USA discipline and sadism

Dear fellow tokers, I realise this is unconnected to growing etc but i do think this is an interesting read as to the true nature of the occupation of Iraq.
It is nothing extraordinary really but i do think it puts in a nutshell what is reallly happening.

Soldierâ??s testimony: 'We just drove off looking for more people to killâ??

Many of the new documents include testimonies by soldiers and civilians describing abuse they have witnessed in Iraq.

Among the documents is a statement by an army private describing how his platoon attacked a village after soldiers joked that their sergeant was a coward.

The sergeant decided to prove himself by setting an ambush for an Iraqi civilian.

"Right before a mission one night the sergeant went up to his gunner and asked him if he wanted to test the MK-19 multiple grenade launcher on someone tonight.

"We usually just drive around and look for people with AKs rifles and confiscate them. We have always been able to drive up to them and take the weapon from them with no shots fired.

"That night on a mission we saw an Iraqi civilian walking towards us on the other side of the canal. So we decided to set up an ambush and kill him.

"We waited until he was next to us on the other side of the canal and opened fire on him. He never took his rifle off his shoulder.

"He just ran away from us into a field for cover. In the countryside in Iraq all people have guns for protection.

"After the man ran into the field we waited close to a minute and there was never any fire returned. Thatâ??s when my platoon sergeant told his gunner to spray the field with MK-19 grenade rounds.

"The gunner put about four to five rounds into the field. Still there was no return fire. But next door to the field was a house.

Screaming

"The climate is so hot that everybody sleeps outside. After the MK-19 explosions all you heard was women and children screaming.

"My platoon sergeant told my gunner to get his eyes night vision equipment on the house. There were two men, four to six women and about ten children. My platoon sergeant asked my gunner if there were any weapons and he said 'noâ??, that the two men were just trying to get the women and children all inside.

Then a single shot came off in the distance well over 500 meters away. My platoon sergeant said 'fuck itâ?? and 'light them upâ??.

His gunner shot about three to four MK-19 rounds into the front yard and everyone else shot M16 assault rifles. It lasted about ten seconds.

"Then we just stopped and saw that the two men were injured. One of them had his arm blown off.

"All the people at the house were panicking. Some ran into the woods, some into the house, and a couple next door into another house. We just sat there and watched them.

"Finally an Iraqi civilian vehicle drove by and loaded a bunch of injured people and drove off. And so did we, looking for more people to kill."

The soldier recounts how captured Iraqis would be "hog tied" to the front of their Humvee military vehicles.

Captive

"We would put the captive on top of the Humvees with the gunner until one tried to throw up. After that we would hog tie them and stuff them in between the hood and the brush guard.

"I asked, 'At least tie his leg to the brush guard so he doesnâ??t fall offâ?? and my superior would say, 'Who cares? If he falls off we just run him over and itâ??s one less to worry aboutâ??."

The private describes in his statement how his platoon was involved in looting the homes of Iraqis.

The platoon would follow expensive cars to their homes. Soldiers would then search the home and "steal stuff from the houses or POWs prisoners, such as bricks of money, Iraqi army medals, uniforms, pictures of Saddam... all the way down to cigarette lighters".

Despite the privateâ??s seven page testimony, none of the other soldiers in his platoon were prepared to back him up. The rest of the report is composed of denials.

The report concludes that no action would be taken and all charges were dismissed.

You can read summaries of the latest documents at http :// action.aclu.org/torturefoia/released/011206/

The Spectre of Abu Ghraib
RaiNews24

abug-c-18.jpg

February 23, 2006

R: "So here is American democracy."


Ex-detainee no. 151716 from the 'Jail of Shameâ?? speaks - the man appearing in the photo/symbol of the violence in Abu Ghraib, the hooded prisoner with outspread arms connected to electric wires. Forty-two-year-old Ali Shalal el Kaissi was arrested in October 2003 in Baghdad on the charge of participating in the guerrilla. He denounced the torture to the Iraqi authorities, but no one believed him before the photos of the horror were published. Ali, a scholar and a religion teacher, was a Mokhtar, an authority in one Baghdad district. He was scheduled to come to Italy to tell his story but the Italian consulate denied him a visa. We met him in Amman, Jordan, where he founded the Association for the Victims of American Prisons. At Abu Ghraib, Ali was called Clawman, contemptuous slang referring to a deep wound on his hand.


Speaker :

5.24.00
Before being arrested, I had had surgery on my hand. But when I was in prison, the Americans used the wound as a way to pressure me. They told me, "If you collaborate, we can help you have an operation that will make your hand like new." And instead, my hand was crushed!

D: What did they ask you during the interrogations?

" (25.00) "They put me in a room full of excrement, as they did with others as well, and from the door they asked if I were Sunni or Shiite. (28. 50) Then they asked me if I were anti-Semitic â?? a question that shocked me: no one asks such questions in Iraq, even when you get married.

