Torture Numbers Unclear
Posted on April 26, 2006
The Washington Times has an excellent piece in today’s issue (and posted online) concerning the fuzzy math used in figuring out how many actual torture cases actually are based in fact. We here at Stop The ACLU have been saying since this all blew up last year when groups like Human Rights Watch, the ACLU, and others, started crying that the Bush Administration was condoning the torture of detainees that these charges are completely baseless and are only an issue because these groups like to demonize the United States.
Washington Times reporter Rowan Scarborough in his article points out that the military has almost completed investigations of hundreds of soldiers accused of mistreating detainees and still don’t have a definitive answer as to how many detainees were actually mistreated.
He writes:
Torture is not a black-and-white issue. What is torture to the American Civil Liberties Union was permitted interrogation techniques to investigators questioning “enemy combatants” at the military’s detention facility at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba.
There is no official government count of torture cases and the U.S. Army, which has processed more than 56,000 prisoners since the war began and is holding about 15,000 detainees in Afghanistan, Iraq and Guantanamo Bay, declined to estimate a number at the request of The Washington Times.
This was a given. Let’s face it, the ACLU was founded by avid anti-war advocates in 1920. As a matter of fact, the founding members of the ACLU were all members of an organization which protested US involvement in World War I.
Scarborough continues:
“We’re the most investigated army in history and we are investigating ourselves and we take allegations of detainee abuse seriously,” said Maj. Wayne Marotto, an Army spokesman at the Pentagon.
“The Army does not tolerate detainee abuse,” said Maj. Marotto. “Army policy requires that all detainees are treated humanely. … The Army does not determine what conduct reaches ‘the level of torture.’ Instead, soldiers’ misconduct is evaluated through the military’s criminal statute.”
The Army has conducted more than 600 criminal investigations resulting in charges against 251 soldiers who went before courts-martial or faced administrative punishment. It says three courts-martial remain, plus a smattering of administrative cases of which 174 have already been concluded.”
So as an answer to the ACLU’s claim, the Army investigated itself. Which is only proper. As an organization which operates strictly according to manual, any and all violations of the Uniform Code of Military Justice must be prosecuted to the fullest extent. The military doesn’t take criminal charges lightly. Nor do they award decorations without insuring that they were deserved. The military investigates all claims thoroughly.
In the Army, the Criminal Investigations Division and Military Police Investigations both independently investigate all criminal matters. The JAG decides if there is a violation based on the evidence collected.
For example, when I was in Korea, I was threatened with an Article 15 proceeding for getting a sunburn. My Battery Commander justified it by stating that my allowing my skin to burn was destruction of military property. So you can imagine what would be in store for someone who is guilty of such gross offenses against the UCMJ.
He goes on to report:
Human rights groups such as the liberal ACLU are not as shy about using the term “torture.” The group filed a lawsuit against Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld last year that repeatedly accuses him of condoning torture. The suit says soldiers “tore out detainees’ toenails, administered electric shocks [and] beat detainees with hard objects.”
Maj. Marotto told The Times that the Army investigated complaints from the eight Iraqis and Afghans named by the ACLU as plaintiffs and concluded the charges were unfounded.
Surprise – Surprise – Surprise! We could have told you that before the investigation. OH! That’s right, we did.
Mr. Scarborough continues:
William Schulz, director of Amnesty International USA who has contributed money to Democratic candidates, has called Mr. Rumsfeld and other senior administration officials “architects of torture.”
Former Defense Secretary James Schlesinger, who headed a special Pentagon review, said his staff met with the International Committee of the Red Cross. Its representatives contended that mixing interrogation and detention operations “has become psychological torture,” he said.
Maj. Marotto says the human rights groups “throw around the word ‘torture’ freely.
“There are basic philosophical differences on both sides,” he said.
These peace-nicks have no comprehension what actual torture is. Perhaps the military should invite Anthony Romero and William Schulz to experience actual torture techniques. There are a couple of schools which teach our special ops people how to resist torture. Perhaps they could educate Mr. Romero and Mr. Schulz as to what exactly torture is. Because it seems that in the minds of the ACLU, Amnesty International, and other groups, just being locked up is torture.
The article continues:
Charles Gittins, a defense attorney who is representing Charles A. Graner Jr., the Army Reserve soldier whose guard shift committed the much-photographed abuses at Abu Ghraib prison in Iraq, said he does not consider as torture what his client’s men did to inmates. Photos showed the guards forcing detainees into humiliating positions. Army reports told of beatings.
Graner, a former corporal, was convicted at court-martial and sentenced to 10 years in prison — the stiffest sentence handed out to any of the 251 implicated soldiers, even those tied to detainee deaths.
