abuse, abu ghraib has to stop

More Photos; More War Crimes
from an article by Mike Whitney
February 15, 2006

SBS Dateline is planning to broadcast 60 previously unpublished photographs of the victims of American abuse at Abu Ghraib prison. Many of the disturbing pictures have already appeared on the internet; exposing the underlying principle of American foreign policy, domination through force.

The photographs illustrate in excruciating detail the commitment to physical coercion that the Bush administration has vigorously defended in its legal memoranda and justified in terms of its war on terrorism. The battered faces and hooded victims of American brutality attest to the shocking inhumanity of the present campaign.

This is the real face of the Bush’s global democratic crusade. The rest is just gibberish.

How can anyone look at these appalling photographs and fail to grasp the brutality and cynicism that animates the policy?

How can anyone listen to the glib palavering of the torturer-and-chief as he pontificates on a "culture of life" that protects the unborn, but leaves others naked and bound, in a pool of blood?

The hypocrisy is nearly as offensive as the savagery.

The photographs have emerged just as the United Nations is preparing to release a report on Guantanamo Bay. The report assails the Bush administration for its clear violations to human rights and international law. "It says that the US committed acts amounting to torture" and that, "the apparent attempts by the US administration to reinterpret certain interrogation techniques as 'not reaching the threshold of torture’ in the framework of the struggle against terrorism are of utmost concern".

The findings of the UN commission are significant in that they provide the foundation for future "war crimes and crimes against humanity" tribunals.

The report confirms the relevance of the United Nations as a legitimate moral authority in judging the aberrant behavior of the member states. While no one expects that punitive action will be taken against the Bush administration, the next logical step is for the group to press for censure at the UN Security Council, thus drawing international attention to the grave issue of human rights abuse.

We can only hope that the atrocious photographs of victims at Abu Ghraib will embolden the UN group to take whatever action is needed to deter the supporters of torture and abuse from continuing their monstrous behavior.
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there were other pictures, undescribable ... to use the word inhumane can not even describe or do justice; human rights and international law have to be enforced and upheld.
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New images of abuse at Abu Ghraib surface
15 Feb 2006 CBC

An Australian television station has aired previously unpublished photographs and video that appear to show the abuse of Iraqis in U.S. military custody at Abu Ghraib prison in 2003. ...

The new images of prisoners – some of whom appear naked, hooded or bleeding – show "homicide, torture and sexual humiliation," Dateline said.

The current affairs program did not give the source of the images, but said they were among those that the American Civil Liberties Union had been trying to get from the U.S. government under a Freedom of Information request.

Their authenticity has not been confirmed, but some of the new photos show U.S. soldiers, including Charles Graner and Lynndie England, who have already been convicted for their parts in the Abu Ghraib abuse.

Naked prisoners humiliated, network alleges

The videos and photos include images of:

=A group of naked men with bags over their heads standing in a group and masturbating. Dateline said they were forced to participate.
=A handcuffed man repeatedly smashing his head into a metal cell door. The network said he was a mentally ill man who became a "plaything" for the guards who experimented with ways to restrain him.
=Two naked men handcuffed together.
=A dog lunging at the end of a leash only centimetres from the hooded head of a person who is kneeling on the floor.
=A hooded man standing on a box with wires strapped to his finger.

Several images show people who have body or head wounds, while others appear to be dead. ...

Some of the images were quickly re-broadcast on Arab-language television networks and other news organizations, fuelling Muslim anger three days after the publication of images of British soldiers apparently beating Iraqi youth. ...

Pentagon spokesman Bryan Whitman said he did not know whether the images were among a group that the military has been fighting to keep from the public since 2004. ...
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