US Torture - the new abu ghraib

[daveskilt]

So my friend who is a captain in the US air force sent me this email. speaks for itself.

"Our second mission over here involved flying two trips (Baghdad to Mosul)carrying 40 Iraqi detainees/prisoners from what was formerly Abu Graib prison outside of Baghdad to Mosul in Northern Iraq where they were being transferred to a prison run by the Kurds...Now, I am no expert on the subjects of Kurdish/Arab relations or Iraqi Constitutional Law, but I am fairly certain that the Kurds don't have any "Cruel and Unusual Punishment Clauses" in their prison business ventures...Andafter what Saddam did to the Kurds over a decade ago, you can rest assured that their little form of retribution is going to play out in a frightening reality towards their newest Arab arrivals...

I spoke personally with the chief guard of the detainees and he told me that these were bad guys we were carrying, most of them terrorist snipers and planners who were responsible for a lot of attacks against the Army...There was plenty of security on the plane and these guys were shackled to the floor and blindfolded so I wasn't nervous about carrying them...Besides, my crew had orders to shoot to kill in the unlikely event they were able to make it to the cockpit...Word was that the prisoners knew where they were going so they didn't move out of their prison cells...They had to be restrained and forced out...Besides being afraid of their destination, a lot of them have never been on an airplane before, so that adds to their tension...So when we wrap it up and send the aircraft into a 45 degree nose down attitude for our approach into the airfield, some of them actually lose control and wet their pants...That happened on two occasions with the guys I was carrying..."

this is my friends 5th tour in Iraq. He has no political angle, and has been pretty much a moderate republican - socially liberal votes for the best guy not the party. He tells me in 5 tours he has yet to hear a single officer who doesn't think the war is fubar, nor an officer who (other than publicly and officially) supports Bush.

[Canuckistanian]

1. Oh, yeah, he had to do those extreme maneuvers

To avoid being shot at during approaches and takeoffs. Did that spook him?

With all the other things a pilot has to think about, dodging potential AA fire must be unnerving, to say the least.

And that's an amazing observation that no officer thinks this debacle is any kind of triumph.