Know your war criminals

[unhappycamper]

I've been reading Jane Mayer's "The Dark Side" for about a month already. I can get maybe five to ten pages before I need to put it down for a while.

Obama's stance on torture makes me nuts. Big time, full time torture started in Afghanistan right after the invasion. Extraordinary rendition (aka kidnapping) had people snatched off the streets and sent to places to be tortured. IMO, the first fully institutionalized torture factory was Guantanamo. Meet the man who made it work:



http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Geoffrey_D._Miller


Geoffrey D. Miller

Geoffrey D. Miller (born c. 1949) is a retired United States Army Major General who commanded the US detention facilities at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba and Iraq. Detention facilities in Iraq under his command included Abu Ghraib prison, Camp Cropper and Camp Bucca. He is also famous for training soldiers in "improved interrogation techniques".<1>

Miller was born in Gallipolis, Ohio. He attended Ohio State University where he got an undergraduate degree in History, following up with a Master of Science in Education Administration at the University of Southern California. Miller is the nephew of Bob Evans, of Bob Evans Restaurants, franchiser from Rio Grande, Ohio.

Miller joined the US Army in 1972 and was trained in field artillery and army command. He spent time in Germany before being moved to Korea in 1980. There, he rose to become assistant chief of staff for operations in Korea. Miller later returned to the United States to become the deputy chief of staff for personnel and installation management for the US Army.

On November 2002, Miller was given command of Joint Task Force Guantanamo Bay (GTMO), which runs the US detention facilities known as Camp X-Ray, Camp Delta and Camp Echo in Cuba. Miller claimed that two-thirds of the 600 prisoners had confessed to being involved in terrorism and were giving "actionable intelligence." However, instances of abuse such as beatings, using attack dogs to intimidate prisoners, and other abuses at Guantanamo Bay were alleged to have occurred under Miller's command.

On September 22, 2003, Miller ordered the arrest of James Yee, an Army captain who served as a chaplain for the Muslim prisoners at Guantanamo. Miller accused Yee of stealing classified documents and smuggling them out of the prison, but those charges were later dropped. It is believed that no evidence of espionage was found, but records on the case have been sealed.

Abu Ghraib prison scandal

In August 2003, Miller was sent to Iraq by the Department of Defense to help get more information out of Iraqi prisoners. In September, Miller submitted a report that recommended "GTMO-ising" their approach - combining the detention and interrogation units at Abu Ghraib into the Theater Joint Interrogation and Detention Center. Specifically, Miller suggested that prison guards be used to "soften up" prisoners for interrogations.

In his final report on the prison abuse, General Antonio Taguba blamed Miller's recommendations for the abuse at Abu Ghraib, and noted that using military police for interrogation was a breach of official policy. Miller denies that he was specifically ordering guards to humiliate and torture prisoners to get confessions out of them.

After the Abu Ghraib prisoner abuse story broke in March 2004, Brigadier General Janis Karpinski was suspended and Miller was appointed the deputy commanding general for detainee operations for Multinational Forces in Iraq. In this role, Miller reports directly to Lieutenant General Ricardo Sanchez. Since his appointment, Miller has vowed to reduce the number of prisoners in Abu Ghraib, adhere to military laws as well as the Geneva Convention, investigate allegations of abuse, and reform the Iraqi prison system. He banned the use of hoods on prisoners during transport and set up a new system to allow prisoners to have visitors.

Since the investigation of abuses at Abu Ghraib, some have suggested that Miller encouraged abusive tactics. In an interview with BBC Radio, former prison commander Janis Karpinski claimed that Miller told her to treat prisoners "like dogs" in the sense that "if you allow them to believe at any point that they are more than a dog then you've lost control of them".<2> Major General Miller denies that he ever made the comparison.

