Filed under: 5th Amendment, Abu Ghraib, Afghanistan, army, civil liberties, civil rights, Colin Powell, deaths, Detainees, enemy combatant, Extraordinary Rendition, Geneva Convention, George Bush, Guantanamo, Habeas Corpus, Iraq, John McCain, john yoo, lindsey graham, Military, nation building, neocons, occupation, red cross, rendition, Seymour Hersh, supreme court, Torture, Troops, US Constitution, War Crimes, War On Terror, White House | Tags: Jerrold Nadler, Lawrence Wilkerson
2-star General Accuses WH of War Crimes
Washington Post
June 18, 2008
The two-star general who led an Army investigation into the horrific detainee abuse at Abu Ghraib has accused the Bush administration of war crimes and is calling for accountability.
In his 2004 report on Abu Ghraib, then-Major General Anthony Taguba concluded that “numerous incidents of sadistic, blatant, and wanton criminal abuses were inflicted on several detainees.” He called the abuse “systemic and illegal.” And, as Seymour M. Hersh reported in the New Yorker, he was rewarded for his honesty by being forced into retirement.
Now, in a preface to a Physicians for Human Rights report based on medical examinations of former detainees, Taguba adds an epilogue to his own investigation.
The new report, he writes, “tells the largely untold human story of what happened to detainees in our custody when the Commander-in-Chief and those under him authorized a systematic regime of torture. This story is not only written in words: It is scrawled for the rest of these individual’s lives on their bodies and minds. Our national honor is stained by the indignity and inhumane treatment these men received from their captors.
“The profiles of these eleven former detainees, none of whom were ever charged with a crime or told why they were detained, are tragic and brutal rebuttals to those who claim that torture is ever justified. Through the experiences of these men in Iraq, Afghanistan, and Guantanamo Bay, we can see the full-scope of the damage this illegal and unsound policy has inflicted –both on America’s institutions and our nation’s founding values, which the military, intelligence services, and our justice system are duty-bound to defend.
“In order for these individuals to suffer the wanton cruelty to which they were subjected, a government policy was promulgated to the field whereby the Geneva Conventions and the Uniform Code of Military Justice were disregarded. The UN Convention Against Torture was indiscriminately ignored. . . .
“After years of disclosures by government investigations, media accounts, and reports from human rights organizations, there is no longer any doubt as to whether the current administration has committed war crimes. The only question that remains to be answered is whether those who ordered the use of torture will be held to account.”
Pamela Hess of the Associated Press has more on the report, which resulted from “the most extensive medical study of former U.S. detainees published so far” and “found evidence of torture and other abuse that resulted in serious injuries and mental disorders.”
At Least 25 Detainees Murdered In U.S. Custody
Think Progress
June 20, 2008
At today’s House Judiciary Subcommittee on Civil Rights hearing on torture, Lawrence Wilkerson, former chief of staff to Colin Powell, told Rep. Jerrold Nadler (D-NY) that over 100 detainees have died in U.S. custody, with up to 27 of these declared homicides:
NADLER: Your testimony said 100 detainees have died in detention; do you believe the 25 of those were in effect murdered?
WILKERSON: Mr. Chairman, I think the number’s actually higher than that now. Last time I checked it was 108.
A February 2006 Human Rights First report found that although hundreds of people in U.S. custody had died and eight people were tortured to death, only 12 deaths had “resulted in punishment of any kind for any U.S. official.”
http://weblogs.baltimoresun.com/n..etainee_dies_youre_doing_i.html
http://www.prisonplanet.com/articles/june2008/200608_b_mccain.htm
Documents confirm U.S. hid detainees from Red Cross
http://www.mcclatchydc.com/251/story/41394.html
John Yoo’s ongoing falsehoods in service of limitless government power
http://www.salon.com/opinion/greenwald/2008/06/17/yoo/index.html
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