Posted on 06/13/2005 8:57:50 AM PDT by CHARLITE
I have news for Frank Salvato ( http://chronwatch.com/content/contentDisplay.asp?aid=15061&c atcode=13 ) , a columnist for ChronWatch (the “conservative,” i.e., reactionary and self-declared alternative to the San Francisco Chronicle): Bush’s torture and sexual humiliation gulag exists and the liberal hand-wringing vacillation of Amnesty International will not change that gruesome (if not generally reported in the corporate media) fact.
How do I know this?
It is well-documented. Donald Rumsfeld enthusiastically signed off on a “grab whom you must and do what you want” so-called “special access program” in 2003, according to Seymour Hersh( http://www.newyorker.com/fact/content/?040524fa_fact ) and the New Yorker, citing former intelligence officials. “Some people think you can bullshit anyone,” a senior CIA official told Hersh after Rumsfeld and Stephen Cambone, under-secretary for intelligence, testified—or lied under oath—about the Abu Ghraib torture scandal before Congress. Of course, this CIA official may have lied as well, but I don’t think so because torture and sexual humiliation are the Pentagon’s middle name. It comes with the territory. It is standard operating procedure for most occupation armies facing a determined and completely justified resistance.
“Hersh provides details of how President George Bush signed off on the establishment of a secret unit that was given advance approval to kill or capture and interrogate ‘high-value’ suspects—considered by many to be in defiance of international law—an officially ‘unacknowledged’ program that was eventually transferred wholesale from Guantanamo to the Abu Ghraib prison in Iraq,” adds Oliver Burkeman of the Guardian ( http://www.guardian.co.uk/guantanamo/story/0,13743,1303105,0 0.html ). “A CIA analyst visited Guantanamo in summer 2002 and returned ‘convinced that we were committing war crimes’ and that ‘more than half the people there didn’t belong there. He found people lying in their own faeces,’ a CIA source told Hersh.”
General John Gordon, an aide to Condi Rice, warned “that if the actions at Guantanamo ever became public, it’d be damaging to the president.” Well, not really, since Bush’s teflon is more stick resistant than Reagan’s ever was and the corporate media consistently goes easy on Dubya the Destroyer, even with damaging facts (and memos) piled up like cordwood outside a Vermont cabin in October.
On occasion, however, the corporate media slips, as the New York Times did last month when it reported the findings of a “confidential U.S. army report” on the torture-murder of detainees in Afghanistan. Trent Duffy, a White House spokesman, admitted the report exists and declared there “are criminal investigations going on right now about what this newspaper article discusses. People are being held to account.” If you believe this, I have oceanfront property in Arizona to sell you. “In sworn statements to army investigators, soldiers described in details harsh interrogation methods used at the [Bagram] detention center, ranging from a female interrogator stepping on a detainee’s neck and kicking another in the genitals to a shackled prisoner being made to kiss the boots of a U.S. soldier as he rolled back and forth on the floor of a cell,” reports the scourge of the Bush administration, al-Jazeera ( http://www.aljazeera.com/me.asp?service_ID=8247 ).
In Abu Ghraib, according to the now never mentioned Taguba Report, “1,800 abuse photographs shot by U.S. guards inside Abu Ghraib included images of naked male and female prisoners, a male Military Police guard ‘having sex’ with a female detainee, and naked male and female detainees forcibly arranged in various sexually explicit positions for photographing,” according to al-Jazeera. Is it possible the rape-torture at Abu Ghraib was an “isolated incident” perpetuated by a handful of soldiers who spent too many hours previewing S/M videos and images on the internet or is it the standard MO of the CIA and military intelligence? Is it possible rape and torture (and murder) is established policy because Muslims are sexually conservative and humiliating them through anal rape and forced homosexual acts is about as low as you can go (and besides, for the Charles Graners of the world, it is great fun).
As Iraqi detainee Ameen Saeed al-Sheik ( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Abu_Ghraib_torture_and_prisoner _abuse#US_investigations_and_response ) told the Washington Post last year, his tormenters went out of their way to sexually humiliate him. “Are you married?” a soldier grilled al-Sheik, and when he answered in the affirmative the soldier replied, “But if I saw her [his wife] now she would not be disappointed now because I would rape her.” No doubt this sort of “interrogation” resulted in a bonanza of intelligence information on the resistance.
