United States News Digest
This article is reprinted from the New Federalist of Aug. 16.
LaRouche: End Coverup in Trial of MP Lynndie England
by Edward Spannaus
The travesty of charges being brought against seven low-level guards at Abu Ghraib prison is continuing, while the Defense Department continues to cover up the responsibility of top civilians in the Pentagon and higher-ranking officers who transmitted their demands down the chain of command. The only charges that have been brought in connection with the torture of prisoners at Abu Ghraib are those against the seven MPs (Military Police); meanwhile, the Defense Department persists in dragging its feet in other investigations, such as that involving the role of Military Intelligence.
Former Presidential candidate Lyndon LaRouche said on Aug. 8 that "we demand justice and the truth" in these cases, especially that of Pfc. Lynndie England. Who is responsible for this young woman acting as she did? LaRouche asked, noting that she posed for the pictures that have been shown around the world.
We cannot tolerate a coverup in this matter, LaRouche insisted. "We reject the legacy of coverup, which Nixon Administration officials Cheney and Rumsfeld have brought to this Administration." - Cheney Testimony Sought -
Vice President Cheney, and Defense Secretary Rumsfeld, are among the 160 witnesses whose testimony has been requested by lawyers for England, the 21-year-old MP who is charged with 19 counts of misconduct. A preliminary military hearing was adjourned indefinitely on Aug. 7 after five days, so that the hearing officer can consider the requests for witness subpoenas.
Another high-level officer being sought is Maj. Gen. Geoffrey Miller, the former commander of the Guantanamo Bay prison camp, who was sent to Iraq to "Gitmo-ize" Abu Ghraib. The worst torture-abuses took place shortly after Miller's first trip to Abu Ghraib. Stephen Cambone, the Undersecretary of Defense for Intelligence, told a Senate committee in May that he had sent his military assistant, the Muslim-hating Gen. Jerry Boykin, to Guantanamo to deploy Miller to Abu Ghraib.
England's lawyers contend that she and others were following orders coming from Military Intelligence officers who were in charge of interrogations at Abu Ghraib, and they say that she is being made a scapegoat for the actions and policies of higher-up officers.
Another witness being sought is Sgt. Kenneth Davis, also with the 372nd MP Company, who told AP last week, in much detail, how Military Intelligence agents directed the prison guards to abuse the prisoners, and themselves directly mistreated prisoners.
Davis said that after he had complained about MI officers interrogating naked prisoners, his platoon leader told him: "They are MI and they are in charge." - Cambone and the Torture Memos -
Paul Bergrin, a civilian lawyer for Sgt. Javal Davis, another of the seven who have been charged, told this news service recently that he has asked to interview Cambone as well as Rumsfeld. Bergrin wants to ask Cambone and other top officials about the legal memoranda they directed to be written, which asserted that the Geneva Conventions did not apply to prisoners captured in Afghanistan, so that they could use interrogation techniques which are in violation of the Geneva agreements. It is clear from many accounts, and from Gen. Miller's trip to Abu Ghraib, that techniques used in Afghanistan and in Guantanamo, were subsequently used at Abu Ghraib and other detention centers in Iraq.
As this news service has reported, one of the key memoranda, a Jan. 25, 2002 White House memo advising President Bush that he should repudiate the Geneva Conventions, was actually written by Cheney's top lawyer, David Addington. This memo also warned Bush that there was a danger that he and other top officials could be prosecuted for war crimes. - Guantanamo Torture -
Top Administration and Pentagon officials have steadfastly maintained that the abuses at Abu Ghraib were restricted to seven rogue soldiersa few "bad apples"and that nothing of the sort took place elsewhere.
The most recent and powerful evidence refuting this "few bad apples" cover story has come from three Muslim men from England who have provided graphic, first-hand accounts of their experiences after being captured in Afghanistan in November 2001 by Northern Alliance forces under General Dostum. They were transported in shipping containers to Kandahar (they were among the 20 survivors of 200 who were packed into the containers), and then eventually handed over to U.S. military custody and shipped to Guantanamo. At all points until arriving at Guantanamo, they were beaten, held without adequate food, clothing, and sanitation. The abuses and torture continued at Guantanamo, and intensified dramatically after the first commander was relieved and replaced by Gen. Miller.
In particular, they report that sexual humiliation of prisoners began after Miller took over; this was accompanied by religious humiliation, all of which, the men believed, was targetted at those who would be most affected by it.
Eventually, conditions became so unbearable, both physically and psychologically, that many prisoners confessed to things that they had not, and could not have, done. One of the three, Asif Iqbal, confessed to being a person shown in a videotape with Osama bin Laden. However, since his release, it has been proven that he was living and working in England at the time the videotape was made.
Their accounts are almost identical to what is portrayed in documents unsealed recently in Federal court in Seattle, which describe how another Gitmo inmate was subjected to prolonged isolation and beatings, in violation of the Geneva Conventions. Salim Ahmed Hamdan, a Yemeni, says he was kept in isolation for at least eight months at Guantanamo, and he says he had been regularly beaten by American guards in Afghanistan, before he was taken to Guantanamo.
His lawyer, U.S. Navy Lt. Cmdr. Charles Swift, says in a separate affidavit, that Hamdan exhibits symptoms that medical experts say indicate a profound and worsening mental illness attributed to the prolonged isolation.
The British detainees described being held in small cells and not being allowed to talk or to pray, and being subjected to beatings and humiliation when they were taken out of their cells. They said there had been "several hundred" suicide attempts, and that as many as 100 of the 600-700 prisoners at Guantanamo had become observably mentally ill, with at least 50 "so disturbed as to show that they are no longer capable of rational thought or behavior."
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