Bush Supporters' Aftermath Thread III

Whether or not you approve of our holding prisoners of war, which is how most Conservatives view them"

these people are treated quite well"

Hicks [..] was visited over two days last week at Camp 5 by his Pentagon-appointed military defence lawyer, Major Michael Mori, [who]said from Washington yesterday[,] "I honestly don't know how David has lasted as long as he has."

Major Mori said Hicks was still being held in solitary confinement for 22 to 23 hours a day and could walk no more than 10 paces in any direction [..]

Major Michael Mori, who said Hicks was confined in a one-person cell for 23 hours a day, could not leave for meals and was allowed an hour a day in a "reading room without any books".

The US military has prevented a senior Melbourne psychiatrist from visiting David Hicks at Guantanamo Bay to provide an independent mental health assessment for his legal team. [T]he US Administration [refused] to allow Professor Mullen to make a follow-up assessment of Hicks.

[David Hicks' US military lawyer] Major Mori said he was given no reason for the refusal, which conflicts with a policy made two years ago allowing Professor Mullen to visit Hicks.

The woman appointed [..] director of military prosecutions to the new Australian Military Court has described the treatment of David Hicks as abominable.

[..] Asked about the treatment of Mr Hicks, who has been held at Guantanamo Bay for more than five years and is not currently charged with any offences, she did not hesitate. "Abominable," she said. "Quite frankly, I think it's wrong. I don't care what he's done or alleged to have done. I think he's entitled to a trial and a fair one [..]

Padilla was not charged for three years, but he was accused. He was accused by government sources of being part of a plot to detonate a dirty bomb in an American city; [..] he was accused of plotting terrorist acts in the US.

After three years in solitary confinement, the Bush administration feared its detention of Padilla might be struck down by a court, and so it finally decided to charge him with a crime. The charges it brought in November 2005 included no mention of any dirty bomb, no link to Al-Qaeda, and no charge of conspiracy to commit acts of terror in America. A judge threw out other charges. None of the charges that remain involve actual terrorist activity, just of being connected to a group that may have financed such activity in Bosnia and Chechnya. [..]

This is what Padilla's lawyer claims was done to Padilla in the custody of President Bush: "Mr Padilla was often put in stress positions for hours at a time. He would be shackled and manacled, with a belly chain, for hours in his cell.

"Noxious fumes would be introduced to his room causing his eyes and nose to run. The temperature of his cell would be manipulated, making his cell extremely cold for long stretches of time. Mr Padilla was denied even the smallest and most personal shreds of human dignity by being deprived of showering for weeks at a time, yet having to endure forced grooming at the whim of his captors ...

"He was threatened with being cut with a knife and having alcohol poured on the wounds. He was also threatened with imminent execution. He was hooded and forced to stand in stress positions for long periods.

"He was forced to endure exceedingly long interrogation sessions, without adequate sleep, wherein he would be confronted with false information, scenarios and documents to further disorientate him. Often he had to endure multiple interrogators who would scream, shake and otherwise assault Mr Padilla."

As a consequence of this, his legal team now says he is mentally unfit to stand trial. One person who recently interviewed him said the following: "During questioning, he often exhibits facial tics, unusual eye movements and contortions of his body. The contortions are particularly poignant since he is usually manacled and bound by a belly chain when he has meetings with counsel."

To put it bluntly: he has been sent mad.

Padilla spent 1,307 days at the Naval Consolidated Brig in Charleston, S.C., where, his lawyers allege, he was kept in solitary, deprived of sleep, drugged with PCP or LSD, held in stress positions, and blindfolded, shackled and deafened on the few occasions he was allowed out of his 9-by-7-foot cell.

"Today is May 21," a naval official declared to a camera videotaping the event. "Right now we're ready to do a root canal treatment on Jose Padilla, our enemy combatant."

Several guards in camouflage and riot gear approached cell No. 103. They unlocked a rectangular panel at the bottom of the door and Mr. Padilla's bare feet slid through [..]. As one guard held down a foot with his black boot, the others shackled Mr. Padilla's legs. Next, his hands emerged through another hole to be manacled.

