An Open Letter
To All Regarding Torture in American Run Prisons
To all,
As a people we are shamed by Mr. Bush's actions. This is not "just a few bad
apples" because he used the same analogy for Enron/WorldCom/Tyco/Andersen
corporate fraud scandals. We won't be fooled again.
I've read the report by MG Tagube and it is a damning document of not only
torture at Abu Ghraib but other prisons in Iraq. If you read carefully there is
the fact that MG Tagube contradicts a previous report generated by MG Miller,
commandant of Camp Delta, which approved of "stressing techniques" to be used by
military police at Abu Ghraib. http://www.counterpunch.com/taguba05052004.html
What is missing from the report by MG Tagube is the role of military
intelligence at various prisons in Iraq. However the UK Guardian has a story on
these "interrogation techniques" used at Abu Ghraib:
"The sexual humiliation of Iraqi prisoners at Abu Ghraib prison was not an
invention of maverick guards, but part of a system of ill-treatment and
degradation used by special forces soldiers that is now being disseminated
among ordinary troops and contractors who do not know what they are doing,
according to British military sources
The techniques devised in the system, called R2I - resistance to
interrogation - match the crude exploitation and abuse of prisoners at the Abu
Ghraib jail in Baghdad."
http://www.guardian.co.uk/Iraq/Story/0,2763,1212197,00.html
Mr. Bush says that it is an isolated incidents. Well, he is lying because he has
condoned those techniques and worse. He even boasted about it in his SOTU speech
in 2003:
"All told, more than 3,000 suspected terrorists have been arrested in many
countries. Many others have met a different fate. Let's put it this way --
they are no longer a problem to the United States and our friends and allies.
(Applause.)" http://www.whitehouse.gov/news/releases/2003/01/20030128-19.html
Read the
open letter from major international human rights organizations.
"The choice is not about whether to express your abhorrence over the events
at Abu Ghraib and to investigate them. The choice is whether you dismiss them
as the actions of "a few bad apples" while continuing an interrogation and
detention system that is cruel and illegal, or act forcefully to end the
"stress and duress" system of incommunicado interrogation in Iraq,
Afghanistan, Guantanamo Bay, or anywhere that people are held in U.S. custody.
This system violates both the Constitution and international law, including
the solemn pledges your father made when he sought Senate approval of the
Convention Against Torture."
Please note that it has been stretched over a year that Mr. Bush has not
responded to requests by those agencies for human rights about torture by
American run prisons in Iraq, Afghanistan, and Camp Delta.
Sincerely,
Kenneth DeBacker