"In US Report, Brutal Details of 2 Afghan Inmates' Death" (NYT's Expose!)

[KoKo]

NYTimes Breaks story of Brutal torture of 2 Afghani's by US Soldiers.
Edited on Fri May-20-05 11:10 AM by KoKo01


(This broke on BBC this a.m., and I went to NYT's site and there's a long article detailing the terrible abuses of 2 Afghani prisoners including a crude drawing. BBC said NYT's has photo's but I didn't see them on the site....The article is heartbreaking)

.......................................................................

May 20, 2005
In U.S. Report, Brutal Details of 2 Afghan Inmates' Deaths
By TIM GOLDEN

Even as the young Afghan man was dying before them, his American jailers continued to torment him.

The prisoner, a slight, 22-year-old taxi driver known only as Dilawar, was hauled from his cell at the detention center in Bagram, Afghanistan, at around 2 a.m. to answer questions about a rocket attack on an American base. When he arrived in the interrogation room, an interpreter who was present said, his legs were bouncing uncontrollably in the plastic chair and his hands were numb. He had been chained by the wrists to the top of his cell for much of the previous four days.

Mr. Dilawar asked for a drink of water, and one of the two interrogators, Specialist Joshua R. Claus, 21, picked up a large plastic bottle. But first he punched a hole in the bottom, the interpreter said, so as the prisoner fumbled weakly with the cap, the water poured out over his orange prison scrubs. The soldier then grabbed the bottle back and began squirting the water forcefully into Mr. Dilawar's face.

"Come on, drink!" the interpreter said Specialist Claus had shouted, as the prisoner gagged on the spray. "Drink!"

At the interrogators' behest, a guard tried to force the young man to his knees. But his legs, which had been pummeled by guards for several days, could no longer bend. An interrogator told Mr. Dilawar that he could see a doctor after they finished with him. When he was finally sent back to his cell, though, the guards were instructed only to chain the prisoner back to the ceiling.

more horrible descriptions of brutality ....
http://www.nytimes.com/2005/05/20/international/asia/20abuse.html?hp&ex=1116648000&en=6cca0512a38427c3&ei=5094&partner=homepage


A sketch by Thomas V. Curtis, a former Reserve M.P. sergeant, showing how Dilawar was chained to the ceiling of his cell.

[alexisfree]

1. no words for it......

:grr:

[TWiley]

2. I really really really hate Republicans.

We have no business being there in the first place. Except, of course, for the oil pipeline that Haliburton had designed and could not build before the war.

The bush republicans and their hypocritical Christian supporters are directly responsible for these war atrocities. May they all burn in hell.

[Nite Owl]

3. When I clicked on the link

it said


Page Not Found



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Articles back to 1851 are available through our New York Times Article Archive: 1851-Present. For more information or to start searching, please visit our Archive page.



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Is it no longer there or is it the link or my computer?






There are just no words to express what was done. I don't know whether to cry ot be angry that this was done in our name.



Here it is:
http://www.nytimes.com/2005/05/20/international/asia/20abuse.html?hp&ex=1116648000&en=6cca0512a38427c3&ei=5094&partner=homepage

[KoKo]

4. Sorry, must have linked to "Print Page" I fixed it and here's link again:

http://www.nytimes.com/2005/05/20/international/asia/20abuse.html?hp&ex=1116648000&en=6cca0512a38427c3&ei=5094&partner=homepage

[Nite Owl]

5. Got it, thanks

Have any idea what page this appears on?

[KoKo]

6. No idea but BBC Report on PBS this morning had it as a top headline

and that's why I logged into NYT's to read it online. The Online link says "International Section." So, that might mean it didn't make frontpage. :-(

[rodeodance]

7. also see this DU thread

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=103x126550

[rodeodance]

8. I am looking at print NYT--it is front page-upper fold!!--lets all

send the NYT a Thank YOU

[rodeodance]

9. this is followed by 2 FULL pages (with colored pics) of the

details of the Report.

[KoKo]

15. Wow....thanks rodeo! Front page just might get more notice....have to

hope. I see there are other threads, but when I posted this morning I didn't catch them and was so horrified I posted after a quick glance since all I was seeing was "Saddam's Underwear."

