McCain's son an airline pilot?

[Rez O. Lewshun]

Are you for real? I knew you were a wacko union advocate but I had no clue you were a far left crazy.

Do you really believe what you just wrote? Please enlighten us with some proof that the US tortures and dumps bodies in neighborhoods to send a message. do you know anything about the middle east and its problems?

wake up... your tax payer money is used to torture....

check out..
The Shock Doctrine by Klein....

http://www.forbes.com/work/feeds/afx/2005/06/24/afx2110388.html


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AFX News Limited
US acknowledges torture at Guantanamo; in Iraq, Afghanistan - UN
06.24.2005, 11:37 AM

GENEVA (AFX) - Washington has, for the first time, acknowledged to the United Nations that prisoners have been tortured at US detention centres in Guantanamo Bay, as well as Afghanistan and Iraq, a UN source said.
The acknowledgement was made in a report submitted to the UN Committee against Torture, said a member of the ten-person panel, speaking on on condition of anonymity.

'They are no longer trying to duck this and have respected their obligation to inform the UN,' the Committee member said.

'They they will have to explain themselves (to the Committee). Nothing should be kept in the dark,' he said.

UN sources said this is the first time the world body has received such a frank statement on torture from US authorities.

The Committee, which monitors respect for the Convention against Torture and Other Cruel, Inhuman or Degrading Treatment or Punishment, is gathering information from the US ahead of hearings in May 2006.

Signatories of the convention are expected to submit to scrutiny of their implementation of the 1984 convention and to provide information to the Committee.

The document from Washington will not be formally made public until the hearings.

[email protected]

 

[Rez O. Lewshun]

New Accounts of Torture by U.S. Troops

Soldiers Say Failures by Command Led to Abuse

(New York, September 24, 2005) -- U.S. Army troops subjected Iraqi detainees to severe beatings and other torture at a base in central Iraq from 2003 through 2004, often under orders or with the approval of superior officers, according to accounts from soldiers released by Human Rights Watch today.
The new report, “Leadership Failure: Firsthand Accounts of Torture of Iraqi Detainees by the U.S. Army's 82nd Airborne Division,” provides soldiers’ accounts of abuses against detainees committed by troops of the 82nd Airborne stationed at Forward Operating Base Mercury (FOB Mercury), near Fallujah.

Three U.S. army personnel—two sergeants and a captain—describe routine, severe beatings of prisoners and other cruel and inhumane treatment. In one incident, a soldier is alleged to have broken a detainee’s leg with a baseball bat. Detainees were also forced to hold five-gallon jugs of water with their arms outstretched and perform other acts until they passed out. Soldiers also applied chemical substances to detainees’ skin and eyes, and subjected detainees to forced stress positions, sleep deprivation, and extremes of hot and cold. Detainees were also stacked into human pyramids and denied food and water. The soldiers also described abuses they witnessed or participated in at another base in Iraq and during earlier deployments in Afghanistan.

According to the soldiers' accounts, U.S. personnel abused detainees as part of the military interrogation process or merely to “relieve stress.” In numerous cases, they said that abuse was specifically ordered by Military Intelligence personnel before interrogations, and that superior officers within and outside of Military Intelligence knew about the widespread abuse. The accounts show that abuses resulted from civilian and military failures of leadership and confusion about interrogation standards and the application of the Geneva Conventions. They contradict claims by the Bush administration that detainee abuses by U.S. forces abroad have been infrequent, exceptional and unrelated to policy.

“The administration demanded that soldiers extract information from detainees without telling them what was allowed and what was forbidden,” said Tom Malinowski, Washington Director of Human Rights Watch. “Yet when abuses inevitably followed, the leadership blamed the soldiers in the field instead of taking responsibility.”

Soldiers referred to abusive techniques as “smoking” or “********************ing” detainees, who are known as “PUCs,” or Persons Under Control. “Smoking a PUC” referred to exhausting detainees with physical exercises (sometimes to the point of unconsciousness) or forcing detainees to hold painful positions. “********************ing a PUC” detainees referred to beating or torturing them severely. The soldiers said that Military Intelligence personnel regularly instructed soldiers to “smoke” detainees before interrogations.

One sergeant told Human Rights Watch: “Everyone in camp knew if you wanted to work out your frustration you show up at the PUC tent. In a way it was sport… One day [a sergeant] shows up and tells a PUC to grab a pole. He told him to bend over and broke the guy’s leg with a mini Louisville Slugger, a metal bat.”

The officer who spoke to Human Rights Watch made persistent efforts over 17 months to raise concerns about detainee abuse with his chain of command and to obtain clearer rules on the proper treatment of detainees, but was consistently told to ignore abuses and to “consider your career.” He believes he was not taken seriously until he approached members of Congress to raise his concerns. When the officer made an appointment this month with Senate staff members of Senators John McCain and John Warner, he says his commanding officer denied him a pass to leave his base. The officer was interviewed several days later by investigators with the Army Criminal Investigative Division and Inspector General’s office, and there were reports that the military has launched a formal investigation. Repeated efforts by Human Rights Watch to contact the 82nd Airborne Division regarding the major allegations in the report received no response.

