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--- Begin Message ----Caveat Lector-> War Crimes: What Secrets Can the Photos Reveal? > ����By Steve Weissman > ����t r u t h o u t | Perspective > > ����Tuesday 25 May 2004 > > ����Everyone on Planet Earth has now seen America's liberating forces > humiliate, brutalize, and torture naked Iraqis in Abu Ghraib prison. As bad as we > thought the story could get, it grows sicker with every new photograph and > video. Our eyes glaze over. We despair at seeing how war - and unlimited power > over others - can twist a handful of otherwise decent, small-town Army > reservists into sadistic torturers. > > ����But, look again. The dirty pictures were not just holiday snaps to > dazzle friends back home in West Virginia. Taking and showing humiliating photos > and videos qualifies as a war crime, as defined by the Geneva Conventions. The > images prove direct participation in those crimes by far more than "the six > morons who lost the war." And the devastating damage the images do to America > compels us to consider how they fit into the larger pattern of war crimes > that Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld, Under-Secretary Stephen Cambone, and > other top Pentagon officials conspired to commit. > > ����I know that the current military trials will do their best to duck any > whisper of war crimes, and I hardly expect Pious John Ashcroft, the Attorney > General, to prosecute the Pentagon faithful, heaven forbid. But I see the > inescapable relevance of the Geneva Conventions in the recently revealed memo to > President Bush from his counsel Alberto R. Gonzales, who sought, however > clumsily, to help the Administration sidestep war crime charges over a similar > pattern of abuse in Afghanistan and Guant�namo. > > ����In Iraq, the chain of evidence begins where the chain of command > bottomed out - with Pvt. Lynndie England, the grinning, good-time gal with a > cigarette in her lips giving a jaunty thumbs up at a group of naked Iraqi men in > hoods, their blurred hands where their proper Muslim parents told them never to > touch themselves. Pvt. Lynndie, 21, is also the one holding the leash that > leads to a dog collar around the neck of a terrified Iraqi lying naked on the > floor. > > ����"I was instructed by persons in higher rank to stand there and hold this > leash and look at the camera," she said in an exclusive interview with Brian > Maass of Denver CBS station KCNC-TV. > > ����"We thought that's how they did it," she said. "We're not trained as MI > or CIA - mind games, intimidation, it sounded pretty typical to us." > > ����MI - or Military Intelligence - ostensibly ran the two interrogation > cell-blocks at Abu Ghraib, with authority from Lt. Gen. Ricardo Sanchez, the > commanding general of American ground forces in Iraq, to give orders to prison > guards like Lynndie, who served in a reserve Military Police unit. > > ����The CIA - or Central Intelligence Agency - also interrogated Lynndie's > prisoners, as did FBI officials and the Army's Criminal Investigation > Division, or CID. > > ����Whether or not it was a valid order, the spooks told the guards to put > psychological pressure on the Iraqi prisoners. Taking photos helped do that, > and became a standard part of psy-ops, or psychological operations. > > ����According to Lynndie, the intelligence people looked at the photos and > told the guards, "Oh, that's a good tactic, keep it up. That's working. This > is working. Keep doing it. It's getting what we need." > > ����"It got information, some reliable," said Lynndie. "Some of it was about > future attacks on coalition forces." > > ����Secretary Rumsfeld had put enormous pressure on MI to get that > information. According to intelligence sources that Sy Hersh quoted in the New > Yorker, > Rumsfeld turned to a super-secret Special Access Program, or SAP, which was > in the business of killing or capturing al-Qaeda suspects all over the world, > and where possible, interrogating them using Stress and Duress techniques > banned by the Geneva Conventions. Now the covert operators would bring the same > techniques to Abu Ghraib. > > ����According to Hersh and several other un-embedded reporters, Rumsfeld's > prot�g� Dr. Cambone sent Maj. Gen. Geoffrey Miller from Guantanamo to > "Gitmo-ize" Abu Ghraib, whereupon Miller insisted that the prison's "detention > operations must act as an enabler for interrogation." This was what Pvt. Lynndie > England helped to do. > > ����Here the plot thickens. Many, if not most, of the prisoners at Abu > Ghraib were common criminals or ordinary Iraqis with no significant intelligence > to offer. Why treat them the same way as the serious insurgents? > > ����Once Lynndie and the others felt free to disregard normal constraints, > they no doubt used the same techniques to amuse themselves and to punish > prisoners for breaking rules. But Robert Baer, a longtime CIA case officer in the > Middle East, suggests a more sweeping scenario as well. > > ����"We call this a dirty recruitment," he told CBS's Dan Rather. "You want > to find information on them to blackmail them." > > ����Lacking a large network of informers, Military Intelligence could > blackmail hundreds, even thousands, of cab drivers, petty criminals, and all sorts > of other Iraqis to be America's eyes and ears. > > ����Could MI use the photos of sexual humiliation to blackmail the prisoners > into becoming informants, Rather asked. > > ����Baer's answer showed how he - and American Military Intelligence - > understood Arab culture. Not only could a photo blackmail someone into becoming an > American agent, it carried a continuing threat of death, as Baer explained > it. Given local attitudes toward sex, shame, and family honor, the prisoner > knew that if the Americans ever showed the photo, he might expect his tribe to > kill him. > > ����A veteran of the Berkeley Free Speech Movement and the New Left monthly > Ramparts, Steve Weissman lived for many years in London, working as a > magazine writer and television producer. He now lives and works in France, where he > writes for t r u t h o u t. > > > > ��------- > > [Non-text portions of this message have been removed] ---------------------------------- Smash The State WWW http://groups.yahoo.com/group/smashthestate Yahoo! Groups Links <*> To visit your group on the web, go to: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/smashthestate/ <*> To unsubscribe from this group, send an email to: [EMAIL PROTECTED] <*> Your use of Yahoo! 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Let us please be civil and as always, Caveat Lector. ======================================================================== Archives Available at: http://www.mail-archive.com/[EMAIL PROTECTED]/ <A HREF="http://www.mail-archive.com/[EMAIL PROTECTED]/">ctrl</A> ======================================================================== To subscribe to Conspiracy Theory Research List[CTRL] send email: SUBSCRIBE CTRL [to:] [EMAIL PROTECTED] To UNsubscribe to Conspiracy Theory Research List[CTRL] send email: SIGNOFF CTRL [to:] [EMAIL PROTECTED] Om
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