D: And then ?

(26.45) R: They asked me if I considered the Americans as occupiers or liberators. They asked me to help them / 33.27 "to point out the people who hated the Americans, and they also asked me to denounce the ones I disliked, saying they would do me the favor of eliminating them.

D: And did you ever respond ?

R:34.20" I never collaborated. I had nothing to answer. Others, under torture, named innocent people."

D: What was the worst moment during your months in prison?

r: 30.20 "Just being at Abu Ghraib is already a form of torture! They stripped us naked, without being able to pray for entire days. They made me stand with my arms outstretched as if I were crucified. They put a pistol to my temples and yelled, 'Youâ??re dead!â?? and shot into the air.... They took loud speakers, turned up the music, and put them near our ears and then wrote curse words on our bodies with a pen. (31.00) Each one of us had names written on his chest and his forehead. On me, they wrote Colin Powell. (31,10). They were continually stepping on my injured hand with their boots."

D: The photo of you has been seen around the world. When did they put the hood over you and what type of abuses did you suffer in those moments...

35.25
" After 15 days in prison, they took me out of the cell and put a blanket with holes over me, as if it were a traditional Arab robe. (37.01) They tied me with electric wire and placed a cardboard box nearby. Then they said they would give me electric shocks me if I didnâ??t collaborate, and for three days they did. The person who was torturing me spoke Arab very well. There was some background music when he came in, "By the Rivers of Babylon". He said he used to work in Gaza and that he had made many people talk. Each time they used the electrodes, I felt like my eyes would come out of their orbits. (39.58) One shock was so strong that I bit my tongue and began to bleed. I almost fainted. They called a doctor who opened my mouth with his boots, saw that the blood was coming from my tongue and not from my stomach, and said, "Go on if you want". (40.35)

D: Did you see other people being tortured?

43.30 R : "I was closed up in the prison for days on end. When I went out down the corridors, I saw people being tortured all the time."

D: There was talk about photos showing sexual abuses that were not published out of decency...

44.10 (sighing) â?¦.. R: A female soldier interrogated a cleric who was a prisoner. She asked him to have sex with her. When he refused, the woman came back wearing a fake phallus and raped him..

(45.30) : They pulled the beard of another cleric, a 75-year-old man, forced him to take off his clothes and put on womenâ??s clothes. Then they made him dance.
I think that the increase in the number of attacks in Iraq is due in part to what happened in the Iraqi prisons.

D: There were also women at Abu Ghraib..

(48.08) "When they entered homes and failed to find the men they were looking for, they took their women."

D: Were they also abused?

(49.15) : "We heard women brought into the prison who were raped, screaming and calling for our help, but the only thing we could do was yell, 'God is great and He will triumphâ??. Other times they made totally naked prisoners take the food in to the women.

D: Do you remember the names of the torturers?

(52.40) I remember the names of the guards: Graner who wore glasses, Frederik, David, Sneider...he was the one who tortured the women. Then there was Angela, a woman ( 53,25) (53,35)â?¦ but we donâ??t know the names of the ones who came to interrogate us. Graner was the one who crushed my hand (54.39) Graner was very fat and had a tattoo of a snake... (55.45) The people who were tortured were then photographed as if they were stars. When the soldiersâ?? had their girls with them, they made us come out and pose in strange positions while they took pictures.

D: Have you ever heard testimony of abuses committed by Italians?

R 1.25: All the jails in Iraq are under American control. Two private companies, Caci International and Titan Corp. had contracts with mercenaries of various nationalities who were responsible for getting information from the prisoners.

â?¦ ( 2.45) An Iraqi diplomat who was arrested, Haitham Abu Ghaith, spoke many languages, including Italian. This man told me that he had heard two of the men interrogating him speaking Italian... (4.34)

D: And what types of torture did he say he suffered?


6â??00 R: "Every type of torture. The same done by the Americans were also done by Italian contractors."

(10.00) But the most scandalous thing of the Italians is that they stole money and archeological pieces. (12.00) We love the Italian people. We know the difference between civilians and those who do things like this, but that does not stop us from denouncing what the Italians did. The message I want to give to the Italian people is that the situation has definitely not improved in Iraq and nothing has been rebuilt."

correct me if im wrong, but in war, the job of soldiers is to kill the enemy..Hunt and Destroy...ring a bell?

And why the hell is the ACLU getting involved in Iraq?

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Myth1184

correct me if im wrong, but in war, the job of soldiers is to kill the enemy..Hunt and Destroy...ring a bell? ?

---

The point is that the people they shot up were civillians and they did it for "fun".

In the second article the guy was innocent and they tortured him. He recounts the grotesque tortures and rapes of elderly people..

That kinda shit doesnt bother me but if it bothers you then you should know that they WILL get what they deserve, you may never hear about it or never know but trust me, they will.

Then i would imagine what they deserve would surely be an IED up the ass.