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Torture Crimes and Purpose
Comment by Larry Ross Aug 1, 2004

Osha Gray Davidson's article in 28/7/04 Rolling Stone, confirms a previous article by Seymour Hersh (New Yorker journalist) about US employees committing many sexual and other tortures of prisoners in Abu Ghraib prison in Iraq, including "raping a teenage boy". The Senate and Pentagon investigation into these tortures uncovered by US Maj. Gen. Antoni Taguba in his report, are now decreed as "classified documents. The investigation is stalled, probably because the details, which go to the top of the Bush Administration, would be considered so horrific by the average American, that to reveal them would damage Bush's re-election chances.

Our Christchurch Aug 7 War Crimes Trial is very appropriate at this time, to draw attention to these war crimes and their perpetrators, whose stand-ins will be on put on trial.

Iraqi witnesses at our Aug 7 trial, could read selections from this article if they wish to add any of it to their own 5 minute testimony.

Why is US policy to resort to such bestiality, have it photographed and videod by it's employees, then publicising it?

As I have previously written, there could be method in their apparant madness. They are building 14 military bases in Iraq, and have established the biggest US embassy in the World there under supervision of US Ambassador Negroponte - who has a very black reputation working with Honduran death squads from his time as Ambassador to Honduras. They have established a CIA-influenced client regime of Iraqis to run the country. So it looks as if the US intends to stay in Iraq for a very long time. There is no real exit strategy. So one reason to provoke more resistance is to give the US administration the ammunition it needs to justify to the American people the continuing occupation of Iraq and perhaps expansion of US wars to other states, as neocon plans state.

The US is doing everything it can to inflame Muslims everywhere, with lots of documentation and photos, to provide reasons for Muslims to flock to Al-Qaeda, or other terrorist organisations and stage more terrorist incidents. The more so-called 'terrorist' or resistance incidents. The more US spin doctors can create reasons to justify expandsion of US military operations in the Middle East and the more Bush, Blair and Howard and others can justify more and expanded wars, and draconian laws to suppress dissent at home. With the continued cooperation of the mass media in the US, UK and Australia, and using the often predicted terrorist incidents as justification, a climate of fearful cooperation may be created where the public actually supports a more militarised, repressive state. It worked for Hitler when he burned down the German Reichstag in order to grab far more power and start World War II. Many Germans loved him, accepted the hardships of war, and believed the justifying propaganda. The stage has been set up today by the USA for something similar. It has often been predicted in various articles, that this kind of strategy might work in the US, and perhaps even in the UK and Australia. ( even New Zealand under a new government?)

Would Electing John Kerry as US President Help?

Firstly, let's assume there will be an election in the US as scheduled and that it will be fair enough to allow the winner to become president. The only way of getting rid of Bush is to elect the Democratic alternative - John Kerry. Refusing to vote because you don't like Kerry, or voting for a minor candidate, is equivalent to a vote for Bush. Bush and his administration has been a disaster, and promises more of the same if elected.
It is urgent for America and the world that he be replaced. Kerry and the democratic infrastructure seems more amenable to reason, and less likely to manipulate the US into more wars. People disagreeing with some of Kerry's policies, can work to change the policy and still vote for Kerry to get rid of Bush.
The people have a right to expect a decent leader.

Larry Ross

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The Secret File of Abu Ghraib

New classified documents implicate U.S. forces in rape and sodomy of Iraqi prisoners

By OSHA GRAY DAVIDSON, Rollong Stone, July 28, 2004

It has been months since the now-infamous photographs from Abu Ghraib revealed that American soldiers tortured Iraqi prisoners -- yet the Bush administration has failed to get to the bottom of the abuses."There are some serious unanswered questions," says Sen. Susan Collins, a Republican on the Armed Services Committee. The Pentagon is stalling on several investigations, and congressional inquiries have ground to a halt. The foot-dragging is astonishing, given that Congress has access to classified documents detailing the abuses outlined by Maj. Gen. Antonio Taguba in his report on Abu Ghraib. Rolling Stone obtained those files in June and offers this report on their contents. -The Editors

The new classified military documents offer a chilling picture of what happened at Abu Ghraib -- including detailed reports that U.S. troops and translators sodomized and raped Iraqi prisoners. The secret files -- 106 "annexes" that the Defense Department withheld from the Taguba report last spring -- include nearly 6,000 pages of internal Army memos and e-mails, reports on prison riots and escapes, and sworn statements by soldiers, officers, private contractors and detainees. The files depict a prison in complete chaos. Prisoners were fed bug-infested food and forced to live in squalid conditions; detainees and U.S. soldiers alike were killed and wounded in nightly mortar attacks; and loyalists of Saddam Hussein served as guards in the facility, apparently smuggling weapons to prisoners inside.   Full Story