A FEARSOME BEATING
As
the American Secretary of Defense (War
Minister) put it:
Our enemies took a fearsome beating they will not soon forget. (Dr. Robert Gates cited in Robert Burns, Gen. David Petraeus leaves Iraq after 20 months, AP, 16 September 2008 )
And Dr. Gates, an all-American guy (see at right), was, of course, telling the truth.
Exactly how fearsome was the beating?
IT WAS MURDER
Passaro was charged on June 17, 2004. He was the first civilian to be charged in connection with prisoner torture in Iraq and Afghanistan and the first American charged under the USA Patriot Act, which extended the jurisdiction of U.S. prosecutors overseas. …
Wali was
wanted for questioning regarding rocket
attacks and had voluntarily turned himself
in at a U.S. base in Afghanistan on
June 18,
2003
after being assured of his safety. He
was
murdered three days later by Passaro.
Passaro tortured Wali during interrogation
while at least three paratroopers from the
Army’s 82nd Airborne Division watched.
Witnesses said Passaro enthusiastically
volunteered to interrogate Wali and became
enraged when he wasn’t able to answer
questions, evidently because Wali had
nothing to do with the rocket attacks.[2]
According to the prosecutors, Wali while chained to the floor and wall of a cell was tortured and beaten by Passaro on the arms, wrists, knees and abdomen using a metal flashlight, closed fist and shod foot. Passaro also, on at least one occasion, kicked Wali in the groin.” According to Reuters:[3]Prosecutors also claimed Passaro kicked Wali so hard that the detainee was lifted off the ground and probably fractured his pelvis, making it impossible for him to urinate.
One method employed by Passaro was the use of a flashlight, flashed in the eyes to cause momentary blindness, then flipped to strike the victim. Passaro is accused of using the same battery technique on his helpless 6-year-old stepson.[4]
Early in the trial U.S. District Judge Terrence Boyle ruled the defense could not subpoena former CIA Director George Tenet, former agency operations chief J. Cofer Black, and University of California law professor John Yoo, along with several others whose identities were not disclosed.[5]
During the trial much of the court record was placed under seal for security reasons and several agents testified in disguise using fictitious names.[2] CIA Director Michael Hayden has stated “As abhorrent as this situation was, it is a fact that we, as an agency, did not sweep it under a rug,” Hayden said. “We addressed it head-on and dealt with it swiftly.” and called Passaro’s actions “unlawful, reprehensible, and neither authorized nor condoned by the agency.”
In
March, 2006, Passaro was released on bond
from Wake County jail to allow him to better
prepare for his trial. Shortly after release
he was charged with assaulting his
girlfriend and returned to Wake County jail
to await trial. (David Passaro, Wikipedia)
(emphasis added)
Apparently Mr. Passaro’s license to kill was not in order. He was just doing his job, and wanted the CIA management to back him up. But they wouldn’t show in court.
THE SPECIAL FORCES
Strange,
really. Because the special forces had their
credentials right up to date:
It would not be the only questionable death of a detainee in the custody of ODA 2021, nor the only one that leaders of the 10-man field team would fail to disclose to superiors in the Alabama National Guard’s 20th Special Forces Group.
Within days of the Wazi killing, an 18-year-old Afghan army recruit named Jamal Naseer died after being interrogated at the team’s firebase in Gardez,
about 25 miles to the north. Multiple witnesses say his body showed signs of severe beating and other abuse. His brother and six others also held at Gardez say they were tortured. The commander over all Special Forces in Afghanistan at the time, then-Col. James G. “Greg” Champion, said in a brief interview that neither death was reported up the chain of command. Champion, a National Guardsman who has since been promoted to brigadier general, said he did not hear of the deaths until 18 months later, when he learned that The Times was investigating. The team’s battalion commander also said that neither death was reported to him. “Two unreported deaths in a few days are a clue that something’s wrong” with that team, said a military official familiar with the incidents, who asked not to be identified. There were others who helped keep the secrets of the base. The United Nations Assistance Mission in Afghanistan, or UNAMA, which was responsible for monitoring human rights abuses, was informed that Naseer’s death in Gardez probably involved “torture and other cruel and inhuman treatment” by Special Forces troops. (Craig Pyes and Kevin Sack, Two Deaths Were a ‘Clue That Something’s Wrong’ — A Special Forces team in Afghanistan failed to alert its superiors. Witnesses tell of torture., Los Angeles Times, 25 September 2006)
THE COMING OF DARKNESS
Darkness
had descended on this land
(Robert Gates cited in Robert Burns, Gen.
