Old Fashioned American Justice
Posted on 03/06/2003 6:23:26 PM PST by blam
America admits suspects died in interrogations
By Andrew Gumbel in Los Angeles
07 March 2003
American military officials acknowledged yesterday that two prisoners captured in Afghanistan in December had been killed while under interrogation at Bagram air base north of Kabul – reviving concerns that the US is resorting to torture in its treatment of Taliban fighters and suspected al-Qa'ida operatives.
A spokesman for the air base confirmed that the official cause of death of the two men was "homicide", contradicting earlier accounts that one had died of a heart attack and the other from a pulmonary embolism.
The men's death certificates, made public earlier this week, showed that one captive, known only as Dilawar, 22, from the Khost region, died from "blunt force injuries to lower extremities complicating coronary artery disease" while another captive, Mullah Habibullah, 30, suffered from blood clot in the lung that was exacerbated by a "blunt force injury".
US officials previously admitted using "stress and duress" on prisoners including sleep deprivation, denial of medication for battle injuries, forcing them to stand or kneel for hours on end with hoods on, subjecting them to loud noises and sudden flashes of light and engaging in culturally humiliating practices such as having them kicked by female officers.
While the US claims this still constitutes "humane" treatment, human rights groups including Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch have denounced it as torture as defined by international treaty. The US has also come under heavy criticism for its reported policy of handing suspects over to countries such as Jordan, Egypt or Morocco, where torture techniques are an established part of the security apparatus. Legally, Human Rights Watch says, there is no distinction between using torture directly and subcontracting it out.
Some American politicians have argued that torture could be justified in this case if it helped prevent terror attacks on US citizens. Jonathan Turley, a prominent law professor at George Washington University, countered that embracing torture would be "suicide for a nation once viewed as the very embodiment of human rights".
Torture is part of a long list of concerns about the Bush administration's respect for international law, after the extrajudicial killing of al-Qa'ida suspects by an unmanned drone in Yemen and the the indefinite detention of "enemy combatants" at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, a number of whom have committed or attempted to commit suicide.
President Bush appeared to encourage extra-judicial solutions in his State of the Union address in January when he talked of al-Qa'ida members being arrested or meeting "a different fate". "Let's put it this way," he said in a tone that appalled many, "they are no longer a problem to the United States and our friends and allies."
Old Fashioned American Justice
Got news for you about fighting.... no such thing as a fair fight... You bring a knife.. I bring a gun.. you bring a gun... I bring a rifle and a friend with a gun.... you bring a rifle... I bring a hand grenade, rifle , machine gun sneak up behind you and kill you with my friend in front of you shooting.
Why do you think soldiers don't like to talk about battles... only about "the war" or in general terms.. bad stuff happens in combat and when your buddies or people you are protecting are dying.
By the way... Americans haven't always been treated by the Geneva Convention unless it suits the enemies propaganda agends. So grow up and turn your head if war makes you sick. It's supposed too make people sick or else we would do it more often. I'd wait and see for autopsies, if any are released before I jumped to conclusions against our military, cause men and women are dying and our guys are doing the best they can to end the killing as soon as possible.
They were still in our custody. While not completely improbably, I don't think these guys would be able to cause the blunt force trauma that exaccerabted their conditions, so, in that case, that means someone else did.
I sincerely hope we are not resorting to physical tourture.
On the other hand, their deaths may have resulted from efforts to "make them feel at home" gone awry.....
Do you think the people who might do that to your loved ones would give a flying hoot about your concerns?
Moderately evil people hear your qualms of conscience, and then have qualms of their own. However, truly evil people interpret your qualms of conscience as weakness. Then they kill you.
We did effectively nothing about this problem for 10 years. Our "concerns" and "fears" and "worries" and heartfelt wishes to make the bad men play nice and leave us alone got 3,000 of our citizens brutally murdered one fine fall day.
From the Geneva convention
A. Prisoners of war, in the sense of the present Convention, are persons belonging to one of the following categories, who have fallen into the power of the enemy:
1. Members of the armed forces of a Party to the conflict as well as members of militias or volunteer corps forming part of such armed forces.
2. Members of other militias and members of other volunteer corps, including those of organized resistance movements, belonging to a Party to the conflict and operating in or outside their own territory, even if this territory is occupied, provided that such militias or volunteer corps, including such organized resistance movements, fulfil the following conditions:
(a) That of being commanded by a person responsible for his subordinates;
(b) That of having a fixed distinctive sign recognizable at a distance;
(c) That of carrying arms openly;
(d) That of conducting their operations in accordance with the laws and customs of war.
If they weren't wearing military uniforms they don't qualify.
that's why I wouldn't let my daughters serve.... My son will hopefully not be captured but if he is.... he knows that we don't leave people behind... usually, and trust me , Americans are tortured and killed with indescretion if they serve no useful purpose for the enemy. If you or your family have served the FEAR of torture, physical violence and death are the great obstacles to overcome.
If I captured somebody and they knew where my family was being held.... easy answer... blow torch and epson salts...
If I captured somebody who had raped and killed my daughters and was planning on having some of his friend come and do the same to my wife..... I'd ask the "prisoner" once if he knew the whereabouts of the next attackers then..... blow torch and pliers again.
I know that you would just sit idly by and ask "please tell me where the bad guys are?" maybe keep him awake for 24-48 hours while time ticks away and the bad men move.... not me, sorry... I have a very short attention span and would just cut to the chase and get the answers the old fashioned "messy" way.
That's what makes our country great... you have your opinions and I can have mine.... neat huh?
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