sorry, running out of days

[click images]

I'm sorry. Sorry to be so explicit about it, sorry to have to go into this much detail, and sorry to have to update with even more, but I just got the creepy feeling these pieces might disappear, the links go dead, and so I'm updating from my 7:15pm post with the full text of all three pieces here, formerly only linked, just in case, and then having to rant, and update again with the news of the freak of the Bush Crime Family coming out of the woodwork, probably due to this... so, I am sorry. Okay? But it just gets too awful, and you HAVE to get a handle on this, filthy as it is.

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Abu Ghraib abuse photos 'show rape'

Photographs of alleged prisoner abuse which Barack Obama is attempting to censor include images of apparent rape and sexual abuse, it has emerged.

By Duncan Gardham, Security Correspondent and Paul Cruickshank
Last Updated: 8:21AM BST 28 May 2009 | Telegraph, UK


At least one picture shows an American soldier apparently raping a female prisoner while another is said to show a male translator raping a male detainee.

Further photographs are said to depict sexual assaults on prisoners with objects including a truncheon, wire and a phosphorescent tube.

Another apparently shows a female prisoner having her clothing forcibly removed to expose her breasts.

Detail of the content emerged from Major General Antonio Taguba, the former army officer who conducted an inquiry into the Abu Ghraib jail in Iraq.

Allegations of rape and abuse were included in his 2004 report but the fact there were photographs was never revealed. He has now confirmed their existence in an interview with the Daily Telegraph.

The graphic nature of some of the images may explain the US President’s attempts to block the release of an estimated 2,000 photographs from prisons in Iraq and Afghanistan despite an earlier promise to allow them to be published.

Maj Gen Taguba, who retired in January 2007, said he supported the President’s decision, adding: “These pictures show torture, abuse, rape and every indecency.

“I am not sure what purpose their release would serve other than a legal one and the consequence would be to imperil our troops, the only protectors of our foreign policy, when we most need them, and British troops who are trying to build security in Afghanistan.

“The mere description of these pictures is horrendous enough, take my word for it.”

In April, Mr Obama’s administration said the photographs would be released and it would be “pointless to appeal” against a court judgment in favour of the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU).

But after lobbying from senior military figures, Mr Obama changed his mind saying they could put the safety of troops at risk.
Earlier this month, he said: “The most direct consequence of releasing them, I believe, would be to inflame anti-American public opinion and to put our troops in greater danger.”

It was thought the images were similar to those leaked five years ago, which showed naked and bloody prisoners being intimidated by dogs, dragged around on a leash, piled into a human pyramid and hooded and attached to wires.

Mr Obama seemed to reinforce that view by adding: “I want to emphasise that these photos that were requested in this case are not particularly sensational, especially when compared to the painful images that we remember from Abu Ghraib.”

The latest photographs relate to 400 cases of alleged abuse between 2001 and 2005 in Abu Ghraib and six other prisons. Mr Obama said the individuals involved had been “identified, and appropriate actions” taken.

Maj Gen Taguba’s internal inquiry into the abuse at Abu Ghraib, included sworn statements by 13 detainees, which, he said in the report, he found “credible based on the clarity of their statements and supporting evidence provided by other witnesses.”

Among the graphic statements, which were later released under US freedom of information laws, is that of Kasim Mehaddi Hilas in which he says: “I saw [name of a translator] ******* a kid, his age would be about 15 to 18 years. The kid was hurting very bad and they covered all the doors with sheets. Then when I heard screaming I climbed the door because on top it wasn’t covered and I saw [name] who was wearing the military uniform, putting his **** in the little kid’s ***…. and the female soldier was taking pictures.”

The translator was an American Egyptian who is now the subject of a civil court case in the US.

Three detainees, including the alleged victim, refer to the use of a phosphorescent tube in the sexual abuse and another to the use of wire, while the victim also refers to part of a policeman’s “stick” all of which were apparently photographed.

