Truckfuls of Bodies

[davidswanson]

Michael Vick, the football player who's all over the news, should have tortured humans instead of dogs. Then we would have been told to overlook it for the sake of moving forward. Better yet, he should have killed humans rather than only torturing them. Then we would have been told next to nothing about it at all. It might have been reported, but it wouldn't have become a hot topic, an echo-chambered story to be dismissed only after a great deal of hand-wringing. It certainly would not have interfered with watching football games.

No, I don't support harming dogs. No, I don't really want people tortured. (Yes, I've had to explain that to the severely satire-impaired after making the above statements.) And, no, I don't really think murder is better than torture. Nor do I think murder by bomb or gun or suffocation is necessarily any worse than murder by health insurance company. But I am concerned that we arrest and prosecute people in this country for individual small-time acts of torture and murder, whether of people or dogs, but never for the large-scale authorization of torture or murder. We do, however, publicly worry about our souls because of mass-torture, whereas mass-murder doesn't seem to gain the same coverage in our corporatized communications system. Of course I want torture prosecuted, but torture is a symptom.

The illness is aggressive war, a violation of the U.N. Charter and therefore of Article VI of the US Constitution. War crimes are unavoidable symptoms of aggressive war. And, even for those who support wars, there are war crimes that surpass the evil of torture. Who remembers the truckfuls of bodies, live bodies but only barely, dehydrated people licking and chewing the sweaty bodies beside them, screaming in agony, piled by the hundreds inside airless metal containers on flatbed trucks in desert heat, holes sometimes shot into the trucks with bullets for air -- but not into the roof, rather into the people already crammed inside -- remember that? Who remembers the truckfuls of bodies dumped out and buried by the thousands in mass graves by Afghan troops under U.S. command with U.S. forces present and aware, the same U.S. forces engaged in torturing prisoners who made it to the prison alive?

If you've forgotten, you may want to watch this excellent film and read this website created by Physicians for Human Rights: http://afghanmassgrave.org. Here's a diary with recent updates and an NPR interview. And here's a recent New York Times report on the failure of the Bush White House to investigate. Democracy Now covered the story again on Tuesday because a former CIA asset, the U.S.-purchased war lord who carried out the 2002 massacre, is actively campaigning for the reelection of Afghanistan's president, U.S. puppet Hamid Karzai. Check out, as well, the website of Dave Dienstag who spoke up passionately on this topic at the recent national convention of Veterans for Peace.

Now, it wasn't exactly news when the New York Times reported that Bush had failed to investigate or prosecute this crime. But when asked about it, President Obama replied that he would look into the matter, having just been made aware that a proper investigation had not been done. What, one might ask, would constitute a proper investigation of mass-murder, a proper investigation not resulting in criminal prosecutions or anything else that might become publicly known? And is that the sort of proper investigation that Obama intends to conduct now? Why is Eric Holder not conducting the investigation?

Imagine the outcry for the use of nuclear weapons if even a single truckload of Americans was murdered by a foreign nation. Imagine the great moral outrage. Imagine the difficulty one would have conducting a conversation about it without the name Adolf Hitler coming up. Then imagine what the people of Afghanistan must think of the foreign armies occupying their land. Imagine the treatment American prisoners are likely to receive by people whose countrymen have been stuffed like trash into a truck, driven and parked in the sun until the stench overwhelmed those around it and blood dripped out the doors.

Robert Jackson said at Nuremberg: "he ultimate step in avoiding periodic wars, which are inevitable in a system of international lawlessness, is to make statesmen responsible to law. And let me make clear that while this law is first applied against German aggressors, the law includes, and if it is to serve a useful purpose it must condemn aggression by any other nations, including those which sit here now in judgment."

Yet the law has never condemned us. And we have so violated it that we are losing the ability even to sit in hypocritical judgment. If this is not changed and justice not upheld, we will eventually become indistinguishable from dogs, and torture will become ordinary and accepted.

[lonestarnot]

1. Don't include me in the group of accepters please! NEVER!

[malaise]

2. K & R

Must read.

[glitch]

3. No words. K & R nt

[wizstars]

4. AWESOME

INVESTIGATE. INDICT. INCARCERATE!!

:mad: :mad: :mad:

[Solly Mack]

5. I saw the title and knew who it was about

K&R

[TommyPaine]

6. Many Americans view the lives of non-Americans as having less value

Despite access to 24/7 news and information, via TV, radio, and internet, we’re an insulated, insular brand. We see and hear but we don’t experience, and sadly we don’t feel, not enough anyway.

