Afghan detainees routinely tortured by US troops

[b0unce]

Detainees held in Afghanistan by American troops have been routinely tortured and humiliated as part of the interrogation process, in the same way as those in Iraq, a Guardian investigation has found.

Five detainees have died in custody, three of them in suspicious circumstances, and survivors have told stories of beatings, strippings, hoodings and sleep deprivation.

The nature of the alleged abuse indicates that what happened at Abu Ghraib prison in Iraq was part of a pattern of interrogation that has been common practice since the US invasion of Afghanistan.

Yesterday, in an attempt to stem charges that senior officials in the Bush admin-istration condoned the use of torture in the war on terror, the White House released hundreds of pages of documents outlining its internal deliberations on interrogation.

The memos, which originated at the Pentagon, the White House and the justice department and date from January 2002 to April last year, were intended to show that the president and his aides insisted that detainees at Guantánamo Bay should be treated humanely.

But one such memo leaked earlier this month said that Mr Bush had the legal authority to allow torture, giving new impetus to a campaign by human rights organisations and Democrats.

Senator Patrick Leahy, the Democratic member of the Senate subcommittee on foreign operations, told the Guardian that prisoners in Afghanistan "were subjected to cruel and degrading treatment, and some died from it".

"These abuses were part of a wider pattern stemming from a White House attitude that 'anything goes' in the war against terrorism, even if it crosses the line of illegality."

Syed Nabi Siddiqi, a former police officer, said he was beaten and stripped. "They took off my uniform. I showed them my identity card from the government... Then they asked me which of those animals - they made the noise of goats, sheep, dogs, cows - have you had sexual activities with?"

A second detainee, Noor Aghah, said he was forced to drink bottles and bottles of water during his interrogation.

Another prisoner, Wazir Muhammad, was held for nearly two years, firstly in Afghanistan and then at Guantánamo Bay.

"At the end of my time in Guantánamo, I had to sign a paper saying I had been captured in battle, which was not true," he said. "I was stopped when I was in my taxi with four passengers. But they told me I would have to spend the rest of my life in Guantánamo if I did not sign it, so I did."

Parts of an inquiry by Brigadier General Chuck Jacoby into allegations of abuse in custody are to be made public next month by the head of the US forces in Afghanistan, Lieutenant General David Barno.

Gen Barno said: "I will tell you without hesitation that intelligence procedures have got to be done in accordance with the appropriate standards _ all our forces will treat every detainee here with dignity and respect."

The network of US detention centres around Afghanistan has largely avoided scrutiny, yet, according to the coalition forces last week, more than 2,000 people have been detained there since the war.

"In some ways the abuses in Afghanistan are more troubling than those in Iraq," said John Sifton of Human Rights Watch. "While it is true that abuses in Afghanistan often lacked the sexually abusive content of the abuses in Iraq, they were in many ways worse.

"Detainees were severely beaten, exposed to cold and deprived of sleep and water. Five are known to have died [two of natural causes]."

http://www.guardian.co.uk/afghanistan/s ... 36,00.html

[blaugruen7]

yes of course,
george bush has to go to jail.

[forge]

yes of course,
george bush has to go to jail.

that would restore my faith in Humanity - but apparently US Presidents only get impeached for getting blow jobs, being responsible for hundreds of thousands of snuffed out lives is quite clearly less important

[peeddrroo]

yes of course,
george bush has to go to jail.

that would restore my faith in Humanity - but apparently US Presidents only get impeached for getting blow jobs, being responsible for hundreds of thousands of snuffed out lives is quite clearly less important

at least, killing to get a blow job would be an excuse...
but killing for oil, i really don't see the point.

[forge]

yes of course,
george bush has to go to jail.

that would restore my faith in Humanity - but apparently US Presidents only get impeached for getting blow jobs, being responsible for hundreds of thousands of snuffed out lives is quite clearly less important

at least, killing to get a blow job would be an excuse...
but killing for oil, i really don't see the point.

that sounds like the French perspective!

[chrysalis33rpm]

yes of course,
george bush has to go to jail.

that would restore my faith in Humanity - but apparently US Presidents only get impeached for getting blow jobs, being responsible for hundreds of thousands of snuffed out lives is quite clearly less important

yeah, isn't that interesting...says quite a bit about the Christian evangelical base which has been running this show for a while.

sex is horribly shameful, but violence is encouraged. Great.

[robin]

yeah, isn't that interesting...says quite a bit about the Christian evangelical base which has been running this show for a while.

sex is horribly shameful, but violence is encouraged. Great.

Going on their own beliefs they'll be suitably judged at some point.

George sure has it coming if that's the case.

[beats me]

Can somebody please tell me which war or conflict had both sides playing nice and by the rules. I suppose if it was just soldiers killing soldiers in the field then everybody would be fine with it. Why don't we just change the rules of war to men slapping each other on the face with white gloves like gentlemen.

[OvertoneZero]

+1

[pilcrow]

[Tone Deft]

check the date on the article

Wednesday June 23, 2004

I take it this means you couldn't find anything negative to post about Canadians in Afghanistan.

http://www.theonion.com/content/news/mi ... ntensifies
Middle East Conflict Intensifies As Blah Blah Blah, Etc. Etc.