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Pentagon denies report Iraq prison photos show rape
Thu May 28, 2009 12:58pm EDT

(Updates with denial; previous LONDON)

WASHINGTON, May 28 (Reuters) - The Pentagon on Thursday denied a British newspaper report that photographs of Iraqi prisoner abuse, whose release U.S. President Barack Obama wants to block, include images of apparent rape and sexual abuse.

Pentagon spokesman Bryan Whitman said the Daily Telegraph newspaper had shown "an inability to get the facts right".

"That news organization has completely mischaracterized the images," Whitman told reporters. "None of the photos in question depict the images that are described in that article."

Thursday's Telegraph quoted retired U.S. Army Major General Antonio Taguba, who conducted a 2004 investigation into abuse at Iraq's Abu Ghraib prison, as saying the pictures showed "torture, abuse, rape and every indecency."

The newspaper said at least one picture showed an American soldier apparently raping a female prisoner while another is said to show a male translator raping a male detainee.

Others were said to depict sexual assaults with objects including a truncheon, wire and a phosphorescent tube.

In an interview with the New Yorker magazine published in 2007, Taguba was quoted as saying that he saw a video of a male American soldier in uniform sodomizing a female detainee.

Photographs of abuse at the jail outside Baghdad that were published in 2004 damaged the image of the United States as it fought an escalating war against insurgents in Iraq that caused deep resentment throughout the Muslim world.

Whitman said he did not know if the Telegraph had quoted Taguba accurately. But he said he was not aware that any such photographs had been uncovered as part of the investigation into Abu Ghraib or abuses at other prisons.

OBAMA BLOCKING PICTURES' RELEASE

He said the Telegraph also wrongly reported earlier this month that some of the images whose release Obama is trying to block had previously been aired on Australian television.

"I would caution you whenever you see a subsequent story on photos in this particular publication," he told reporters. "They now have, at least on two occasions, demonstrated an inability to get the facts right."

Taguba, who retired in January 2007, included allegations of rape and sexual abuse in his report.

Earlier this month, the Obama administration reversed course and decided it would fight the release of the photographs, which the American Civil Liberties Union is seeking to obtain through legal action.

In April, the administration said it would comply with a court order to release the pictures. But Obama changed course after military commanders warned of a backlash in Iraq and Afghanistan that could add to the danger facing U.S. troops.

Taguba was quoted in the Telegraph as saying he supported Obama's decision not to release the pictures.

"I am not sure what purpose their release would serve other than a legal one," he said. "The sequence would be to imperil our troops, the only protectors of our foreign policy, when we most need them, and British troops who are trying to build security in Afghanistan."

He added: "The mere depiction of these pictures is horrendous enough, take my word for it." (Reporting by Andrew Gray in Washington and Luke Baker in London; Editing by David Storey)

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What is Acknowledged and What Remains Unknown: Sexual Torture
by DAVID ROSEN

15 May 2009

"Removal of clothing was authorized by the Secretary of Defense [Rumsfeld] for use at GTMO [Guantánamo] on December 2, 2002," acknowledges the recently released U.S. Senate Armed Service Committee report on the use of harsh interrogation techniques. It also reports that the use of prolonged nudity proved so effective that, in January 2003, it was approved for use in Afghanistan and, in the fall of 2003, was adopted for use in Iraq.

"Inquiry into the Treatment of Detainees in U.S. Custody"

The Senate report came out shortly after a secret International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) report on CIA torture techniques used as part of its detention program was leaked by Mark Danner of the "New York Review of Books." These reports provoked a storm of media attention, much of it focused on the use of waterboarding (or what the ICRC more aptly calls "suffocation by water") and, in particular, its use on Khalid Sheikh Mohammed 183 times and Abu Zubaydah 83 times.

The media paid less attention to the host of what the ICRC calls the other "methods of ill-treatment." The Senate report identifies these techniques as: use of military dogs, stress positions and physical training, sleep adjustment/sleep management, sensory deprivation and removal of clothing. The ICRC identifies them as: prolonged stress standing, beating by use of a collar, beating and kicking, confinement in a box, sleep deprivation and use of load music, exposure to cold temperature/cold water, prolonged use of handcuffs and shackles, threats, forced shaving, deprivation/restricted provision of solid food and prolonged nudity.

