The respected Massachusetts-based group Physicians for Human Rights has published a report finding that 11 former detainees showed clear signed of torture in medical examinations following their release from Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, and Afghanistan.. The detainees were released for lack of evidence of terrorism.
The 121-page report details evidence of torture, including beatings, electric shock, sleep deprivation, sexual humiliation, sodomy and scores of other abuses. Retired U.S. Major Gen. Antonio Taguba, who led the Army’s investigation into the Abu Ghraib prisoner abuse scandal in 2003, wrote the foreword to the report and stated “There is no longer any doubt that the current administration committed war crimes. The only question is whether those who ordered torture will be held to account.”
The record on the American torture program is now comprehensive and unavoidable, including the recent disclosure that the Administration began work on the torture program long before any inquiry from the field, here — a direct contradiction of earlier statements from the Administration.
Despite the fact that interrogators and officials now admit to using torture, here, Congress continues to feign interest while withholding any substantive action against those who ordered a torture program.
For the full story, click here.
What is most striking is that these men were released for lack of evidence of terrorism. A recent study showed that the Administration continued to hold men for years after it became clear that they were innocent, here.
The cheney administration is very scared of this report. Obviously they have sent minions to get out their talking points on this blog and many other places today.
In case any of the pro-torture posters on this segment are sincere s (and not just administation hacks) I will address some of the errors in these posts.
1. None of the 9/11 hijackers were from Iraq. Iraq had no connection to the attack of 9/11. President cheneybush spoke of going to war against Iraq from the beginning of their administration, long before the attacks of 9/ll.
2. Torture has never been shown to be a necessary condition for obtaining accurate information. In fact, it is quite unlikely to lead to this, as many studies have shown.
3. There are evil people in the world who hate Americans and would/have gleefully cut off our heads and tortured us at a moments’ notice. This fact leaves us with a moral decision to make. Who are we? What is our moral value system? Who do we become in the face of fear?
4.It further leaves us with a legal question. Is suspending the constitution the one and only correct response to this situation?
RJ & Donna,
I said nothing about torturing our troops, who by the way are not very happy with this tactic either. They, of course, would not fold. You, however, ditto whatever you are told by your Fox news friends and Rush. And RJ, no I’ve never been toruture but you have never been detained indefinitely for something you didn’t do without being told what you are being held for. You don’t have a problem with Americans detaining innocent indefinintely? If you don’t then you are truly unAmerican.
John,
I understand where you’re coming from, but:
You said:
“If we continue, then those animals will have the moral highground to torture the next US fighter pilot who has to eject from the cockpit or the next US citizen who is taken hostage from an embassy. That could be your son or daughter.”
They already do this: Remember the beheadings? The soldiers that were burned and paraded through the streets? They do not need any motivation from us to be brutal killers, they are brutal killers.
With all due respect to WWII, this is a different time and place.
FastMovingCloud,
I am assumeing that you then have been tortured?? Or that your some sort of a perfessional on the subject? Have you been involved in torture?
Just asking, you seem very informed on the subject of Torture!
FastMovingCloud, I wouldn’t wish that upon my worst enemy….but if I were an army soldier who was involved in the interrogation I would be pretty insulted by your comments. I think I would be a little more informed and knowledgeable about my job to know when a person is not telling the truth, or do you doubt the training of some of our finest soldiers? Are you saying that if you were in a position of interrogating people you would not know your job well enough to do it right? These interrogators have been trained, and they are good at what they do, they are our sons and daughters, and they aren’t monsters like you seem to think. There was information given that would help arrest people but as security goes I am sure that the person giving the information wasn’t publicly claiming to have done so, and in order to protect these people who were released from prison, from their comrades, who I assure you wouldn’t think twice about killing them, we as humanitarians have claimed that they knew nothing. Of course in the media it is shown that we released them and there was never a cause for arresting them. Come on don’t you trust your people more than that?
I want to start seeing more stories on the positives in Iraq, all you see is the negetives, the death and destuction, nothing good.
I would like to know what person can go to Iraq and come back and say we are not fighting a war against terrorist, they say we are fighting the people of Iraq??? Where did these people travel to, what did they see??? Did they spend any time on the ground, or just fly around and look down on the country and form an opinon that way?
Mr. Obama wants to pull troops out of Iraq, GREAT to hear, that means my friends and family memebers will not have to spend another year in the sand box ever again, but I dont think it will ever happen…does anyone remember a guy named Clinton that stated all AMERICAN troops would be out of Bosnia, Kosovo in 6 motnhs, UMMMM we are still there people! We cant pull troops out of Iraq now, if we did it would be a mess and we would be right back in the middle of it in a years time, these people need our support, our money, our help, we cant just leave them!
