The United States Army and Central Intelligence Agency personnel committed a series of human rights violations against detainees in the Abu Ghraib prison in Iraq, including physical and sexual abuse, torture, rape, sodomy, and murder. The abuses came to public attention with the publication of photographs of the abuse by CBS News in April 2004. The incidents received widespread condemnation both within the United States and abroad, although the torturers received support from conservative media in the United States.
The Taguba Report (the result of the investigation by a US Army Major General, Antonio Taguba) was released in April 2004. The report concluded that 60% of the detainees at Abu Ghraib "were no longer deemed a threat and clearly met the requirements for release." (Ref. Page 25)
In other words, the treatment of those detainees, by US Army soldiers and by CIA personnel, was committed against people who were guilty of NOTHING. Against innocent civilians.
On Page 16 of the Taguba Report, Major General Taguba states, "I find that the intentional abuse of detainees by military police personnel included the following acts:Punching, slapping, and kicking detainees; jumping on their naked feet; Videotaping and photographing naked male and female detainees; Forcibly arranging detainees in various sexually explicit positions for photographing; forcing detainees to remove their clothing and keeping them naked for several days at a time; forcing naked male detainees to wear women’s underwear; forcing groups of male detainees to masturbate themselves while being photographed and videotaped."
Friend, that is some sick shit.
Abu Ghraib (and Guantanamo) were never about the treatment of terrorists by Americans ... they were about how Americans were treating people against whom no evidence of terrorist activities can be demonstrated.
It makes all the difference.
The logic that was used was: "since we can't prove them not guilty of any crime, they must be, therefore, assumed guilty."
That's obviously contrary to long-standing American values; codified as the supreme law of our land, but espoused in our Declaration of Independence as the God-given rights of all men.
To accept the claim that only terrorists were treated inhumanely by Americans is tantamount to a submissive acceptance of a fascist state (one in which power overrules justice, law, and common decency). I reject that claim. I rejected it 16 years ago, and I reject it now.
How about you?
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