~ TWO MORE HELD OVER ABUSE VIDEO ~

[HOUDA-K]

"We are hopeful that the Iraqi Police Service will keep carrying out joint patrols[with British forces]"

Capt St John-Price said.

BBC WEBSITE

[HOUDA-K]

It’s quite clear the US government at the highest levels is responsible for the actions carried out in its name. The US Defence Secretary Donald Rumsfeld has said as much, it seems he is responsible enough to admit that it’s his responsibility. Yet not responsible enough to resign over abuse at not one occasion or two but a full three different occasions in 3 different countries ‘on his watch’ !!!!!!!!!

[Amina-DZ]

February 16, 2006

CNN Blames the Photos,
Not the Torture

by Jeremy Scahill

CNN Pentagon correspondent Barbara Starr should be given some kind of award for the most outrageously off-target reporting on the newly released photos and videos of U.S. torture and abuse of prisoners at Abu Ghraib prison in Iraq. In her numerous appearances during the morning news cycle on CNN after the images were first broadcast on Australia's SBS television, Starr described what she saw as the "root of the Abu Ghraib prison scandal" as such:

"Let's start by reminding everybody that under U.S. military law and practice, the only photographs that can be taken are official photographs for documentation purposes about the status of prisoners when they are in military detention. That's it. Anything else is not acceptable. And of course, that is what the Abu Ghraib prison scandal is all about."

What? Here I thought the "scandal" was that the U.S. military was systematically abusing prisoners. These new photos, with their documentation of violently inflicted, open wounds, obliterate any notion that what occurred at Abu Ghraib was anything short of torture by all accepted definitions of the term. They reveal some horrifying scenes of naked, humiliated, bloodied prisoners, some with apparent gunshot wounds. In a video broadcast on Australia's SBS, naked, hooded prisoners were seen being forced to masturbate in front of the camera. But, according to CNN's Starr, the real transgression was that some soldiers documented the torture in violation of "U.S. military law and practice." In a report later in the morning, Starr returned to her outrageous characterization of the "scandal," beginning her report:

"As we look at a couple of the photographs, let's remind people that why these are so inappropriate. Under U.S. military law and practice and procedure, you simply cannot take photographs – as we're going to show you some of them right now. You cannot take photographs of people in detention, in humiliating positions, positions that are abusive in any way, shape or form. The only pictures that are ever allowed of people in U.S. military detention would be pictures for documentation purposes. And, clearly, these pictures are not that. That is the whole issue that has been at the root of the Abu Ghraib prison scandal, that it was abusive, the practices in which soldiers engaged in."

"You cannot take photographs of people in detention, in humiliating positions, positions that are abusive in any way, shape or form," according to Starr. But apparently it's OK to place them in those humiliating, abusive positions – or at least not worth commenting on in these reports on CNN. Starr continued her report, describing Pentagon reaction to the newly released photos:

"But the Pentagon certainly is not happy that these pictures, these additional pictures, which had not been distributed publicly in the past, Pentagon not happy that they are out. And the reason is, the Pentagon had filed a lawsuit trying to prevent their publication in the United States out of concern, they say, that it would spark violence in the Arab world to see these photographs and it would put U.S. military forces at risk."

The release of the photographs will spark the violence? No – U.S. torture of prisoners sparks massive outrage, and justifiably so. Moreover, this outrage should not just be confined to the "Arab world" but should be felt everywhere, particularly in the U.S. Besides, Pentagon lawyers have already tried this defense in federal court, and a judge ruled that fear of facing the consequences of your actions is not a legitimate defense.

Starr concluded another report saying the Pentagon is concerned that if the images "appear in the Islamic world … they will incite unrest in the Islamic world, and therefore put U.S. military troops at risk."

CNN anchor Zain Vergee then shot back, "And they were swiftly put on Arab TV. As you say, they're out there."

They were swiftly put on Arab TV. Is there something devious about that? Is "Arab TV" somehow committing some transgression against freedom and democracy by broadcasting these images that were first put out by Australian TV in a country Bush claims as his ally?

All of the images of the torture at Abu Ghraib should be made public, as the Center for Constitutional Rights and ACLU have been fighting for, because they are an accurate representation of what has happened and continues to happen in U.S.-run and -supported gulags around the world.

When and if they are released, Barbara Starr should be reminded that she is supposed to be a CNN reporter at the Pentagon, not a Pentagon spokesperson on CNN.

[phylay]

Being the CNN Pentagon correspondant probably needs a specific profile and a one-way direction reporting.

We are lucky the powers interests diverge sometimes, and so do their respective supporting medias, which allow us to see what one hides thanks to the other one.

[Al-khiyal]

I don't buy the 'inflaming the Arab world' argument for one minute.

We've been aware of these incidents, and thousands more that weren't photographed, for years and have been called liars for stating the facts.

In the early days of the conflict a number of prisoners were killed and buried under Baghdad airport but that won't get aired for years. Families who lost people to the jails and who saw them, people who were released, they all spread news of what was going on, not only in Abu Ghraib but in prisons and camps all over Iraq from north to south.

We interpreted what was being done as the sending of a brutal message to the entire Iraqi people. It was a message laced with barbaric brutality and contempt and there won't be anything new in any of the photographs, there will in fact be a deficit of confirmation.

Some of the new photographs are of prisoners shot during confrontations over food, when food contaminated with maggots and insects was served to prisoners and dysentry and sickness broke out. Held in tents out in the open and refused permission to wash, clean up, get assistance for the sick, prisoners, the mass of them innocent, began to fear that they were going to be poisoned and left to die so the riot began. It later emerged that some returning exile was running a racket by purchasing sub-standard food, food that was unfit for human consumption. Non Arabic speaking U.S. soldiers did not understand the prisoners protests and opened fire, first with rubber then lead bullets. It was a hellhole and no photographs will ever provide an understanding of how it was.

Imagine what was done to the prisoners to get them to conform in the pyramid poses, the screams, the corpses, the rapes, the stripping of female prisoners, the gloating. That went on in a conveyer belt manner, day after day for months. The U.S. military behaved like savages and there were British intelligence personnel in Abu Ghraib too - I've seen the photographs.

The attempted suppression of the pictures is to prevent even more slippage in support for the war in the U.S.A. and to try to prevent further shame being attached to the U.S. for its actions. That's what it's all about.

[Al-khiyal]

Governor of Maysan province files court case against British soldiers seen beating Iraqi teenagers in video