Wordlessly, the guards, pushing into the cell, chained Mr. Padilla's cuffed hands to a metal belt. [H]e lowered his head submissively in expectation of what came next: noise-blocking headphones over his ears and blacked-out goggles over his eyes. Then the guards, whose faces were hidden behind plastic visors, marched their masked, clanking prisoner down the hall to his root canal.

[..] Still frames from the videotape were posted in Mr. Padilla's electronic court file late Friday.

The abuse Padilla has endured while in custody, [his lawyers] contend, has [..] rendered [him] incompetent to stand trial.

The logic of the federal government's response to the defense motion was stunningly cold. The U.S. Attorney's office agrees that Padilla needs his competency evaluated. We didn't torture him, argue the representatives of the U.S. government, but if we did, and it made him crazy -- well, then, no claims he makes about said torture can be trusted. He is, after all, mentally incompetent.

Jonathan Turley, a professor of law at George Washington University who specializes in constitutional criminal procedure, calls this argument "bizarre."

"It would create a rather perverse incentive [..] As long as the government can force someone into mental incompetency they cannot face a motion for incompetency in court."

"It would seem," concludes Turley, with great understatement, "to invite abuse."

this NPR report on Jose Padilla is easily one of the more disturbing things I've read all day. Padilla, as we've learned, has basically gone insane during his time in U.S. military custody, after four years of stress positions and "total sensory deprivation." But here's the government's defense:

The government maintains that whatever happened to Padilla during his detention is irrelevant, since no information obtained during that time is being used in the criminal case against him.

Er... so there was real no point in holding him indefinitely, without charges? Is that what's being said here? Not exactly:

Indeed, there are even some within the government who think it might be best if Padilla were declared incompetent and sent to a psychiatric prison facility. As one high-ranking official put it, "[i]the objective of the government always has been to incapacitate this person[/i]."

Digby points out that the Soviet Union had a term for this: Psikhushka, psychiatric hospitals, which were used to "isolate political prisoners from the rest of society, discredit their ideas, and break them physically and mentally." [..] As with Padilla, the objective was always to incapacitate the person. But hey, comparing U.S. policy with Soviet Russia is overly shrill [..].

McTag wrote:

I resent the US military

I believe that sums up your entire premise for posting here.

Much like the photographs that emerged in the Abu Ghraib prison abuse cases, the Haditha images have provided investigators powerful and visceral evidence of what happened. But unlike the detainee photographs, which were turned over to officials who then investigated the case, the Haditha images were discovered months after the shootings as more than 60 Naval Criminal Investigative Service agents scoured the globe for them.

Investigators found photographs on laptop computers that were shipped back to the United States and recovered images that had supposedly been deleted from a Sony PlayStation Portable memory drive, according to investigative documents.

Marines were found to have downloaded the images from each other's devices, traded them and loaded them onto personal Web sites; one Marine told investigators he saw some of the photographs set to music on another Marine's computer. Some were e-mailed from Iraq to a civilian in the United States, but none surfaced publicly until now.

Among the images, there is a young boy with a picture of a helicopter on his pajamas, slumped over, his face and head covered in blood. There is a mother lying on a bed, arms splayed, the bodies of three young children huddled against her right side. There are men with gaping head wounds, and a woman and a child hunkered down on their knees, their hands frozen around their faces as if permanently bracing for an attack.

News flash: When our military intentionally does something harmful to innocents or the helpless, they are charged, tried for their crimes, and appropriately sentenced.

In late 2002, two Afghans were detained at Bagram, the main U.S. base in Afghanistan.

The detainees were a 22-year-old taxi driver named Dilawar and a 30-year-old named Mullah Habibullah. They were chained to the ceiling in standing positions.

Over a five-day period, these two men were repeatedly beaten and died slow, excruciating deaths. An autopsy performed on Dilawar showed that his legs were destroyed and that amputation would have been necessary. Habibullah died of a pulmonary embolism caused by blood clots formed in the legs from the beatings.