The soldiers’ accounts show widespread confusion among military units about the legal standards applicable to detainees. One of the sergeants quoted in the report described how abuse of detainees was accepted among military units:

“Trends were accepted. Leadership failed to provide clear guidance so we just developed it. They wanted intel [intelligence]. As long as no PUCs came up dead it happened. We heard rumors of PUCs dying so we were careful. We kept it to broken arms and legs and ********************.”

The soldiers’ accounts challenge the Bush administration’s claim that military and civilian leadership did not play a role in abuses. The officer quoted in the report told Human Rights Watch that he believes the abuses he witnessed in Iraq and Afghanistan were caused in part by President Bush’s 2002 decision not to apply Geneva Conventions protection to detainees captured in Afghanistan:

“[In Afghanistan,] I thought that the chain on command all the way up to the National Command Authority [President Bush and Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld] had made it a policy that we were going to interrogate these guys harshly. . . . We knew where the Geneva Conventions drew the line, but then you get that confusion when the Sec Def [Secretary of Defense] and the President make that statement [that Geneva did not apply to detainees] . . . . Had I thought we were following the Geneva Conventions as an officer I would have investigated what was clearly a very suspicious situation.”

The officer said that Bush’s decision on Afghanistan affected detention and interrogation policy in Iraq: “None of the unit policies changed. Iraq was cast as part of the War on Terror, not a separate entity in and of itself but a part of a larger war.”

As one sergeant cited in the report, discussing his duty in Iraq, said: “The Geneva Conventions is questionable and we didn’t know we were supposed to be following it. . . . [W]e were never briefed on the Geneva Conventions.”

Human Rights Watch called on the military to conduct a thorough investigation of the abuses described in the report, as well as all other cases of reported abuse. It urged that this investigation not be limited to low-ranking military personnel, as has been the case in previous investigations, but to examine the responsibility throughout the military chain of command.

Human Rights Watch repeated its call for the administration to appoint a special counsel to conduct a widespread criminal investigation of military and civilian personnel, including higher level officials, who may be implicated in detainee abuse in Iraq, Afghanistan or elsewhere.

Human Rights Watch also called on the U.S. Congress to create a special commission, along the lines of the 9/11 commission, to investigate prisoner abuse issues, and to enact proposed legislation prohibiting all forms of detainee treatment and interrogation not specifically authorized by the U.S. Army Field Manual on Intelligence Interrogation and all treatment prohibited by the Convention Against Torture.

“When an experienced Army officer goes out of his way to say something’s systematically wrong, it’s time for the administration and Congress to listen,” Malinowski said. “That means allowing a genuinely independent investigation of the policy decisions that led to the abuse and communicating clear, lawful interrogation rules to the troops on the ground.”

 

[Rez O. Lewshun]

Report: Medical exams show abuse, torture in Iraq, Gitmo
WASHINGTON (AP) — Medical examinations of former terrorism suspects held by the U.S. military at Abu Ghraib prison in Iraq and Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, found evidence of torture and other abuse that resulted in serious injuries and mental disorders, according to a human rights group.
For the most extensive medical study of former U.S. detainees published so far, Physicians for Human Rights had doctors and mental health professionals examine 11 former prisoners. The group alleges finding evidence of U.S. torture and war crimes and accuses U.S. military health professionals of allowing the abuse of detainees, denying them medical care and providing confidential medical information to interrogators that they then exploited.
"Some of these men really are, several years later, very severely scarred," said Barry Rosenfeld, a psychology professor at Fordham University who conducted psychological tests on six of the 11 detainees covered by the study. "It's a testimony to how bad those conditions were and how personal the abuse was."
One Iraqi prisoner, identified only as Yasser, reported being subjected to electric shocks three times and being sodomized with a stick. His thumbs bore round scars consistent with shocking, according to the report obtained by The Associated Press. He would not allow a full rectal exam.
Another Iraqi, identified only as Rahman, reported he was humiliated by being forced to wear women's underwear, stripped naked and paraded in front of female guards, and was shown pictures of other naked detainees. The psychological exam found that Rahman suffered from post-traumatic stress disorder and had sexual problems related to his humiliation, the report said.

