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Former US General Confirms High-Lknowledgevel


Spurious George

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Former US general confirms high-level knowledge of Abu Ghraib torture

Former US Major General Antonio Taguba, who headed the first military investigation into torture at Abu Ghraib prison in Baghdad, has now alleged that former Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld and other top officials were aware of abuse at the Iraqi prison months before it was made public in late April 2004. According to Taguba, the torture at Abu Ghraib arose from a policy promoted by Rumsfeld and the Bush administration.

Taguba’s statements, in an interview conducted by veteran journalist Seymour Hersh, appear in the June 25 issue of the New Yorker magazine. The interview is also available online.

In the conversations with Hersh, Taguba also asserts that he was forced out of his position in the military because of his role in investigating torture in Iraq and his reluctance to lie to help cover up for the administration.

Speaking of the Abu Ghraib abuse, Taguba remarked, “From what I know, troops just don’t take it upon themselves to initiate what they did without any form of knowledge of the higher-ups.”

According to Hersh in the New Yorker, “Taguba came to believe that Lieutenant General Sanchez, the Army commander in Iraq, and some of the generals assigned to the military headquarters in Baghdad had extensive knowledge of the abuse of prisoners in Abu Ghraib” even before photographs of the torture fell into the hands of the Army’s Criminal Investigation Division in January 2004.

Taguba told Hersh that Sanchez regularly visited Abu Ghraib during the fall of 2003, during the time the documented torture was taking place, and that he personally witnessed at least one interrogation. “Sanchez knew exactly what was going on,” Taguba said. This is a very serious accusation.

These statements go beyond what was reported in his own initial investigation, which formed the basis for the first news stories about the Abu Ghraib scandal in the spring of 2004. That investigation was limited to examining the role of the military police at Abu Ghraib and not higher-level military officers and civilians. The military has carried out a number of separate investigations into torture in Iraq, but all have served to obscure the role of top officials and military personnel.

Continues - http://www.wsws.org/articles/2007/jun2007/tagu-j19.shtml

I bet Rummy the perv rubbed one off to those pics at his desk at the Pentagon linked-image

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No one was tortured at Abu Grabi. Therefore, the entire premise of blame is false.

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I learned from Taguba that the first wave of materials included descriptions of the sexual humiliation of a father with his son, who were both detainees. Several of these images, including one of an Iraqi woman detainee baring her breasts, have since surfaced; others have not. (Taguba’s report noted that photographs and videos were being held by the C.I.D. because of ongoing criminal investigations and their “extremely sensitive nature.”) Taguba said that he saw “a video of a male American soldier in uniform sodomizing a female detainee.” The video was not made public in any of the subsequent court proceedings, nor has there been any public government mention of it. Such images would have added an even more inflammatory element to the outcry over Abu Ghraib. “It’s bad enough that there were photographs of Arab men wearing women’s panties,” Taguba said.

http://www.newyorker.com/reporting/2007/06...25fa_fact_hersh

Some would call rape torture but I guess you dont think rape is very bad.

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From previously posted article

Taguba said that he saw “a video of a male American soldier in uniform sodomizing a female detainee.” The video was not made public in any of the subsequent court proceedings, nor has there been any public government mention of it.

Some would call rape torture but I guess you dont think rape is very bad.

Alleged rape isn't rape...it is alleged. I alleged that you raped someone. Did you? There isn't any proof of rape or torture. Putting panties on someone's head is not torture dude. Cutting off their nose or hammering their toes, or beating them to a bloody pulp...or as the Vietnamese did: shoving bamboo under your fingernails, or As Hitler did: drilling on your teeth with no anesthesia....THAT is torture...Panties on head...I don't think so.

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Are you a General in charge of an investigation? No you are not. There is proof, it just wont be released for for that very reason. There are however released pictures of dead prisoners, did they die from having panties on their heads?

I would wager that if similar pictures to these came out, say, with US prisoners and Iranians "abusing" them, you would think differently of these "allegations".

Great job busting out Hitler by post two by the way, maybe you should go take a nap or something.

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No one was tortured at Abu Grabi. Therefore, the entire premise of blame is false.
I love your attempts at disinformation. Cute, but nice try.
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I love your attempts at disinformation. Cute, but nice try.