The more this gets out there and the more threads in Forums the better, because many folks here on DU only stay in one place. I hope Skinner understands that all of us saw this at a different time, and just had to post it in our despair that it needs to get out.

[Nite Owl]

13. Front page!

That's great.

[rodeodance]

10. that sketch you included in on the FRONT page of NYT (print

edition).

[rodeodance]

11. I nominated this story but needs one more

[rodeodance]

12. why is this not LBN?

[Nite Owl]

14. Kick this

and someone add a nomination for Greatest. Everyone needs to read this.

[rodeodance]

16. yes, needs one more nomination!!

[rodeodance]

17. a few things about the interrogators (below) from the story

.What specialized training the unit received came on the job, in sessions with two interrogators who had worked in the prison for a few months. "There was nothing that prepared us for running an interrogation operation" like the one at Bagram, the noncommissioned officer in charge of the interrogators, Staff Sgt. Steven W. Loring, later told investigators.

Nor were the rules of engagement very clear. The platoon had the standard interrogations guide, Army Field Manual 34-52, and an order from the secretary of defense, Donald H. Rumsfeld, to treat prisoners "humanely," and when possible, in accordance with the Geneva Conventions. But with President Bush's final determination in February 2002 that the Conventions did not apply to the conflict with Al Qaeda and that Taliban fighters would not be accorded the rights of prisoners of war, the interrogators believed they "could deviate slightly from the rules," said one of the Utah reservists, Sgt. James A. Leahy.

"There was the Geneva Conventions for enemy prisoners of war, but nothing for terrorists," Sergeant Leahy told Army investigators. And the detainees, senior intelligence officers said, were to be considered terrorists until proved otherwise.

The deviations included the use of "safety positions" or "stress positions" that would make the detainees uncomfortable but not necessarily hurt them - kneeling on the ground, for instance, or sitting in a "chair" position against the wall. The new platoon was also trained in sleep deprivation, which the previous unit had generally limited to 24 hours or less, insisting that the interrogator remain awake with the prisoner to avoid pushing the limits of humane treatment.

[KoKo]

18. And Bush and Gonzales and our Congress made sure there was a special

"clause" that terrorists were "fair game" and not covered under the Geneva Conventions.

It's just so disgusting. The man is a monster and all those who serve with him are equally monsters. Bush's whole pitiful life with his psychosis is being played out on a World Stage with our tax money with our "supposed" approval.

[rodeodance]

19. and a short related piece

Under the Radar

TORTURE – ARMY REPORT SHOWS EXTENSIVE ABUSE: A 2,000-page confidential file on the Army's criminal investigation into two detainee deaths in Afghanistan has presented a "narrative counterpart to the digital images from Abu Ghraib," the New York Times reports (see their moving interactive feature on the report here). The file "depicts young, poorly trained soldiers in repeated incidents of abuse," often "driven by little more than boredom or cruelty, or both." Detainees are regularly shackled or tied from the ceilings by their wrists and beaten "with virtual impunity." Frequently, harsher methods are used – the report describes how one detainee is forced to "pick plastic bottle caps out of a drum mixed with excrement and water as part of a strategy to soften him up for questioning." And accountability is rare. Though the leaked report suggests "there was probable cause to charge 27 officers and enlisted personnel with criminal offenses," only seven have been charged.

http://www.americanprogressaction.org/site/pp.asp?c=klLWJcP7H&b=695959

[rodeodance]

20. another nomination needed please

[zanne]

21. Will the White House make the NYT retract THIS story?

Their pattern has become to discredit any print item that makes them look bad. I don't know how they do it, but the pressure on these newspapers must be intense.

[teryang]

22. Absolute disgrace

Can we sink any lower?

The notion that the Geneva Conventions don't apply is alien to US policy and a neo-con falsehood. Senior attorneys such as Gonzales, and Yoo who promote torture, should be stripped of their positions and bar licenses.

So called non impact or low impact torture such as sensory deprivation, sound stress, humiliation, stress positions, cold endurance, water torture, etc., are prohibited by the Conventions and former US military policy.

What is wrong with our country that this leadership is tolerated?

[undeterred]

23. Mike Malloy read the whole piece on the air last night

and it was apalling.