Spiegel-Online mentions this report (pdf) issued by the New York based human rights organization Human Rights First. The group had looked into the deaths of 98 detainees held by the United States at various facilities. Some of their findings:
45 suspected or confirmed homicides. Thirty-four deaths were homicides under the U.S. military’s definition; Human Rights First found 11 additional cases where the facts suggest death as a result of physical abuse or harsh conditions of detention.
In 48 cases – close to half of all the cases – the cause of death remains officially undetermined or unannounced.
Certainly 8, as many as 12, people were tortured to death.
Only 12 deaths have resulted in any kind of punishment.
The highest punishment for a torture-related death: 5 months confinement.
What about the victims who survived the torture at US hands? The New York Times columnist Bob Herbert deserves a Pulitzer Prize for his reporting on the case of the Canadian citzen Maher Arar, who was arrested at New York's Kennedy Airport while on a business trip and then was transferred under the program of "extraordinary rendition" to Syria, where he was tortured for ten months and then released back to Canada. Arar is alive, but, as Herbert writes in his column today (which can be read here), his life is shattered:
The reality, he said, is that his life has been all but completely destroyed. He is fearful. He has become psychologically and emotionally distant from his wife and two young children. He has nightmares. He can't find a job. He spins dizzily from one bout with depression to another. And some former friends who are Muslim will no longer associate with him because "they're afraid to be the next target."
Those members of the US military who are disturbed by the policy of extraordinary rendition and interrogation techniques that use torture are forced to remain silent. If they speak out, they can expect to be crushed by the Bush-Cheney-Rumsfeld cabal that is currently in power. Jane Mayer has a remarkable article in the New Yorker about Alberto J. Mora, the outgoing general counsel of the United States Navy, who dared to speak out about torture at the Guantanamo Bay prison camp. Mora describes a recent meeting at the Pentagon with high level officials where US adherence to the Geneva Conventions - the standard for the past half-century for treatment of detainees - was discussed:
This standard had been in effect for fifty years, and all members of the U.S. armed services were trained to follow it. One by one, the military officers argued for returning the U.S. to what they called the high ground. But two people opposed it. One was Stephen Cambone, the under-secretary of defense for intelligence; the other was Haynes. They argued that the articulated standard would limit America’s “flexibility.” It also might expose Administration officials to charges of war crimes: if Common Article Three became the standard for treatment, then it might become a crime to violate it. Their opposition was enough to scuttle the proposal.
We know what "flexibility" means. A good example is the "flexible" method used to force-feed hunger strikers at Guantanamo Bay: the camp commander has confirmed the use of "restraint chairs".
One Yemeni detainee, Emad Hassan, described the chair to lawyers in interviews on Jan. 24 and 25. "The head is immobilized by a strap so it can't be moved, their hands are cuffed to the chair and the legs are shackled," the notes quote Mr. Hassan as saying. "They ask, 'Are you going to eat or not?' and if not, they insert the tube. People have been urinating and defecating on themselves in these feedings and vomiting and bleeding. They ask to be allowed to go to the bathroom, but they will not let them go. They have sometimes put diapers on them."
Alberto Mora was forced out of the military he loved because he spoke out about practices that violated traditional American values. Navy Captain John S. Edmondson, who implemented the "restraint chair" technique at Guantanamo was awarded Legion of Merit Medal for "inspiring leadership and exemplary performance." Congratulations, Captain Edmondson, you represent the new American values: Bush values.
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