Tuesday, February 13, 2007

Abu Ghraib's "near?- torture"


Dan Gillmor called the Abu Ghraib incident, "near-torture," but thanks to camera phones and the Internet, I was able to see for myself the extent to which the American soldiers went with the Iraqi detainees. Gillmoor called it "near" I'd like to call it definite, but the beauty of our digital era is that you can all see for yourself and call it what you'd like. http://www.salon.com/news/abu_ghraib/2006/03/14/introduction/index.html

In October of 2003, American soldiers from the military police company and the American Intelligence community used to detainees in the Iraqi prison to perform humiliating and torturous acts. There were hundreds of pictures taken and some video using the soldier’s camera phone. Witnesses have testified in the investigation explaining what the soldiers were having the detainees do.

I will spare the details of what exactly went on in Abu Ghraib, not because I’m sheltering you from what may be uncomfortable, but because this makes me uncomfortable and I figure we’ve all heard bits and pieces of it, but if you’d like to read more go to http://www.newyorker.com/fact/content/articles/040510fa_fact?040510fa_fact

Specialist Joseph M. Darby found a picture of the torture, specifically one of the detainees naked, and brought it to the Army’s criminal investigation division. The soldier’s defense was that they were carrying out orders. Military intelligence was using these tactics to get the detainees to talk. These types of tactics had been going on long before this incident and had led to death and injury among the detainees. Thanks to digital technology, the incident was brought into the open and now the world has seen it.

3 comments:

Michael Vick said...

Gillmor's use of the word "near-torture" sickens me. What does that even mean? How does one almost torture someone? It seems like he is trying to apologize for the Bush administration.

Carly Perez said...

Disturbing photo. Thank god this information was leaked. I would never want to be left in the dark (no pun intended) on these atrocities.

Christina Kho said...

Thank you for your blog. This is the first time I'm seeing the pictures and I'm feeling sad, angry and sickened all the same time. I think even if the pictures are disturbing it's important for people to see it and this is a great way for them to.