Show me proof of torture.

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The inquiry had begun in January, and was led by General Taguba, who was stationed in Kuwait at the time. Taguba filed his report in March. In it he found:

Numerous incidents of sadistic, blatant, and wanton criminal abuses were inflicted on several detainees . . . systemic and illegal abuse.

Dude you are hungup on a word.

"Sadistic, blatant, and wanton criminal abuses", "systemic and illegal abuse", if that isnt torture I dont know what is... if someone kidnapped a person and was said to have inflicted 'sadistic, blatant, and wanton criminal abuses' on that person, it would be called torture and no one would disagree, or would you?

The ONLY difference is that some people refuse to accept people were "tortured" in Abu Ghraib because it involves American soldiers, they will admit that there was "abuse" however, that is their problem not reality's.

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Iraq is a mess is the message. Saddam at least had it under control is the message. He was brutal, and that's what they need I am told.

It really doesn't matter, wrong no matter What. Even when we put our guys on trial. Even when they resign office. Even when we appease.

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“These acts of abuse were not the spontaneous actions of lower-ranking enlisted personnel,” Levin said. “These attempts to extract information from prisoners by abusive and degrading methods were clearly planned and suggested by others.”

That part sparked out to me. From what I understand that was blamed on contractors mainly blackwater from the ex-special forces they've hired that may have suggested resistance to interrogation techniques from their training in the military if captured but only this case it was used just for the amusement of the soldiers there.

Some would call rape torture but I guess you dont think rape is very bad.

Later in the article:

The official inquiries consistently provided the public with less information about abuses than outside studies conducted by human-rights groups. In one case, in November, 2004, an Army investigation, by Brigadier General Richard Formica, into the treatment of detainees at Camp Nama, a Special Forces detention center at Baghdad International Airport, concluded that detainees who reported being sodomized or beaten were seeking sympathy and better treatment, and thus were not credible. For example, Army doctors had initially noted that a complaining detainee’s wounds were “consistent with the history [of abuse] he provided. . . . The doctor did find scars on his wrists and noted what he believed to be an anal fissure.” Formica had the detainee reëxamined two days later, by another doctor, who found “no fissure, and no scarring. . . . As a result, I did not find medical evidence of the sodomy.” In the case of a detainee who died in custody, Formica noted that there had been bruising to the “shoulders, chest, hip, and knees” but added, “It is not unusual for detainees to have minor bruising, cuts and scrapes.”

As it gets going after a couple pages the article wanders and kind of just throws in ideas out there and then of course at the end it just went to the Bush bashing quickly so it could be really a real article. Looks like the new yorker just used the general for the headlines and nothing else. As they say one thing in the beginning from what the general said for the "bang" and then 6 or 8 pages in it goes back on it's self but really who is going to read all those pages after the first page says that?

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Some would call rape torture but I guess you dont think rape is very bad

The official inquiries consistently provided the public with less information about abuses than outside studies conducted by human-rights groups. In one case, in November, 2004, an Army investigation, by Brigadier General Richard Formica, into the treatment of detainees at Camp Nama, a Special Forces detention center at Baghdad International Airport, concluded that detainees who reported being sodomized or beaten were seeking sympathy and better treatment and thus were not credible. [...]

Clarify if I am incorrect, but are you quoting me where I said "rape", in the context of Abu Ghraib, and then using a small slice of the article where detainees' reports of sodomy at Camp Nama are deemed not credible as a rebuttal?

If so perhaps this quote would have been more appropraite to my quote....

(Taguba’s report noted that photographs and videos were being held by the C.I.D. because of ongoing criminal investigations and their “extremely sensitive nature.”) Taguba said that he saw “a video of a male American soldier in uniform sodomizing a female detainee.” The video was not made public in any of the subsequent court proceedings, nor has there been any public government mention of it. Such images would have added an even more inflammatory element to the outcry over Abu Ghraib.

... or you could simply call General Taguba a liar.

As it gets going after a couple pages the article wanders and kind of just throws in ideas out there and then of course at the end it just went to the Bush bashing quickly so it could be really a real article. Looks like the new yorker just used the general for the headlines and nothing else.

I did not find the article went to "Bush bashing quickly" at the end, was there any "Bush bashing" in particular you would like to point out specifically?

As they say one thing in the beginning from what the general said for the "bang" and then 6 or 8 pages in it goes back on it's self but really who is going to read all those pages after the first page says that?

Well I would hope that anyone who comments on the article and wants to be taken seriously would read "all those pages". Or not be taken seriously like joc who managed to reply within 7 minutes of me posting this, thats less than 1 minute per page at 9 pages, unless he read the article earlier of course... which I highly doubt.

Edited by Catch .22
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It is an ultimate sign of denial, detachment from reality and blind patriotism to claim there was no torture being conducted in Abu Ghraib or Guantanamo.

linked-image

United States soldier Spc. Graner prepares to punch restrained prisoners

linked-image

Sgt. Ivan Frederick sitting on an Iraqi detainee between two stretchers

linked-image

One of the previously unreleased images released in February 2006 by SBS in Australia, showing a man covered in excrement forced to pose for the camera

According to Donald Rumsfeld, many more pictures and videotapes of the abuse at Abu Ghraib exist. Photos and videos revealed by the Pentagon to lawmakers in a private viewing on 12 May 2004, showed dogs snarling at cowering prisoners, Iraqi women forced to expose their breasts, and naked prisoners forced to have sex with each other, the lawmakers revealed.[7] Members of the Senate reviewed photographs supplied by the Defense Department which have not been released to the public. They note that in addition to the abuses mentioned, some of the U.S. military guards had sex in front of the prisoners.

Source

Memos show FBI agents complained about abuses at Guantánamo Bay

FBI agents repeatedly complained about the torture of detainees at Guantánamo Bay and Iraq and believed their eyewitness accounts of beatings, strangulation and other abuse were subject to a cover-up, official memos show.

Even after heavy censorship, the memos, obtained by the American Civil Liberties Union, contain graphic details of abuse in which military and government interrogators put lit cigarettes in detainees' ears, spat on them, knocked them unconscious, or resorted to deliberate humiliation.

FBI Agents Allege Abuse of Detainees at Guantanamo Bay

Detainees at the U.S. military prison at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, were shackled to the floor in fetal positions for more than 24 hours at a time, left without food and water, and allowed to defecate on themselves, an FBI agent who said he witnessed such abuse reported in a memo to supervisors, according to documents released yesterday.

FBI report details Guantanamo torture

An internal FBI report appears to contradict assurances by US President George W Bush that prisoners are treated humanely at Guantanamo Bay.

Released under Freedom of Information laws, the report details the harsh conditions and techniques witnessed by some FBI employees at the detention centre.

Exposed: The Anatomy of a Torture Scandal

Any soldier, MP or intelligence officer stationed at detainment facilities around the world could expect a number of creative PowerPoint presentations. "It was explained to us in a PowerPoint presentation that the Geneva Conventions don't apply - which we already knew," said Erik Saar, a former military linguist stationed at Guantanamo, in a 2005 interview. "They told us, 'Just so you're aware, these individuals are not POWs, they're detainees or enemy combatants.'"

If there was no torture going on then why run away from the Geneva Convention and imply we are immune from it? Edited by Reincarnated
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It is an ultimate sign of denial, detachment from reality and blind patriotism to claim there was no torture being conducted in Abu Ghraib or Guantanamo.

linked-image

United States soldier Spc. Graner prepares to punch restrained prisoners

linked-image

Sgt. Ivan Frederick sitting on an Iraqi detainee between two stretchers

linked-image

One of the previously unreleased images released in February 2006 by SBS in Australia, showing a man covered in excrement forced to pose for the camera

If there was no torture going on then why run away from the Geneva Convention and imply we are immune from it?

That isn't torture dude...that is humiliation. Torture is where you break someones finger....

...I am not caught up on a single 'word'...words mean things and sitting on someone isn't torture.

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If you look very closely.... closer.... no closer.... even closer.... even closer..... you'll notice he has a broken finger lol.

linked-image

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Not torture!!????!! Come on! Let's have a basic "get-in-touch-with-reality" moment here!!!

Edited by IronGhost
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