Institute for Public Accuracy 915 National Press Building, Washington, D.C. 20045 (202) 347-0020 * http://www.accuracy.org * ipa at accuracy.org ___________________________________________________
PM Wednesday, May 5, 2004
Torture and War Crimes: Crucial Context
CLIFF KINDY, kindy at cpt.org, http://www.cpt.org
Kindy has spent two five-month stints over the last year and a half in Iraq
with the Christian Peacemaker Team, which released a document entitled "Report and Recommendations on Iraqi Detainees" in January. Kindy has had
substantial contact with Iraqi detainees and their families and with U.S.
soldiers and higher-ups.
DAHR JAMAIL, dahrma90 at yahoo.com, http://blog.newstandardnews.net/iraqdispatches Baghdad correspondent for the Internet journal The NewStandard, Jamail has written several articles (one of them in January) about U.S. military torture of Iraqis. His most recent piece, "Telltale Signs of Torture Lead Family to Demand Answers," is available at the above web page.
ANDRES THOMAS CONTERIS, andres at desmilitarizacion.net,
http://www.hiddeninplainsight.org
"We know that the U.S. has been involved with torture training because of
the School of the Americas in Georgia; torture manuals have been exposed
there," said Conteris, who has helped produce a documentary about the
School of the Americas, "Hidden in Plain Sight." Added Conteris: "Last week
at John Negroponte's nomination hearing as Ambassador to Iraq, I noted
Negroponte's connections to death squads during his tenure as ambassador to
Honduras. If he is confirmed, which seems likely since Democratic senators
like Christopher Dodd and Joe Biden have backed him, Negroponte will work
to prevent such images of torture from getting out. The Senate can act as
though they are shocked by torture now, but if they approve Negroponte,
they are facilitating the likelihood it will escalate and be covered up."
AS'AD ABUKHALIL, AAbukhalil at csustan.edu, http://angryarab.blogspot.com
AbuKhalil is professor of political science at California State University
at Stanislaus and visiting professor at the University of California at
Berkeley. He said today: "U.S. propaganda efforts, and the last-minute
appearances of Bush in Arab media (with the deliberate exclusion of
al-Jazeera -- the most widely watched channel by far) only underscore U.S.
problems. But the message by Bush will only underline the gap between this
administration and Arab public opinion. He tells them that the torture
incidents were an exception, and Arabs believe that they are systematic. He
tells them that the U.S. is making progress; Arabs know the nature of the
bloody mess in Iraq. He tells them that Sharon is a man of peace; Arabs
(and many Europeans and some Israelis) consider him a war criminal. Bush
tells them that the U.S. is promoting freedom in Iraq; Arabs know that the
U.S. is obstructing democracy and elections in Iraq. The Bush message is
effective to an audience in Iowa. In the Arab world, his message will only provoke and insult. But that is the nature of U.S. propaganda efforts in
the Middle East: the more they try, the worse the U.S. image problem gets."
RAY HANANIA, RayHanania at aol.com, http://www.hanania.com
A syndicated columnist, Hanania just wrote the article "Appearing on Arab
TV Not Enough Mr. President," in which he comments: "Rather than win the
hearts and minds of the Arab World, American policies reinforce greater
anti-American hatred because they fail to speak to the fundamental and
legitimate complaints of the Arab World."
MARJORIE COHN, libertad48 at san.rr.com, http://www.nlg.org,
http://truthout.org/docs_04/050404A.shtml
Professor at Thomas Jefferson School of Law, executive vice president of
the National Lawyers Guild, and the U.S. representative to the executive
committee of the American Association of Jurists, Cohn wrote the recent
article "Torturing Hearts and Minds," at the above web page.
REED BRODY, brodyr at hrw.org, http://www.hrw.org,
http://www.commondreams.org/views04/0504-06.htm
Brody is special counsel with Human Rights Watch and author of a recent
article in the International Herald Tribune, "Prisoner Abuse: What About
the Other Secret U.S. Prisons?" He said today: "The U.S. has created legal
black holes all over the world where we can't find out what's happening to
prisoners."
ROGER NORMAND, rnormand at cesr.org, http://www.cesr.org
Normand is executive director of the Center for Economic and Social Rights.
He will be participating in the World Tribunal on Iraq in New York City
this Saturday, May 8. Normand said today: "Recent revelations about mistreatment at Abu Ghraib prison are only the tip of the iceberg when it
comes to U.S. war crimes in Iraq. Despite the rhetoric of fighting for
democracy and human rights, the U.S. occupation is providing the world with
a case study on how to violate the full range of civilian protections
enshrined in the Geneva conventions -- from indiscriminate killings and
collective punishment, to arbitrary detention, torture and sexual violence,
to war profiteering and pillaging."
ROBERT JENSEN, rjensen at uts.cc.utexas.edu,
http://uts.cc.utexas.edu/~rjensen/home.htm
Jensen is author of the new book "Citizens of the Empire," and co-author of the book "Pornography: The Production and Consumption of Inequality." He wrote the essay "Blow Bangs and Cluster Bombs: The Cruelty of Men and
Americans" for the magazine Feminista. Jensen said today: "Many are
expressing outrage and surprise at the cruel and pornographic nature of the photos from the Abu Ghraib prison. Outrage is appropriate, but we should not be surprised. U.S. culture is saturated with such pornography, which each year gets more overtly cruel and sadistic. Millions of U.S. men watch
this kind of material every year. We should expect to see those values play
out in the world, especially in the military, where violence is normalized
and cruelty is essential to the task."
LARA STEMPLE, [via Alex Coolman, acoolman at spr.org], http://www.spr.org
Executive director of Stop Prisoner Rape, Stemple said today: "These are
troubling events, but they didn't happen by accident. The choice to use
sexually charged forms of abuse was not random or careless....
Approximately one in five male inmates in the United States has faced
forced or pressured sexual contact in custody, according to studies by
researchers such as Cindy Struckman-Johnson at the University of South
Dakota. One in 10 has been raped. For women, whose abusers are often
corrections officers, the rates of sexual assault are as high as one in
four in some facilities."
ILENE FEINMAN, ilene_feinman at csunmb.edu
Author of "Citizenship Rites: Feminist Soldiers and Feminist
Antimilitarists," Feinman said today: "The increase in more gender neutral
training in the forces (notwithstanding the severe residual sexualized
violence against women in the military by the military) has enabled women
to develop the same strategies of power over and objectification of 'the
other,' a.k.a. enemy combatants, as the men possess.... It is most
interesting that the woman brigadier general is being held responsible for
this abuse which happened under military intelligence, or possibly CIA,
purvue. The sexual politics of military women are revisited here in that
the arguments for women in the military and against women in the military
were both grounded on the idea that women as they are socialized would
bring a 'civilizing' force to the military; this would either improve the
military or destroy it, respectively."
For more information, contact at the Institute for Public Accuracy
Sam Husseini, (202) 347-0020