ACLU: Documents Obtained Describe Charges of Murder & Torture of Prisoners in U.S. Custody

[Hissyspit]

Source: ACLU Press Release

Documents Obtained By ACLU Describe Charges Of Murder And Torture Of Prisoners In U.S. Custody (4/16/2008)

Newly Released Government Documents Show Special Forces Used Illegal Interrogation Techniques In Afghanistan

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
CONTACT: [phone] or [phone]; [e-mail]

NEW YORK – The American Civil Liberties Union obtained documents today from the Department of Defense confirming the military’s use of unlawful interrogation methods on detainees held in U.S. custody in Afghanistan. The documents from the military’s Criminal Investigation Division (CID), obtained as a result of the ACLU’s Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) lawsuit, include the first on-the-ground reports of torture in Gardez, Afghanistan to be publicly released.

“These documents make it clear that the military was using unlawful interrogation techniques in Afghanistan,” said Amrit Singh, an attorney with the ACLU. “Rather than putting a stop to these systemic abuses, senior officials appear to have turned a blind eye to them.”

- snip -

Today’s documents reveal charges that Special Forces beat, burned, and doused eight prisoners with cold water before sending them into freezing weather conditions. One of the eight prisoners, Jamal Naseer, died in U.S. custody in March 2003. In late 2004, the military opened a criminal investigation into charges of torture at Gardez. Despite numerous witness statements describing the evidence of torture, the military’s investigation concluded that the charges of torture were unsupported. It also concluded that Naseer’s death was the result of a “stomach ailment,” even though no autopsy had been conducted in his case. Documents uncovered today also refer to sodomy committed by prison guards; the victims’ identities are redacted.

“These documents raise serious questions about the adequacy of the military’s investigations into prisoner abuse,” added Singh. The ACLU also obtained today a file today related to the death of Muhammad Al Kanan, a prisoner held at Camp Bucca in Iraq. The file reveals that British doctors refused to issue a death certificate for fear of being sued for malpractice:
www.aclu.org/pdfs/safefree/20080416/CID_ROI_Bucca.pdf

Read more: http://www.aclu.org/safefree/torture/34923prs20080416.html?s_src=RSS

[Solly Mack]

1. K&R

[Hissyspit]

18. AP: Pentagon Records Detail Prisoner Abuse by U.S. Military

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20080417/ap_on_go_ca_st_pe/afghan_prisoner_abuse

Pentagon records detail prisoner abuse by US military
By LARA JAKES JORDAN, Associated Press Writer
2 hours, 57 minutes ago

WASHINGTON - Military interrogators assaulted Afghan detainees in 2003, using investigation methods they learned during self-defense training, Pentagon documents released Wednesday show.

Detainees at the Gardez Detention Facility in southeastern Afghanistan reported being made to kneel outside in wet clothing and being kicked and punched in the kidneys, nose and knees if they moved, according to the documents.

A 2006 Army review concluded that the detainees were not abused but that the incident revealed "misconduct that warrants further action."

The documents, which were turned over Wednesday evening to the American Civil Liberties Union, focus on the 2003 death of Afghan detainee Jamal Nasser, who died in U.S. custody at the Gardez facility.

The documents detail interrogation techniques used on eight detainees, including Nasser, who were suspected of weapons trafficking.

The Army review found that abuse did not cause Nasser's death. But the documents include interviews with some interrogators who acknowledged slapping the detainees — a technique they learned during survival training at the Army's SERE school. SERE stands for Survive, Evade, Resist and Escape.

"You say you gave permission for (redacted) to hit detainees during interrogations; did you have a memorandum or order from your higher headquarters authorizing that?" a military criminal investigator asked one of the interrogators, according to a November 2004 transcript among the more than 300 pages of documents.

"No, I did not have a memorandum and had not seen one," the interrogator answered, according to the transcript. "I used tactics that were used in SERE."

The investigator continued: "Did you see (redacted) hit detainees during the interviews?"

"Yes, open or closed slaps, not punches," the interrogator answered.

In another interview that day, according to the documents, the Army investigator asks whether "you ever heard of a tactic of pouring cold water or a water and snow mix on persons captured?"

MORE

[burrowowl]

2. Given Bu$h has admitted is that torture was discussed

Congress should put Articles of Impeachment on the table NOW!

