War Crimes by the US

[Dace De'Briago]

There have been a number of stories about war crimes featuring in the news over the last year or two. Many people - myself included - have been rather indifferent to these incidents and I've tended to be sceptical when these reports have been made.

Recently, the number of war crimes 'stories' has risen substantially, involving both US and British soldiers. Rather than ignore what is happening again and disregarding it with a 'few bad apples' arguement I thought I'd read up on one or two stories. This report is rather interesting.

http://www.crimesofwar.org/special/a...ureafghan.html

[Djinn Raffo]

Wow that article really demonstrates how much worse life in Afghanistan was under the Taliban than it is now!

After all, under the Taliban this story would have never been told because the seven men whose tale of torture makes up the basis for the article would have all been executed.

[Azred]

Although an interesting story, and apparently one with verifiable merit, what some might call "war crimes" still only amounts to "a few bad apples". This does unfortunately happen in every military conflict and is hardly cause for alarm, only investigation by the proper authorities; in this case, that happens to be the military justice system.

[Cerek]

I found this particular portion to be somewhat confusing...

About 9 o'clock that night, a group of Afghan police arrived at Gardez Civil Hospital. Dr. Aziz Ulraham, who was on duty that night, told me that the police demanded an ambulance to pick up a body from the American compound. When no ambulance driver could be found, the soldiers began hitting and beating the frightened physicians with rifle butts.

Why does the description of these men suddenly switch to "soldiers" when it says they started beating the physicians with rifle butts?

Maybe it is just an oversight, or maybe Afghan police are also soldiers in the Afghan army. But a casual reading would make the reader think it was the American soldiers that beat the doctors. After all, the article had already repeated several times that the prisoners were beaten by the American soldiers and it listed specific details of the beatings - including the prisoners being beaten with rifle butts when they were taken into custody.

So it is very easy for your mind to create an implied link and add the beating of the hospital staff to the list of abuses aready attributed to the Special Forces unit.

Again, it could be an innocent error on the part of the author, but I actually had to re-read that section a couple of times to clarify what it was saying. Because the first time I read it, I thought it was implying that the Americans were the ones that beat the doctors, so I had to go back a couple of paragraphs to see if the article mentioned the Americans going to the hospital with the Afghan police.

I agree with Azred that the story seems to have verifiable merit. But I also noticed a great many of the authors sources were anonymous or were listed in general terms instead of specific ones.

Maybe that's common practice. The article is fairly long to begin with, and maybe there just wasn't room to provide a detailed list of his sources. But it still throws up a little red flag in my opinion.

I'm not denying the events happened, but it makes me wonder if the author isn't claiming to have more sources than he actually did in order to add extra credibility to the account.

Either way, the military definitely needs to conduct an in-depth investigation to determine what abuses may have taken place and to decide what punishment would be appropriate for those responsible.

[shamrock_uk]

Well spotted Cerek.

This was the worst part for me:

Some of the detainees told the investigators that two of Pare's toenails had been torn out, but he himself never made this claim. Although two of his toenails were missing in a later medical examination, it is possible they fell out because of the blows to his toes, rather than being pulled out as part of his torture.

How can toenails just fall out?! How hard must the feet have been beaten?

This coincides with something I watched yesterday on BBC News about the last remaining British detainee in Guantanemo Bay. (Despite being raised in Britain, he was a refugee and thus doesn't have British citizenship - his father was assinated by Qadaffi and they fled to Britain when he was a child. By all accounts a model citizen, active in the community and the police even used to ask him to come into prisons to help with Muslim detainees, offer spiritual guidance and a friendly shoulder etc)

The only person allowed to see him was his (British) lawyer, who had been forbidden to speak about the visit until now. Its just been declassified apparently, and he reported that his client was now blind in one eye after the American's tortured him by rubbing pepper spray in his eyes repeatedly. Its just f***ked up

[ 02-18-2005, 08:31 AM: Message edited by: shamrock_uk ]

[Dreamer128]

This hit the papers today:

(Source: aclu.org)

NEW YORK--The American Civil Liberties Union today released files obtained from the Army revealing previously undisclosed allegations of abuse by U.S. soldiers in Iraq and Afghanistan. Among the documents are reports that a detainee who was beaten and seriously injured was forced to drop his claims in order to be released from custody.

"The torture of detainees is too widespread and systemic to be dismissed as the rogue actions of a few misguided individuals," said ACLU Executive Director Anthony D. Romero. "The American public deserves to know which high-level government officials are ultimately responsible for the torture conducted in our name."

The release of these documents follows a federal court order that directed the Defense Department and other government agencies to comply with a year-old request under the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) filed by the ACLU, the Center for Constitutional Rights, Physicians for Human Rights, Veterans for Common Sense and Veterans for Peace. The New York Civil Liberties Union is co-counsel in the case.

