Gitmo = "Zero documented deaths from torture" hmmmm? Anyone?

[Tigress DEM]

I found a sneaky piece in the OP EX section of the MN STRIB. There is this guy, Jonathan Gaw who does this "by the numbers" bit and he says there are "ZERO" documented deaths from torture at Guantanamo Bay and then goes on to quote the REAL Gulag statistics.

Hmmmmm? I wonder how many deaths were "documented" as being caused by torture by the Stalin administration between 1929 and 1953?

Does anyone have background on deaths from torture at Gitmo? Or close enough to call it even if the government denies it? I'd like to respond to this in time for the next OP EX in STRIB for Sunday.

AND does anyone know about this Jonathan Gaw? http://[e-mail]

[Coexist]

1. here is one from Abu Ghraib

http://web.amnesty.org/report2005/usa-summary-eng
<snip>
A February report by the ICRC on abuses by Coalition forces in Iraq, which in some cases were judged to be “tantamount to torture”, was also leaked as was the report of an investigation by US Army Major General Antonio Taguba. The Taguba report had found “numerous incidents of sadistic, blatant, and wanton criminal abuses” against detainees in Abu Ghraib prison between October and December 2003. It had also found that US agents in Abu Ghraib had hidden a number of detainees from the ICRC, referred to as “ghost detainees”. It was later revealed that one of these detainees had died in custody, one of several such deaths that were revealed during the year where torture or ill-treatment was thought to be a contributory factor.

[Tigress DEM]

4. Thanks!

[Jack Rabbit]

2. This is equivocation. They're very good at it.

There are zero documented deaths from torture at Guantanamo. However, the Amnesty report is aimed not just at Guantanamo, but at Bush's entire network of offshore gulags. There have been over a hundred deaths of combat detainees in US custody at other facilities in this network.

It should be added that under the Third Geneva Convention, these combat detainees are prisoners of war until a court of law rules otherwise. Mr. Bush has asserted that he has the right to determine whether or not the detainees are POWs, and he has determined that they are not and that, therefore, they are not entitled to be heard by a court. Consequently, no court has determined that any combat detainee is not prisoners of war. The Catch 22 that Mr. Bush attempted to create for combat detainees in his endless war thus recoils on him: because no court has ruled, the inmates at Guantanamo and other facilities are prisoners of war. The very assertion that they are something else in order to deny them their rights under the Third Geneva Convention is in and of itself a crime against humanity. The magnitude of this crime has reached a level where prosecution of Mr. Bush and other members of his regime, most notably Mr. Rumsfeld and Mr. Gonzales, is warranted.

[Tigress DEM]

5. Great logic, the fact they work so hard to hide their crime...

like Shakesphere said, "I do believe he protest too much."

Maybe I should be asking how many died at Guantanamo bay and what is documented as cause of death - and does it hold water?

[Jack Rabbit]

7. The proper question

Since September 11, 2001, how many detainees died in any US facility and what was the cause of death of each?

Bear in mind that torture doesn't need to kill someone. It's illegal under international law, period. Not only is torture illegal, but so is any "other cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment". So additional questions would center on documenting those incidents, regardless of whether or not they caused death, and whether these incidents were the systematic application of policy. I think one need only look at the Gonzales memos to see that they were the result an attitude of contempt for international humanitarian law of a policy that willfully disregarded it.

[julianer]

3. There are reported deaths at Bagram

http://www.crimesofwar.org/onnews/news-bagram.html

Of course, at the time of Stalin's mass murders no one really knew the figures. It wasn't until later that the true extent of the crimes was revealed.

I think about 700,000 were executed in the purges from the mid thirties, a trickle turning into a torrent, but many millions more were killed by neglect and abuse in the labour camps of the gulag. Reading Solzhenitsyn and others it appears torture was pretty much par for the course for soviet prisoners, the extent of it depending on the amount of resistance they made to signing the false confessions used to sentence them to terms in the camps.

[Tigress DEM]

6. My tongue in cheek point ...

I guess is to say that anyone who causes death by torture certainly isn't going to document it as such and as we have seen with the reporters deaths, even when there is evidence - smoking gun and all, it's ruled as an accident.

[Spectral]

8. kick

:kick: