.Death By Torture: US Media Ignores Hard Evidence
"Via Citizen of Mosul
Military autopsy reports provide indisputable proof that detainees are being tortured to death while in US military custody. Yet the US corporate media are covering it with the seriousness of a garage sale for the local Baptist Church.
A recent American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) posting of one of forty-four US military autopsy reports reads as follows:
"Final Autopsy Report: DOD 003164, (Detainee) Died as a result of asphyxia (lack of oxygen to the brain) due to strangulation as evidenced by the recently fractured hyoid bone in the neck and soft tissue hemorrhage extending downward to the level of the right thyroid cartilage. Autopsy revealed bone fracture, rib fractures, contusions in mid abdomen, back and buttocks extending to the left flank, abrasions, lateral buttocks. Contusions, back of legs and knees; abrasions on knees, left fingers and encircling to left wrist. Lacerations and superficial cuts, right 4th and 5th fingers. Also, blunt force injuries, predominately recent contusions (bruises) on the torso and lower extremities. Abrasions on left wrist are consistent with use of restraints. No evidence of defense injuries or natural disease. Manner of death is homicide. Whitehorse Detainment Facility, Nasiriyah, Iraq"
Counterpunch
This is quite disturbing, but I wonder what the whole story is. If it's as they say it's very bad indeed.
posted by madtom at 9:25 PM
2 Comments:
Strykerdad, Moron99
Thanks for the feed back. Believe me I thought about this post. I went to the source and read the entire article, and still had my doubts, I still have doubts, but what caught my attention was the DoD classification of homicide.
That said, I, and you guys don't know the whole story. The same thing as strykerdad said went thought my mind, these guys could have resisted to death, or the injuries could have been the result of violence between inmates, there is just not enough information on that site or in the reports to know the truth. All we have is that DoD classification of homicide. Now this issue is not new, this all happened a while back, and at the time there were rumors that the DoD had stopped doing autopsies, or had stopped making them public, or something like that, leaving us again with not enough information.
The good part is like strykerdad said that there are 14 reports out of thousands and thousands of detained enemy troops. In the overall war that's not even a blip on the radar.
As to the reporting the events, and hoping to learn more, I have to say strykerdad that the enemy was there and knows exactly what happened, their family knows what happened, why should I not also know what happened. How am I to defend myself when confronted with a story like this by the "other side" be it the enemy propaganda, or the domestic opposition, without the facts. What should I do, make something up, try to lie my way out, or concede defeat? what do I tell TT, and Khalid, Read, Riverbend, and the rest. That I have no idea. I for one am not scared of the truth, even if we have made a mistake, even if that mistake was deliberate and ordered from the top. Knowing the facts allows us as a people to make a decision, and informed decision as to, do we continue with a policy, or if we take action to change such policies with which we as a people can not tolerate. I of course will not be making that decision on my own, and I will have to abide by whatever the majority decides. So I hope that when we do make that choice we make it with all the information, all the facts and clarity as to the situation involved.
I personally do not believe that torture is ever justified, nor effective. I could be wrong, but if we just sweep the whole issue under a rug, we will never know.
Believe me strykerdad that I do not bring this to the table solely to discredit this administration. I would never try to deliberately harm the war effort solely for political points. It is in my opinion, this administrations mismanagement which is harming the war effort. So I have to ask you, would you sacrifice troops and their ability to win the war, to protect your political party, or individual members of this administration? If so, how many troops would you be willing to throw away to that end.
I hear you strykerdad, but what can I do, not post something because some loony can't deal with it, or has ulterior motives? If I had millions of readers or something, I admit up front that I probably would give that more consideration. But for the most part the people that read here are reasonable, and can read for themselves, and come to their own conclusions. You asked why I would post something without posting my own conclusions. The truth is that I do not have the truth in my pocket, and so I can no just reach in a pass it around. I am searching for the answers.
I do believe that our troops act responsibly, but there is that nagging allegation that these deaths were the result of interrogations. Now I do not know that this is true, it's an allegation, but it nags at me and my sense of justice. maybe that's what those allegations were designed to do, maybe that is in fact the policy that we have been following in this war. It's nothing like the guy with a flame thrower on the battlefield, nor the use of WP to breach the defenses of Fallujah, or even the "shake and bake" operations. I see all those thing as being within the definition of war, and the enemy is not defenseless, he is armed to the teeth and actively using them.
But this is about interrogations, and if I'm not mistaken, are illegal within US law, and the military code of conduct.
They say this is a new kind of war, but it is also a new day. Today we have instant communications, we have, or should have in my opinion, direct communication with our soldiers on the field. Iraq is only a few seconds away. So if we have a new war in a new day, we may also need some new ethics for the new journalist. And what of the future, this is not going to be the last war, do we wait for the next war before we start asking questions?
I know my answer is a bit convoluted, but I don't feel like I have my feet planted firmly on the ground.
This conversation helps, and for me it's easier to do it here among friends.
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