.Military Hides Cause of Women Soldiers' Deaths
"In a startling revelation, the former commander of Abu Ghraib prison testified that Lt. Gen. Ricardo Sanchez, former senior US military commander in Iraq, gave orders to cover up the cause of death for some female American soldiers serving in Iraq.How third world of us.
Last week, Col. Janis Karpinski told a panel of judges at the Commission of Inquiry for Crimes against Humanity Committed by the Bush Administration in New York that several women had died of dehydration because they refused to drink liquids late in the day. They were afraid of being assaulted or even raped by male soldiers if they had to use the women's latrine after dark.
The latrine for female soldiers at Camp Victory wasn't located near their barracks, so they had to go outside if they needed to use the bathroom. "There were no lights near any of their facilities, so women were doubly easy targets in the dark of the night," Karpinski told retired US Army Col. David Hackworth in a September 2004 interview. It was there that male soldiers assaulted and raped women soldiers. So the women took matters into their own hands. They didn't drink in the late afternoon so they wouldn't have to urinate at night. They didn't get raped. But some died of dehydration in the desert heat, Karpinski said.
Karpinski testified that a surgeon for the coalition's joint task force said in a briefing that "women in fear of getting up in the hours of darkness to go out to the port-a-lets or the latrines were not drinking liquids after 3 or 4 in the afternoon, and in 120 degree heat or warmer, because there was no air-conditioning at most of the facilities, they were dying from dehydration in their sleep.""
Truthout
posted by madtom at 8:35 PM
1 Comments:
"Good gawd, you actually believe this crap? This is even crazier than the NSA is outing gay soldiers on line as a conspiracy to deflect atention from the military industrial domesitc spying lobbying complex! They have medication for conditions like this...I can't even pretend to take this seriously and don't see how any serious person could be so blinded by other interests that they can be taken seriously."
To tell you the truth I did not understand how someone could die in thier sleep of dehydration. But my not understanding something don't make it false, it did ring a bit silly as all you need is a bed pan, or something.
But I don't accept your characterization of Kapinski. I'll grant you some, being she became the favorite scapegoat, she's been very vocal. But she is very believable when you hear her speak. I would like to see the transcripts of what you called contradictions and lies. I look forward to the links.
By your own admission there were issues, maybe you should expand you search beyond Abu Ghraib, Kapinski was in charge of the prison system that was more than just that one facility, I think something like 20 prisons spread out over several cities, so her comments could be about more than just Abu Ghraib. And if she is telling the truth about a cover up then it might not be so easy to uncover the cases in question.
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