April 26, 2007 | Issue 43•17

MIDDLE EAST—With the Iraq war in its fifth year, the war in Afghanistan in its sixth, and conflict between Israel and the rest of the region continuing unabated for more than half a century, intelligence sources are warning that a new wave of violence in the Middle East may soon blah blah blah, etc. etc., you know the rest.
Enlarge Image Middle East

Yet another act of violence in response to something else terrible that occurred in, oh, let's say Basra.

"Tensions in the region are extremely high," said U.S. Ambassador to Iraq Ryan Crocker, who added the same old same old while answering reporters' questions. "We're disappointed by the events of the last few months, but we're confident that we're about to [yakety yakety yak]."

The U.N. has issued a strongly worded whatever denouncing someone or something presumably having to do with the vicious explosive things that raged across this, or shattered the predawn calm of that, or ripped suddenly through the other, killing umpteen innocent civilians in a Jerusalem bus or Beirut discotheque or Fallujah mosque or whatever it was this time.
Enlarge Image Middle East jump

Either a car bomb killed people or a car hit a roadside bomb, killing people.

In the aftermath of a whole series of incidents, there have also been troubling reports of just fill in the blanks. Middle East experts say the still somehow worsening situation has inflamed age-old sectarian tensions between the Sunnis, Shiites, Semites, Kurds, Turks, Saudis, Persians, Wahhabis, radicals, extremists, Baathists, mullahs, clerics, et al, which is likely to lead to more gurgle-gurgle over the coming weeks and months.

A certain number of U.S. troops were also killed somewhere in some tragic fashion, while a much greater number were wounded. Meanwhile, impoverished or oppressed supporters of whichever faction carried out the attack or ambush probably celebrated, angering an angry U.S. public that is already angry. Locals are calling for an investigation into excessive force or outright corruption by military or political officials on one of the 15 sides of the various conflicts, although the implicated party has categorically denied wrongdoing, just like they always do, without fail, every time this happens, which is daily, it seems.

And in Afghanistan, the Taliban.

In Israel, Palestinians and Israelis escalated tensions and so on and so on ad infinitum, ad eternum, and some say, ad absurdum, and although Hamas released a statement condemning Israeli forces for the resulting civilian deaths, Israeli officials say the teens were armed with rocket launchers, though it doesn't really matter.

Also, Ahmadinejad, Iran's nuclear program, bin Laden at large, Moqtada al-Sadr, Moqtada al-Sadr's militia, Fallujah, renegade mullahs, embedded and/or beheaded journalists, oil revenues, stockpiles of former Soviet armaments, freedom, racism, Halliburton, women's role in Islamic society, the Quran, withdrawing troops, economic disparities, Sikhs, Pakistanis, oil, rebuilding, stories of hope, the Saudi royal family, the Holy Land, insurgents, and the tragedy of Sept. 11th.

In an attempt to increase public support of whatever the fuck it is he thinks he's doing, President Bush trotted out the same old whoop-de-do you've heard over and over at a solemn-yet-resolute speech attended by soldiers, or religious leaders, or firemen, or some mix of ethnic-looking people from one of those countries.

"We have to give this plan time to wop bop a loo bop, a wop bam boom, ah ah ting tang walla walla bing bang," President Bush may as well have said. "May God [help/bless/save] the United States of America."

[chrysalis33rpm]

Can somebody please tell me which war or conflict had both sides playing nice and by the rules. I suppose if it was just soldiers killing soldiers in the field then everybody would be fine with it. Why don't we just change the rules of war to men slapping each other on the face with white gloves like gentlemen.

Well...war did used to have rules, and was largely fought by and against professionals (who may well have been conscripts, but they were pros). It would be nice if we could change the rules of war, hell why not settle it with a scratch duel? But unfortunately, modernity seems to have made negative progress in the morality of warfare.

Now we have George and co. telling us that yes, there are rules- its just that he can't tell us what they are!

You know, Breqs is a good example of a professional warrior.

[dinsync]

yes of course,
george bush has to go to jail.

that would restore my faith in Humanity - but apparently US Presidents only get impeached for getting blow jobs, being responsible for hundreds of thousands of snuffed out lives is quite clearly less important

yeah, isn't that interesting...says quite a bit about the Christian evangelical base which has been running this show for a while.

sex is horribly shameful, but violence is encouraged. Great.

you are such a fucking idiot I can't even begin to explain it.

um, excuse me. not sure where that outburst came from.

[rozling]

I take it this means you couldn't find anything negative to post about Canadians in Afghanistan.

Exactly. Can't believe I f-in wasted my time reading this. Bounce if you're gonna post this garbage @ the ableton forum, do you mind keeping it in one thread ? the I hate Mbreqs/afghaniblog thread or something. the thread title implies there'll be more of these bullshit updates to come....so in the interest of keeping shite to a minimum please consider keeping it contained in one thread.

thanks.

[chrysalis33rpm]

that would restore my faith in Humanity - but apparently US Presidents only get impeached for getting blow jobs, being responsible for hundreds of thousands of snuffed out lives is quite clearly less important

yeah, isn't that interesting...says quite a bit about the Christian evangelical base which has been running this show for a while.

sex is horribly shameful, but violence is encouraged. Great.

you are such a fucking idiot I can't even begin to explain it.

um, excuse me. not sure where that outburst came from.

Well, why don't you give it a shot, I'm curious how I apparently offended you.

And I do excuse you - once.