Of the 28 U.S. soldiers facing possible charges for the two murders, only four were punished.

One soldier has been sentenced to two months in prison, another to three months. A third was demoted and given a letter of reprimand and a fine. A fourth was given a reduction in rank and pay.

News flash: When our military intentionally does something harmful to innocents or the helpless, they are charged, tried for their crimes, and appropriately sentenced. The accounts of this among the hundreds of thousands of men and women who are rotating in and out of Iraq are miniscule, and yet they are dealt with.
If you wish to focus on that instead of all the good that is being done, knock yourself out....someplace else please.

Foxfyre wrote:

News flash: When our military intentionally does something harmful to innocents or the helpless, they are charged, tried for their crimes, and appropriately sentenced.

Foxy, this bit above makes me re-post this bit here

Quote:

In late 2002, two Afghans were detained at Bagram, the main U.S. base in Afghanistan.

The detainees were a 22-year-old taxi driver named Dilawar and a 30-year-old named Mullah Habibullah. They were chained to the ceiling in standing positions.

Over a five-day period, these two men were repeatedly beaten and died slow, excruciating deaths. An autopsy performed on Dilawar showed that his legs were destroyed and that amputation would have been necessary. Habibullah died of a pulmonary embolism caused by blood clots formed in the legs from the beatings.

Of the 28 U.S. soldiers facing possible charges for the two murders, only four were punished.

One soldier has been sentenced to two months in prison, another to three months. A third was demoted and given a letter of reprimand and a fine. A fourth was given a reduction in rank and pay.

There's been a whole thread on the incident (actually several threads) - you might have missed them, though.

Please tell me whether you think those responsible for doing something harmful to someone innocent and helpless have been appropriately sentenced in this case.

I would have to know that the news accounts are accurate before deciding. If the news accounts are accurate--and they usually aren't in these cases--then no, the sentence was not appropriate. If the media distorted and exaggerated and reported made up 'facts' as they often do, then it is possible that the sentences were appropriate. I wasn't there and I don't know.

Foxfyre wrote:

I would have to know that the news accounts are accurate before deciding. If the news accounts are accurate--and they usually aren't in these cases--then no, the sentence was not appropriate. If the media distorted and exaggerated and reported made up 'facts' as they often do, then it is possible that the sentences were appropriate. I wasn't there and I don't know.

Foxy, I consider this response to be the equivalent of sticking your fingers in your ears and singing "lalalaaa" when confronted with inconvenient news.

There's enough on the media and on these forae about the Dilawar case.

Or go and find a news source you like, and do a search for that specific case.

Ticomaya wrote:

McTag wrote:

McG you are one twisted arsehole posting that.

We bombed hundreds of thousands of these people to death, and you have been one of the foremost apologists of the aggression, on these threads for years.

Lots of terrorist apologists here at A2K, McT. Funny ... I don't recall you ever bringing them to task.

Quote:

That doesn't give bloodthirsty militarist like McG the right to indulge in a group hug here, which is what he obscenely did, when he has supported the bombing of innocents abroad, and consistently given support to the criminal and dishonest Bush administration.

You are now displaying the same sort of mind-fart your leftist brethren did when they suggested I couldn't suggest someone display proper manners because I posted some Ann Coulter articles. "Twisted arsehole" indeed.

"Terrorist apologists"? Are you referring to those who think the Iraqis have the right to defend themselves in their own country?
Otherwise your phrase is meaningless.

Anyway, I want to hear from the twisted one himself. Why did he see fit to reproduce here a propaganda picture of the US military embracing one of the remaining Iraqi children they have not killed?

If I sometimes regrettably forget my manners, the provocation in this obscene hypocrisy is great.

McGentrix wrote:

Insurgents killed the girls parents. Get it asswipe? I-N-S-U-R-G-E-N-T-S. I spell it out for you because you are obviously too stupid to understand what the word means.

US Marines Staff Sgt. Frank D. Wuterich shot five unarmed Iraqi civilians ordered out of a white taxi after his unit took casualties in a roadside bombing in Haditha last November, according to a Naval Criminal Investigative Service (NCIS) report. Marines ordered four students and the taxi's driver out of the vehicle and then Wuterich shoot them one by one from about 10 feet away ... ...