Masses of people dying or being tortured in far-off lands—especially brown people with peculiar names and different cultural habits—seems unreal, so detached from our daily rituals. When those deaths and tortures are attributed to our own countrymen and women that charming trait of mitigating cognitive dissonance kicks in. Must be for a good cause; the cause of freedom; fight them there so we needn’t fight them here.

That such war crimes are not being investigated is a crime itself. That this was allowed to happen in the first place reeks of something rotten, decayed. This new administration would be wise to remember and put into practice why it was elected in the first place.

[scentopine]

7. Justice is like oxygen, without it we shall sufficate

Robert Jackson said at Nuremberg: "he ultimate step in avoiding periodic wars, which are inevitable in a system of international lawlessness, is to make statesmen responsible to law. And let me make clear that while this law is first applied against German aggressors, the law includes, and if it is to serve a useful purpose it must condemn aggression by any other nations, including those which sit here now in judgment."

These are the words that Obama should have spoken. Instead, he has chosen the inflated rhetoric of nothing.

[readmoreoften]

8. Helps a bunch if you don't see the people as human.

What's the math on that? A thousand Afghanis worth the life of one US dog? Not to mention how many Afghani dogs we kill. Which means that Afghani dogs, though not as precious as American dogs, are still worth more than Afghanis. If it was discovered that we were behind the deaths of a truckload of dogs in a mass grave in Afghanistan--heck, the war might we over.

[autorank]

9. You speak the truth David! k*r

[JDPriestly]

10. Cesare Bonasana Beccaria on torture

Cesare, Marquis of Beccaria-Bonesana (March 12, 1738 – November 28, 1794) was an Italian philosopher and politician best known for his treatise On Crimes and Punishments (1764), which condemned torture and the death penalty, and was a founding work in the field of penology.

. . . .

In 1764 Beccaria published a brief but justly celebrated treatise Dei delitti e delle pene ("On Crimes and Punishments"), which marked the high point of the Milan Enlightenment. In it, Beccaria put forth the first arguments ever made against the death penalty. His treatise was also the first full work of penology, advocating reform of the criminal law system. The book was the first full-scale work to tackle criminal reform and to suggest that criminal justice should conform to rational principles. It is a less theoretical work than the writings of Hugo Grotius, Samuel von Pufendorf and other comparable thinkers, and as much a work of advocacy as of theory. In this essay, Beccaria reflected the convictions of the Il Pavone group, who sought to cause reform through Enlightenment discourse. The book's serious message is put across in a clear and animated style, based in particular upon a deep sense of humanity and of urgency at unjust suffering. This humane sentiment is what makes Beccaria appeal for rationality in the laws. Beccaria also argued against torture, believing it was cruel and unnecessary to treat another human that way.

. . . .

Within eighteen months, the book passed through six editions. It was translated into French by Olympe de Gouges in 1766 and published with an anonymous commentary by Voltaire.

. . . .

The book was read by all the luminaries of the day, including, in the United States, by John Adams and Thomas Jefferson.

. . . .


http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cesare,_Marquis_of_Beccaria

An excerpt on torture:


No man can be judged a criminal until he be found guilty; nor can society

take from him the public protection until it have been proved that he has

violated the conditions on which it was granted. What right, then, but that

of power, can authorise the punishment of a citizen so long as there remains

any doubt of his guilt? This dilemma is frequent. Either he is guilty, or

not guilty. If guilty, he should only suffer the punishment ordained by the

laws, and torture becomes useless, as his confession is unnecessary, if he

be not guilty, you torture the innocent; for, in the eye of the law, every

man is innocent whose crime has not been proved. Besides, it is confounding

all relations to expect that a man should be both the accuser and accused;

and that pain should be the test of truth, as if truth resided in the

muscles and fibres of a wretch in torture. By this method the robust will

escape, and the feeble be condemned. These are the inconveniences of this

pretended test of truth, worthy only of a cannibal, and which the Romans, in

many respects barbarous, and whose savage virtue has been too much admired,

reserved for the slaves alone.



What is the political intention of punishments? To terrify and be an example

to others. Is this intention answered by thus privately torturing the guilty

and the innocent? It is doubtless of importance that no crime should remain

unpunished; but it is useless to make a public example of the author of a

crime hid in darkness. A crime already committed, and for which there can be

no remedy, can only be punished by a political society with an intention

that no hopes of impunity should induce others to commit the same. If it be

true, that the number of those who from fear or virtue respect the laws is

greater than of those by whom they are violated, the risk of torturing an

innocent person is greater, as there is a greater probability that, cæteris

paribus, an individual hath observed, than that he hath infringed the laws.



