New Accounts of Torture by U.S. Troops (*caution graphic*)

[sabra]

http://www.alertnet.org/thenews/newsdesk/HRW/bbc29fb371b02011e16942345387f497.htm

New Accounts of Torture by U.S. Troops

U.S. Army troops subjected Iraqi detainees to severe beatings and other torture at a base in central Iraq from 2003 through 2004, often under orders or with the approval of superior officers, according to accounts from soldiers released by Human Rights Watch today. The new report, "Leadership Failure: Firsthand Accounts of Torture of Iraqi Detainees by the U.S. Army's 82nd Airborne Division," provides soldiers' accounts of abuses against detainees committed by troops of the 82nd Airborne stationed at Forward Operating Base Mercury (FOB Mercury), near Fallujah.

Three U.S. army personnel-two sergeants and a captain-describe routine, severe beatings of prisoners and other cruel and inhumane treatment. In one incident, a soldier is alleged to have broken a detainee's leg with a baseball bat. Detainees were also forced to hold five-gallon jugs of water with their arms outstretched and perform other acts until they passed out. Soldiers also applied chemical substances to detainees' skin and eyes, and subjected detainees to forced stress positions, sleep deprivation, and extremes of hot and cold. Detainees were also stacked into human pyramids and denied food and water. The soldiers also described abuses they witnessed or participated in at another base in Iraq and during earlier deployments in Afghanistan.

According to the soldiers' accounts, U.S. personnel abused detainees as part of the military interrogation process or merely to "relieve stress." In numerous cases, they said that abuse was specifically ordered by Military Intelligence personnel before interrogations, and that superior officers within and outside of Military Intelligence knew about the widespread abuse. The accounts show that abuses resulted from civilian and military failures of leadership and confusion about interrogation standards and the application of the Geneva Conventions. They contradict claims by the Bush administration that detainee abuses by U.S. forces abroad have been infrequent, exceptional and unrelated to policy.

...

Soldiers referred to abusive techniques as "smoking" or "fucking" detainees, who are known as "PUCs," or Persons Under Control. "Smoking a PUC" referred to exhausting detainees with physical exercises (sometimes to the point of unconsciousness) or forcing detainees to hold painful positions. "Fucking a PUC" detainees referred to beating or torturing them severely. The soldiers said that Military Intelligence personnel regularly instructed soldiers to "smoke" detainees before interrogations.

[WePurrsevere]

1. This is so abhorent to me and should be to all other human beings.

"infrequent, exceptional and unrelated to policy"? LIES! LIES! LIES! :nuke: :grr: :nuke:

[cassiepriam]

2. I am ashamed to be an American. nt

[converted_democrat]

3. This is so awful.......

How can any of the people involved in this sleep at night? I get a guilty conscience if I kill a spider. How do these people live with themselves?

[teryang]

4. These are learned techniques resulting from training

...in illegal practices. They are not ad hoc or spontaneous results of lack of leadership, neglect or poor training. Rather they are deliberate violations of the law of military operations and international law.

[MGKrebs]

14. Excellent observation.

Please repeat this widely and often. It cannot be denied. This MUST be investigated, and the origins of such behavior rooted out and punished.

[Kolesar]

20. At the behest of Rumsfeld and Ashcroft...eom

[teryang]

43. This is an example of another kind of blowback

Most of these techniques, sometimes known as low impact torture, because they are designed to avoid Red Cross detection, are the subject of study and training in the US Armed Forces. They were studied for defense training purposes to familiarize active duty personnel with the sort of harsh interrogation methods and physical duress they might expect in enemy capitivity and the attitudes and methods best suited to survive it.

In a cruel irony, these methods and training are now being used offensively and illegally against our victims.

[mongo]

5. If we don't get this out into the light of day

and start holding command personnel responsible for actions, this will be happening in the US next.

You would think that John McCain would care...

[alarcojon]

29. McCain

should care, but he's made his bed with Bushco and is going to lie in it.

Fuck that guy.

