At an Amnesty International conference a few years ago, I had the honor of attending a talk by Clive Stafford Smith, a British attorney who represents some of the prisoners at Guantanamo Bay.

Smith shared some alarming details about the abuse that his clients received. Perhaps most shocking was Smith's description of cigarette burns and other scars that covered the body of a teenage prisoner. This boy had been taken into custody when he was only 14 years old.

And this kid is allegedly not the only child who has been forced to experience the nightmare that is Gitmo.

In a forthcoming book, Hearts of Darkness: Torturing Children in the War on Terror, which was recently excerpted at truthout.org, author Henry A. Giroux describes some of these cases in horrifying detail. He righteously condemns the culture of cruelty in which this kind of thing is even possible, and the "resounding silence" on the part of the media, which keeps it off the public radar.

But, even if the mainstream media did find the courage to cover these atrocities, would it make a difference?

It seems as though many Americans have become so desensitized by the right-wing spin machine that they see all Muslims as the enemy, in an overly simplistic "us vs. them" kind of mindset.

Influenced by haters like Rush Limbaugh, Glenn Beck, Ann Coulter, and Sean Hannity, they think every Middle Eastern person looks suspicious.

Influenced by those right-wing extremists, they see every Muslim as a jihadist who wants to finish the job that the 9/11 hijackers started.

And, influenced by those right-wing extremists, they regard the perceived "enemy" as less than human. Like the "gooks" of World War II and Vietnam, the "towelheads" and "hajis" of Iraq and Afghanistan are painted with one big broad brush. Even the children. How else could they justify the killing and maiming of so many innocent civilian men, women, and children, and the torture of any human being, let alone a child?

This is what we have become, seduced by the misguided emotional appeasement of hate.

We attacked an unarmed nation that posed no threat to us or to its neighbors. Then we tortured human beings. We abused children. And we killed the innocent. All paid for with our tax dollars.

America has lost its conscience.

If we are ever to regain a moral standing in this world, Americans need to wake up and see these atrocities for what they truly are: War crimes, and crimes against humanity

And, if we are ever to regain a moral standing in this world, those who committed these crimes -- and those who authorized them -- must be held accountable.

And they must be held up as an example of a foreign policy gone terribly wrong, a foreign policy gone evil.

Because what is more evil than these things that have been done in our name in the past eight years?

There is no excuse.

No excuse at all.

_______


About author
Mary Shaw is a Philadelphia-based writer and activist, with a focus on politics, human rights, and social justice. She is a former Philadelphia Area Coordinator for the Nobel-Prize-winning human rights group Amnesty International, and her views appear regularly in a variety of newspapers, magazines, and websites. Note that the ideas expressed here are the author's own, and do not necessarily reflect the opinions of Amnesty International or any other organization with which she may be associated. E-mail:

mary@maryshawonline.com

http://www.smirkingchimp.com/thread/23203

You will probably find, as time goes on, the current admin. approves the same tactics as all the other prior Pres. were aware of.
Same sheite, different day.

I totally agree with you in that it is an unjust war,..what are we even fighting for over there ?? can anyone tell me ?

there`s no doubt,.in my mind,.. that Bush was behind 9/11 ,.he needed an excuse to invade their country,.for what ? weapons of destruction ???? ,.......no,.......oil,...

and it is sickening to think that what we witnessed in WW2,.all the atrosities bought down on so many people,.. could happen here,..

where there is no God,..there is no crime,..

I don`t mean BUSH per say,.but who ever is behind the scenes running the country,..

Yes, Bush tortured children and had women raped.

Americans dont care about children being tortured and women being raped but if you talk about Healthcare they get REALLY fired up

Bush approved torture to captured terrorists?I see no problem there.They should have flown to Britian and seen if they could have borrowed some of those midevil torture devices like the rack,thumbscrews,and the iron maiden.Your running a story about a couple of lousy cigerette burns?Give me a break.When I was a welder I had burn scars all over my body from years of welding and you don't here me complaning.I'm sick of hearing these stories about torture and not reading anything juicy.I want to hear some stories about how Bush approved gouging out someones eyeballs.Or putting a cage over someones head and letting the rats eat his face.How about some stories of terrorist getting drawn and quarted.We don't hear anyone of that.All we here is poor little terrorist got slapped a few times,had some water poured down his throat,and had his bible stepped on.If I was the president not only would tourture be allowed it would be mandatory on these terrorist.

You want to end the war?Have the soldiers dip their bullets in pigs blood.Every Muslim is terrified of being shot with a bullet dipped in pigs blood and it would be a terrible disgrace to die from that.They would give up in a single day if they found out we were doing that.

only when it is their own women and children....

SMIRKING CHIMP... NOW THAT IS A RELIABLE SOURCE OF UNBIASED NEWS..

This subject makes me yawn.

http://www.globalsecurity.org/military/intro/ied-iraq.htm

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

http://www.cfr.org/publication/9513/

eh, as long as it's not me or mine being raped or tortured why should I care...

(((Best)))

Dude...

You know anything bout a prison...


Let another bubble burst...

Bet he didn't get them burns from the guards...

Prisons kinda form their own 'internal' rules...

and a 14 year old boy would have broke them all the darn time...