There is another ridiculous motive for torture, namely, to purge a man from

infamy. Ought such an abuse to be tolerated in the eighteenth century? Can

pain, which is a sensation, have any connection with a moral sentiment, a

matter of opinion? Perhaps the rack may be considered as the refiner's

furnace.

http://www.constitution.org/cb/crim_pun16.txt

There is much more to read. I have to admit I have not read the entire book.
Have we become more barbaric, less civilized since our Revolution?

[HamdenRice]

11. I share your anger that Dostum is coming back to power, but I think you're missing the big story

Dostum has been untouchable for 7 years.

He can get away with anything. He's been shielded from scrutiny.

Dostum left Afghanistan. Then recently, human rights campaigners began to publicize the mass graves. Now he's coming back, despite the investigations, and more than that coming back into government.

You should hear his campaign speech, which was translated on Democracy Now. It isn't that he'll do X or Y for the Afghans or Uzbeks. It's to the effect that you better vote for me or else. I think the term he used was "don't play with me." That's his campaign speech.

So why is he untouchable? What happens if that untouchability begins to unravel? This article from Le Monde alleges that Dostum had infiltrated Al Qaeda long before 9/11 up to the "command level," and sent intelligence about the evolving 9/11 attacks to Washington. Dostum has the smoking gun. That's why he is untouchable.

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_mesg&forum=389&topic_id=6348090&mesg_id=6348090

Alain Chouet a gardé en mémoire cet épisode. Il a dirigé jusqu'en octobre 2002 le Service de renseignement de sécurité, la subdivision de la DGSE chargée de suivre les mouvements terroristes. Selon lui, la crédibilité du canal ouzbek trouve son origine dans les alliances passées par le général Rachid Dostom, l'un des principaux chefs de guerre afghans, d'ethnie ouzbek lui aussi, et qui combat alors les talibans. Pour plaire à ses protecteurs des services de sécurité de l'Ouzbékistan voisin, Dostom a infiltré certains de ses hommes au sein du MIO, jusque dans les structures de commandement des camps d'Al-Qaida. C'est ainsi qu'il renseigne ses amis de Tachkent, en sachant que ses informations cheminent ensuite vers Washington, Londres ou Paris.

Alain Chouet recalls this episode. Until October 2002, he was the director the Security Information Service, the subdivision of the DGSE charged with tracking terrorists' movements. According to him <ie Chouet, head of French counter-terrorism>, the credibility of the Uzbek channel originated in the past alliances of General Rachid Dostom, one of the principal Afghan warlords, who is also an ethnic Uzbek, and who was then fighting the Taliban. In order to please his protectors in the Uzbek security <ie intelligence?> service, he infiltrated some of his men in the heart of the MIO <ie the Uzbek jihadist organization being trained at Al Qaeda camps> up to the very command structure of the al Qaeda camps. Thus, he informed his friends in Tachkent <ie, the capital or government of Uzbekistan> with the knowledge that his information would proceed onwards to Washington, London or Paris.

[Gregorian]

12. I keep wondering why this story refuses to stay afloat. Thanks for posting.

What a country! We earn money making bombs which we then drop on other people.

[OwnedByFerrets]

13. Big K and R

[Octafish]

14. Big thumbs up!

Some stories, the people are willing to put down the remote for. Dogs, f'r instance.

[Echo In Light]

15. Rec

[BrklynLiberal]

16. K&R

[Altoid_Cyclist]

17. I sometimes hope that I'm wrong about Heaven and Hell.

When I see how much horror takes place in the world, I really do want there to be eternal suffering for the people who are capable of atrocities beyond understanding. There are so many "Christians" that can't tolerate my lack of religion but have no problem with war crimes committed or sponsored by the US or other countries as long as they're
only killing "those people". I feel like crying when I see things like this and so many people just look the other way or make excuses for their
country or religion.

[Greyhound]

18. K&R. Bi-partisan mass-murder is still mass-murder.

:thumbsup:
:kick: & R

[McCamy Taylor]

19. Vick is an example of selective prosecution for the crime of "being famous while being Black."

Bush administration officials got a real hard on every time they could throw the book at a dark skinned African-American male for doing things they tolerated among whites.

I am sure that if some Republican takes office in the future and they are able to find an isolated incident in which a Black person tortured someone else for the government, they will prosecute to the fullest extent of the law.