Wednesday, May 19, 2004
Torture and death in Iraq
The latest allegations here. I've been taking a break from this story, through exhaustion, but it won't go away, and keeps getting worse.
The lowlights:
A rough sketch of the torture situation:
1. Many Iraqis were abused or tortured, and some (perhaps as many as 27, and at least 8) were killed by American captors.
2. Warning were received very high up several month before this became public. Even when the news broke, the administration has continued to mislead us about the scope of the abuse it was already aware of.
3. Nothing was admitted and no policy changes made until whistleblowers released pictures to the media.
4. In a typical show of chutzpah, the Bush administration has claimed credit for acting on the scandal, saying that it is this openness that makes up for the torture. Even though we have brought our own brand of autocracy and torture to Iraq, we are still "better" than Saddam because we are an open, self-correcting democracy (never mind that it took a whistleblower). In direct contradiction to this argument, though, right wingers in Congress and on talk shows have attacked as "unpatriotic" and a "threat to the troops" the very people who exposed the abuse!
5. There is enough evidence that high-level peoplein the DoD ordered or condoned abusive treatment, in violation of the Geneva Conventions, to require a real and comprehensive investigation, all the way along the chain from Pres. Bush to Pfc. England. We don't know how such investigations will turn out. But there is the possibility that many will need to face criminal charges for violating Geneva, which is the law of the land, as Albert Gonzalez recognized early on.
6. Every few days, new revelations come to light, from soldiers, victims, and NGOs, showing the abuse was still more widespread, systematic, and brutal.
In light of these facts, it is appalling (though not shocking) that many affiliates of the Bush admin cry for an end to the scandal. Time to put it behind us, they say; a few rotten apples, they conclude. It is hard to reconcile these claims with any recent edition of a major newspaper. Instead, the right wing rhetoric is simply self-serving efforts to change the subject. But they do not serve the interests of justice or of the nation. Covering up the abuse will not undo the damage to America's reputation; we need to make real amends, dismiss those responsible at every level, and show the world we have changed our ways.
Remember that these were the people who set up a massive investigative apparatus and paralyzed the government for many months, just to investigate consensual presidential sex.
Now we have a real scandal, with real dead bodies, and real foreign policy implications. Spare us the comic relief. And in the future, spare us the moralizing over stained dresses. We know you are full of it.
The lowlights:
Brutal interrogation techniques by U.S. military personnel are being investigated in connection with the deaths of at least five Iraqi prisoners in war-zone detention camps, Pentagon documents obtained by The Denver Post show.
The deaths include the killing in November of a high-level Iraqi general who was shoved into a sleeping bag and suffocated, according to the Pentagon report. The documents contradict an earlier Defense Department statement that said the general died "of natural causes" during an interrogation. Pentagon officials declined to comment on the new disclosure.
Another Iraqi military officer, records show, was asphyxiated after being gagged, his hands tied to the top of his cell door. Another detainee died "while undergoing stress technique interrogation," involving smothering and "chest compressions," according to the documents.
Details of the death investigations, involving at least four different detention facilities including the Abu Ghraib prison, provide the clearest view yet into war-zone interrogation rooms, where intelligence soldiers and other personnel have sometimes used lethal tactics to try to coax secrets from prisoners, including choking off detainees' airways.
...
The documents also show more than twice as many allegations of detainee abuse - 75 - are being investigated by the military than previously known.
A rough sketch of the torture situation:
1. Many Iraqis were abused or tortured, and some (perhaps as many as 27, and at least 8) were killed by American captors.
2. Warning were received very high up several month before this became public. Even when the news broke, the administration has continued to mislead us about the scope of the abuse it was already aware of.
3. Nothing was admitted and no policy changes made until whistleblowers released pictures to the media.
4. In a typical show of chutzpah, the Bush administration has claimed credit for acting on the scandal, saying that it is this openness that makes up for the torture. Even though we have brought our own brand of autocracy and torture to Iraq, we are still "better" than Saddam because we are an open, self-correcting democracy (never mind that it took a whistleblower). In direct contradiction to this argument, though, right wingers in Congress and on talk shows have attacked as "unpatriotic" and a "threat to the troops" the very people who exposed the abuse!
5. There is enough evidence that high-level peoplein the DoD ordered or condoned abusive treatment, in violation of the Geneva Conventions, to require a real and comprehensive investigation, all the way along the chain from Pres. Bush to Pfc. England. We don't know how such investigations will turn out. But there is the possibility that many will need to face criminal charges for violating Geneva, which is the law of the land, as Albert Gonzalez recognized early on.
6. Every few days, new revelations come to light, from soldiers, victims, and NGOs, showing the abuse was still more widespread, systematic, and brutal.
In light of these facts, it is appalling (though not shocking) that many affiliates of the Bush admin cry for an end to the scandal. Time to put it behind us, they say; a few rotten apples, they conclude. It is hard to reconcile these claims with any recent edition of a major newspaper. Instead, the right wing rhetoric is simply self-serving efforts to change the subject. But they do not serve the interests of justice or of the nation. Covering up the abuse will not undo the damage to America's reputation; we need to make real amends, dismiss those responsible at every level, and show the world we have changed our ways.
Remember that these were the people who set up a massive investigative apparatus and paralyzed the government for many months, just to investigate consensual presidential sex.
Now we have a real scandal, with real dead bodies, and real foreign policy implications. Spare us the comic relief. And in the future, spare us the moralizing over stained dresses. We know you are full of it.