Sorry fact but a fact none the same.

I wish I had some of what you are smoking

"If we are ever to regain a moral standing in this world, Americans need to wake up and see these atrocities for what they truly are: War crimes, and crimes against humanity"



AMEN

IRAQI WOMAN RECALLS ABU GHRAIB RAPE ORDEAL


July 21, 2004 - (IslamOnline.net) The rape ordeal she suffered at the hands of US soldiers, both males and females, in the notorious Abu Gharib prison will continue to haunt Nadia for the rest of her life.


Though freed now, she is "imprisoned" in painful memories that left her psychologically and physically scarred, paying the price of the brutality and sadism of her American jailers.


Nadia, the name given by a freed Iraqi female prisoner to Al-Wasat, a weekly supplement of the respectable London-based Al-Hayat newspaper, felt it incumbent upon herself to speak out and expose the less-talked-about abuse of female prisoners in US-run detention camps across Iraq.


Her visit to a relative ended up in her detention by American troops, who stormed the home under the preferable excuse of "searching for weapons".


"I tried in vain to convince the impeded interpreter I was a guest, but I lost consciousness to find myself later in a dingy dark cell all by myself," Nadia recalled.


With tears rolling down her cheeks, she told the paper how she was stripped by her "liberators" of the most precious thing an Arab and Muslim women can have: Her virginity.


"A thrill of fear ran through me when I saw US soldiers laughing hysterically with a female solider telling me mockingly in an Arabic accent ‘I never heard about female arms dealer in Iraq’," Nadia said.


"As I tried hard to explain to her that I was wrongly rounded up, the female soldier started accosting and kicking me with my cries and pleas falling on dead ears."


She went on: "She gave me a cup of water and no sooner had I started sipping it than I went into a deep trance to find myself later naked and raped."


‘Like Animals’


Only then Nadia realized that hard times and an uncertain fate were lying ahead.


And days proved her right. The other day, five soldiers fondled and raped her one after another in a distasteful sex orgy on the tunes of culturally offensive heavy metal music.


"One month later, a soldier showed up and told me in broken Arabic to take a shower. And before finishing my bath, he kicked the door open. I slapped him but he raped me like animals and called two of his colleagues, who forced me to have sex with them," added Nadia.


"Four months later, the female soldier came along with four male soldiers with a digital camera. She stripped me naked and started fondling me as if she was a man while her male colleagues broke into laughter and started taking photos.


"Reluctant as I was, she fired four shots close to my head and threatened to kill me if I resist. Then, four soldiers raped me sadistically and I lost conscience. Later, she forced me to watch a clip of my raping, saying bluntly: ‘Your were born to give us pleasure’."


Naida was set free from the US hell in Abu Gharib after spending up to six months there.


The American soldiers dumped her along the highway of Abu Gharib and gave her a meager of 10,000 dinars to "start a new life".


Too ashamed to return home, she now works as a housemaid for an Iraqi family.


Britain’s mass-circulation

The Guardian revealed on May 12 that US soldiers in Iraq have sexually humiliated and abused several Iraqi female detainees in Abu Gharib.


In its May 10-17 issue, the Newsweek said that yet-unreleased Abu Gharib abuse photos "include an American soldier having sex with a female Iraqi detainee and American soldiers watching Iraqis have sex with juveniles."


The Iraqi abuse scandal exploded onto the world stage on April 29 after the CBS news network published several shocking photos of Iraqi detainees tortured and sexually abused by US soldiers.


In a damning report presented to the administration in February, before the outbreak of the scandal, US Major General Antonio Taguba found numerous "sadistic, blatant and wanton criminal abuses" at the prison complex.

From: http://www.occupationwatch.org/article.php?id=6003

torture and war crimes are never justified tactics

that said, and i hate to defend W here, but he did not
order them or condone it with the possible limited exception
of the debatable waterboarding.

the hyperbolic language used here in the original article
discredits the argument. the use of ridiculous claims
such as the laughable one i cited above reduces a serious
problem to a lampoon.

and exaggeration is not necessary. here is a description
of the report from the Wiki:

"The Taguba Report asserted that, due to "credible" evidence and confessions, numerous instances of abuse occurred at Abu Ghraib Prison in late 2003 including the simple assault of prisoners, the humiliation of prisoners, and the harassment of prisoners, and one instance of "a male MP guard having sex with a female detainee." [3]

The Taguba Report also found the allegations of several detainees as being "credible". These included being burned with phosphoric liquid, subjected to aggravated assault, threatened with dogs, and an instance of a detainee who was sodomized with an object.[3]

The Report recommended increased training of interrogators and the dissemination of information regarding the treatment of prisoners, both actions emphasizing the Geneva Conventions.[4]

The Report was also tasked with addressing the problem of detainee escapes. The Report found significant inconsistencies in the handling and processing of detainees. It recommended the standardization of detainee processing routines, the updating of accounting systems, the improvement of structural features, and several other recommendations.[5]"

I have read the report. The fact that it exists and that the US
closed the prison and pursued the allegations is in fact a
testament to US commitment not to tolerate such abuses.

It is very old news.

I was just wondering how many people were actualy found guilty who were tortured? How many inoccent?