These reports, together with the recent release of Bush-administration "torture memos," helped focus national attention on a shameful, if not illegal, aspect of mad king George’s War on Terror. However, these reports are "official" documents based on revelations of a very limited number of sources. The information gathered, while invaluable, is limited by these sources.

The limited sources limit the public’s knowledge of the full scope of the torture committed by American intelligence agents, military officers and private contractors. Focusing on the issue of sexual torture, which includes prolonged nudity, reveals what has been made public but also what has yet to become publicly acknowledged.

Failure to publicly acknowledge the full scope of sexual torture, along with all the other "harsh" interrogation techniques, creates a sanitized, "official," history. Americans will never know what torture was committed in their name, nor be able to hold accountable those who ordered and executed these actions unless they go beyond "official" sources.

* * *

The ICRC conducted interviews with fourteen "enemy combatants" from eight countries. The detainees were arrested over a nearly three-year period, from March 2002 through May 2005. Eleven of the detainees were subject to prolonged nudity "during detention and interrogation, ranging from several weeks continuously up to several months intermittently."

The ICRC recounts what it calls the "alleged" experiences of seven detaineesm subject to prolonged nudity:

• Khalid Sheikh Mohammed – kept naked for one month in Afghanistan.

• Abu Zubaydah– kept naked for two-and-a-half weeks in Afghanistan after recovering at a Pakistan hospital; he reports subsequently being repeatedly provided with clothing and then stripped naked for weeks at a time.

• Walid Bin Attash – kept naked two weeks in Afghanistan and again for a month in a second but unknown detention facility.

• Encep Nuraman (aka Hambali) – kept naked for four or five days in Thailand and a week in Afghanistan, followed by intermittent periods of being clothed and naked.

• Majid Khan – kept naked for three days in Afghanistan and seven days in his third place of detention.

• Mohammed Nazir Bin Lep – kept naked three to four days in Thailand and nine days in Afghanistan.

• Unnamed detainee – kept naked for two to three months in Afghanistan and then faced intermittent periods of being clothed and naked.

The sources of these reports were interviews with the detainees.

The Senate report provides a far different assessment on what it calls "removal of clothing." It makes clear that the use of prolonged nudity found strong support within the CIA and military as an interrogation technique. It reports that nudity was imported into Iraq, especially Abu Ghraib prison, from Afghanistan and GTMO.

It states that this technique served a number of critical interrogation purposes, including to "humiliate detainees," to "renew 'capture shock’ of detainees" and as an incentive for good behavior. It use was extensive, as indicated by two of the many officers interviewed. COL Jerry Philabaum, the Commander of the 320th MP, reports seeing "between 12-15 detainees naked in their own individual cells." CPT Donald Reese, the Commander of the 372nd MP Company, acknowledged that prolonged nudity was "known to everyone" and it was "common practice to walk the tier and see detainees with clothing and bedding." Other officers made similar statements.

Like the ICRC report, the Senate report draws extensively on interviews, but these interviews are with Army officers from the Military Police and intelligence. In addition, the Senate report draws on a number of publicly released military report, most notably by Major General George Fay, known as the Fay Report. One of its quotes is remarkably candid, perhaps more revealing than originally intended: detention created an "environment that would appear to condone depravity and degradation rather than humane treatment of detainees." The report also makes a single passing reference to Major General Antonio Taguba’s report on Abu Ghraib.

* * *

The first "enemy combatants" arrive at Guantánamo on January 11, 2002, nearly a year before Rumsfeld officially authorized the use of sexual torture. According to a CBS timeline, a "U.S. Air Force plane from Afghanistan touches down at Guantanamo carrying 20 prisoners, marking the start of the detention operation." [CBS News Gitmo Timeline, August 24, 2004] In the Senate report, SMU [Special Mission Unit] TF [Task Force] Commander [name blacked out] states that when he "took command [of Guantánamo] he 'discovered that some of the detainees were not allowed clothes’ as an interrogation technique [blacked out] said he terminated the practice in December 2003 or January 2004."