What could I possibly post that would convince you that the U.S. military isn't rotten to the core and are bloodthirsty jackbooted thugs every one and that anything they do wrong is whitewashed? My participation in this particular argument is to defend the right to show what good the U.S. military is doing. And I think those of you who have no interest in that and who want to focus on isolated incidents that cannot be defended should just start another thread and bash us to your hearts content.

Meanwhile, I shall continue to believe that the vast majority of our men and women over there are doing yeoman's duty to help a people pull themselves out of the terrorist violence and determine their own destiny. I'm really sorry (and appalled) that none of you critics seem to have any interest in that. Okay I'm disgusted and hold in contempt those who condemn those doing good.

Foxfyre wrote:

What could I possibly post that would convince you that the U.S. military isn't rotten to the core and are bloodthirsty jackbooted thugs every one and that anything they do wrong is whitewashed? My participation in this particular argument is to defend the right to show what good the U.S. military is doing. And I think those of you who have no interest in that and who want to focus on isolated incidents that cannot be defended should just start another thread and bash us to your hearts content.

Meanwhile, I shall continue to believe that the vast majority of our men and women over there are doing yeoman's duty to help a people pull themselves out of the terrorist violence and determine their own destiny. I'm really sorry (and appalled) that none of you critics seem to have any interest in that. Okay I'm disgusted and hold in contempt those who condemn those doing good.

Foxy, please quote a post of someone who has said something only vaguely resembling this statement here that "the U.S. military is rotten to the core" or that all soldiers are "bloodthirsty jackbooted thugs every one and that anything they do wrong is whitewashed"!

Nobody said that much. Nobody.

Your statements, on the other hand, implied that every case of wrong behaviour (and that includes mistreatment, torture and murder) has been brought to justice. No, wait, you said "appropriately sentenced".

If you could just read up on one or two cases where this has simply not been the case, and then forget for a moment that people you generally disagree with brought these cases to your attention, then you could maybe bring yourself to admitting that justice has not been served in each and every single case (which was pretty much the argument you were making).


And something else: you're talking about "isolated incidents". I agree with you here. I generally trust the US military, and US soldiers, to not engage in torture, rape or murder.

But "isolated incidents" are what's being remembered. Think Daniel Pearl.

Foxfyre wrote:

What could I possibly post that would convince you that the U.S. military isn't rotten to the core and are bloodthirsty jackbooted thugs every one and that anything they do wrong is whitewashed? My participation in this particular argument is to defend the right to show what good the U.S. military is doing. And I think those of you who have no interest in that and who want to focus on isolated incidents that cannot be defended should just start another thread and bash us to your hearts content.

Meanwhile, I shall continue to believe that the vast majority of our men and women over there are doing yeoman's duty to help a people pull themselves out of the terrorist violence and determine their own destiny. I'm really sorry (and appalled) that none of you critics seem to have any interest in that. Okay I'm disgusted and hold in contempt those who condemn those doing good.

Foxy, please quote a post of someone who has said something only vaguely resembling this statement here that "the U.S. military is rotten to the core" or that all soldiers are "bloodthirsty jackbooted thugs every one and that anything they do wrong is whitewashed"!

Nobody said that much. Nobody.

Okay I exaggerated for effect.

But when you or McTag or any of the other European critics show where you any way balance your criticism and finger pointing at terrorists as you do against us, I'll take your criticisms more seriously.

Until you are willing to see the good with the bad in this I'll continue to believe you are all intentional bigots when it comes to your views of the U.S.A.

It is a valid inference, IMO, from the type of post that would suggest posting a photo of a US serviceman doing something good is "wrong" or "propaganda," and there are countless other posts that would cause one the make the same reasonable inference. The bias and belief is evident, even if the actual words "all US military is evil" are not used.

Your point is what, Walter? Are you suggesting that the girl's parents were not killed by insurgents, but were in fact killed by Sgt. Wuterich?