheld school examination results to students unless they registered in the Fedayeen Saddam organization.
  
  
• Iraq often announces food ration cuts for the general population, blaming US or UK actions. Among the most controversial have been cuts in baby milk rations. Iraq has blamed the shortages on US and UK contract rejections, although the UN has approved all baby milk contracts submitted.
  
  
• Child labor persists and there are instances of forced labor.
  
  
• There are widespread reports that food and medicine that could have been made available to the general public, including children, have been stockpiled in warehouses or diverted for the personal use of some government officials.(snip/...)

http://www.whitehouse.gov/infocus/iraq/decade/sect4.html


Mightly scary.

[barb162]

20. Should this be believed?

I am purposely not opening any links and I read the other posters here too who included links. Sorry I can't read or look at too much of this stuff. WHat I want to get at is remember the stories we heard abourt Uday and Qusay Hussein putting people in grinders, vats of acid and killing them and all that horror story stuff? Remember seeing Iraqis being interviewed on TV before the war and they had these HORROR stories. I don't know, does anybody believe any of those stories anymore or was that just propaganda to get the American people wound up for that war. Should we look at this the same way? I believe when we came into Iraq we got people out of the jails and helped the Iraqis find innocent relatives who had been in jail for years. I remember seeing stories on it. Remember the " we were heros" part of the story right after the soldiers took over Baghdad? I swear I don't know what to believe anymore. Primal scream. I can't sort this stuff out anymore

[daleo]

22. The Pentagon seems to be trying hard to suppress these photos/films

I suppose that is a sort of evidence by default that the stories are probably true.

[saigon68]

37. The Pentagon has photos of children being ANALLY RAPED

And the testimony of witnesses who hear the young boys screaming. Its no wonder they don't want this exposed.

But if they were only wiring up their TESTICLES to 220 Volts thats OK

[HockeyMom]

45. Yes, two of those pictures I saw

of the teenage boy were of that. I was only on the site a few days ago. It is totally down now. You bring up the old achieves and all you get are blank squares where the pictures used to be. You cannot even bring up any of the comments on the pictures. I did this through a Google search. I bookmarked the site so I could post it here, thinking it may be important, never considering that it would be taken off the Net.

The previously released pictures were tame in comparison to that one of the boy. If this is what they have a video of, it is no surprise they don't want to release them.

You don't think those pictures were real? Why else would that site be taken down? You don't think they are already CENSORING the Internet?

[barb162]

61. ARe you saying

you saw pictures of this rape by American soldiers?

[saigon68]

64. READ THE TAGUBA REPORT.

[Media_Lies_Daily]

31. Before and during the illegal Iraqi conflict...all we've heard is NeoCon..

...propaganda.

[burythehatchet]

33. you're confused?

Mission Accomplished

[Burried News]

54. Clear, concise and to the point - Confusion=Mission Accomplished

[Mari333]

44. Yes, there are children at Abu Ghraib..9, 10 11 yr olds

my stepson was stationed there for a year..he said there are children there without their parents, and held for long periods of time..from the horses mouth
he also said "this isnt a war, its an occupation".

[katinmn]

46. The reports by military and other eye-witnesses are available. Read!

http://action.aclu.org/torturefoia/

[barb162]

62. If this is true

I won't be reading it or watching TV. The last bunch of pictures was way more than I could handle. When that story broke about the photos and what was going on there last June 04 I was in an ER. They put the TV on for me to try to get me to calm down as I was sick, scared, etc., and the first thing they turned on was a breaking news story about "those humiliation pictures." My blood pressure and pulse, etc., shot up like crazy. They decided to turn the TV off.

[Judi Lynn]

49. They did try to get a lot of mileage from claiming they found children

in prison, then they dropped it completely far more quickly than you'd expect. Maybe reporters were getting close to discovering the source of their claims.

[GoddessOfGuinness]

26. I do not doubt that there is at least some truth to these reports

but they must be scrutinized meticulously before anything is put in the hands of the American press. If only one account can be labelled false, all will be discredited.

I've been putting off that donation to Amnesty International. I'll get my check in Monday's mail.

[DerekG]

28. Anyone who supported the IWR has the blood of these tots on their hands

To all the party loyalists: remember this story when doughfaced war-mongers like Hillary Clinton and John Edwards vie for the nomination in 2008.

It's gonna take a thousand years to wash the blood from our hands.

[lumpy]

29. A concerned president would insisting

on knowing the facts of this outrage and demanding that children be released from these prisons. As commander-in-chief Bush has the obligation to see to it that these illegal incarcerations and tortures be stopped immediately. The military does not have the right or freedom to act without approval of Congress. An unrestrained military is contrary to the Constitution of the US.

[SKKY]

32. And I weep for those who use the broad Abu Ghraib brush to paint...

...the military as a whole. We spend so much time trying to find ways to make Bush look bad (He does just fine by himself by the way), that we use little isolated examples like this (which may or may not be true) to highlight the fact that Iraq was a mistake, meanwhile we're telling the world that the the american military is filled with baby-molesting psychopaths- one big huge gang of thugs that kills for fun. From a Veteran's point of view, that's disheartening- to say the very least.