David Petraeus leaves Iraq after 20 months,
AP, 16 September 2008 )
And Dr. Gates gets it right again. The licenses to kill have been handed out, and the Islamics are dropping like flies.
As Dr. Gates puts it:
Merchants of chaos were gaining strength. Death was commonplace. (id.)
How commonplace?
“A team of American and Iraqi
epidemiologists estimates that 655,000 more
people have died in Iraq since coalition
forces arrived in March 2003 than would have
died if the invasion had not occurred.”
(David Brown, Study Claims Iraq’s ‘Excess’
Death Toll Has Reached 655,000, Washington
Post, 11 October 2006)
These are estimated numbers. So if its 700 000 or a 1 000 000, no one is so sure. But it definitely is darkness.
WHEN A SOLDIER COMES HOME
We discussed the CIA murderer Mr. Passaro, who came back from the theatre of operations, and started beating his girlfriend and stepson. With that super-big flashlight.
And
speaking of flashlights, we all think of the
fully-equipped police officer. Most of these
people are ex-military, and when they come
home, they apply their training from time to
time.
We
consider the recent police killing in
California:
A California community is in an uproar after police opened fire on a homeless man carrying a toy gun, the fourth fatal shooting involving an officer since May.
In the latest incident, which occurred Aug. 31 in Inglewood, Calif., cops shot Eddie Felix Franco 47 times, killing him, after he appeared to reach for what turned out to be a toy gun in his waistband, The Los Angeles Times reported.
“There’s something gravely amiss,” former Citizen Police Oversight Commission vice president Donald Nicholson told the L.A. Times.
Outraged residents turned up at an Inglewood City Council meeting to protest the recent rash of fatal shootings.
“It is time for those who say they support this commission to do more than be silent,” Nicholson told The Times.
Council officials said the most recent shooting was captured on police dash cam, but it’s unknown whether or not the video will be released to the public. Eight officers were placed on administrative leave and city officials have ordered a review of training.
Sources told The Times that investigators are looking into the possibility of “contagious fire,” where an officer begins shooting after he hears other officers firing because he misinterprets the shots as an attack on police. (California Community Outraged by Police Shootings of Unarmed Homeless Man, FOXNEWS.COM, 10 September 2008 )
Owing to training methods, if the police hear shots fired by other officers, they generally open up too just to scare off the attackers/unarmed, innocent civilians.
And where do they develop these quick reflexes? In Iraq and Afghanistan, they develop these skills, and then bring them home to America.
Do they have a license to kill? Yes and no. The police shooters got placed on “administrative leave”. This means they get to chill in the office for several weeks before going out on the streets again. But at least the department is going to check into the training methods.
Only problem is, once a civilian police department in America gets these ex-military types, they’ve already been trained, issued a license to kill, and sent out into the field.
There are CIA killers, and then there are special forces torturers. While Mr. Passaro was beating people to death, there were some paratroopers standing by. 82nd Airborne. And they were attentive students:
HAVING SUCH A PARTY!!
WASHINGTON, Sept. 23 - Three former members of the Army’s 82nd Airborne Division say soldiers in their battalion in Iraq routinely beat and abused prisoners in 2003 and 2004 to help gather intelligence on the insurgency and to amuse themselves.
The new
allegations, the first involving members of
the elite 82nd Airborne, are contained in a
report by Human Rights Watch.
…
In separate statements to the human rights organization, Captain Fishback and two sergeants described systematic abuses of Iraqi prisoners, including beatings, exposure to extremes of hot and cold, stacking in human pyramids and sleep deprivation at Camp Mercury, a forward operating base near Falluja.
…
In the newest case, the human rights organization interviewed three soldiers: one sergeant who said he was a guard and acknowledged abusing some prisoners at the direction of military intelligence personnel; another sergeant who was an infantry squad leader who said he had witnessed some detainees’ being beaten; and the captain who said he had seen several interrogations and received regular reports from noncommissioned officers on the ill treatment of detainees.
In one incident, the Human Rights Watch report states, an off-duty cook broke a detainee’s leg with a metal baseball bat. Detainees were also stacked, fully clothed, in human pyramids and forced to hold five-gallon water jugs with arms outstretched or do jumping jacks until they passed out, the report says. “We would give them blows to the head, chest, legs and stomach, and pull them down, kick dirt on them,” one sergeant told Human Rights Watch researchers during one of four interviews in July and August. “This happened every day.”
The sergeant continued: “Some days we would just get bored, so we would have everyone sit in a corner and then make them get in a pyramid. This was before Abu Ghraib but just like it. We did it for amusement.”
He said he had acted under orders from military intelligence personnel to soften up detainees, whom the unit called persons under control, or PUC’s, to make them more cooperative during formal interviews.
