Firsthand Accounts of Torture of Iraqi Detainees by US Army

hrw.org...

Leadership Failure
Firsthand Accounts of Torture of Iraqi Detainees by the U.S. Army’s 82nd Airborne Division

I. Summary

II. Account of Sergeant A, 82nd Airborne Division

III. Account of Sergeant B, 82nd Airborne Division

IV. Account of Officer C, 82nd Airborne Division

Continued.....

Words fail me when trying to describe what is said here.

These people do not represent the America I know, nor are they liberating the Iraqi people.

It is easy to start in the middle of their statements, and believe you were hearing from Nazis at concentration camps.

Ugh...

"Putting guys with frustration in charge of prisoners was the worst thing to do."

Saw this mentioned in atleast 2 of the reports, whatever happened to MP?

They call it WAR for a reason. To me, war is synonymous with all that is bad in the world, even if it is carried out in the name of something good and right. There is no way to avoid evil acts -- on both sides -- during times of conflict.

Everyone would probably agree that a war against National Socialism and Hitler's plans of a Third Reich was probably a good thing. After all, Hitler was actively trying to invade, conquer and occupy one country after another. He was trying to exterminate an entire race of peoples as well as the sick and infirm, the mentally ill and homosexuals (in spite of the fact that many of his own hench demonstrated proclivities towards this behavior). Yet, people ignore the facts that the allies, in their efforts to defeat hitler, often perpetrated heinous acts of abuse, torture and acts of criminality against humanity. Just go find links to this yourself, it won't be difficult.

War is an ugly business. War is brutal, inhumane, indecent but, unfortunately necessary. One could even say that war is a "natural" act that groups of people do against other groups of people. Since the dawning of civilization this has been the case. War is what people do.
I would like to think that someday, this might change but as long as there are groups of people with fundamental differences in philosophy and methods to bring their personal realities into existence, there will be WAR.

War, it has been said, can often bring out he best in man but, likewise, war can also bring out the worst. It has also been said that War is Hell.

patriotfilesannex.org...

Wait!!

Prisoners are complaining of abuse? Man, how odd, has this ever happened before? I mean, we must ALWAYS beleive everything a prisoner says....

Yo Skippy-If you had read the post you would realize that these are the accounts of the military, not the prisoners. I guess we can't believe them either, and besides most of these "prisoners" are being held without being charged and without a hearing. How do you know what they may or may not be guilty of?

Everyone would probably agree that a war against National Socialism and Hitler's plans of a Third Reich was probably a good thing. After all, Hitler was actively trying to invade, conquer and occupy one country after another.

Was Iraq invading one nation after another, or is America the one?

Be careful using Nazi analogies to justifiy the Iraq war because in any comparison America is the Nazi.

Originally posted by skippytjc
Wait!!

Prisoners are complaining of abuse? Man, how odd, has this ever happened before? I mean, we must ALWAYS beleive everything a prisoner says....

No, American soldiers that witnessed torture are complaining....

Site is back up again.....

"Prisoners are complaining of abuse? Man, how odd, has this ever happened before? I mean, we must ALWAYS beleive everything a prisoner says.... "


This time my dear, your own soldiers are speaking about the torture.

Originally posted by ArchAngel

Everyone would probably agree that a war against National Socialism and Hitler's plans of a Third Reich was probably a good thing. After all, Hitler was actively trying to invade, conquer and occupy one country after another.

Was Iraq invading one nation after another, or is America the one?

Be careful using Nazi analogies to justifiy the Iraq war because in any comparison America is the Nazi.

Yup, no doubt on this one.... US tries to put McDonalds everywhere around the globe!

America is the "happy" version of NAZI Germany. Mr Bush is the Hitler of our time. Most of you probably wouldn't be suprise if I tell you America is the only country that has the highest frequency of waging war/military intervention/liberation invasion among the modern nations of our era. Sad but true.

I saw an advertisement on the net that glorifies the U.S as the Angels of the modern human and I was disgusted. It actually sugarcoat everything by saying "America has never stop since Pearl Harbour". Load of crap to me.

Back to my point, I think I have to agree that WAR is cruel. It is humanity's darkest hour when one is declared. Good or bad, friendlies or enemies, from either perspective, the good can be the bad and vice versa.

In this thread, we see American Soldiers abusing Iraqi prisoners. All I can say is --GOD BLESS AMERICA.

[edit on 3/10/05 by Heartagram]

Originally posted by skippytjc
Wait!!

Prisoners are complaining of abuse? Man, how odd, has this ever happened before? I mean, we must ALWAYS beleive everything a prisoner says....

Dont you know? Its the seriousness of the charge that matters to these people. Facts have ZERO to do with it.

Originally posted by Heartagram
America is the "happy" version of NAZI Germany. Mr Bush is the Hitler of our time. Most of you probably wouldn't be suprise if I tell you America is the only country that has the highest frequency of waging war/military intervention/liberation invasion among the modern nations of our era. Sad but true.

I saw an advertisement on the net that glorifies the U.S as the Angels of the modern human and I was disgusted. It actually sugarcoat everything by saying "America has never stop since Pearl Harbour". Load of crap to me.