By the way, any of you screaming neocons notice that the article also ponts out that they did not get any information that would lead to a conviction or save a single life. Your premise that “we must torture to save lifes” could not be more wrong, in every way possible. You don’t get good informaiton by torturing people; you get whatever the person that is being tortured THINKS you want to hear. They will say whatever is necessary to make the torture stop. I do hope some of you end up in this position so you see for yourself. You will lie to them and tell them of your plan to wear a bomb-belt to kill innocent people just to make it stop (although, from what I have read here, I’m not so sure some of you would be lying. What a hateful mob!)
Sorry John, for the most part I agree with you, but they already do that to our sons and daughters and they aren’t held accountable for their actions in such cases they are held in honor and praise by their comrades. You are right in that we have been terrorized to the point that we are doubting our government and our own people who are fighting this war. This is the ultimate power struggle, to make the people of America stand against their government and deny their own comrades the dignity of believing in them. The enemy has been very intelligent about this war. Our people are in doubt, which in turn will force a break in our willingness to back our government and stand strong. The enemy has created a negative image of American ways, and knowing us, because they do know us, mentally as well as our power, they will play this war psychologically instead of with power. The only way to bring a powerful government down is to create doubt in their own abilities. We have been told over and over about the wrongness of our behavior, of the greed of our nation, and now we are being made to believe that we are torturers? That we, the nation of honest hard working people, are torturing innocents for no reason, other than to create shame and humiliation? Does this sound familiar at all? Soon we will have flyers being dropped in all the big cities from airplanes above telling us of the conspiracy of the government and trickery that they are doing, oh wait that information is already out there on the net this time and not in the streets. We trained them, and they know what they are doing. Psychological warfare is where this is right now, and we must make ourselves aware of false information and know who to trust.
“FYI: There are 2 “Jake’s” on this. At least we have similar views”
Yes, they are both sick and twisted.
we’re torturing prisoners
maybe we should ask
Nick Berg..
Daniel Pearl..
Kristian Menchaca
Thomas Tucker
etc etc etc… the list goes on of beheadings, executions, tortures, set on fire etc etc
Jessica Lynch I’m sure was treated nicely while in their company… these bleeding hearts need to go over there and
tell them they are Americans and see how nicely they get treated………..whatever to whoever to keep this country safe from future attacks
watch the videos of americans being tortured you bleeding hearts. They are not going to change, you are being used as pawns in a media war, they want Obama…….McCain “08
People: Defending human rights and the CONSTITUTION is not suppoting terrorism. There are some very mentally ill individuals posting truly vile comments on this site. I feel for you Professor Turley. I know you would never curb anyone’s right to free speech but I couldn’t blame you if you banned a few of this awfully hateful commenters.
I think this is BS. I say that every time a suicide bomber blows themselves up and kills US Soldiers and/or Iraqi Civilians, we stick a chunk of C4 on one of these detainees and set it off! The Taliban has no regard for life and doesn’t fear death!
Their “cause” is a “religious cleansing of the world”! They blow themselves up and kill their own people in the name of their cause. They are laughing at us for caring about the treatment of these detainees and using it to further their propaganda of how we are infidels. They could care less about how those we have captured are treated! They probably hope that we kill them for the sake of being able to point a finger at us afterward!
These left-wing saps should all be sent to live on the streets of Bagdad so that they can see how those we are fighting treat people. Have they forgotten that they used mentally retarded girls to bomb markets!!!??? When THEY learn to live and let live, then and only then, will I feel there is any reason not to torcher the $hit out of them!!
The sick thing here is a few AMERICANS truly belive that what happend on 9/11 was our own government!!! Some people have more sympathy for these terrorist than our own countryman, for our own inniccent AMERICANS that lost there lives on that terrible day, or any that have went to war, not becuse they like war, because they feel a need to serve this woderfull free country of ours!
War isnt pretty, its not flowers and buying drinks at the club. War is hell, war is destructive, war is bloody, and sometimes its nessasary! No soldier like’s war, no soldier or there family memebers want war, it means heartache for those of us involved with it!