Colonel Thomas Pappas, head of the military intelligence brigade at Abu Ghraib, has claimed that it was Miller's idea to use attack dogs to intimidate prisoners.<3> He said the same tactics were being used at Camp X-Ray. Several of the photos taken at Abu Ghraib show dogs surrounding (and in at least one case biting) screaming, naked detainees.

In November 2004, Miller was replaced as deputy commanding general for detainee operations for Multinational Forces in Iraq by MG William H. Brandenburg.<4>

Request for war crimes prosecution

In November 2006, the German government received a complaint seeking the prosecution of then-Attorney General and former White House Counsel Alberto Gonzales for alleged war crimes. <1>

Other co-defendants include: Donald H. Rumsfeld, George Tenet, Stephen Cambone, Ricardo S. Sanchez, Geoffrey Miller, Walter Wojdakowski, Thomas M. Pappas, Barbara Fast, Marc Warren, John Yoo, William J. Haynes, II, David Addington, and Jay Bybee.

On 14 November 2006, German attorney Wolfgang Kaleck filed the complaint with the German Federal Attorney General (Generalbundesanwalt) against Mr. Miller for his complicity in torture and other crimes against humanity at Abu Ghraib in Iraq and Guantanamo Bay, Cuba. Mr. Kaleck acts on behalf of 11 victims of torture and other human rights abuses, as well as about 30 human rights activists and organizations who are co-plaintiffs. The co-plaintiffs to the war crimes prosecution include: 1980 Nobel Peace Prize winner Adolfo Pérez Esquivel (Argentine), 2002 Nobel Peace Prize winner Martín Almada (Paraguay), Theo van Boven, the former United Nations Special Rapporteur on Torture, Sister Dianna Ortiz (Torture survivor, Executive Director of TASSC), the International Federation for Human Rights, the International Peace Bureau (Nobel Peace Prize winner in 1910), the International Association of Lawyers Against Nuclear Arms (IALANA), European Democratic Lawyers, European Democratic Jurists, International Association of Democratic Lawyers, Comité de Acción Jurídica (CAJ) (Argentina) , Liga Argentina por los Derechos del Hombre (Argentina), Bahrain Human Rights Society (BHRS), Lawyers against the War (LAW) (Canada), Colectivo de Abogados José Alvear Restrepo (Colombia), Association Africaine des Droits de l’Homme (ASADHO) (Democratic Republic of Congo), Egyptian Organization for Human Rights (EOHR) (Egypt), Ligue Française des Droits de l'Homme (LDH), The Republican Attorneys' Association (RAV) (Germany), Amman Center for Human Rights Studies (ACHR) (Jordan), Comisión Mexicana de Defensa y Promoción de los Derechos Humanos (CMDPDH), Liga Mexicana por la Defensa de los Derechos Humanos (LIMEDDH), Centro Nicaraguense de Derechos Humanos (CENIDH), Palestinian Center for Human Rights, Association Tchadienne pour la Promotion et la Défense des Droits de l’Homme (ATPDH) (Chad), Rencontre Africaine pour la Défense des Droits de l’Homme (RADDHO) (Senegal), The Center for Constitutional Rights (CCR), National Lawyers Guild (NLG), Torture Abolition and Survivors Support Coalition International (TASSC), and Veterans for Peace. <2>


Here's his Iraq counterpart:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ricardo_Sanchez



Ricardo Sanchez

Lieutenant General Ricardo S. Sanchez (born 1953) is a retired United States Army general who served as the V Corps commander of coalition forces in Iraq from June 2003 to June 2004. He was the highest-ranking Hispanic in the United States Army when he retired on November 1, 2006. At the time of his retirement, Lieutenant General Sanchez called his career a casualty of the Abu Ghraib scandal.<1>

June 2003 to June 2004

Sanchez held the top military position in Iraq during what was arguably one of the most critical periods of the war—the year after the fall of the Hussein regime, and the time the insurgency took root and began its counterattack. Highlights during his tenure as commander in Iraq include the killing of Uday and Qusay Hussein, and the capture of Saddam Hussein.