[ninkasi]

33. I think a certain amount of this kind of behavior

already happens in our prisons. It is probably much more common when applied to members of minority races. There is too much evidence confirming what amounts to torture in our penal system, for it to be a myth.

Sadly, Bush and his gang only encourage brutality and hatred. They have made it acceptable in the eyes of many Americans, merely because of the actions they engage in. This is wrong, it is illegal, immoral, and goes against every principle I was raised to respect.

How Bush can claim to be a Christian, and not only permit such policies, but actually seem to enjoy causing them, is a mystery to me. Has it occurred to any of the mental giants in our government to question whether actions like torturing Iraqi citizens has fueled so much of the violence in that country, rather than the pathetic "they hate us for our freedoms" notion?

[DS1]

6. Shades of Abu Ghraib. Military Investigators asking for prisoners to be

'warmed up' before the real interrogations began.

HEIL HITLER!

[LiberalVoice]

7. Recomended.

These needs to be front page news!

[pokercat999]

8. Gee, makes you want to really

"support the criminals...er I mean......troops".


Yep ma, lots of bad apples spoil the whole barrel. Time to bring our troops home to a courts martial and send the officers and civilian leadership to the Hague.

Of course it'll never happen cause we're so superior and all.

[Name removed]

9. Deleted message

Message removed by moderator. Click here to review the message board rules.

[Systematic Chaos]

10. Hammurabi Code, anybody?

I'd be happy to throw a circuit or two and smoke a few torturers. Then we'll see how "relieved" they are of their "stress". :grr:

And in case you're wondering how this can jibe with my screen name, there is, in my opinion, a point beyond which "Gentle" needs to be thrown square out the fucking window.

[nuthead2ub]

27. Woah There Chief

Lets not start bringing Hammurabi into this.

If you want to condemn inhumane treatment then you don't get to turn around and 'smoke' anybody.

Hammurabi's Code would have long since killed a great many of the people in our prisons both here and overseas. Just something to think about.

Mind you any body breaking legs had better not come in front of me for judgment when I've had a bad day. It's easy for us to forget to be objective and let our passions get the best of us when confronted with human brutality.

[Lilyhoney]

34. welcome to DU

Don't be afraid to jump rite in.:hi:

[0007]

11. Is this the way Herr Rumsfeld gets even for all of his exposed

lies to the American people or is the sonofabitch just trying to fuck himself even?

This administration are nothing but war criminals and crooks. Hard to believe they get others to do their bidding.

[liveoaktx]

12. The author of "Love My Rifle More Than You" also talks about

this in one place. She said that torture was not confined only to Abu Ghraib.

[Gronk Groks]

13. My God, what has America become...

...we are on a fast track to a fascist police state.

Or did we arrive already and I failed to notice it.

[RedRocco]

15. 82nd Airborne

weren't they assigned to NOLA?

[Robeson]

17. An Imperialist Aggressor State....

...who uses its military resources to seize and/or exploit other nations - usually weaker - for it own financial gain. In the old days, it was called "looting". History is full of examples of what we've become.

[cshldoc]

22. Not looting.. finding!

Now it's called 'finding' since we're a mostly white country (for the time being)

[cyberpj]

16. Think we should be faxing this stuff to Judge Hellerstein?

To help him decide to release the additional photos to the ACLU?

Lots of America will never believe it without seeing it.

HONORABLE ALVIN K. HELLERSTEIN
SOUTHERN DISTRICT OF NEW YORK
Chambers
Room 1050
United States Courthouse
500 Pearl Street
New York, New York 10007
Tel: [phone]
Fax: [phone]

[Gregorian]

18. Gasoline culture.

These are freepers, for lack of a better term.

You may think I'm simplifying this, but I see it as clear as day. Especially having grown up in the completely opposing universe.

Where I now live, people have a mentality that I've witnessed that is reckless and careless to the degree of those who are doing the torturing. They have absolutely no trouble killing anything that moves. And they whittle down forests without even feeling the slightest remourse. I see people who are careless and reckless. I see republicans. They drive with beer cans, and chuck them out the window when they're done. Every morning I go out to my driveway and there's a new 12 pack box, among other garbage. The consensus here is that "we need to keep the unruly Arabs under control".

