U.S. Probes 8 More Iraq, Afghanistan Prisoner Homicides

[Dookus]

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The U.S. military, embroiled in a scandal over abuse of Iraqi prisoners, is investigating as homicides the deaths of eight more detainees -- including one of Saddam Hussein's top generals -- held by American forces in Iraq and Afghanistan, the Pentagon said on Friday

The Justice Department also said it had opened its first criminal investigation into a civilian contractor in Iraq over possible mistreatment of Iraqi prisoners, but declined to give details about the nature of the suspected wrongdoing.

A senior military official, briefing reporters on condition of anonymity, said the U.S. Army has investigated 32 deaths of prisoners in Iraq and another five deaths of prisoners in Afghanistan since August 2002.

The military official said eight prisoner deaths under investigation have been "classified by medical authorities as homicides, which involve suspected assaults of detainees either before or during interrogation sessions that may have led to the detainees' death."

The eight new cases are in addition to two deaths previously investigated by the Army and declared homicides.

more at: http://news.myway.com/top/article/id/401364|top|05-21-2004::19:26|reuters.html
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I'm just sickened.

[Maddy McCall]

1. Considering the news about "probing" that has been on tv this week...

What nincompoop came up with THAT title. I won't tell you what my first impression about the article was.

[saigon68]

7. THIS GUY WILL HELP THEM

[Nordic65]

2. That makes it thirty total deaths in US prisoncamps N/T

[maddezmom]

3. "..the number of cases was 33, they included at least 37 people....."

WASHINGTON (AP) The Pentagon said Friday the military has undertaken 33 criminal investigations of deaths of detainees held by U.S. forces in Iraq and Afghanistan eight more cases than it had reported two weeks ago.

Although the number of cases was 33, they included at least 37 people who had been killed, officials said.

Eight pending cases have been classified as homicides involving suspected assaults of detainees before or during interrogation sessions, a senior military official said, speaking on condition of anonymity.

Of the total number of cases, 30 were inside U.S.-run detention facilities and three were outside. Fifteen of the 30 cases were declared by U.S. authorities to be deaths by natural cause or of undetermined cause, the senior official said.

~snip~
more: http://www.boston.com/dailynews/142/wash/Pentagon_says_33_deaths_being...

[Malva Zebrina]

4. I'm just sickened.

ditto--and also so disgusted at my own country under this stupid and insane man. He has driven us into shame, that will take a very long time to right.

May he take his fat assed , dumbassed. waxed over, joker smiling, rictus smiling, airheaded, helmut headed, wife, out of our house and go back to the dry, rasping, gasping for water, Texas dried up ranch in Crawford and may they all stay there incommunicato for the rest of their lives never to be heard from again. Babs and Poppy will die soon, leaving the Kennebunkport compound to the heirs to fight over.

I do not think they will fight over it at all. It is rather not much to speak of--at all. It is rather piss poor looking and it is cold here in the winter-something the elite do not like to pay taxes for--a residence that is so cold in the winter.

The Walker compound in Kennebunkport, Maine, may well be discontinued once the old bat and her impotent, failed as a president, husband, die.

What amongst these idiots would want to own this little bitty bit of property on the jagged, rough coast of Maine?

[maddezmom]

5. kick

[maddezmom]

6. Circumstances of Prisoner Deaths

By The Associated Press

Circumstances of 37 deaths in Iraq (news - web sites) and Afghanistan (news - web sites) subject to Army investigation, according to military officials:



_Thirty in detention facilities in Iraq.


_Two in the field in Iraq.


_Four in detention facilities in Afghanistan.


_One in the field in Afghanistan.


_Fifteen have been attributed to natural or indeterminate causes.


_Eight were determined to be justifiable homicides by prison guards or other U.S. personnel during four incidents, when prisoners became dangerously violent. Seven deaths took place in three incidents at Abu Ghraib in Iraq; the eighth was at Camp Bucca in Iraq.


_Two attributed by investigators to homicide. In one case in September 2003, a soldier shot and killed a prisoner in Iraq who was throwing rocks at him. The soldier was charged for using excessive force, demoted in rank and dismissed from the military. The other case involved someone working for the CIA (news - web sites). It has been turned over to the Justice Department (news - web sites).

more: http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&cid=540&ncid=736&e=10&u=/ap/20040522/ap_on_re_mi_ea/us_iraq_deaths_circumstances

[seemslikeadream]

8. WAKE UP AMERICA AND SMELL THE FLESH

smell the palpable, ghastly odor of burning human flesh


WOULD YOU HAVE HELPED?


Any of us who've read about that horrific era are terrified by the thought of it, the photographs, even by meeting people who lived through it. Our hearts break. We cannot possibly comprehend. How can we say, "We're sorry"? It is not enough.

But of what are we most afraid? I personally think what torments us most about that piece of charred history is our not really knowing how we'd have reacted had we been non-Jewish Germans living in Deutschland at that time. Oh, many of us loudly insist we'd have taken a stand, protested, put a stop to the slaughter of millions. In fact many did try, some were successful, but many ended paying the ultimate price for their heroism.

We are left wondering if we really would have had the courage to stand up to the black, brutal violence of Nazism, if we would have had the bravery to save even one life; Jewish, Gypsy, homosexual, mentally or physically handicapped, or any marked for extermination in order that the so-called Aryan race be kept pure. Would we? Would you? Would I?

I've pondered on this problem a great deal over the years. I was alive, happy and thriving back in the 1930s and 40s while millions were dying in ways so horrible most of us cannot touch our minds to the thought of it for fear it will burn into the very core of our psyches. Children like me were being ripped to pieces. Who knew? Did you? Did we? Did I?

I wonder if I'd been a parent in Germany with a family I loved and knew what was happening, and yet because a horrible war was exploding all around me, would I have had the courage to scream "Stop!!"? Would I have taken the terrible chance that my family would be piled amongst the slaughtered because of my heroics? If I lived near a crematorium and could smell the palpable, ghastly odor of burning human flesh, would I have called a meeting of my neighbors, demanding to know what that was? Would I, like so many did, have spent my life protesting, "But we just didn't know!" Would I have put my beloved family at risk to save complete strangers?

more
http://www.vansavage.com/columns/holocaust.shtml