He was in command when the abuse of prisoners occurred most notably at Abu Ghraib prison. Some have been highly critical of the U.S. military's failure to hold generals accountable, as the blame for abuses at Abu Ghraib and other detention centers was placed only on a few individuals of the lowest rank.

Sanchez was succeeded as commander of allied ground forces in Iraq by a four-star general: former Army Vice Chief of Staff George Casey.

Disunity in leadership

L. Paul Bremer was the leader of the Coalition Provisional Authority in Iraq. There was almost a complete failure to communicate between Bremer, the top civilian, and Sanchez, the military leader. "It was very clear they hated each other. They lived in the same palace and didn't talk to each other." This disunity in leadership has been cited as one of the major failures of the first year of the Iraq War.<2>
Abu Ghraib

Sanchez was commander of coalition forces during a period when abuse of prisoners occurred at Abu Ghraib and at other locations. In a memo signed by General Sanchez and later acquired by the ACLU through a Freedom of Information Act request, techniques were authorized to interrogate prisoners, included "environmental manipulation" such as making a room hot or cold or using an "unpleasant smell", isolating a prisoner, disrupting normal sleep patterns and "convincing the detainee that individuals from a country other than the United States are interrogating him." <3> On May 5, 2006 Sanchez denied ever authorizing interrogators to "go to the outer limits". Sanchez said he had told interrogators: "...we should be conducting our interrogations to the limits of our authority." Sanchez called the ACLU: "...a bunch of sensationalist liars, I mean lawyers, that will distort any and all information that they get to draw attention to their positions." <4>

War crimes prosecution

On 14 November 2006, human rights advocate Wolfgang Kaleck brought charges at the German Federal Attorney General (Generalbundesanwalt) against Ricardo Sanchez and a number of other high officials for their involvement in human rights violations in Abu Ghraib in Iraq and Guantanamo Bay. Kaleck acts as an advocate for more than 30 human rights organizations as well as 11 former prisoners at Abu Ghraib and Guantanamo.
Career after Iraq

In June 2004, Lieutenant General Sanchez relinquished command of the Multi-National Force Iraq (MNF-I) to General George Casey, Vice Chief of Staff of the Army. Sanchez returned to Germany where he continued as Commanding General, V Corps. He was briefly considered for promotion to four-star rank with assignment as Commander, Southern Command; nomination would have required Senate confirmation, which would have been contentious due to the Abu Ghraib scandal. He was not nominated; the position went to General Bantz Craddock.

Sanchez led V Corps in Germany during 2004-2005 as it refitted in anticipation of its second deployment as the command headquarters in Iraq. When V Corps returned to Iraq as headquarters element for the Multi-National Corps Iraq (MNC-I), Lieutenant General Peter W. Chiarelli was named commander; the V Corps flag remained in Germany with Sanchez. The result was somewhat unusual; the V Corps headquarters was in Iraq under Chiarelli's command with the name MNC-I while Sanchez remained in Germany with the corps flag, but with replacement (V Corps-Rear) personnel.

On 6 September 2006, Sanchez relinquished command of V Corps in a ceremony at Campbell Barracks, Heidelberg, Germany. Sanchez had commanded the corps for more than 3 years; longer than any previous commander in the unit's history. In deference to Sanchez' longevity, he relinquished command to General David McKiernan, Commanding General, US Army Europe and Seventh Army, his higher commander, instead of to a successor.

Sanchez retired on 1 November 2006, culminating 33 years of Army service. Sanchez now lives in his home state of Texas.

[Heidi]

1. Recommended.

:kick:

[Mari333]

2. knr and they will all get off, scot free!

not one of them will be investigated or tried.

[Echo In Light]

3. K&R

[Maraya1969]

4. I thought Obama put an end to this early on in his Presidency.

[Solly Mack]

5. Miller is as guilty as homemade sin

and Sanchez is too.