[annabanana]

40. Most here do not hold the ranks cheifly culpable here..

Gonzales and Rumsfeld are the primary apologists for torture done by this country. It is the job of the American people to police the administration and we have not been doing our duty.

[saigon68]

41. Most of the leadership are a "GANG OF THUGS"

OR HOODLUMS

Or in the case of Gen. Myers a NitWit or a Half-Wit.

THE MAN IS PUTTING IN TIME as the Chief Thug in charge---, BEFORE HE GOES ON THE BOARD OF HALLIBURTON, BECHTEL etc.

[whatelseisnew]

42. Yes, the brush should not be broad enough to paint the entire military

It should specifically target those in charge (who are the baby-molesting psychopaths) and how and why they are allowed to operate with impunity.

This is not a "little isolated example" - it's either an indication of a serious lack of supervision and discipline or an indication of a systemic, sanctioned disregard of basic human rights (not to mention international policy), gone unchecked.

I appreciate military personnel who perform their duties nobly.

[w8liftinglady]

47. I worry when my son comes home from Baghdad...

that he will be associated with these war crimes,much like they referred to the vietnam vets as "Babykillers".I hold Bush,Rumsfeld and anyone else who approved of these tactics primarily responsible.

[WhiteTara]

57. have a VERY good therapist

lined up for him the minute he steps off the plane. It will take a long time for him to "become normal" again.
:cry:

[Burried News]

55. Normally we get prisoners behind the lines ASAP - in part to

protect them from the anger of front lines troops. I point out to others that these weren't front line troops doing this.
http://www.motherjones.com/news/feature/2005/03/03_2005_Bazelon.html
Excerpt from link:
Chris Mackey, as the reservist is known, had been taught that harsh interrogation techniques yielded poor information because they prompted detainees to lie. Still, he recalls, “the more aggressive we were—though we never became physically violent—the more reliable the information was.” His team realized that they often got their best information in the last half-hour of a 10-hour session, and they concluded that fatigue was their best available weapon. “We decided by committee that we couldn’t get away with sleep deprivation under the Geneva Convention,” Mackey says. “So we came up with this technique we called ‘monstering.’ We said that if you put one interrogator in with one prisoner and scrupulously gave them the same water and food and bathroom breaks, the interrogation could go on as long as the interrogator could stand it. Of course, we were hoping that the interrogator would be fully rested, whereas the prisoner would have just come off the battlefield.”

Monstering wasn’t in the Army manual, and before he came to Bagram, Mackey wouldn’t have imagined improvising techniques that deviated from his training. But in Afghanistan, he increasingly felt compelled to produce intelligence that might help his fellow soldiers. “When I arrived, I would never have countenanced monstering,” he told me. “But we saw how little success we were having against a determined enemy. So we went to what we thought was the absolute edge.”END

[WhiteTara]

56. I remember Vietnam

and it turned two generations of men into murderers, torturers, and psychopaths. After the end of Vietnam, the FBI disclosed that there were no less than 2000 serial murderers in the country. I had a friend who was not in the least a terrible person before the war, but during the war, he became a monster and after he came home became a herion addict and then finally killed himself. My ex husband, who never saw combat, but loaded body bags onto planes, day after day. He is a raving alcoholic still. The streets are filled with men who cannot live in society because of the atrocities they either committed or saw. I remember Mai Lai and Lt. Calley (sp).

The army teaches (drills) that blood causes the grass to grow. They instill hatred of the people who they are forced to kill and this causes many young men (and women now) to snap and become the monsters they have been trained to become. I am sorry that you are disheartened about the rep of military personnel, but when you are considered nothing but a unit of cannon fodder, you are less than human and after awhile, these terrible things don't seem so terrible, but a release from the nightmare. This is of course, only IMHO

[w8liftinglady]

59. I actually almost posted that,too

..when you don't have a real enemy,with a real war plan-you have to play mind games to get people to be "OK" with killing...especially when your victims include children and women.I feel so much anger against this administration for these crimes.

[WhiteTara]

60. thanks, I figured I'd get flamed for sure

[jarnocan]

36. thannks IMPORTANT to know

will pass on.

[katinmn]

43. The #1 reason they are suppressing the photos is the children

Americans just might finally give a shit if it's hundreds of children being held and tortured.

However, Americans continue to amaze me with their lack of caring.

Maybe even the rape and torture of children is OK with them as long as gays can't marry and there is a chance to overturn RvW.

Makes me wonder if America is too far gone.

[Barrett808]

63. Hersh: "You haven't begun to see evil" n/t

[PDXWoman]

48. Have these Pedophilers

Been punished for these crimes?

[katinmn]

50. No. And some of us are demanding accountability.

http://www.endtheabuses.org/

http://news.google.com/news?ie=utf8&oe=utf8&persist=1&hl=en&client=google&ncl=http://www.chron.com/cs/CDA/ssistory.mpl/editorial/outlook/3288513&filter=0

[converted_democrat]

52. ...

[Spock_is_Skeptical]

53. That is truly horrible...

Pretty sordid and gruesome details, not pretty. It makes me ill
to read this, as well.

But what will be done about these crimes against humanity? Who will be punished? When the fuck will they drag every last neocon bastard to the Hague and try their asses?

WHEN!?