I may not be able to portray exactly how I experience what I see here. Sometimes you have to be the victim, or on the receiving end, in order to see the picture clearly. There is no doubt that these same people are my neighbors.

It's how they were raised. It's how they aren't educated. It's how they care not about anything or anyone.

I've never seen anything like it until I moved here. And this is a blue state!

America has never been more reckless and uneducated than now. Products of a lying media. Gasoline culture.

[democrank]

19. I don`t know how much longer

Americans can pretend this isn`t happening. It`s sickening.

[daleo]

21. This would create stress, not reduce it (even for the torturers)

"According to the soldiers' accounts, U.S. personnel abused detainees as part of the military interrogation process or merely to "relieve stress.""

It might take years for that to become obvious though.

[tuckessee]

23. Where's the "Support the Troops" crowd now?

There's been widespread, systematic torture from units ranging from bottom-of-barrel West Virginia Reserve MP's to elite, gung-ho 82nd Airborne Paratroopers.

That's a pretty diverse group of torturers.

So far, the abusers far outnumber the whistle blowers and concientious objectors.

How long can someone against the Iraq carnage support a military like that without enabling it?

[understandinglife]

24. NYTimes: 3 in 82nd Airborne Say Abuse in Iraqi Prisons Was Routine

September 24, 2005
3 in 82nd Airborne Say Abuse in Iraqi Prisons Was Routine

By ERIC SCHMITT

WASHINGTON, Sept. 23 - Three former members of the Army's 82nd Airborne Division say members of their battalion in Iraq routinely beat and abused prisoners in 2003 and 2004 to help gather intelligence on the insurgency and to amuse themselves.

The new allegations, the first involving members of the elite 82nd Airborne, are contained in a report by Human Rights Watch. They have also been reported by one of the soldiers, a decorated Army captain, Ian Fishback, in letters to top aides of two senior Republicans on the Senate Armed Services Committee, John W. Warner of Virginia, the chairman, and John McCain of Arizona.

The captain approached the aides after he tried to report the allegations to his superiors for 17 months, the aides said. The aides also said they found the captain's accusations credible enough to warrant investigation.

Link:
http://www.nytimes.com/2005/09/24/politics/24abuse.html?ei=5094&en=661326ef9747a50a&hp=&ex=1127534400&partner=homepage&pagewanted=print

War-criminal-in-chief and torture-in-chief Bush has led the total destruction of all real American values and the disintegration of our Constitution since his illegitimate tenure in the White House was conferred upon him by Scalia blocking the vote count on Dec 9, 2000 and the SCOTUS closing the dirty deal on Dec 12, 2000.

Now, We The People ... need to bring all these criminals to justice or "America" will move from the ICU to the grave.


Peace.

[Trevelyan]

25. United States: trade in torture

http://mondediplo.com/2005/04/04usatorture

The security and intelligence dossier
United States: trade in torture

This is a story of private jets flying out of Germany, of kidnappings on European streets, and of torture. It has a cast of lawyers, spies, suspected terrorists, innocent bystanders and an ex-CIA boss who believes that ‘human rights is a very flexible concept’.

By Stephen Grey

A SWEDISH immigration lawyer, Kjell Jönsson, was on the phone to a client, asylum seeker Mohamed al-Zery from Egypt, on the afternoon of 18 December 2001. “Suddenly there was a voice coming in, saying to al-Zery to end the telephone conversation,” Jönsson recalls. “It was the Swedish police, who had arrested him.”

Jönsson had requested the Swedish government to promise that there would be no quick decision on Zery’s application for refugee status: he feared that Zery would be tortured if sent back to Cairo. But Zery was expelled in the shortest time that Jönsson had encountered in 30 years of asylum work.

Five hours after the arrest of Zery and another Egyptian, Ahmed Agiza, both were deported from Stockholm’s Brömma airport. It was not revealed for another two years that there had been a US plane at the airport, plus a team of US agents who, it has been claimed, picked up the suspects, manacled their wrists and ankles, dressed them in orange overalls, drugged them, and bundled them into the plane...