“I don’t think any of the military police engaged in torture,” Mr. Gittins said. “I think whatever mistreatment of detainees occurred was suggested by senior officers and military intelligence personnel. They softened up prisoners for military intelligence interrogation just as they had been instructed to do.”
Of course Gittins would say that any mistreatment was suggested by senior officers and military intelligence personnel. He was trying to shift the blame from his client to someone else in order to keep him out of the stockade.
The Times continues with:
Hina Shamsi, a senior counsel at Human Rights First, which has joined the ACLU in its Rumsfeld suit, said that “a beating on its own, it may not meet the definition of torture.”
She said her group commenced a joint project to compile data on the number of detainees abused and will release a report soon. She said the number of those abused is “in the hundreds. We don’t have an exact number right now.”
It is my opinion, that if you are going to throw such accusations around, you should be able to give dates and times before you vilify anyone. But that is contrary to liberal thought processes.
The Times continues with the official military prohibitions against torture:
The Pentagon says that none of the 10 Guantanamo detainees now slated for military commission trials was tortured.
“The evidence we will seek to introduce in the 10 cases currently referred to trial was derived in ways that do not, in my opinion, come close to torture,” Air Force Col. Morris Davis, the military’s chief Guantanamo prosecutor, told The Times in a statement.
“I recognize that reasonable minds can differ on what constitutes torture and I expect the defense to vigorously challenge any evidence they believe came about as a result of crossing the threshold.”
Definition of torture
Bans on torture are contained in the Army’s field manual, U.S. law and international treaties.
The Geneva Conventions, which enforce humane treatment of prisoners of war, contain a somewhat nebulous definition. It states: “No physical or mental torture, nor any other form of coercion, may be inflicted on prisoners of war to secure from them information of any kind whatever. Prisoners of war who refuse to answer may not be threatened, insulted, or exposed to any unpleasant or disadvantageous treatment of any kind.”
The U.N. convention against torture, for which the U.S. is a signatory, has a clearer definition. “Torture means any act by which severe pain or suffering, whether physical or mental, is intentionally inflicted on a person for such purposes as obtaining from him or a third person information or a confession” or as punishment or coercion “with the consent or acquiescence of a public official.”
The U.S. criminal code bans torture and defines it as “an act committed by a person acting under the color of law specifically intended to inflict severe physical or mental pain or suffering upon another person within his custody or physical control.”
The Army’s Field Manual, which is being amended on detainee treatment regulations, states, “The use of force, mental torture, threats, insults, or exposure to unpleasant and inhumane treatment of any kind is prohibited by law and is neither authorized nor condoned by the U.S. Government.”
Last year, Congress wrote, and President Bush signed, the Detainee Treatment Act. It defined torture as “cruel, unusual, and inhumane treatment.”
Clearly, torture did occur during the handling of nearly 60,000 suspected al Qaeda, Taliban and Saddam Hussein loyalists. In one of the most horrendous incidents, two suspected Taliban detainees in Bagram, Afghanistan, were beaten over a prolonged period and died in custody. A prisoner at Abu Ghraib was killed while in CIA custody.
The Army says it has conducted 21 criminal investigations into 22 detainee deaths, either because the death was caused by mistreatment or because there was misconduct surrounding the incident such as obstruction of justice. In the 22 deaths, 11 were caused by shootings, nine from blunt force traumas, one from drowning and one from asphyxiation.
In four investigations, two involved Navy personnel, while the other two were referred to the U.S. Justice Department and Britain.
Of the 17 U.S. Army investigations, there were 24 courts-martial and six non-judicial punishments.
Seems pretty cut and dry to me. All soldiers know their responsibility to individuals taken prisoner. You disarm them, search them, secure them, and give them food and water. Then you turn them over to a unit which is charged with the care and interrogation of prisoners.
The Army is responsible for removing prisoners from the battle area to insure that no one is injured or killed while being held. These are all basic instructions given to all soldiers.
Reporters investigating these claims have visited the detention centers. They have been shown the holding cells, interrogation rooms, exercise yard, and fed detainee rations. Those who have eaten the rations say that the detainees that we are holding are eating better than our troops in the field.
We provide them with prayer materials and respect their prayer times. But yet these liberal activist groups insist that we are mistreating the detainees. The Germans, Japanese, North Koreans, Chinese, Vietnamese, and Arabs who have taken our guys prisoner cannot say that they treated our soldiers this well.
These people have no idea what they are talking about. They get wind of a rumor and then release statements declaring them fact. Then they send a team of lawyers to defend these people who have no rights to representation.
Read the rest of the article here.
» Filed Under ACLU, News, War On Terror
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The ACLU and The Human Rights Groups are mainly all NGO’s of the United Nations. They are all know to be liberal and very liberal organizations. They do seem do regard putting anyone behind bars as inhumane.