ACLU Obtain Army Documents Revealing Terrorist Sympathy

Posted on January 12, 2006

Via ACLU:

In one Army file, an investigator states that he is unable to continue an investigation into claims that a detainee captured by Task Force 6-26 in Tikrit, Iraq, was stripped, humiliated and physically abused until he passed out, because the unit accused of the abuse is part of the Special Access Program (SAP). A memorandum included in the report states that “fake names were used by the 6-26 members” and that the unit claimed to have a computer malfunction which resulted in the loss of 70 percent of their files. The memorandum concludes, “Hell, even if we reopened [the investigation] we wouldn’t get any more information than we already have.”

Also included in the documents released today is a heavily redacted memo referring to a December 10, 2002 “SERE INTERROGATION SOP” (Standard Operating Procedure) for Guantánamo. SERE, which stands for “Survival, Evasion, Resistance and Escape,” is a secret military program under which detainees held in U.S. custody abroad are subjected to harsh interrogation techniques. According to the ACLU, this document shows that such techniques may have been formally authorized in a memo to military personnel at Guantánamo. The ACLU said it is unclear how this document relates to abusive interrogation techniques authorized for use in Guantánamo by Secretary Rumsfeld in a separate memo on December 2, 2002.

I don’t know where they got confused, but Anti Idiotarian Rottweiller calls them on it.

Granted, we’ll be the first to admit that S.E.R.E. and similar programs with which we’re more intimately familiar aren’t exactly a lot of fun (unless you happen to be an instructor), but the facts remain that A) it’s hardly a “secret program” and B) the only ones being “subjected to harsh interrogation techniques” are the trainees, none of whom are enemy combatants. In fact, they tend to wear the same uniform as the instructors. Funny how education works, isn’t it?

Want to know what S.E.R.E really is? Start Here. Not very secret at all.

But lets go on with the ACLU’s discoveries.

A February 16, 2004 memorandum recording an interview of an American interrogator stationed in “Orgun-E Military Intelligence Detention Facility” in Afghanistan reveals that its “Standard Operating Procedure” included keeping detainees awake, standing and blindfolded without food for the first 24 hours. The interrogator also refers to standard practices of “OGA” (a common military reference to the CIA) that include the use of drugs and prolonged sensory deprivation. A February 12, 2004 memorandum records the use of a “Fear Up approach” involving “disrespect for the Koran,” insulting the detainee, having a room upstairs with spotlights and turning the music on very loud.

Further reading reveals even more evil means of torture…such as cleaning out open wounds to prevent infection:

The documents further reveal gruesome accounts of torture and abuse by U.S. military personnel in Iraq. In one 2004 document, a civil contractor recounts in a sworn statement that he witnessed Marines pouring peroxide and water over the open wounds of an Iraqi prisoner.

Holy Allah on a pogo stick! Peroxide and water on a wound! My mother put the same thing on my wounds growing up! Perhaps I can make a case for the ACLU?

In another document, following the release of images of abuse at Abu Ghraib, one officer wrote on May 6, 2004, that abusive interrogation techniques, such as the application of cold or ice, loud music, sleep deprivation and confining detainees to a metal box, will “continue to cause us problems, as some interrogation techniques aren’t real defensible given the Abu Ghraib fallout.”

Heaven forbid! Loud music, and sleep deprivation??? We are savage brutes! Before you know it we may end up using excessive tickling, and making them take baths! There is a lot of other unsubstantiated crap in their article, but its just that, unsubstantiated.

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Comments

2 Responses to “ACLU Obtain Army Documents Revealing Terrorist Sympathy”

Jeff H on January 13th, 2006 11:22 am

re: In another document, following the release of images of abuse at Abu Ghraib, one officer wrote on May 6, 2004, that abusive interrogation techniques, such as the application of cold or ice, loud music, sleep deprivation and confining detainees to a metal box, will “continue to cause us problems, as some interrogation techniques aren’t real defensible given the Abu Ghraib fallout.”

I’d be interested in seeing that document. I strongly suspect it was not the unnamed officer who used the adjective “abusive” to describe the interrogation techniques.
jimg on January 13th, 2006 11:58 am

I suggest not having ANY detainees, if ya catch my drift.