US imprisoning over 100 children at Abu Ghraib

[scottxyz]

http://www.thismodernworld.com/weblog/mtarchives/week_2004_07_04.html#001637

Three days ago, a German TV newsmagazine called Report Mainz broadcast an eight-minute segment reporting that the International Red Cross found at least 107 children in coaliton-administered detention centers in Iraq.

= = =

{I did a translation from German of some of the original article below.}

Tanks coming through the gate. US soldiers storm a residential building, looking for terrorists. Sometimes the soldiers also capture children on such raids. What happens to these children? The military isn't giving any details. We do some digging and meet some informants.

One of them who knows something about it is Sergeant Samuel Provance from the US Army Secret Service. Stationed for half a year at the notorious Abu Ghraib prison. Today, five months later, we meet Sgt Provance in Heidelberg.

His superiors have strictly forbidden him to tell reporters what he experienced at Abu Ghraib. But Provance still wants to talk about it. He is plagued by pangs of concience. He tells us of a 16-year-old boy he had to march off:

US-Sergeant Samuel Provance: "He was full of fear, very alone. He had the thinnest little arms I've ever seen. His whole body was shaking. His wrists were so thin that we couldn't put handcuffs on him. When I first saw him and was taking him for questioning, I felt bad for him. The interrogators had doused him in water and stuck him in a car. Then they drove with him all night, and at the time it was very, very cold. Then they smeared him with mud and showed him his father who had also been captured. With him they had tried out other methods of questioning. But there was no way to get him to talk. The interrogators told me that after the father saw his son in this condition it broke his heart. He cried and promised to tell them everything they wanted to know."

However the son remained in custody. As a 16-year-old he was considered an adult. But Provance also tells of a special section just for children. A secret children's area in the Abu Ghraib horror jail.

(original in German)
http://www.swr.de/report/archiv/sendungen/040705/02/frames.html

[vincenzo]

1. Shame, shame, shame

Abu Ghraib, Falluja, families wiped out at Roadblocks, secret detentions, firing at 360 degrees after hitting mines. The shame of our fighting forces (often criticized by the British -- no slouches at killing people) will rebound to their and our endless shame. May God forgive America.

[newyawker99]

5. Hi vincenzo!!

Welcome to DU!! :toast:

[scottxyz]

2. 'The worst is the soundtrack of the boys shrieking'

Seymour Hersh says the US government has videotapes of boys being sodomized at Abu Ghraib prison in Iraq.

"The worst is the soundtrack of the boys shrieking," the reporter told an ACLU convention last week. Hersh says there was "a massive amount of criminal wrongdoing that was covered up at the highest command out there, and higher."

via Eschaton - Atrios:
http://atrios.blogspot.com/2004_07_11_atrios_archive.html#108985997021663456

[stavka]

3. To hurt children is a MORTAL SIN

Period.

That's all I have to say about that

[Djinn]

4. Hearts and Minds

gee why would anyone want to join the Iraqi resistance - must be coz they're Al Qaeda :eyes:

I have this feeling that regardless of the outcome of the election the US is going to find itself stuck in Iraq for a long time, with an ever decreasing pool of allies, ever increasing troop numbers and ever increasing resistance. If I was an American with an army aged kid I'd be secreting them overseas before letting them get involved in this deja vu of nightmare proportions. Vietnam took 50,000 dead Americans and over 3 MILLION dead Vietnamese - how many body bags are the general pop of America prepared to accept?