New Torture Scandal: Pictures Show Navy Seals Abusing Enemy Prisoners of War

According to the Associated Press, "The U.S. military has launched a criminal investigation into photographs that appear to show Navy SEALs in Iraq sitting on hooded and handcuffed detainees, and photos of what appear to be bloodied prisoners, one with a gun to his head." Readers should note this announcement was made late Friday afternoon, a time when news unfavorable to the administration is usually released to the press.

http://www.veteransforcommonsense.org/NewsArticle.cfm?ID=2489



Navy probes new Iraq prisoner photos: AP

China Daily (China)

Updated: 2004-12-04 09:16

http://www.chinadaily.com.cn/english/doc/2004-12/04/content_397299.htm


Informant: SIUHIN

The article below represents a scandalous bombshell. A top Justice Department attorney disclosed in open court that our government will use use evidence obtained from prisoners by beating, starving, and torturing them. This means our government admits to discarding more than 200 years of the rule of law and progress towards human rights in favor of the rule of threats, force, and violence, thus marking a very significant decline in the direction of our country's moral values. As professional interrogators know, information obtained from torture is highly unreliable, and the torture can backfire on our captured soldiers.

http://www.veteransforcommonsense.org/NewsArticle.cfm?ID=2488

In a detailed report, Shafiq Rasul, Asif Iqbal and Rhuhel Ahmed provide a graphic first-hand account of life at Guantanamo Bay...

http://www.ccr-ny.org/v2/reports/report.asp?ObjID=4bUT8M23lk&Content=424
http://snipurl.com/88ln


From Information Clearing House

In a country where torturers are still free

By Tito Tricot

No one can really understand what being tortured means until that fateful moment when you find yourself naked, blindfolded and tied up at the mercy of your captors...

http://207.44.245.159/article7400.htm

Folter in Abu Ghraib: US-Menschenrechtler stellen in Karlsruhe Strafanzeige gegen Rumsfeld (01.12.04)

Eine US-Menschenrechtsorganisation hat bei der Bundesanwaltschaft in Karlsruhe Strafanzeige gegen US-Verteidigungsminister Donald Rumsfeld wegen des Folterskandals im irakischen US-Gefängnis Abu Ghraib gestellt. Die Strafanzeige, die sich auch gegen den früheren US-Geheimdienstchef George Tenet und acht weitere Funktionäre von Militär und US-Regierung richtet, wurde am Dienstag eingereicht, wie die Sprecherin der Bundesanwaltschaft, Frauke-Katrin Scheuten, sagte. Sie bestätigte damit einen Bericht der "Frankfurter Rundschau".

Die ganze Nachricht im Internet:

http://www.ngo-online.de/ganze_nachricht.php4?Nr=9888

http://www.boston.com/news/world/articles/2004/11/29/terror_suspects_torture_claims_have_mass_link/


Informant: Shanti Renfrew

US Officials Face Iraq War Crimes Case in Germany
Islam Online
November 30, 2004

http://www.islamonline.net/English/News/2004-11/30/article01.shtml


Informant: assalamu aleikum


Support the German war crimes indictment of Bush -- you're needed!
http://www.ccr-ny.org/v2/reports/report.asp?ObjID=TCRlT9TuSb&Content=471


Informant: Scott Munson

---

Photo:
Four Iraqi victims of the Abu Ghraib torture also filed the complaint
http://www.islamonline.net/English/News/2004-11/30/images/pic01.jpg

---


BERLIN, November 30 (IslamOnline.net) – A US advocacy group will file war crimes charges in Germany on Tuesday, November 30, against US Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld and other senior officials involved in the Abu Ghraib torture scandal.

“German law in this area is leading the world,” Peter Weiss, vice president of the New York-based Center for Constitutional Rights (CCR), a human rights group, was quoted as saying in Frankfurter Rundschau newspaper's Tuesday edition.

Those to be named in the criminal complaint to be filed at Germany's Federal Prosecutors Office by the group and four Iraqi victims include Rumsfeld, CCR said on its website.

Former Central Intelligence Agency chief George Tenet and former top US commander in Iraq Lieutenant General Ricardo Sanchez and eight other officials are also named in the case.

The Washington Post said Saturday, June 12, that Sanchez, gave free reign [
http://www.islamonline.net/English/News/2004-06/12/article02.shtml ] to US officers in charge of Abu Ghraib prison to adopt various torture and abuse tactics used at the U.S. detention center in Guantanamo.

The American New Yorker magazine also disclosed on May 16 that the torture at Abu Ghraib was Okayed [
http://www.islamonline.net/English/News/2004-05/16/article02.shtml
] by U.S. Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld.

Historic Effort

The US advocacy group called it a historic effort to hold high-ranking US officials accountable for “brutal acts of torture including the widely publicized abuses carried out at Abu Ghraib, on Tuesday November 30.”

The four Iraqis were “victims of gruesome crimes including severe beatings, sleep and food deprivation, hooding and sexual abuse.”

The group called in an online petition on supporters for filing the criminal complaint to write the German prosecutor in support of the investigation.

“It is critical that he hear from as many people as possible so he feels worldwide pressure to pursue the case,” read the petition.

The group said that under the doctrine of universal jurisdiction suspected war criminals may be prosecuted irrespective of where they are located.

The US came under heavy fire after the Abu Ghraib scandal was first revealed by the American press and after major General Antonio Taguba said in a report that he found evidence of "sadistic, blatant and wanton criminal abuse" [
http://www.islamonline.net/English/News/2004-05/02/article02.shtml
] at the notorious prison.