All this, poor little guy from a thrid world country, who didnt do anything wrong, except state they would kill all AMERICANS,and blow soldiers up as well as their fellow countrymen.. Shame big bad wrong AMERICA for keeping them in a cell, for trying to get infromation from them, makes me sick!!! Do these movie stars, and liberals turely think that these people wont come after them, do they think they are protected in some way??? All I have to say is dont call on SOLDIERS to save you when they come into your back yard and threaten you…oh wait.. you allready did, because they did come into our back yard and they killed us on our own soil, but we want to feel bad for them now…how quickly we forget!!!!
Hmmm, Big Al…is that short for Al Quaeda? Sounds like you might be a terra-rist! Let’s hope that they get you in Gitmo so we can pump some info from you. A little sodomy to your liking? How about electrodes on the genitals? I think you might change your mind about who deserves to be tortured.
On a more serious note, Big Al, your attitude is reprehensible. Our Founding Fathers would be appalled at this kind of bigotted blood lust from Americans. Yours and the Bush administration’s ideas of what constitutes a legal interrogation are a slap in the face to anyone who believes in truth, justice and the American way.
FYI: There are 2 “Jake’s” on this. At least we have similar views.
My uncles use to tell me about the horrors of WWII. One of them was a POW in Okinawa; the other was a enemy POW guard of Germans and Italians in Indiana. He would tell me about how he was tortued by the Japs. As a young naive kid, I would ask – why didn’t we do it to them? In their proud American wisdom they would answer – “American don’t torture. It is un-American to torture. If we did, then we are no better than they”. Americans are different.
There is no doubt who is winning the war on terror. Terror is not indescriminate attacks and IED bombings in the streets of Baghdad. It is having us be so weak-minded and frustrated that we feel like we have to change our moral values. They have succeeded in terrorizing us to the point that not only have we given up our civil liberties, but we have lowered our moral values to that of the terrorist. Torture is equal to Terrorism! I’m not defending terrorism, I’m simply cautioning those not to react irrationally to a frustrating situation.
It is hard to make the case that American is a decent, caring Christian nation. It will take a courageous leader to restore not only our credibilty to the world, but to restore our respect as a peace-loving, decent and civilized people. The only way is to police ourselves. Hold those accoountable for war crimes responsible for their decisions. And declare to never – never treat human beings worse than animals. If we continue, then those animals will have the moral highground to torture the next US fighter pilot who has to eject from the cockpit or the next US citizen who is taken hostage from an embassy. That could be your son or daughter.
Honestly I can’t say that I don’t give a damn about them, I do care that they have been through so much grief and propaganda in their lives that they believe in what they are doing, but I can’t condemn our government for doing it’s job in protecting the citizens of our country, even those who hate so much.
I agree, who gives a damn about how these terrorists are treated. No one cried out when they flew plane’s into our buildings in the U.S., much less about the beheading’s of Westerner’s for propaganda purposes. CNN should be ashamed for even covering this story and the American People should stand up and support our position on these Jihadist to remove them from the earth that we share. Send them to be with Ahla. Another thing is our Supreme Court passing a ruling to allow them legal assistance is ridiculous and if most American’s would understand that terrorist have no provision’s under the Geneva Convention, we could get this war resolved. I believe that the people of the U.S. should demand that Justice’s should be elected to the Supreme Court and not picked by Congress or President’s. Then, maybe we would get justice in our system.
I know I wouldn’t trust them in my home, but I would most likely trust an American soldier who lays down his life for our country and our way of life so that we can sleep in relative peace from enemies like those that are in captivity.
I cant belive that AMERICANS feel that we are commiting crimes by holding suspected terrorist in jail, and then saying that our US SOLDIERS are so called torturing without cause is insaine!!!! They stated they have no previous medical backgrounds on these people, so they have no way of knowing what medical issues happend to them before they were in our custody, or was I one of the few that read that?!
I would like this group or anyone that feels this way to look into the eyes of the 4ooo + dead AMERICAN soldiers families, or the 1000’s of injured soldiers and family memembers and tell them to their faces that we AMERICANS are wrong for what a handfull of suspected terrorist claim we did to them…This group and any so called AMERICAN that can stand in front of soldiers and family members and say this, should be held in prison for a terrorist act in my opinon, saying or even thinking in that way is a form of torture!!!! These people have vowed to kill any and all AMERICANS, they use mentaly ill people, children to blow our soldiers and their own people up, they torture and threaten peoples family’s so that they will do what they want, and these are poor missunderstood good people????…Do you realy want them in your house, with your children, with your wife…if you trust them you take them into your home…I sure dont trust them, and what they are doing to our soldiers and their own people, thats the real crime.