[Gonnuts]

7. They aren't going to do it

... unless WE make them.

Just don't talk about it and post here, preaching to the choir, and don't think that just because you called once, or wrote an email, or signed a petition it's over - it's time to DO SOMETHING MORE! If you're not already part of a political actions group find one and join. Form groups to go visit your representatives and be firm in you demands to have action taken.

When it gets to the point that a president of the United States can get on national TV and basically say, "Yeah, we DO torture - what the fuck you going to do about it?" and we do nothing? It's OVER!

https://secure.aclu.org/site/Advocacy?pagename=homepage&id=857&page=UserAction&s_src=kwb

[Faux pas]

16. Thanks for posting that link, I've forwarded it to everyone I know.

[bjobotts]

15. These thugs shuld be in prison, not running the country. Bush just said "fuck American law, I'm the

decider. I make the decisions not you". Only in a dictatorship George.

[cstanleytech]

17. Not....going...to....happen.

I wish people would just admit its not going to happen for varies reasons, the democrats dont wanna rock the boat right now because they are focused on trying not to allow a 3rd bush term with McCain and the other reason why I think is because the term for Bush is almost over.
On the brightside there is the potential still for Bush and anyone else involved at being charged even after the president leaves office unless he grants them pardons in which case it falls to the international courts to seek justice and Bush cannot pardon himself from being put on trial before them :)

[bluesmail]

3. K&R may they not get away with this

[Bluebear]

4. I'm mortified to report that this does not shock/surprise me.

Nothing this Administration does can do that anymore.

[Gonnuts]

5. Bad Horror Film

It's like watching a bad horror film, over and over again, watching these dregs work their insidious schemes. Only the theater is empty except for a few that are sitting there with mouths open, eyes wide, unable to move not believing what they're seeing.

Anyone that has read PNAC, Statement of Principles, is watching everything on their wish list come to pass.

Obtain power by any means necessary - check!

Immediately and relentlessly put plans for world domination into play and ruthlessly destroy anyone or thing that gets in the way - check!

These guys are gangsters on steroids. Even Al Capone was well liked by the general public, these s.o.b.'s don't even pretend to hide their disdain, cheney's "So?", bush's "Yeah, I know about it and approved", is just one bitch-slap after another, I'm surprised bush didn't flip the crowd "the bird" when they booed him as he walked out to throw the first pitch of the baseball season, or more to his level garb his crotch. And it's been like this for 7+ years, one body blow after another.

And no one is paying attention! They've all left the theater thinking that they'll be able to walk back in January 09' and they'll be a new movie. Only this one will be a slice-of-life, feel good movie on how people struggle to regain prosperity after having suffered terrible loses. Only they're in for a big surprise.

The theater might not even be there, and if it is it will be owned by the same guys who brought us the horror movie everyone walked out on and quit paying attention to 8 years ago. And once you enter they'll be some other changes - you won't be able to leave this time.

bush just made the statement preparing us for the next sequel with his, "Of course they'll be another big terrorist attack on American soil - and many Americans will die,". Another "false-flag" attack is all that is needed to bring the unwashed masses back in line. Don't think about the fact that he's admitting that for all his so-called efforts to "protect American lives" that he's going to take the blame when it happens - hell no! He told us it was going to happen - it's our fault now if it does.

But now they're setting us up for the big one. This is my spin and these cretins haven't disappointed me yet (and God how I wish they would).

They'll be an attack. Bigger than 9/11. Alten's Shell Game is probably truer than most want to think. It will be blamed on Iran. bush will nuke Iran. What will happen geopolitical, I don't know. Not total nuclear war, although that might be just wishful thinking, and if that happens everything's a moot point anyway, but, bush will use the chaos from collapsing economy, food riots, and repercussions from the attack to declare Marshall Law. The election will go off on time because they'll want to keep an illusion of legitimacy, but it will so tainted as not to matter and it's "war-hero" McInsane by a Diebold public hair because we can't have no wimpy peace guy or women in a "time of all-out war"!

See ya in the FEMA camp

[dixiegrrrrl]

8. God I hate to agree with you on this

but such a bleak assessment is more realistic and probable today than a year ago when it was beginning to be openly discussed.
Every continuing in-your-face- action by the regime supports the inevitability of the steps you outline.