Dhia al-Shweiri, a former Abu Ghraib prisoner, now a resistance fighter with the al-Mehdi Army or Jaish-i-Mahdi (funny how torture motivates Iraqis to kill Americans), said his tormentors “wanted us to feel as though we were women, the way women feel and this is the worst insult, to feel like a woman.” Is it possible Lynndie England knew Arab men find it grievously insulting to be treated like women (especially at the hands of a woman), or did the decision to treat male detainees this way come form elsewhere, maybe somewhere deep inside military intelligence or possibly from Bush’s desk where the buck stops? (See Bush Approved Torture Techniques.: http://207.44.245.159/article7524.htm )
On December 21, 2004, the American Civil Liberties Union released copies of FBI internal memos ( http://www.yuricareport.com/PrisonerTortureDirectory/ACLU_Em ailsReleased.html ) they had obtained under the Freedom of Information Act concerning alleged torture and abuse at Guantanamo Bay, in Afghanistan, and in Iraq (see previous link). One internal memo dated May 22, 2004 was from a person whose name was blanked out but was described as “On Scene Commander—Baghdad.” This “On Scene Commander” referred directly to an Executive Order sanctioning the use of “extraordinary interrogation tactics” by US military personnel, although “physical beatings, sexual humiliation or touching” was supposedly forbidden (and so we are asked to believe the sadists of Abu Ghraib—maybe it was happenstance they all ended up in the same prison together—decided on their own to beat, turn dogs on, and sexual humiliate prisoners). I bet the CIA and those military contractors had nothing to do with it, even though the CIA has a long and sordid history of torturing people (see Alfred W. McCoy’s The Hidden History of CIA Torture: America’s Road to Abu Ghraib < http://www.globalresearch.ca/articles/MCC409A.html > and Veteran sergeant accounts US torture coverup < http://en.wikinews.org/wiki/Veteran_sergeant_accounts_US_torture_coverup > implicating “intelligence operatives” in systematic torture.)
Scads of first-hand reports of torture and abuse are on record, although I’m certain Mr. Salvato and other apologists for rape and torture would dismiss these (since Muslims lie because they hate America). “Detainees held at military bases in 2002 and 2003 described to Human Rights Watch being beaten severely by both guards and interrogators, deprived of sleep for extended periods, and intentionally exposed to extreme cold, as well as other inhumane and degrading treatment,” explains Salt of the Earth ( http://salt.claretianpubs.org/sjnews/2005/05/sjn0505b.html ). “Videotapes of riot squads subduing suspects [in Guantanamo] reportedly show the guards punching some detainees, tying one to a gurney for questioning and forcing a dozen to strip from the waist down.” But then this is precisely the sort of treatment meted out to prisoners in U.S. prisons, so I guess it is not confined to Muslims, nor unusual.
It appears U.S. soldiers have a fetish for rape. For instance, Hussian Youssouf Mustafa, a Palestinian, claims he was raped at Bagram AFB (which doubles as a torture gulag). Mustafa details in Mother Jones ( http://www.motherjones.com/news/feature/2005/03/03_2005_Baze lon.html ) how “an American soldier took me blindfolded. My hands were tightly cuffed, with my ears plugged so I could not hear properly, and my mouth covered so I could only make a muffled scream. Two soldiers, one on each side, forced me to bend down, and a third pressed my face down over a table. A fourth soldier then pulled down my trousers. They rammed a stick up my rectum.” Did Mustafa spill the beans on the Taliban or where Mullah Omar was hiding? Nope. In fact, according to Mustafa, they never even asked him about such things. “The Americans never said anything about why they were doing it to me, so I had to think for many hours and days later, to try to work out what was going through their minds… I think maybe they wanted to make me so embarrassed that it would live with me for the rest of my life.” In other words, sheer terror inflicted on Muslims simply because they are Muslims and hate our freedoms.
In another case, a fifteen year old in Iraq was sodomized. Michigan-based attorney Shereef Akeel, who interviewed some 50 former detainees about their treatment at the hands of U.S. anal rape freaks, told Lisa Ashkenaz Croke of the New Standard the tawdry details ( http://www.countercurrents.org/iraq-croke310804.htm ) . The fifteen year old “was told to go on all fours naked and was sodomized from behind…. He said they made him dance and he was crying.” According to Akeel, “testimonials gathered individually from former captives held in US prisons all over Iraq indicate many of the common methods came into use across disparate, geographically distant detention centers,” writes Ashkenaz Croke. In other words, we have a pattern here.
“It doesn’t take a leftist ideologue to deduce that [Amnesty International USA’s] accusations are a manifestation of their anti-war in Iraq, anti-War on Terror, anti-America and anti-George W. Bush doctrine,” writes Frank Salvato— never mind the above and more are quickly and plentifully revealed through a simple Google search. Like a hear and see no evil monkey, Salvato refuses to consider the evidence before him (and it is right there out in the open, Frank, all you have to do is remove your hands from your ears and eyes and examine the evidence).
Of course, there may be something more sinister at work here—it may be that so-called “conservatives” (in the old days real conservatives were ashamed by revelations of anal rape) in fact approve of such repulsive behavior because they believe anything is valid in the war against Islam. For as Jack Wheeler told WorldNetDaily ( http://www.worldnetdaily.com/news/article.asp?ARTICLE_ID=446 27 ), neocons and black lagoon conservatives “are seriously sick and tired of squishing-out to the hadjis,” who are not only Arabs and Muslims but “sympathizers” who “now include not just rioters on Pakistani streets but Newsweek magazine and Amnesty International.”
I can’t prove Salvato and his friends agree with anal penetration of Iraqi men and the rape of Iraqi women—not the way I can prove that Muslims were (and are) tortured and sexually humiliated by “our troops” in countries Bush invaded in defiance of international law and moral conscience.
