Author: jimstaro

Riverbend – Elections – Baghdad Burning

… I’ll meet you ’round the bend my friend, where hearts can heal and souls can mend…

Thursday, December 15, 2005

Reported on NPR, by one of their Correspondants in Iraq [I believe in a Sunni Area], that in Her Area Women Were Not Coming To The Voting Polls.

That the Men, against the Voting Rules, were Voting For The Women as well as their own Votes, and it was being Allowed!

Also from NPR’s people in Iraq.

One is that a Bomb went off in the Green Zone, injuring a Marine and Iraqi’s nearby.

The second came from the Kurdish Area and the Correspondant stated that there were a number of people refusing to get their fingers colored, after voting, leaving them open to vote again.

Retired military leaders, human-rights activists outraged by Graham amendment

Several retired military leaders, including Veterans for Common Sense director Brigadier General Evelyn Foote and advisor Brigadier General David Irvine, are urging Congress to reject Senate-passed legislation that would nullify a 2004 Supreme Court ruling that gives detainees at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, the right to challenge their imprisonment.

Conspiracy to Torture

Torture is about acts: the blow to the head, the scream in the ear, the scar-free injuries whose diagnosis has become an international medical subspecialty. But torture is also very much about words: the whispered or shouted questions of the interrogator; the muddled confession of the prisoner; the too rarely tested language of laws protecting prisoners from “cruel, inhuman or degrading” treatment.

Witness Against Torture

a march to visit the prisoners of Guantanamo

Marchers to Reach Guantánamo Tomorrow

Friday, 7pm – After camping out last night, today the marchers continued their trek through the Santiago de Cuba Province — the second most populated province in the island of Cuba. Tonight they are staying in a hotel in Niceto Pérez. Tomorrow, International Human Rights Day, the marchers plan to arrive in the city of Guantánamo, about 12 miles from the detention centers.

Britain’s Top Court Rules Information Gotten by Torture Is Never Admissible Evidence

Here is important news that should impact how free people and free nations should treat captured enemy prisoners of war — Britain’s highest court thrust itself into the middle of a roiling international debate on Thursday, declaring that evidence obtained through torture – no matter by whom – was not admissible in British courts. It also said Britain had a “positive obligation” to uphold antitorture principles abroad as well as at home.

Illegal, Immoral and Pointless

There are many reasons why Americans should not torture prisoners, but here is one that may help those who are still not moved by the fact that it is morally wrong and illegal, damages the nation’s image, and puts American soldiers who are taken prisoner in mortal peril: It usually doesn’t work.

The Torture Administration

Anthony Lewis writes one of the best essays of the year describing the deep involvement of the current administration in the issue of torture. Yes, there must be “command responsibility” and command accountability for the on-going advocacy of torture by the current administration.

It was the “Mission Accomplished” of George W. Bush’s second term, and an announcement of that magnitude called for a suitably dramatic location. But what was the right backdrop for the infamous “We do not torture” declaration? With characteristic audacity, the Bush team settled on downtown Panama City.

It was certainly bold. An hour and a half’s drive from where Bush stood, the US military ran the notorious School of the Americas from 1946 to 1984, a sinister educational institution that, if it had a motto, might have been “We do torture.” It is here in Panama and, later, at the school’s new location in Fort Benning, Georgia, where the roots of the current torture scandals can be found. According to declassified training manuals, SOA students–military and police officers from across the hemisphere–were instructed in many of the same “coercive interrogation” techniques that have since migrated to Guantánamo and Abu Ghraib: early morning capture to maximize shock, immediate hooding and blindfolding, forced nudity, sensory deprivation, sensory overload, sleep and food “manipulation,” humiliation, extreme temperatures, isolation, stress positions–and worse. In 1996 President Clinton’s Intelligence Oversight Board admitted that US-produced training materials condoned “execution of guerrillas, extortion, physical abuse, coercion and false imprisonment.”

And yet when covering the Bush announcement, not a single mainstream news outlet mentioned the sordid history of its location. How could they? To do so would require something totally absent from the current debate: an admission that the embrace of torture by US officials long predates the Bush Administration and has in fact been integral to US foreign policy since the Vietnam War.
It’s a history that has been exhaustively documented in an avalanche of books, declassified documents, CIA training manuals, court records and truth commissions. In his upcoming book A Question of Torture, Alfred McCoy synthesizes this unwieldy cache of evidence, producing an indispensable and riveting account of how monstrous CIA-funded experiments on psychiatric patients and prisoners in the 1950s turned into a template for what he calls “no-touch torture,” based on sensory deprivation and self-inflicted pain. McCoy traces how these methods were field-tested by CIA agents in Vietnam as part of the Phoenix program and then imported to Latin America and Asia under the guise of police training programs.

