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Two sessions of torture were more than enough for this soldier

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Batgirl Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Thu Nov-02-06 10:46 AM
Original message
Two sessions of torture were more than enough for this soldier
http://freestudents.blogspot.com/2006/11/us-soldiers-choice-suicide-or-torture.html

She could speak Arabic and was sent to Iraq to participate in prisoner interrogations. Unfortunately it turned out she had far too much human decency to do this job and refused to continue after just 2 days. In fact, she was so tormented by what she witnessed that she later killed herself.

This just point out one of the biggest headaches associated with being a violent, authoritarian thug just minding your own business and going about your work of murder and torture while also juggling the relentless demands of ensuring the corporate media functions as a full time propoganda machine, suppressing political dissent, and grabbing fistfuls of money from the Treasury to stuff in your pockets. The last thing you need under these circustances in a real human being working for you, one that is less than enthusiastic about performing his or her torture duties.

"“Army specialist Alyssa Peterson was an Arabic speaking interrogator assigned to the prison at the Tal-afar airbase in far north-western Iraq near the Syrian border. According to the Army's investigation into her death, obtained by a KNAU reporter through the Freedom of Information Act, Peterson objected to the interrogation techniques used on prisoners. She refused to participate after only two nights working in the unit known as the cage. Army spokespersons for her unit have refused to describe the interrogation techniques Alyssa objected to. They say all records of those techniques have now been destroyed.”

Peterson “objected to interrogation techniques”. Why? What sort of interrogation are we talking about? The military won’t say. But what sort of techniques would cause someone who was willing to go to Iraq to refuse to perform the duties she volunteered to do? Just two sessions of interrogation were enough to stop Peterson from doing this task. KNAU reported: “Army investigators concluded she shot and killed herself with her service rifle.”

What interrogation techniques would be drive a young, religious woman to use her service rifle to take her own life? What did she see, or was required to do, that made her think that living was no longer worth it? The military won’t say, they claim all “records of those techniques have now been destroyed.” But they know."

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magellan Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Thu Nov-02-06 10:50 AM
Response to Original message
1. God
There's nothing to say. This young woman's decision to kill herself says it all.

RIP, Alyssa.
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Rosemary2205 Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Thu Nov-02-06 10:51 AM
Response to Original message
2. How awful.
:cry:
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gfnrob Donating Member (551 posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Thu Nov-02-06 10:51 AM
Response to Original message
3. Dunking in water??
Maybe she could not stand to see folks getting all wet. That is the worst that we do,Right???:sarcasm: :shrug:
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Sabriel Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Thu Nov-02-06 10:52 AM
Response to Original message
4. Don't be so sure that "suicide" is the whole story
It's certainly the way it's being spun, but there's some major weirdness to the details:

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=102x2590704
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Batgirl Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Thu Nov-02-06 10:56 AM
Response to Reply #4
5. thanks for the link
I hadn't seen the other thread.

In any case, it seems she wasn't made of "the right stuff" to carry out the appalling duties of Bushco. You have to be monstrous, like them, and she apparently was not.
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magellan Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Thu Nov-02-06 10:59 AM
Response to Reply #4
6. I thought that too but didn't want to go there
It's tragic enough this decent young woman is dead; that it may have been at the hands of our own for refusing to go along or threatening to file a report is just too much for me to digest at the moment.
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Crayson Donating Member (463 posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Thu Nov-02-06 11:09 AM
Response to Original message
7. Suicide?... Oh please!!!

Nice clichee...
The poor soft young girl with the tender feelings who couldn't bear what she witnessed and killed herself.

I rather think the key word here is "WITNESSED".
She saw and knew too much and didn't play along.



Women aren't always as soft as we men want them to be in our dreams.
Most of this worlds burdens are carries by women. They can take it.

Always the same clichees.
Virgin or (w/b)itch.

The opposite was that other girl.. the torture witch... don't remember the name.
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Ms. Clio Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Thu Nov-02-06 11:13 AM
Response to Reply #7
8. I tend to agree
both that she was a possible witness who was permanently silenced, and with the Madonna/whore observation. It was Lyndie England, and her "feminine nature" did not recoil from anything.
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Batgirl Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Thu Nov-02-06 11:18 AM
Response to Reply #7
9. I have to admit
to feeling kind of dumb that I didn't immediately suspect the same thing.

But however it happened, it comes down to that she apparently could not and would not participate in torture. She wasn't a thug or a pod person. And she's in my thoughts today.
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BlueEyedSon Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Thu Nov-02-06 11:53 AM
Response to Original message
10. not "suicide".... "suicided"
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Supersedeas Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Thu Nov-02-06 11:55 AM
Response to Original message
11. still haven't seen any mention of this in the Conservative Corp Media
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Matariki Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Thu Nov-02-06 12:07 PM
Response to Original message
12. "They say all records of those techniques have now been destroyed.”
Edited on Thu Nov-02-06 12:07 PM by kineta
and we're absolutely SURE it was suicide? no chance she was one of those 'records'?
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Batgirl Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Thu Nov-02-06 12:20 PM
Response to Reply #12
13. Not sure at all, not even a little.
I'm sure most of the people who are torturing in our name are living out a sick twisted dream, where they have official permission to inflict pain and suffering on others in a way that is forbidden among normal, decent human beings. If she was "suicided" it would be not only to eliminate an eyewitness to their doings, but to eliminate a person who was a living rebuke to the Evil at the core of those who participated willingly, with gusto. I would imagine that those who are willingly, even eagerly, complicit in torture, would prefer to eliminate anyone who was a reminder to them of their own monstrous inhumanity. I'm sure they prefer to be surrounded only by others of their own kind so they can help reinforce the shared group delusion that they are serving some noble purpose and not just getting their rocks off.
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