In one file released today, an Iraqi detainee claimed that Americans in civilian clothing beat him in the head and stomach, dislocated his arms, "stepped on [his] nose until it [broke]," stuck an unloaded pistol in his mouth and fired the trigger, choked him with a rope and beat his leg with a baseball bat. Medical reports corroborated the detainee’s account, stating that the detainee had a broken nose, fractured leg, and scars on his stomach. In addition, soldiers confirmed that Task Force 20 interrogators wearing civilian clothing had interrogated the detainee. However, after initially reporting the abuse, the detainee said that he was forced by an American soldier to sign a statement denouncing the claims or else be kept in detention indefinitely. He agreed.

An investigator who reviewed the signed statement concluded that "[t]his statement, alone, is a prima facie indication of threats." However, despite the medical report and testimony from other soldiers, the criminal file was ultimately closed on the grounds that the investigation had "failed to prove or disprove" the offenses.

Another file released today reports that U.S. soldiers in Afghanistan posed for photographs of mock executions with hooded and bound detainees, and that some of these photographs were intentionally destroyed after the Abu Ghraib scandal to avoid "another public outrage."

The file concerns an investigation into the discovery of a CD during an office clean-up in Afghanistan in July 2004. The CD contained digital images of what appeared to be abuse and maltreatment of detainees in and around Fire Base Tycze in southern Afghanistan. The pictures showed uniformed soldiers pointing pistols and M-4 rifles at the heads and backs of bound and hooded detainees, and other abuses such as holding a detainee’s head against the wall of a cage. One sergeant stated that he had also seen pictures on Army computers of detainees being kicked, hit or inhumanely treated while in U.S. custody. An Army Specialist and team leader with four soldiers assigned under him admitted that similar photographs had been destroyed after images of torture at Abu Ghraib prison were leaked to the media.

"These files provide more evidence, if any were needed, that abuse was not limited to Abu Ghraib," said ACLU staff attorney Jameel Jaffer. "Unfortunately, it’s now clear that the government failed to investigate many of these abuses until the Abu Ghraib photographs came to light."

Other photos discovered during the investigation showed bound U.S. soldiers in what is described as "an activity called PUC’ing (Person Under Control) a ritualistic activity done on birthdays, re-enlistments, and similar events, by fellow platoon members." The photographs showed hooded soldiers lying on the ground in the dirt with their hands and feet bound, while other soldiers poured water on them. The act apparently simulated the treatment of detainees who were designated as needing extra "control."

Additional cases of abuse revealed in the investigative files released today include:

* Senior Psychological Operations (PsyOps) officers in Afghanistan reported witnessing indiscriminate assaults by Special Forces on civilians during raids in May 2004 in the villages of Gurjay and Sukhagen. Abuses included hitting and kicking villagers in the head, chest, back and stomach, and threatening to shoot them. An investigation into the allegations was closed, citing failure to "prove or disprove" the offenses because the victims and villagers could not be interviewed.
* In Iraq, an investigation found probable cause that two U.S. soldiers committed the offense of assault when they punched and kicked a civilian whom they picked up at a roadblock, while a sergeant took pictures and videotaped part of the abuse. The soldiers then transported the man to an Iraqi prison, where they watched Iraqi police further abuse the detainee and kick him in the ribs before they left him there. A commander’s report was pending in September 2004, and no punishment was recorded in the file.

Attorneys for the ACLU and other organizations named in the lawsuit will appear in federal court in New York on February 22 to address, among other things, the Defense Department’s response to the FOIA request. The ACLU has previously charged that the department is unlawfully withholding several documents pertaining to the treatment of detainees, as well as photographic and video evidence. In the last two months, the Defense Department has turned over 21,600 pages of documents. However, more than 16,600 of these pages were already publicly available on the Internet.

"The Defense Department continues to stonewall and to withhold thousands of documents inappropriately," said Jaffer. "Astoundingly, it seems to be the Defense Department’s view that the public simply does not have a right to know what the department’s policies were or who put them in place."

The ACLU’s Romero urged Attorney General Alberto Gonzales on Tuesday to appoint a special counsel to investigate and, if warranted, prosecute civilians for their involvement in the torture of detainees.

In related news, a federal judge earlier this month rejected an attempt by the Central Intelligence Agency to indefinitely delay the processing and release of critical documents pertaining to torture. The CIA has indicated that it will appeal this decision. According to news reports, the CIA is currently seeking to scale back its role in detaining and interrogating suspected terrorists who are being held abroad.

The lawsuit is being handled by Lawrence Lustberg and Megan Lewis of the New Jersey-based law firm Gibbons, Del Deo, Dolan, Griffinger & Vecchione, P.C. Other attorneys in the case are Jaffer, Amrit Singh, Judy Rabinovitz and Omar Jadwat of the ACLU; Art Eisenberg and Beth Haroules of the NYCLU; and Barbara Olshansky and Jeff Fogel of the Center for Constitutional Rights.

To view the documents, go to: http://www.aclu.org/torturefoia/released/021605.html

More information on the ACLU lawsuit can be found at: www.aclu.org/torturefoia