The principal propagator of this narrative (what Garry Wills termed “original sinlessness”) is Senator John McCain. Writing recently in Newsweek on the need for a ban on torture, McCain says that when he was a prisoner of war in Hanoi, he held fast to the knowledge “that we were different from our enemies…that we, if the roles were reversed, would not disgrace ourselves by committing or approving such mistreatment of them.” It is a stunning historical distortion. By the time McCain was taken captive, the CIA had already launched the Phoenix program and, as McCoy writes, “its agents were operating forty interrogation centers in South Vietnam that killed more than twenty thousand suspects and tortured thousands more,” a claim he backs up with pages of quotes from press reports as well as Congressional and Senate probes.

Other cultures deal with a legacy of torture by declaring “Never again!” Why do so many Americans insist on dealing with the current torture crisis by crying “Never Before”? I suspect it has to do with a sincere desire to convey the seriousness of this Administration’s crimes. And the Bush Administration’s open embrace of torture is indeed unprecedented–but let’s be clear about what is unprecedented about it: not the torture but the openness. Past administrations tactfully kept their “black ops” secret; the crimes were sanctioned but they were practiced in the shadows, officially denied and condemned. The Bush Administration has broken this deal: Post-9/11, it demanded the right to torture without shame, legitimized by new definitions and new laws.

In Latin America the revelations of US torture in Iraq have not been met with shock and disbelief but with powerful déjà vu and reawakened fears. Hector Mondragon, a Colombian activist who was tortured in the 1970s by an officer trained at the School of the Americas, wrote: “It was hard to see the photos of the torture in Iraq because I too was tortured. I saw myself naked with my feet fastened together and my hands tied behind my back. I saw my own head covered with a cloth bag. I remembered my feelings–the humiliation, pain.” Dianna Ortiz, an American nun who was brutally tortured in a Guatemalan jail, said, “I could not even stand to look at those photographs…so many of the things in the photographs had also been done to me. I was tortured with a frightening dog and also rats. And they were always filming.”

The result is that the memory of US complicity in far-away crimes remains fragile, living on in old newspaper articles, out-of-print books and tenacious grassroots initiatives like the annual protests outside the School of the Americas (which has been renamed but remains largely unchanged). The terrible irony of the anti-historicism of the current torture debate is that in the name of eradicating future abuses, these past crimes are being erased from the record. Every time Americans repeat the fairy tale about their pre-Cheney innocence, these already hazy memories fade even further. The hard evidence still exists, of course, carefully archived in the tens of thousands of declassified documents available from the National Security Archive. But inside US collective memory, the disappeared are being disappeared all over again.

And that’s the problem with pretending that the Bush Administration invented torture. “If you don’t understand the history and the depths of the institutional and public complicity,” says McCoy, “then you can’t begin to undertake meaningful reforms.” Lawmakers will respond to pressure by eliminating one small piece of the torture apparatus–closing a prison, shutting down a program, even demanding the resignation of a really bad apple like Rumsfeld. But, McCoy says, “they will preserve the prerogative to torture.”

On 10 December 1948, the United Nations General Assembly adopted the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, which has become a universal standard for defending and promoting human rights. Every year on 10 December, Human Rights Day marks the adoption of the Universal Declaration. On Human Rights Day it is celebrated around the globe that “All human beings are born with equal and inalienable rights and fundamental freedoms”.
The theme of Human Rights Day 2005 is “End Torture Now!”. Torture is a crime under international law. According to all relevant instruments, it is absolutely prohibited and cannot be justified under any circumstances. This prohibition forms part of customary international law, which means that it is binding on every member of the international community, regardless of whether a State has ratified international treaties in which torture is expressly prohibited. The systematic or widespread practice of torture constitutes a crime against humanity.