“They wanted intel,” said the sergeant, an infantry fire-team leader who served as a guard when no military police soldiers were available. “As long as no PUC’s came up dead, it happened.” He added, “We kept it to broken arms and legs.”
The soldiers told Human Rights Watch that while they were serving in Afghanistan, they learned the stress techniques from watching Central Intelligence Agency operatives interrogating prisoners.
… I am certain that this confusion contributed to a wide range of abuses including death threats, beatings, broken bones, murder, exposure to elements, extreme forced physical exertion, hostage-taking, stripping, sleep deprivation and degrading treatment. …
Interrogators pressed guards to beat up prisoners, and one sergeant recalled watching a particular interrogator who was a former Special Forces soldier beating the detainee himself. “He would always say to us, ‘You didn’t see anything, right?’ ” the sergeant said. “And we would always say, ‘No, sergeant.’ “
One of the sergeants told Human Rights Watch that he had seen a soldier break open a chemical light stick and beat the detainees with it. “That made them glow in the dark, which was real funny, but it burned their eyes, and their skin was irritated real bad,” he said.
A second sergeant, identified as an infantry squad leader and interviewed twice in August by Human Rights Watch, said, “As far as abuse goes, I saw hard hitting.” He also said he had witnessed how guards would force the detainees “to physically exert themselves to the limit.”
Some soldiers beat prisoners to vent their frustrations, one sergeant said, recalling an instance when an off-duty cook showed up at the detention area and ordered a prisoner to grab a metal pole and bend over. “He told him to bend over and broke the guy’s leg with a mini-Louisville Slugger that was a metal bat.”
Even after the Abu Ghraib scandal became public, one of the sergeants said, the abuses continued. “We still did it, but we were careful,” he told the human rights group. (Eric Schmitt, 3 in 82nd Airborne Say Beating Iraqi Prisoners Was Routine, Washington Post, 24 September 2005) (emphasis added)
These elite soldiers learned the fine points of torture while in Afghanistan. From trained (but apparently not licensed) killers like Mr. Passaro.
Mr. Gates has spoken the truth. His enemies took a fearful beating. They got their legs broken, eyes burned, skin irritated, and totally humiliated.
Ah, but how do we know these were all enemies? If they weren’t before the torture, they were after.
Fortified by our own people and renewed commitment, the soldiers of Iraq found new courage and confidence. (Robert Gates, supra)
Wow. The soldiers of Iraq got some courage.
Courage? That means beating unarmed prisoners (preferably when restrained, see picture below):
In one of the new joint American-Iraqi security stations in the capital this month, in the volatile Ghazaliya neighborhood, Capt. Darren Fowler was heaping praise on his Iraqi counterparts for helping capture three insurgent suspects who had provided information he believed would save American lives.
…
The
Iraqi officers beamed. What the Americans
did not know and what the Iraqis had not
told them was that
before
handing over the detainees to the Americans,
the Iraqi soldiers had beaten one of them in
front of the other two, the Iraqis said. The
stripes on the detainee’s back, which
appeared to be the product of a whipping
with electrical cables, were later shown
briefly to a photographer, who was not
allowed to take a picture.
To the Iraqi soldiers, the treatment was normal and necessary. They were proud of their technique and proud to have helped the Americans.
“I prepared him for the Americans and let them take his confession,” Capt. Bassim Hassan said through an interpreter. “We know how to make them talk. We know their back streets. We beat them. I don’t beat them that much, but enough so he feels the pain and it makes him desperate.” (Ashley Gilbertson, 3 Suspects Talk After Iraqi Soldiers Do Dirty Work, New York Times, 22 April 2007)(emphasis added)
Darkness has descended on the land. And not just in Iraq and Afghanistan. The dark-arts training has a ripple effect, spreading as far as Inglewood, California.
Millions die. Thousands get tortured “for amusement”.
A LOYAL SERVANT GETS AN AWARD
Secretary of Defense Robert M. Gates will be honored at a dinner event at on Monday, October 15 at the Crystal Gateway Marriott Hotel, Arlington, Virginia. Gates will receive the Jewish Institute for National Security Affairs’ (JINSA) Henry M. Jackson Distinguished Service Award. (Defense Secretary Robert M. Gates to Receive Henry M. Jackson Award From JINSA, Business Wire, 15 October 2007)
Dr. Gates knows his master’s voice.
Just
like the president, Mr. Bush:
“No of course not. We don’t torture people in America,” Mr Bush said.
“People who make that claim just don’t know
anything about our country.” (George Bush
cited in
Bush
denies Camp X-Ray torture, Sunday Herald
Sun, 15 October 2003)