The disclosures about prolonged nudity received little public discussion. Compared to the many far worse techniques employed, most notably "suffocation by water," head beating, kicking, stress positions, uses of dogs and sleep deprivation, sexual torture seems rather modest. But its purpose was, along with the other techniques, clear. As the ICRC notes, it "was clearly designed to undermine human dignity and create a sense of futility … resulting in exhaustion, depersonalization and dehumanization."

However, drawing upon other sources paints a different picture, one far less sanitized and much more sadistic. What is not known is whether these additional techniques were approved by U.S. military and civilian leaders or were the improvised actions of frontline officers and contractors? A few examples illustrate these techniques.

The best single source on the use of sexual torture at Abu Ghraib remains the Taguba report. In the report’s executive summary, the following "sadistic, blatant, and wanton criminal abuses" are identified as having been used at the prison:

* forcing detainees to remove their clothing and keeping them naked for several days at a time;

* videotaping and photographing naked male and female detainees;

* forcibly arranging detainees in various sexually explicit positions for photographing;

* forcing naked male detainees to wear women's underwear;

* forcing groups of male detainees to masturbate themselves while being photographed and videotaped;

* arranging naked male detainees in a pile and then jumping on them;

* positioning a naked detainee on a MRE [meals ready to eat] Box, with a sandbag on his head, and attaching wires to his fingers, toes, and penis to simulate electric torture;

* placing a dog chain or strap around a naked detainee's neck and having a female soldier pose for a picture;

* sodomizing a detainee with a chemical light and perhaps a broom stick.

Why did this part of the Taguba report not appear in the Senate report? Its absence speaks to the way official reports are sanitized and an "inside the Beltway" history is written. [see "Sexual Terrorism: The Sadistic Side of Bush's War on Terror," CounterPunch, May 13, 2008]

The U.S. and international press revealed disturbing episodes of sexual terror used by American forces. For example, The Associated Press reported that a former inmate, Dhia al-Shweiri, was ordered by American soldiers to strip naked, bend over and place his hands on a wall; while not sodomized, he says he was humiliated: "We are men. It’s OK if they beat me," al Shweiri said. "Beatings don’t hurt us; it’s just a blow. But no one would want their manhood to be shattered."

Scotland’s "Sunday Herald" reported that a former Iraqi prisoner claimed that there is a photo of a civilian translator raping a male juvenile prisoner; he stated, "They covered all the doors with sheets. I heard the screaming, … and the female soldier was taking pictures."

London’s "Independent" reported on the experience of Hayder Sabbar Abd, immortalized as the man in the hood in infamous Abu Ghraib photo of Lynndie England. Abd alleges that he was ordered to masturbate as Ms. England "put her hands on her breasts," which he couldn’t; and to simulate fellatio with another prisoner, which he appears to have done.

The "Sydney Morning Herald" noted: "Female interrogators tried to break Muslim detainees at Guantanamo Bay by sexual touching, wearing a miniskirt and thong underwear and in one case smearing a Saudi man's face with fake menstrual blood, according to an insider's written account."

* * *

Sexual torture served two purposes on those subjected to such abuse: to physically harm and to emotionally scar. It was intended to break male inmates. It sought to inflict both pain and shame, to make the recipient suffer and loathe himself. Sexual torture attempted to break the victim both physically and spiritually, to leave scars on (and inside) the body and in the psyche.

With Obama’s election, the U.S. military has probably ceased employing "harsh interrogation techniques." Unfortunately, given Obama’s pragmatism, the Congress’ complicity, the military’s bureaucratic zealotry and the CIA’s (and private contractors’) immorality, one can only wonder what would happen if another September 11th occurred.

The full scope of "harsh interrogation techniques" used during the War on Terror is unknown. Nor is it fully known who within the Bush administration approved the use of such technique, not who within the U.S. military and intelligence community (along with private contractors) used such techniques. Answers to these questions should be the first task of any "official" investigation of the War on Terror. And those undertaking the investigation should use a far wider assortment of sources than those deemed "official." Only then will the American people understand what was done in their name and, hopefully, how to stop it from happening again.