News

Council of Europe welcomes the Law Lords decision against the use of evidence obtained by torture (9.12.2005)

High Commissioner for Human Rights says total ban on torture under attack in ‘war on terror’ (7.12.2005)

Human Rights Day exhibit to open at Palais des Nations in Geneva (7.12.2005)

Human rights vision and promise under considerable strain, says Louise Arbour (10.12.2004)

Human Rights Day, 10 december 2004 (10.12.2004)

Human rights education is a strategy to achieve freedom for all, says High Commissioner for Human Rights (8.12.2004)

Human Rights Day 2004 – A tribute to Human Rights Educators (17.11.2004)

International Human Rights Day sees world support for Arms Trade Treaty (10.12.2003)

USA: More state killing on Human Rights Day (10.12.2003)

Selected learning materials

Study guide on Torture, Inhuman or Degrading Treatment (HREA)

A short introduction to torture. It present definitions, key rights at stake, human rights instruments, and protection and assistance agencies. The guide also offer links to the full text of international treaties, and other useful resources on the HREA and University of Minnesota Human Rights Library web sites.

Discovering the UDHR (Amnesty International-USA)

By examining two real cases of human rights abuses students are introduced to the contents and spirit of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights (UDHR).>br>

Human Rights Here & Now: Celebrating the Universal Declaration of Human Rights

This manual is intended to celebrate the 50th anniversary of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights and to further human rights education in the United States. It can be used by educators in classrooms, by human rights advocates in informal settings, and by individuals for their own self-learning.

Illustrated version of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights

A simplified and illustrated version of the 30 articles of the UDHR. Intended for children eight year and older. Accompanied with instructions for a lesson activity.

Learning Activities about the Universal Declaration of Human Rights

Some ideas to help you explore images through a human rights lens.

Rights Around the World: A UDHR Jigsaw (Amnesty International-USA)

This activity allows students to extend their knowledge of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights (UDHR) while learning typical rights abuses around the world. It also provides structure for collaborative learning in the classroom.

The UDHR: What’s in it for Me?

Through this exercise workshop participants will become more familiar with the provisions of the UDHR’s 30 articles; will acquire cognitive and analytical skills in applying the UDHR to specific problems; and will become empowered to apply rights principles in their real life circumstances.

What are Human Rights? – The Universal Declaration of Human Rights (Estonia)

Chapter from a textbook for an optional subject in grade eight of general comprehensive schools.

The United Nations’ System of Human Rights Protection: Educational packet (Helsinki Foundation for Human Rights in Poland)

This packet familiarises the advocates with the human rights protection mechanisms that exist within the United Nations. Included in this packet are an instructors text, fundamental UN human rights documents, a videotape and lesson plans for presenting the UN human rights system.

Useful links

Universal Declaration of Human Rights in over 300 languages

United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights

Simplified version of the Universal Declaration

Human Rights Day 2004

Human Rights Day 2003

Calendar of Human Rights Day events around the world in 2002

GENEVA The absolute ban on torture, a cornerstone of the international human rights edifice, is under attack. The principle we once believed to be unassailable – the inherent right to physical integrity and dignity of the person – is becoming a casualty of the so-called war on terror.

Particularly insidious are moves to water down or question the absolute ban on torture, as well as on cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment. Governments in several countries are claiming that established rules do not apply anymore: that we live in a changed world. They argue that this justifies a lowering of the bar as to what constitutes permissible treatment of detainees. An illegal interrogation technique, however, remains illegal whatever new description a government might wish to give it.

Let me turn to my second concern. An unknown number of “war on terror” detainees are alleged to be held in secret custody in unknown locations. Holding people in secret detention, with the detainee’s fate or whereabouts, or the very fact of their detention, undisclosed, amounts to “disappearance,” which in and of itself has been found to amount to torture or ill-treatment of the disappeared person or of the families and communities deprived of any information about the missing person.

On Human Rights Day, I call on all governments to reaffirm their commitment to the total prohibition of torture by:
Condemning torture and cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment and prohibiting it in national law;
Abiding by the principle of non-refoulement and refraining from returning persons to countries where they may face torture;
Ensuring access to prisoners and abolishing secret detention;
Prosecuting those responsible for torture and ill-treatment;
Prohibiting the use of statements extracted under torture and cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment, whether the interrogation has taken place at home or abroad;
Ratifying the Convention against Torture and its Optional Protocol, as well as other international treaties banning torture.

Torture Is An American Value:

Reality Vs. The Rhetoric

Fall 2005, By S. Brian Willson, The Veteran, Vietnam Veterans Against The War

S. Brian Willson was head of a USAF combat security unit in Vietnam. A lawyer by training, and a writer (www.brianwillson.com), he is a member of Humboldt Bay Veterans for Peace, a Northern California contact for VVAW, and a member of the Arcata Nuclear Free Zone and Peace Commission.