[tainowarrior]

39. can we stop with the "bad apples" theory now?

The soldiers are admitting it was ROUTINE, not an isolated incident.

[Red_Viking]

26. Reminds me of what I saw at Mauthausen this summer

My family visited Austria during July-August and we went to Mauthausen. What an experience. There are detailed accounts of the horrors inflicted on prisoners by the Nazis, including the "Death Stairs" up from the quarry. This report doesn't sound a lot different.

When did we go from being the liberators to the oppressors?

I want my country back.

Peace,

RV

[BeHereNow]

28. 'SCUSE me while I go

:puke: :puke: :puke:
NOT in my name.
BHN

[sabra]

30. More: "Army to probe new Iraq abuse allegations"

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/9457014/

Army to probe new Iraq abuse allegations
Rights group report details severe, routine beatings of detainees

WASHINGTON - The Army has opened an investigation into a Fort Bragg soldier’s allegations that he witnessed and heard about widespread prisoner abuse — including torture and a beating with a baseball bat — while serving at a base in Iraq.

The announcement Friday came as a human rights organization prepared to release a scathing report on three 82nd Airborne Division soldiers’ accounts of prisoners being beaten, forced to hold five-gallon jugs of water in their outstretched arms, and denied sleep, food and water.

The abuse, one of the sergeants said, was like a game and a way for soldiers to work out their frustrations. The soldiers said there was a great deal of confusion about what types of treatment were allowed under the Geneva convention, and senior officers provided little guidance.

[GetTheRightVote]

31. It makes me sick to my stomach, yuck, Not in my Name !!!

:mad:

[specimenfred1984]

32. These are War Crimes Committed in Our Names

and they are also the truest comparison to the Nazis ever used.

The only thing worse is genocide.

[rodeodance]

35. "failures of leadership"--this should be the slogan-over and over!

[rodeodance]

36. Recommended

[rodeodance]

37. this makes a mockery of just 'a few bad apples"--yet the lie continues.

[rodeodance]

38. Friday evening news with wall to wall Rita. drats!

[Babel_17]

40. Recommended

"I was immediately concerned that the Army was taking part in a lie to the Congress, which would have been a clear violation of the Constitution," he said.

The Army, and this administration.

Off Topic: Kudos to Battlestar Galactica for raising the issue in last nights mid-season cliffhanger of the loss of humanity that occurs when prisoners are abused.

[Babel_17]

41. Yahoo link

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20050924/ap_on_re_us/prisoner_abuse

Here's a snip.

82nd Airborne Soldiers Allege Iraq Abuse

By LOLITA C. BALDOR, Associated Press Writer 30 minutes ago

Soldiers in the Army's elite 82nd Airborne Division vented their frustration by systematically torturing Iraqi detainees from 2003 into 2004, hitting them with baseball bats and dousing them with chemicals, a U.S. rights group alleges in a new report.

The Human Rights Watch report, issued Friday, was compiled from interviews with a captain and two sergeants who served in a battalion of the 82nd Airborne that was stationed at a military base called Mercury near Fallujah, the insurgent stronghold retaken by U.S. forces last year.

The soldiers, who spoke on condition of anonymity, said the abuse took place almost daily and often came under orders. Anything short of causing an inmate's death was allowed, they said.

The residents of Fallujah, 40 miles west of Baghdad, nicknamed soldiers at the nearby base "the Murderous Maniacs," New York-based Human Rights Watch said. "The soldiers considered this name a badge of honor."

[Loge23]

42. sanctioned by Gonzales & Roberts

The administartion's top legal minds have issued several oopinions that condone this type of "persuasion".
This is the country that we have - and will continue to - become under the fascists. Look for gonzales to join fellow brownshirt roberts on the (not-so) Supreme Court.
Hey! Maybe they will force women who choose to abort their pregnancy to stand outside with 5 gallon water jugs tied to their outstretched arms. That'll teach 'em.
Where this is all going is anyone's guess - but it sure doesn't look good.

