Posted on 03/19/2006 11:14:50 AM PST by Crackingham
As the Iraqi insurgency intensified in early 2004, an elite Special Operations forces unit converted one of Saddam Hussein's former military bases near Baghdad into a top-secret detention center. There, American soldiers made one of the former Iraqi government's torture chambers into their own interrogation cell. They named it the Black Room.
In the windowless, jet-black garage-size room, some soldiers beat prisoners with rifle butts, yelled and spit in their faces and, in a nearby area, used detainees for target practice in a game of jailer paintball. Their intention was to extract information to help hunt down Iraq's most-wanted terrorist, Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, according to Defense Department personnel who served with the unit or were briefed on its operations.
.......
The story of detainee abuse in Iraq is a familiar one. But the following account of Task Force 6-26, based on documents and interviews with more than a dozen people, offers the first detailed description of how the military's most highly trained counterterrorism unit committed serious abuses.
It adds to the picture of harsh interrogation practices at American military prisons in Afghanistan and Guantánamo Bay, Cuba, as well as at secret Central Intelligence Agency detention centers around the world.
The new account reveals the extent to which the unit members mistreated prisoners months before and after the photographs of abuse from Abu Ghraib were made public in April 2004, and it helps belie the original Pentagon assertions that abuse was confined to a small number of rogue reservists at Abu Ghraib.
The abuses at Camp Nama continued despite warnings beginning in August 2003 from an Army investigator and American intelligence and law enforcement officials in Iraq. The C.I.A. was concerned enough to bar its personnel from Camp Nama that August.
(Excerpt) Read more at nytimes.com ...
I thought it was at the station.... Great song though. I heard this one thousands of time, my bro MAY have actually worn this one out, playing it so many times on the little player in our room....
"In a white room, with black curtains, at the station.."
... Had a great drum riff;he (Ginger Baker) would do a little tom-tom riff/triplett pattern that was really cool. He was one of the original rock and roll drum soloists.
What drummer my age doesn't know how to do at least SOME of his solo from "In-a gada-davida?" Ahhh, now THAT was real drumming!!
Gee Crack...is this your pennance to get your Gold Star at the DUmp?
BTW....if the NYT can't even get the ID of a person in an alleged "abuse" photo right...what makes you think there's any accuracy to this story?
*rolls eyes*
Check out Carl Palmer on the opening song of ELP's live album..
A lot easier to invent agenda fitting details this way...right Pinch?
I know so many liberals who wallow (best word I could come up with) in pleasure with every new problem in Iraq. They truly want America to lose in Iraq just so they can throw it in Bush's face.
They simply have no idea, no way to conceive, what happens if all their leaks and their backstabbings really do result in catastrophe.
For them, a short history lesson. In 1071, the Byzantine Empire Romanus IV led the Byzantine army and confederates to attack the invading Turks near Lake Van. At a place called Manzikert, Romanus had to fall back to some previously set lines to regroup. This was not a serious situation as the Byzantines were both better armored and, in total, greater in number. But the Byzantine leader of the rear guard(Andronicus Ducas) supposedly covering Romanus's retreat refused to cover that retreat, allowing Romanus to be captured. The battle turned into a rout. Ducas meanwhile took his troops back to Constantinople to overthrow Romanus's claim to the throne.
Romanus was handed back over to the Ducas family who humiliated him, then blinded him and then tortured him. One of the Ducas supporters (the historian Michael Psellus)went to the prison where he taunted Romanus saying that since Romanus was now blind he could spend his time contemplating things spiritual.
The Turks meanwhile captured the heart of the Byzantine Empire. The Byzantines never really recovered from the treachery of Ducas and the defeat at Manzikert.
Sound familiar?
McVey
Shocking. Tragic. Disgraceful.
So, what did everybody have for lunch?
"White Room," a.k.a. "Eric Clapton Buys A Wah-Wah Pedal." :^)
Their intention was to extract information to help hunt down Iraq's most-wanted terrorist, Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, according to Defense Department personnel who served with the unit or were briefed on its operations.
Who in Hell cares about the treatment of these murdering bastards, kill them all and let the undertakers sort them out!
This nation needs to quit kissing the ass of the avowed enemy and the liberal "pissin' and moaning" Rinos and Dems who are always finding fault with our troops and their leadership's actions!
This playing by the PC rules will be the cause of our losing many more service people and possibly the war!
"In the black room with white curtains near the station?
Where the shadows run from themselves..."
William Shatner, right??!! :-)
(Hitting "Abuse" now).
NYT: All the news that's print to fit.
There was major wah wah action on Tales of Brave Ullyses as well. Creem just had a reunion concert in London, Im looking forward to hearing the CD..
Somewhere in Arizona, Joe Arpaio is taking copious notes.
True, now that I think about it. Been a while since I listened to that one.
Well, I dived into the article, read page after page and never found the punch line. He writes like someone telling a ghost story around the campfire, lots of creepy sound effects and story telling tricks to lead you to think the payoff is just seconds away, but there is no payoff. Everybody knows you constantly have to be on the jailors and interrorgators to keep them from going over board, but it seems like we are trying to do that, and mostly succeeding. The abuses the MSM keep telling us about need to be restrained, but they are much less than we see in the American jails and prisons everyday. When you have prisoners and jailors, perfection is impossible if the media reported on the L.A. County jail like this, it would have to be shut down.
Even if we are torturing these scum, so what. If anyone ever needed to be tortured, its these pieces of crap.
The left will use this as justification for more gays in the military. They would NEVER decorate a room like that.
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