Sigh.....

[Judi Lynn]

6. So what public reaction should we expect? Dead silence? The hate radio tools will screech themselves

hoarse reviling the ACLU for this. We won't hear the end of it for a while.

The information itself of astonishing barbarity and insane, utterly immoral, savage sadism will only arouse the wingers who hear it, beyond all doubt.

What a damnable shame. So glad the news is even partially out, regardless. We need total cleansing.

[Gonnuts]

9. Who gives a shit what "Wingers" say?

Breaking the law is breaking the law. Torture is illegal. It's been illegal for a long, long time and it's been well defined for a long time. It didn't start with some pimp of an AG or whore of a lawyer written memo's telling us the Founding Fathers didn't know what they were talking about.

Article 4 of the United Nations Convention on Torture, which the United States has signed and ratified-and which the ACLU identifies as "the most important international human rights treaty that deals exclusively with torture" - makes it illegal for individual nations to rewrite their laws to permit torture. The article states: "Each State Party shall ensure that all acts of torture are offences under its criminal law. The same shall apply to an attempt to commit torture and to an act by any person which constitutes complicity or participation in torture."

In other words it's AGAINST THE LAW even to get together and try to change laws against torture! That makes all those meeting ILLEGAL! It makes the Military Commission Act ILLEGAL! It makes Woo a conspirator, his memo's indict him. bush saying what he said INDICTS HIM! You can NOT try to re-define long held statues to make torture legal anymore than you can try to make robbing banks legal. (although they've done a pretty good job of doing that too)

So I don't give a shit what "wingers" say, the majority of the people in this country could say burning people at the stake is okay - it still doesn't make it legal. They can only spin this IF WE LET THEM.

[FourScore]

10. k&r

[Baby Snooks]

11. So what sayeth Madame Speaker?

She is still the Empress. Keeping everything off the table for the Emperor. She should have brought this country to a halt and told the Republicans "impeach or forget your paycheck."

When are people going to wake up to the reality that both parties obviously have been hijacked and none of us have any protections or rights because Congress has allowed the Constitution to become a faint memory for all of us?

Those who hate the Republicans need to finally look at the Democrats who are enabling them. Starting with Nancy Pelosi.

[EstimatedProphet]

22. Right. It's all Pelosi's fault.

She's the one who's really responsible for Bush's sick activities. Certainly not Bush.

[slowry]

28. What are you saying? Should we wait for him to confess, or something?

oh, he's done that too.

Someone has to at least try to hold him accountable.

[EstimatedProphet]

29. There is a difference between saying sh's not doing enough...

and deliberately trying to shift the blame for what he has done onto her.

The facts of the case are that we don't have a congress that has enough of a majority to achieve its goals. There is very little Pelosi could do to rectify that, not with a solid core of blue-dog Dems that would bolt the party and vote straight Repub if the price was right. She's hamstrung as it is, an impeachment is much more difficult than it is being represented on this board anyway - even with a confession, which that was not - but the original post was trying to argue that since there hasn't been a successful impeachment yet, Pelosi is actually responsible for Bush's crimes. That's utter bullshit, it's stupid and it's specifically designed to divide us and keep us arguing amongst ourselves so that the Repubs can come back in November.

[Preston120]

12. All This in the land of the free, and the home of the brave? I am ashamed!

[truth2power]

13. I'm so sick of all this. I'd settle for them NOT being prosecuted if

in exchange I could get a definitive answer as to why no one is interested in taking on this issue. I mean, the REAL reason why no one seems to care.

During the Clinton impeachment debacle all we heard was blue dress, blue dress, blue dress, on and on and on, 24/7. Over a private pecadillo that didn't impact the lives of any of us. No one died, the economy didn't tank, foreign policy wasn't affected.

And here we have those in the highest levels of our government engaging in sadism and making what amount to snuff films**, and nobody gives a shit!! What in the goddamn hell is going on??


**I have recently come to the conclusion that while what has gone on is certainly torture, it's not about torture. And it's NOT about trying to extract information concerning possible terrorist attacks.

Think about it. Some of these people have been in US custody for going on 7 years. Someone said that any information a detainee could give would be, within a short time after capture, historical. And in any case, as someone posted here recently, there are drugs that could do the job much more efficiently. If your goal is to get information, that is.