Cases of abuse that were reported include a detainee who was shoved to the ground before a soldier stepped on his head; a man was forced to stand naked while a female interrogator made fun of his genitals, and a woman who was repeatedly kicked by a military police guard.

Guantanamo Petitions

CCR is moving towards another effort to organize attorneys to file habeas corpus petitions in the Washington federal court on behalf of the detainees at Guantanamo Bay.

The first five were filed on July 2, 2004. CCR currently represents 53 individuals who have been held at Guantanamo for over two years.

Responding to the Supreme Court's historic decision on the rule of law in Guantanamo Bay, CCR is spearheading the effort to get detainees their day in court; the legal community is stepping up to provide the detainees with the basic right to challenge their detention, the group said on its website.

Amnesty International condemned [
http://www.islamonline.net/English/News/2003-05/29/article04.shtml
] in May last year US breaches of international law in Guantanamo under the cloak of its so-called global war on terror.

The New York-based Human Rights Watch had called on the Bush administration to promptly investigate and address charges of torture [
http://www.islamonline.net/English/News/2002-12/27/article01.shtml
] of the Guantanamo detainees or risk criminal prosecution.

Also in January last year, Amnesty asked Washington to resolve the "legal limbo" [
http://www.islamonline.net/english/news/2003-01/11/article03.shtml
] of the detainees, slamming its continuing defiance of international law.

The accusations shed a light on the US record of human rights.

The US and its allies were reported to have been running a wanton global network of detention camps [
http://www.islamonline.net/English/News/2004-06/13/article05.shtml
] allowing the U.S. to fly so-called terror suspects to other countries where they are tortured for information.

http://www.islamonline.net/English/News/2004-11/30/article01.shtml


Informant: assalamu aleikum

Lexington Herald-Leader

The International Committee of the Red Cross has charged in confidential reports to the U.S. government that the American military has intentionally used psychological and sometimes physical coercion 'tantamount to torture' on prisoners at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba. The finding that the handling of prisoners detained and interrogated at Guantanamo amounted to torture came after a visit by a Red Cross inspection team that spent most of June in Guantanamo.

... Asked about the accusations in the report, a Pentagon spokes-man provided a statement saying, 'The United States operates a safe, humane and professional detention operation at Guantanamo that is providing valuable information in the war on terrorism...

http://makeashorterlink.com/?I4DF246E9


Informant: Thomas L. Knapp

Brigadier General Evelyn P. Foote
United States Army (Retired)

I am writing you today to ask you to join me in opposing the nomination of Alberto Gonzales as Attorney General of the United States, by signing a letter which will be delivered by Veterans for Common Sense to the United States Senate in the coming weeks.

When I served as Commander of the 42d Military Police Group in Germany from July '83 - July '85, I was responsible for executing the group's wartime mission, should the need arise, of collecting and controlling all enemy prisoners of war taken in theatre operations. Inherent in that responsibility was the absolute requirement that the Group, its leaders and its soldiers adhere strictly to the Geneva Convention in safeguarding the rights of American Forces' prisoners of war and in insuring that prisoners were treated humanely and appropriately in all instances.

Sadly, since September 11, 2001, those priorities have been overridden by some people in the administration who believe that in order to fight terrorism, we have to abandon our standards and honor. We have seen an administration work to abandon our international agreements. We have seen an administration twist legal logic in order to redefine torture and try to make it acceptable. And, sadly, we have seen the deaths in custody of prisoners held by U.S. forces.

One of the first responsibilities our forces bear under the Geneva Conventions is the protection of prisoners of war. These rules not only protect enemy prisoners of war, but protect our own troops when they are captured on the battlefield, and provide an international legal framework for punishing those who violate those rules.

The key author of the quasi-legal arguments to define torture and re-classify prisoners of war was White House Counsel Alberto Gonzales. Why do we oppose his nomination?

Mr. Gonzales believes that parts of the Geneva Conventions are "obsolete" and "quant." According to a January 2002 memo to President George Bush, Mr. Gonzales argued, over the objections of Secretary of State Colin Powell, that the United States should not adhere to its requirements under the Geneva conventions because it wasn't practical.

Gonzales approved a Justice Department document which twisted reality by redefining the meaning of the word torture.

Under Gonzales's tenure as White House Counsel, American citizens have been held without trial; without counsel; without the basic Constitutional protections that both the President, and military veterans, swore to defend, in their oaths of office.

According to the news media, Gonzales nomination is expected to sail through the Senate, with only token questioning. We can change that, by making clear our expectation that Gonzales be strongly questioned in his confirmation hearings and that ultimately his candidacy should be rejected.

You can join us, by signing our letter to the U.S. Senate, which will be delivered when confirmation hearings begin to members of the Judiciary Committee, and to the full Senate before his nomination comes up for a vote.

Please join us in telling the Senate that torture is not an American value.

http://www.veteransforcommonsense.org/campaigns/attygen.cfm

Thank you for your support for our work. Together we can make a difference, and a better future for our country.

Sincerely,

Evelyn P. Foote
Brigadier General, United States Army, Retired.

According to the article below, more than 300 flights have been made on behalf of the U.S. Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) to facilitate the movement of enemy prisoners of war so they can be tortured in other countries.

http://www.veteransforcommonsense.org/NewsArticle.cfm?ID=2419