Confidential’ Red Cross torture report details ‘suffocation’ and head-smashing of detainees.

[ProSense]

Confidential’ Red Cross torture report details ‘suffocation’ and head-smashing of detainees.

By Satyam Khanna

Journalist Mark Danner reports today that he has acquired a once “confidential” 2006 Red Cross investigation on U.S. terror detentions. The report details “suffocation by water,” “prolonged stress standing,” “beatings by use of a collar,” and “confinement in a box.” Danner notes that senior Bush officials were well aware of the techniques being used. Some accounts from detainees:

– “I was taken out of my cell and one of the interrogators wrapped a towel around my neck; they then used it to swing me around and smash me repeatedly against the hard walls of the room.”

– “Both my feet became very swollen after one month of almost continual standing.”

– “A thick flexible plastic collar would also be placed around my neck so that it could then be held at the two ends by a guard who would use it to slam me repeatedly against the wall.

The report’s conclusion reads: “The allegations of ill treatment of the detainees indicate that, in many cases, the ill treatment to which they were subjected while held in the C.I.A. program, either singly or in combination, constituted torture.” Previously, the Bush administration had attempted to conceal harsh treatment from the Red Cross.

[47of74]

1. Not only do Bush, Cheney, Rumsfeld, et al

Need to answer for these crimes in a court of law, but the pieces of filth that actually carried out these acts need to be as well. And after conviction, all of them should get 10,000 years in prison for their crimes with no possibility of reprieve or parole.

[Double T]

2. What would we expect from the bush house of torture horrors.

[YDogg]

3. and this was confidential ... why??

[nadinbrzezinski]

5. Because the ICRC does not release these reports so they can continue to gather

evidence

The fact that it is leaked, released, whatever, tells you they are as serious about this as they were about Bosnia and genocide, the first time they leaked

[marshall]

10. They were probably still working on substantiating them

I'm sure they have some kind of process in place for weeding out the fabrications and exagerrations. This report may have been a work in progress.

[pleah]

4. Where the hell are those prosecutions of war criminals?

:shrug:

[nadinbrzezinski]

6. This is part of gathering of evidence

hope though that it goes well beyond this stage

Ah memories of Central Murica come to mind

[pleah]

8. How much more do they need? Bush and Cheney admitted they approved torture.

:shrug:

[nadinbrzezinski]

9. Courts need evidence

also we are NOT participants in the International Court...

That said, these crimes have universal jurisdiction, so if we do nada, these guys NEVER ever leave the US, and better study extradition laws

No, I am not jocking

[G_j]

7. this is a most important story, needs more Recs

must be K&Red !!

:think:

[OneBlueSky]

11. question . . . where do we find the kinds of sadists that can inflict this level of torture . . .

on other human beings? . . . or, rather than finding them, do we actually produce them through training and indoctrination? . . . inquiring minds want to know . . .

[spanone]

12. so, when do the tribunals begin?????