[Dark]

44. US accused of more abuse in Iraq

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/middle_east/4278734.stm

Human Rights Watch has published a report giving fresh details of alleged torture and abuse of detainees by US forces in Iraq.

The report quotes three US soldiers who described routine, severe beatings of prisoners, including a detainee's leg being broken with a baseball bat.

Other allegations included applying burning chemicals to detainees' eyes and skin, making them glow in the dark.

A US defence spokesman said the report contained errors and distortions.

-----------

Well, this is great. Just great. What was that about liberating Iraqis from Saddam who tortured his people.

[suegeo]

45. Wake up Wake up Wake up

Wake up you fucking sheep.

[Z_I_Peevey]

46. Please read

"The Men Who Stare at Goats" to get an idea of how thoroughly our military have been corrupted by the embrace of torture.

[raysr]

47. Support the troops

NOT!!!!!!!

[rfkrfk]

48. this will be a winning issue in 2008,

along with gay marriage, slow Katrina response,
and bush's TANG service.

Meanwhile.republicans will waste their time
talking about jobs, the economy, health care,
education, and national secutity.

[NoodleyAppendage]

49. PUC = acronym used to dehumanize and psychologically divorce bad acts

Leave it to the US Military PsyOps to come up with an acronym for prisoners, which in effect allows for a psychological shield against the inhumanity perpetrated on the prisoners.

See...it's not so bad "smoking a PUC," but "smoking a helpless 13 year old boy" is much harder on the soul.

B

[Cult]

50. Kick! n/t

[Moderator]

51. kick

[Up2Late]

52. Group (HRW) Cites Prisoner Abuse by 82nd Airborne

Group Cites Prisoner Abuse by 82nd Airborne

(The Group is Human Rights Watch)Listen to this story...(at the NPR link above)

by Liane Hansen and Jackie Northam

Weekend Edition - Sunday, September 25, 2005 · Human Rights Watch has released a report based on conversations with three former members of the Army's 82nd Airborne Division that says they routinely beat and abused Iraqi detainees in Fallujah in 2003 and 2004.

<http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=4863141>

(This is the first News agency I heard reporting this, if you know of others, please post it here. Below is a link to the Human Rights Watch report.)

New Accounts of Torture by U.S. Troops

Soldiers Say Failures by Command Led to Abuse

(New York, September 24, 2005) -- U.S. Army troops subjected Iraqi detainees to severe beatings and other torture at a base in central Iraq from 2003 through 2004, often under orders or with the approval of superior officers, according to accounts from soldiers released by Human Rights Watch today.

The new report, “Leadership Failure: Firsthand Accounts of Torture of Iraqi Detainees by the U.S. Army's 82nd Airborne Division,” provides soldiers’ accounts of abuses against detainees committed by troops of the 82nd Airborne stationed at Forward Operating Base Mercury (FOB Mercury), near Fallujah.

Three U.S. army personnel—two sergeants and a captain—describe routine, severe beatings of prisoners and other cruel and inhumane treatment. In one incident, a soldier is alleged to have broken a detainee’s leg with a baseball bat. Detainees were also forced to hold five-gallon jugs of water with their arms outstretched and perform other acts until they passed out. Soldiers also applied chemical substances to detainees’ skin and eyes, and subjected detainees to forced stress positions, sleep deprivation, and extremes of hot and cold. Detainees were also stacked into human pyramids and denied food and water. The soldiers also described abuses they witnessed or participated in at another base in Iraq and during earlier deployments in Afghanistan.

According to the soldiers' accounts, U.S. personnel abused detainees as part of the military interrogation process or merely to “relieve stress.” In numerous cases, they said that abuse was specifically ordered by Military Intelligence personnel before interrogations, and that superior officers within and outside of Military Intelligence knew about the widespread abuse. The accounts show that abuses resulted from civilian and military failures of leadership and confusion about interrogation standards and the application of the Geneva Conventions. They contradict claims by the Bush administration that detainee abuses by U.S. forces abroad have been infrequent, exceptional and unrelated to policy.