It’s up to Frank Salvato and the Chronwatch crazies to demonstrate otherwise.
[Note by Charlite: Frank Salvato is a media consultant. He is owner and Managing Editor of The Rant.us. His articles are regularly featured in The Washington Times, CNS News, GOPUSA, Chronwatch.com and about 50 other publications. He is also a great friend of mine and a fabulous American.]
Char
Char
"It is well-documented."
Whenever I see that line in a piece that smacks of propaganda,
I view it with the rule-of-thumb most defense attorneys view it when their clients tell them them they're not guilty.
It's a good sign of a falsehood.
It is VERY damaging! Does this person not think for one moment that every word against our troops may cause backlash? Anyone who speaks out against our troops and so-called "atrocities" are hurting our troops' morale and the job they are doing. I'm sure that if an American were caught by those thug terrorists running around, they would be spared no mercy. Anyone remember the beheadings??!! Now back to the real world...
I feel like I need to take a shower now.
Thanks,
knews hound
http://knewshound.blogspot.com/
I wonder why?
This guy is either a idiot, terribly uninformed or just someone employed to write propaganda. The fact is Taqiyya does exist and is sanctioned by the quran and muslim hierarchy.
Thanks for the ping!
Even little kids who lie to mom know enough not to make the lie too extravagant if they half expect her to go for it.
You're right, Ghost. They use this slick catch-all phrase to convey the authenticity of the prevarications that follow in the schpeel.
It is still very troubling to me, just realizing that this kind of material is circulating around the world, harming our troops and Bush's efforts to bring Democracy to these dark places on the planet.
Char
Char :)
I see things haven't changed much with "journalists" over the past century. Notice this guy's sources - mysterious unnidentified leakers and emotional conspiracy theories appearing in The Guardian, Al- Jazeera, Mother Jones,et al; neomarxist entities that hate the United States of America.
"Bush’s torture and sexual humiliation gulag exists and the liberal hand-wringing vacillation of Amnesty International will not change that gruesome (if not generally reported in the corporate media) fact."
You mean like, cutting people's heads off with knives while they scream? Or the lady from Iraq I was reading about last night whose daughter was killed by Saddam? His henchmen tied her legs together while she was in labor so she couldn't deliver. After hours of screaming both her and the baby died.
I really don't want to hear the stories about Bush and torture from the left. Handing a Koran without gloves, having women drool on them and depriving them of sleep just doesn't concern me at all.
AT ALL.
"This outrageous spewing by Kurt Nimmo on URUKNET is an example of what we are up against with hostile, anti-American media around the world. It is very troublesome, damaging misinformation."
We are also being innundated with this garbage on Aussie TV. What else can we expect? The Secretary General of Amnesty International is a MUSLIM!
Irene Khan - Biography
Irene Zubaida Khan joined Amnesty International as the organization’s seventh Secretary General in August 2001.
Taking the helm in Amnesty International as the first woman, the first Asian and the first Muslim to guide the world’s largest human rights organization, Irene brought a new perspective to the organization. As an individual, she brought experience and enthusiasm for putting people at the heart of policy.
Irene took up the leadership of Amnesty International in its 40th anniversary year as the organization began a process of change and renewal to address the complex nature of contemporary human rights violations, and confronted the challenging developments in the wake of the attacks of 11 September.
In her first year in office, Irene reformed AI’s response to crisis situations, personally leading high level missions to Pakistan during the bombing of Afghanistan, to Israel/Occupied Territories just after the Israeli occupation of Jenin, and to Colombia before the Presidential elections in May 2003...read more
http://web.amnesty.org/library/print/ENGORG100102002
May 26, 2004 Torture in Iraq, Afghanistan and elsewhere
In its annual report, titled “Why human rights matter,” Amnesty International says that America's war on terrorism has “made the world a more dangerous place.” This is the consequence of “the US seeking to put itself outside the ambit of judicial scrutiny,” the organization says. Furthermore, “[s]acrificing human rights in the name of security at home, turning a blind eye to abuses abroad, and using pre-emptive military force where and when it chooses, have neither increased security nor ensured liberty,” the report adds. Practicing and apparently condoning torture, according to Amnesty International's Secretary General Irene Khan, has resulted in the US having “lost its high moral ground and its ability to lead on peace and elsewhere.” The practice of violating human rights and the war in Iraq is believed to have a broader influence than on the immediate victims. “The war in Iraq,” the report says, “has diverted global attention from other human rights abuses around the world.” [BBC, 5/26/2004 Sources: ACLU et al. v. Department of Defense et al., 7/6/2004]
People and organizations involved: Amnesty International, Irene Khan
Somewhere amongst the 180 pages of OBL 'HOW TO' TERRORISM MANUAL posted on FR by Calpernia, you'll find instructions to terrorists: when captured, claim your were tortured. The scum behind bars and fences around the world are carrying out his orders...and the filth that calls itself journalists are OBL's enablers.
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1354196/posts
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