The report came as the Senate Armed Services Committee revealed documents showing military lawyers warned the Pentagon that methods it was using post-9/11 violated military, U.S. and international law. Those objections were overruled by the top Pentagon lawyer.
President Bush said in 2004, when the prison abuse was revealed, that it was the work of "a few American troops who dishonored our country and disregarded our values." Bush and other U.S. officials have consistently denied that the U.S. tortures its detainees.
Physicians for Human Rights, an advocacy group based in Cambridge, Mass., that investigates abuse around the world and advocates for global health and human rights, did not identify the 11 former prisoners to protect their privacy. Seven were held in Abu Ghraib between late 2003 and summer of 2004, a period that coincides with the known abuse of prisoners at the hands of some of their American jailers. Four of the prisoners were held at Guantanamo beginning in 2002 for one to almost five years. All 11 were released without criminal charges.
Those examined alleged that they were tortured or abused, including sexually, and described being shocked with electrodes, beaten, shackled, stripped of their clothes, deprived of food and sleep, and spit and urinated on.
The abuse of some prisoners by their American captors is well documented by the government's own reports. Once-secret documents show that the Pentagon and Justice Department allowed, at least for a time, forced nakedness, isolation, sleep deprivation and humiliation at both Guantanamo Bay Naval Base and at Abu Ghraib.
Because the medical examiners did not have access to the 11 patients' medical histories prior to their imprisonment, it was not possible to know whether any of the prisoners' ailments, disabilities and scars pre-dated their confinement. The U.S. military says an al-Qaeda training manual instructs members, if captured, to assert they were tortured during interrogation.
However, doctors and mental health professionals stated they could link the prisoners' claims of abuse while in U.S. detention to injuries documented by X-rays, medical exams and psychological tests.
"The level of the time, thoroughness and rigor of the exams left me personally without question about the credibility of the individuals," said Dr. Allen Keller, one of the doctors who conducted the exams, in an interview with the AP. "The findings on the physical and psychological exams were consistent with what they reported."
All 11 former detainees reported being subjected to:
•Stress positions, including being suspended for hours by the arms or tightly shackled for days.
•Prolonged isolation and hooding or blindfolding, a form of sensory deprivation.
•Extreme heat or cold. —Threats against themselves, their families or friends from interrogators or guards.
Ten said they were forced to be naked, some for days or weeks. Nine said they were subjected to prolonged sleep deprivation. At least six said they were threatened with military working dogs, often while naked. Four reported being sodomized, subjected to anal probing, or threatened with rape.
The patients underwent intensive, two-day long exams following standards and methods used worldwide to document torture.
"We found clear physical and psychological evidence of torture and abuse, often causing lasting suffering," he said.
Keller, who directs the Bellevue/New York University Program for Survivors of Torture, said the treatment the detainees reported were "eerily familiar" to stories from other torture survivors around the world. He said the sexual humiliation of the prisoners was often the most traumatic experience.
Most former detainees are out of reach of Western doctors because they are either in Iraq or have been returned to their home countries from Guantanamo.

 

[AC560]

wake up... your tax payer money is used to torture....

Yes it is and it is also used for police brutality and a lot of other bad things. The key distinction that you are leaving out though is the government doesn't have a policy of doing these things, representatives of the government illegally engage in these actions. When those representatives are caught they are tried in a court and if found guilty punished.

What you are trying to assert is that the US Government is actively engaged in or approving of torture which is patently false.

 

[ackattacker]

When those representatives are caught they are tried in a court and if found guilty punished....

What you are trying to assert is that the US Government is actively engaged in or approving of torture which is patently false.

That is exactly what he is asserting and it is not "patently false", it is backed up by a lot of solid evidence.

And as for those "caught" and tried... the total is 7, all of low rank, and all because they were in pictures that the press got hold of. Real great investigative arm the military has.

Under the Geneva conventions, those caught could have been subjected to War Crimes trials. Conveniently, prior to their committing torture, Alberto Gonzales sent out a memo saying that the Geneva Conventions did not apply, and that torture "may be justified".

The rules of the game changed a bit due to the 2006 Military Commisions Act, which McCain supported. The act retroactively grants immunity to agents of the US who engage in or authorize torture based upon executive orders, even if such torture was illegal at the time, thus guaranteeing that we will see no more prosecutions (even if more pictures leak out).

 

[Tarzan]

Rez,

You're very right. The article posted refers to "getting smoked." I agree, this is a particularly heinous form of torture. My platoon got smoked pretty bad in basic training one night. The walls literally had condensation on them after the Drill Instructor finished with us. I nearly sued because of the mental and physical harm it did to me.

I am very much in favor of leaning on these guys a little bit if it is going to save the lives of our soldiers. Now, give me some inane response about which soldiers did it save?


You guys need to figure this out. No matter which one goes into office, it will be more of the same old stuff.

Pdubs, Obama also was close to the 90% NUMBER VOTING WITH BUSH!!!!!!!!!!!!! Nothing is going to change except those who produce jobs while have to pay higher taxes while those who don't pay taxes will be given tax credits.

 

[ultrarunner]

I don't care if he's going to take us to another World War, McCain's wife is hot and she has a pilot's license.

McCain definitely 'married up' when he chaffed first one!

 

[BoeingBaller]

Gas was around 80-90 cents when Clinton took office in 1992.

That being said, I think both candidates are total crocks of sh!t that could care less about you and me.

Gas was also 85 cents a gallon in 1999.

 

[400A]

She is so not hot.... She even said it herself!! "I'm a hockey, pistol wearing, fisherman mom" I love crabs, and bears fur!
Now is that sexy??

Yes it is.

 

[Salukipilot4590]

Yes it is.

I see what happens when you get 5000 hours of flight time...

Her daughter on the other hand....I see why that kid forgot to pull out...