<http://hrw.org/english/docs/2005/09/25/usint11776.htm>
(more at link above)

[Kagemusha]

53. Unlike George Washington, the present leaders simply believe

that these practices cannot possibly erase any more good will than has already been lost and that how else are we going to make the American public safer if we're *not* doing this to detainees? Because the priority is getting information, not goodwill. That is a political decision. I was reading up on this issue last night and noticed some bewildered military officers seeing Rumsfeld make his testimony before the Senate that none of this was being authorized from the top...

[thecodewarrior]

54. Abuse of Iraqi prisoners 'was sport'

http://www.suntimes.com/output/iraq/cst-nws-abuse25s1.html

NEW YORK -- Soldiers in the Army's elite 82nd Airborne Division vented their frustration by systematically torturing Iraqi detainees from 2003 into 2004, hitting them with baseball bats and dousing them with chemicals, a U.S. rights group alleges in a new report.

The Human Rights Watch report, issued last week, was compiled from interviews with a captain and two sergeants who served in a battalion of the 82nd Airborne that was stationed at a military base called Mercury near Fallujah, the insurgent stronghold retaken by U.S. forces last year.

The soldiers, who spoke on condition of anonymity, said the abuse took place almost daily and often came under orders. Anything short of causing an inmate's death was allowed, they said.

'Murderous Maniacs'



The residents of Fallujah, 40 miles west of Baghdad, nicknamed soldiers at the nearby base "the Murderous Maniacs," New York-based Human Rights Watch said. "The soldiers considered this name a badge of honor."

It said soldiers in the 82nd Airborne deprived detainees of sleep, food and water, subjected them to extreme heat and cold, stacked prisoners in human pyramids, kicked them in the face, and put chemicals on exposed skin and eyes.

One of the sergeants allegedly told the group that military intelligence personnel, eager for information, often instructed soldiers to "smoke" detainees -- called Persons Under Control -- during questioning, the report said. "Smoking" prisoners meant physically abusing them until they lost consciousness.

But the motive was not always to gain intelligence, one sergeant was quoted as saying.

"Everyone in camp knew if you wanted to work out your frustration, you show up at the PUC tent. In a way it was sport," he reportedly said.

"One day shows up and tells a PUC to grab a pole. He told him to bend over and broke the guy's leg with a mini-Louisville Slugger, a metal bat."

The soldier said anything short of death was acceptable.

"As long as no PUCs came up dead, it happened," he said. "We kept it to broken arms and legs."

The timing of some of the alleged tortures coincided with the prisoner abuse by American forces at Abu Ghraib near Baghdad in fall 2003. "These soldiers' firsthand accounts provide further evidence contradicting claims that abuse of detainees by U.S. forces was isolated or spontaneous," the report said.

The soldiers quoted in the report said they were confused about treatment allowed under the Geneva Conventions, which bar mistreatment of prisoners of war or civilian detainees. They said senior officers provided little guidance.

Defense Department spokesman Lt. Col. John Skinner criticized the report as a predictable effort to try to "advance an agenda through the use of distortions and errors in fact."

The Army said it had opened an investigation into one soldier's allegations that he witnessed and heard about widespread prisoner abuse, including torture and a beating with a baseball bat, while serving at a base in Iraq.

[BayouBengal07]

55. Just doing God's work

spreading freedom and liberty across the world.

[PassingFair]

56. Thank Jeebus we got rid of all

...the torture rooms!
Let Freedom Reign!

[Up2Late]

58. Thanks for finding this...

...I just wonder how much of this is going under the Hurricane Rita Radar.

[Judi Lynn]

57. The truth needs to come out, again, and again, and again.

They shouldn't be able to keep pushing it aside, and burying it.

[okieinpain]

59. oh you guys need to get over it. it's just boys being boys. of course

when they come home and continue this behavior it will be all clintons fault.

I'm sorry for being flippant, but the american sheeple won't understand this until these guys start going nuts in the us.