Yet they gather in a room to "choreograph" techniques. And the techniques are heavy on sexual content...Oh, to humiliate..to be sure. Males sodomizing other males with various instruments. Prisoners being forced to masturbate and to fellate one another. And there's the picture of the girl (is that Lyndie?) all toothy grin, leaning with her face next to the partially rotted face of a corpse. Oh, so funny! Ha ha! These techniques will surely give us the information we need to keep Murka safe! Boo-ya.

No, this is about something dark and perverse. It's about sadism and necrophilia. And the monsters in the Bush Administration are perpetrating it.

Several days ago one of those late-night stand-up comedians (might have been that British guy, I'm not sure) was doing his routine. Remarking on the release of the torture memo, and the "choreography" he said, "and Dick cheney was sitting in the back of the room, masturbating."

It's not just me.

[Infinite Hope]

14. The guilty soldiers, especially in relation to sodomy, should be published widely. n/t

[12string]

19. we can not let this go

k&r These thugs must be hammered nonstop.We have got to find a way to force the MSM to give this the never-ending air time necessary to get America off of its collective ass and remove and imprison those responsible.I have been absolutely appalled since the first mention of America torturing people and most people I talk to haven't even heard of it and don't believe it when I tell them.After all,that would be a big deal in the news if it was true.ARGGGG.I live in Washington state.If anyone knows of a planned march on Olympia let me know.It's way past time for us to force this issue.

[fed-up]

20. link to 100,000 pages of gov't docs released in response to FOIA lawsuit

http://www.veteransforcommonsense.org/articleid/9806

Apr.12: Secret U.S. Government Torture Memo Released Today in Response to ACLU, VCS Lawsuit

ACLU
Apr 12, 2008


April 11, 2008 - New York, NY -- A secret memo authored by the Department of Justice (DOJ) asserting that President Bush has unlimited power to order brutal interrogations to extract information from detainees was declassified today as a result of an American Civil Liberties Union and Veterans for Common Sense Freedom of Information Act lawsuit. The memo, written by John Yoo, then a deputy at the DOJ's Office of Legal Counsel (OLC), was sent to the Defense Department in March 2003.

"Senior officials at the Justice Department gave the Pentagon the green light to torture prisoners," said Amrit Singh, an ACLU staff attorney. "It is outrageous that none of these high-level officials have been brought to task yet for their role in authorizing prisoner abuse."

A similar OLC memo asserting the same kind of unchecked executive authority was sent to the CIA in August 2002. In that now-notorious document, torture was defined so narrowly that it encompassed only those methods that result in pain akin to that associated with "death, organ failure or the permanent impairment of a significant body function.

...snip

"To date, more than 100,000 pages of government documents have been released in response to the ACLU's FOIA lawsuit. The ACLU has been posting these documents online at:
www.aclu.org/torturefoia

[Mnemosyne]

21. Convoy of Death - Afghanistan Massacre 5/2003

The film has been broadcast on national television in countries all over the world and has been screened by the European parliament. Human rights lawyers are calling for investigation into whether U.S. forces are guilty of war crimes. But no U.S. media outlet has broadcast the film.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A-NpdoGkaEc&feature=related

[Bragi]

24. Good grief!

I've not seen that film before and I'm blown away.

(Incidentally, there is a one-click version of the 50 minute documentary at:

http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-8763367484184611493 )

[Mnemosyne]

27. Heinous, isn't it? The Taliban may be an evil bunch, but

many of those rounded up were not Taliban, just wrong place, wrong time.

No one deserves to die that way. Even *co.

Thanks for the link. I just threw up the first link I found.

[Hissyspit]

23. .

[sakabatou]

25. Well, we have the evidence

They said they did use torture... WHY THE FUCK AREN'T WE IMPEACHING YET?!

[alfredo]

26. And we criticize China for its brutality.

[donkeyotay]

30. And we swept the medals in Hypocrisy, too, the 500m and the relay

as well as the Selective Blame Medley. Ever notice how Abu Ghraib was embodied by Lynndie England, and any failures of command were because of Gen. Janis Karpinski? Nancy Pelosi is to blame for not ending the war, and Hillary Clinton started it? Is it just me, or is there a theme here?

[alfredo]

31. Yes, women get the shaft.