I became aware of torture as a U.S. policy in 1969 when I was serving as a USAF combat security officer working near Can Tho City in Vietnam’s Mekong Delta. I was informed about the CIA’s Phong Dinh Province Interrogation Center (PIC) at the Can Tho Army airfield where supposedly “significant members” of the VCI (Viet Cong infrastructure) were taken for torture as part of the Phoenix Pacification Program. A huge French-built prison nearby was also apparently utilized for torture of suspects from the Delta region. Many were routinely murdered.

Naive, I was shocked!

The Agency for International Development (AID) working with Southern Illinois University, for example, trained Vietnamese police and prison officials in the art of torture (“interrogations”) under cover of “public safety.” American officials believed they were teaching “better methods,” often making suggestions during torture sessions conducted by Vietnamese police.

Instead of the recent euphemism “illegal combatants,” the United State in Vietnam claimed prisoners were “criminal” and therefore exempt from Geneva Convention protections.

December 2, 2005 By Christina Lee, 11 News
A Splendora family had their Christmas wish turn into a nightmare Friday.
They found out early Friday morning that their son, who was a Marine in Iraq, was killed in Fallujuah by a roadside bomb.
Robert Alexander Martinez was 20 years old and proud to serve his country, said his stepfather.
What’s even more heartbreaking is that he was expected to come home on Monday.
However, at the last minute his return trip was delayed by a month.
Now Jeremy Hunt mourns the loss of his stepson.
“He was a diamond in the rough for me,” said Hunt. “He was one of the greatest things I ever had come into my life. He was a great son, but not only a great son but a great friend to me.”
The Marine graduated from Cleveland High School two years ago and was a varsity baseball pitcher.
Everyone remembered him as the boy with the infectious smile.
His parents are still waiting to find out when his body will be shipped home.

And did I mention torture,….can’t have torture because it’s against military regulations……unless you call chaining a soldier up with his arms and legs tied behind him for 4 straight days in a chair, making him sit in his own waste, is torture,…..then Yes, we have torture, both mental and physical abuse conducted on our own soldiers…right here in America, at Fort Lewis in Washington State. Violating all military regulations on our own soil. And this is just the tip of the iceberg.

From: Monica Benderman

To: GI Special

Sent: November 25, 2005

Subject: investigative article

This is the first in a series of investigative articles about Ft. Lewis Regional Correctional Facility. Pretty appalling stuff — but we are still learning more – as are those investigating. We’re hitting them as hard as we can.

^^^^^^^^^^^^^

November 23, 2005 by Tom Scott,  Tom Scott is a Vietnam Combat Veteran and Senior Investigative Reporter for Choice America Network
.
It’s about a 20 minute drive south from Tacoma in the beautiful state of Washington. Amid the beauty of this great state sits Fort Lewis, a “once upon a time” for many veterans and currently a place called home to many of the finest military men and women in our Armed Forces.

I arrived in October as the leaves were awaiting their seasonal fall to earth and as about 4000 brave soldiers from the 1st Brigade, 25th Infantry Division celebrated with their family and friends their return from the War of Lies.

Many physically untouched, many scarred for life and all unaware of the nightmares they will carry for the rest of their days. You could smell it in the air, you could see it in their young eyes, the mixed emotions, joy for being home, sad and confused from where they had been and why. It reminded me of my tours in Nam, my years in Hell.

On the grounds of Fort Lewis sits the Regional Correctional Facility that houses close to 200 American military inmates. About 2,828 miles west from where the War of Lies is orchestrated by the true criminals – the other Washington.

All these men in this facility are serving time in a military hell hole hidden away from the rest of world.

Many that live in the state of Washington don’t even know this hell hole exists. Millions upon millions of Americans don’t know it exists. Not many of your Senators and Congressman know it exists. Not many of these returning soldiers, when asked, ever knew the RCF existed or what exactly went on behind its gates.

There are other military RCF’s across our great country and I pray to God that what I have learned and witnessed at Fort Lewis, isn’t happening elsewhere in our America.

For it should be of concern to you that the U.S. has repudiated the Geneva accords and espoused the use of torture in Iraq, Afghanistan and Guantanamo Bay, and secretly through proxy regimes elsewhere with the so-called extraordinary rendition program.