David Rosen is the author of "Sex Scandal America: Politics & the Ritual of Public Shaming" and can be reached at drosen@ix.netcom.com.

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You know for sure if this much detail, not much, has finally hit the mainstream press and gotten a Pentagon denial, that it was even worse than this, way worse. I have been waiting for this since Hersh first let it slip at that ACLU event that I watched with my own eyes and heard with my own ears, and it has finally hit the MSM. Obama's little lie to go back on the court-ordered photo release has been exposed... beside the bald fact that he defied a court order to begin with, which doesn't seem to get talked about much.

I tell you, Obama is making a big mistake by not releasing everything, letting the entire world know in complete detail, and prosecuting everyone involved in ALL the war crimes of the past administration... even the ones who have not stopped the brutality despite his loophole-riddled order. Untold American lives are at stake and we will be subjected to torture wherever anyone who hates us can grab us if he does not get it all out in the open and ALL of the guilty prosecuted.

WE are the only ones who don't know about this.

He isn't fooling anyone out there.

He'd be SAVING our lives if he did it.

The part that horrifies me almost even more than this "controversy" over what is utterly UNcontroversial is that he has to know this... making me wonder if he, or whoever is calling his shots, wants this. Everywhere you turn there are signals for you to be terrified to leave home. In fact, terrified on our own streets. He's not just jeopardizing all our military POWs for decades, maybe hundreds of years, but civilians too. THAT is never discussed. That never gets talked about AT ALL.

You should start talking about it.

This means you.

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Yeah, yeah, "war is hell", always has been, get over it.... And, the old *, his little old cowpoke self, came out of hiding tonight to tell us so, joining Fudd on the stump for the efficacy of torture. It's true. This stuff has been going on all over the world since humans began. It is hugely symbolic of DOMINANCE... "full-spectrum dominance". It is brutal and feral and THE way to ruin your enemy's life, preferred largely over killing him. But it stopped with George Washington, and we sealed it with Nuremberg and the Geneva Conventions, which by our ratification became part of our Constitution. We prosecute for this or we are not America anymore, and people everywhere stop thinking our lives are worth more than dirt. They can't all be "terrorists".

WE'RE THE TERRORISTS.

Isn't this perfectly crystal clear to you yet?


Can you tell I'm pissed off?

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There’s too much work and I’m spent
There’s too much pressure and I'm bent
I got no time to move ahead
Have you heard one thing that I’ve said

And all these little things in life, they all create this haze
There’s too many things to get done, and I’m running out of days

And I can’t last here for so long
I feel this current it’s so strong
It gets me further down the line
It gets me closer to the light

And all these little things in life, they all create this haze
There’s too many things to get done, and I’m running out of days

All these little things in life, they all create this haze
There’s too many things to get done, and I’m running out of days

Well all these little things in life, they all create this haze
And now I’m running out of time; I can’t see through this haze
My friend tell me why it has to be this way
There’s too many things to get done, and I’m running out of days

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Refer back to the tip of the iceberg....

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Vets aren't happy about it either....

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Naomi Wolf weighs in....

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Scott Horton weighs in....

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Quoth Senator Lindsey Graham in 2004: The American public needs to understand, we're talking about rape and murder here. We're not just talking about giving people a humiliating experience. We're talking about rape and murder and some very serious charges.

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Don't forget the "prolonged detention" torture....

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And, everybody's making such a hairy deal out of Betraeus stating the obvious, just as though that would even start to cover it. DUH. Do you think saying it has any impact? No. Indicting and prosecuting perpetrators has impact. Ceasing to brutalize men and women who have been convicted of nothing has impact. Ceasing to kill innocent people has impact. Observing the Geneva Conventions, all of them, has impact. So, even though he gets another star for publicly stating the obvious, on Warmonger TV, no less, no, this isn't good enough by a couple light years.