Back to my point, I think I have to agree that WAR is cruel. It is humanity's darkest hour when one is declared. Good or bad, friendlies or enemies, from either perspective, the good can be the bad and vice versa.

In this thread, we see American Soldiers abusing Iraqi prisoners. All I can say is --GOD BLESS AMERICA.

[edit on 3/10/05 by Heartagram]

I'm sorry but you have no idea what you are talking about. Anyone who makes these comparisons automaticly shows themselvs to be ignorent. Nazi germany and present day USA are nothing alike.

[edit on 3-10-2005 by Dronetek]

We tortured them to relieve our stress

FOR the first time, American soldiers who personally tortured Iraqi prisoners have come forward to give testimony to human rights organisations about crimes they committed.

Three soldiers – a captain and two sergeants – from the 82nd Airborne Division stationed at Forward Operating Base (FOB) Mercury near Fallujah in Iraq have told Human Rights Watch how prisoners were tortured both as a form of stress relief and as a way of breaking them for interrogation sessions.

Thankyou for saving us from Saddam's torture.
LLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOLLLLLLLLLL!

Put some names to these statements. Identifying them as Sergents "A" , "B" and "C" leaves alot to be desired in the credability department. Human Rights Watch isn't the most unbiased source on the planet. I am not saying that these statements are inaccurate, but I want more than statements from unidentified sources.

Originally posted by JIMC5499
Put some names to these statements. Identifying them as Sergents "A" , "B" and "C" leaves alot to be desired in the credability department.

This is a perfect example of the unwillingness to believe the truth even when it's right in front of one's eyes. You mean to tell me that if these guys had put their names out there you'd believe it? Did you read the link I provided 2 posts up? Would you want to give your name (if you didn't have to) if you were one of these guys?

Here's some names Sgt. Johnson, Sgt. Smith and Capt. Crunch. Now do you believe it?

Also, don't overlook Captain Ian Fishback's attempts to stop it all. Unless of course you just refuse to believe it even if there is a name attached to it. What real difference does that make?

I just caught up with this story, and the 'Officer C' mentioned is Captain Ian Fishback.

Captain Ian Fishback has given us permission to state that he is the captain referenced in our report in light of the subsequent revelation of his name by Congressional offices.

Regardless of who the individuals are that made these reports, they are members of the 82nd Airborne Division. The incidents in question did not take place at Abu Ghraib.

Sergeant 'A' had this to say about his unit.

The “Murderous Maniacs” was what they called us at our camp because they knew if they got caught by us and got detained by us before they went to Abu Ghraib then it would be hell to pay.

(and)

To “smoke” someone is to put them in stress positions until they get muscle fatigue and pass out. That happened every day. Some days we would just get bored so we would have everyone sit in a corner and then make them get in a pyramid. This was before Abu Ghraib but just like it. We did that for amusement.

Captain Fishback knew something wasn't right.

Someone mentioned to me in passing that there was a really bad prisoner abuse scandal and I took note of it and I thought, “that is horrible. That is going to be bad PR [public relations] for the Army” and I thought, “Okay, rogues did something.” And then as the week progressed I watched on the news and they showed some of the pictures -- not all of them -- a large portion of the pictures were in accordance with what I perceived as U.S. policy.

(and)

I witnessed violations of the Geneva Conventions that I knew were violations of the Geneva Conventions when they happened but I was under the impression that that was U.S. policy at the time. And as soon as Abu Ghraib broke and they had hearings in front of Congress, the Secretary of Defense testified that we followed the spirit of the Geneva Conventions in Afghanistan, and the letter of the Geneva Conventions in Iraq and as soon as he said that I knew something was wrong.

I think everyone should follow the link to these stories and read what Captain Fishback has to say. I'm going to post one more set of quotes that I think go to the heart of this matter.

It’s unjust to hold only lower-ranking soldiers accountable for something that is so clearly, at a minimum, an officer corps problem, and probably a combination with the executive branch of government.

(and)

[I]f America holds something as the moral standard, it should be unacceptable for us as a people to change that moral standard based on fear. The measure of a person or a people’s character is not what they do when everything is comfortable. It’s what they do in an extremely trying and difficult situation, and if we want to claim that these are our ideals and our values then we need to hold to them no matter how dark the situation.

Its what you do when the 'chips are down' that really counts.

Captain Ian Fishback's statement

Originally posted by skippytjc
Wait!!

Prisoners are complaining of abuse? Man, how odd, has this ever happened before? I mean, we must ALWAYS beleive everything a prisoner says....

Here ya go, skippytjc.
Never forget that Al-Qaeda has a manual that they give all their recruits:
This is al-Qa'eda Rule 18: 'You must claim you were tortured'

HRW, among others, fall for it everytime.
The validity of this report is dubious, as is a small number of our troops who HRW is reporting on placing such allegations.
At any rate, be patient, the military [DOD], Cheney, and McCain will get around to coming up with a working agreeable definition of torture, which will then be put in print in a new soldiers manual.






seekerof

[edit on 21-11-2005 by Seekerof]