It is not only embarrassing but sickening to see this president and vice president insisting that the CIA should be free to perpetrate “cruel, inhumane or degrading treatment or punishment” on people in U.S. custody but neighbor, it’s happening right here in our own back yard, to our own men in uniform.

Mind you, many a state prison and county jail across America are luxury hotels compared to what these soldiers are put through at Fort Lewis.

I was fortunate to meet up with several recently released soldiers and developed good relations with a few willing to talk that actually worked in this RCF.

For a Conscientious Objector to this War of Lies and placed in Fort Lewis, as I would be today, you just have to stop, think and say what hypocrisy this is.

The criminal mass murderers and liars to the world are alive and dining well 2,828 miles away and we are currently letting them ruin the America that we have espoused over the last 230 years.

At Fort Lewis, I heard one horror story after another and verified each with those who worked at the facility, brave enough to come forth and verify the truth.

So let me be blunt and give it to you straight up.

For example, the facility has many female guards – some of which have participated in an organized prostitution ring. A very well organized prostitution ring. Yes you read it right damn it. Several inmates have written in detail of such illegal activity to their Senators and Congresspersons. Female guards also watch the all male inmates take showers and use the latrine, they have no privacy. You would think that Lt. Colonel Stephanie Beavers, the Commanding Officer in Charge would correct this situation or is this the responsibility of Enos Hobbs, the Civilian Warden; or is this just our militaries way of humiliating its “prisoners” of choice.

According to office personnel, one of whom that was exposed for “playing” with the inmates now works in an non-existent program.

What the hell is a non existent program may I ask? Makes you wonder who exactly is in charge.

These soldiers are kept from seeing their families.

They are kept from seeing legal representation.

There is no heat. There are broken windows and windows that do not close, which at this time of year in Washington State it gets pretty damn cold at night. They are given no blankets.

There is a non existent educational program – did I mention that? Inmates are kept from seeing the Chaplin of their choice and if they do get to see one, it takes months of paperwork and background checks to make sure that Chaplin of Choice is not going to attempt to “spring” the inmate with the help of God.

There are leaking sewage pipes with fresh raw sewage dripping from the ceilings, leaking toilets and sinks that flood the cells of inmates.

Regulations state firmly that there is to be one shower head per 8 inmates but one honest guard reports that on several “blocks” there are only 4 shower heads for 50 inmates. You have shower water building up under the bunks.

And did I mention there was no heat.

Abusive Guards become Counselors.

Numerous uncalled for head counts within a single day – sometimes up to 40, as if the great escape was in the works – no State Prison conducts that many head counts in one day.

And remember, these are American soldiers, they know the drill.

Many suffer from PTSD without help. Some have been framed by the military itself. Telephone calls are monitored when allowed and cut off after 20 minutes and cost roughly $25 per call.

And did I mention torture,….can’t have torture because it’s against military regulations….

……unless you call chaining a soldier up with his arms and legs tied behind him for 4 straight days in a chair, making him sit in his own waste, is torture,…..then Yes, we have torture, both mental and physical abuse conducted on our own soldiers,…right here in America, at Fort Lewis in Washington State. Violating all military regulations on our own soil. And this is just the tip of the iceberg.

There is far more to report, all because of this Neo Con War of Lies.

I repeat, all of this madness stems from this War of Lies and we have let this Neo Con Administration attempt to divide our precious America. Wake Up, America! Unite!

Retired U.S. Army Col. Larry Wilkerson, who served as former Secretary of State Colin Powell’s chief of staff, told CNN that the practice of torture may be continuing in U.S.-run facilities. He said and I quote: “There’s no question in my mind that we did. There’s no question in my mind that we may be still doing it,” Wilkerson said on CNN’s “Late Edition.”

Lt. Colonel Wilkerson, visit Fort Lewis right here in America and see for yourself. Sir, make a surprise visit today. And being of military you should know the Art of Surprise, sir.

So I leave this information in your minds and in your hands my fellow Americans.

I, being a Vietnam Combat Vet, won’t stand for such madness and suggest that you learn to take matters into your own hands and call every Senator and Congressperson you can think of in every state and report this abuse.

It is past time that we the people held our elected officials accountable for their actions and the actions of our own militaries lack of honorable leadership and demand they stop these Crimes Against Humanity immediately.

Fort Lewis, RCF; America and the World is watching.

God help your Command and those that conspire to follow such madness.