POWs Tortured; No One Outraged

[boblandis]

Friday, April 5, 2002

POWs Tortured; No One Outraged

The prisoners of war endured severe beatings, starvation, electric shock, threats of amputation and dismemberment and continual death threats, but don't expect cries of outrage from the mainstream media, International Red Cross, United Nations or European and U.S. "intellectuals." Why? Because the victims were American servicemen, not Muslim terrorists.

Seventeen U.S. troops held prisoner during the Gulf War are suing Iraq and dictator Saddam Hussein for the horrendous abuses they suffered.

"The individuals involved have suffered enormous injuries and enduring injuries. These are not things that went away several months after leaving captivity," said lead attorney Stephen Fennell, of the Washington law firm Steptoe & Johnson.

The plaintiffs, nine of them still in active service, seek ษ million each in compensatory damages, plus ŭ million each for 37 family members. The suit, filed Thursday in U.S. District Court in Washington, also asks for 跌 million in punitive damages, with plans to fund a foundation to support future U.S. and allied soldiers taken captive or reported missing in action, and their families.

"After the Gulf War, Congress authorized legal action against countries that commit torture and appear on the State Department's list of nations sponsoring terror," the Washington Post noted today.

"It's a case that rather clearly fits the statute," said Harvard Law School professor Detlev Vagts. Iraq is already paying reparations to Kuwait and damaged oil companies. He said U.S. citizens were permitted to file claims with the United Nations Compensation Commission after the Gulf War.

Prisoners in World War II were compensated under a war claims statute for each day they were captive or mistreated, Vagts said.

"The POWs suffered not only unspeakable and prolonged physical pain, but also intense and prolonged mental anguish and harm," Fennell and fellow attorney John Norton Moore say in the lawsuit. "They lived constantly in terror. Even the sound of the jailers' keys filled them with fear."

Nearly 125 pages of the complaint chronicle the servicemen's stories, the Associated Press reported today, including:

Marine Maj. Michael Craig Berryman, whose legs were beaten with a metal pipe and a wooden ax handle.

'Body Consuming Itself'

Marine Col. Clifford Acree, who was so near starvation he could "feel his body consuming itself."

The Post reported today, in the inside pages:

Navy Cmdr. Lawrence Randolph Slade feared for his life "every single second" of his six-week captivity. "Guards broke his teeth and his nose, ruptured his eardrums, fractured vertebrae and knocked him unconscious. On four occasions, they put a gun to his head and pulled the trigger." He lost 45 of his 180 pounds.

"Slade was battered so severely that 'his body was completely blue, as if he had been dipped in indigo dye.' At one point, guards stuffed toilet paper into his flight suit and ignited it. Guards inspected his genitals for circumcision to see if he was Jewish, an experience also endured by other prisoners."

An Iraqi soldier held a pistol to the head of Army Staff Sgt. Troy Dunlap and pulled the pulled the trigger. The gun did not fire.

Interrogators "pounded Dunlap's head with a pistol when he gave answers they did not like." Guards put scorching hot spoons against his neck. He lost 18 pounds in seven days. Twice a week he has nightmares featuring gunfire, bright lights and people shouting in Arabic.

No mention of these atrocities could be found in today's New York Times, which had room for yet another article on Page One about the Catholic Church's sex abuse scandals. A search of the Times' Web site this evening found an eight-paragraph version of the article by the Associated Press.

Meanwhile, at Guantanamo Bay, the terrorist detainees enjoy hot showers, hot meals and spitting at the U.S. servicemen who guard and care for them.

[Jack777]

Good post, do you have a link?

[kiwi]

One of the things I tell myself when I am REALLY having a "bad" day (and as we know, there are many, MANY degrees of "bad"), is "At least I am not in a concentration camp."

It is the most HORRID of situations!!  I know God will bless them with MANY MANY stars in their crowns when they get to Heaven.  I still don't understand why everyone must suffer so (again, many different degrees of suffering), but I stick to the faith that God has His reasons.

How sad for ANYONE in such a HORRID, awful situation!!

[Nebuchadnezzar]

The United States itself has a long track record of violating international law.

A Harvard study team had reported that the US led attack on Iraqi electrical, water, and sewage treatment systems had begun to kill thousands of civilians, especially the most vulnerable -- children, the elderly, the sick.

Pentagon planners and U.S. politicians knew perfectly well that the civilians would die as a result of those bombs. As a Washington Post reporter put it after extensive interviews with military officials that summer, Iraqi infrastructure was bombed primarily to create

[JohnS]

That article was written by Ramsey Clark and others. Here is some more information on Ramsey Clark.

January 24, 2002

Ramsey Clark's bloody resume

Murderous thugs of the world, rejoice. Once again, Ramsey Clark has come to your aid -- whether you want him to or not. Now, if only Clark would permanently move himself and his "Terrorists 'R Us" law practice to a sand dune outpost in Kandahar, we'd all have something to cheer.

Last weekend, the former U.S. attorney general under Lyndon Johnson and his anti-war buddies filed a court petition on behalf of more than 100 terrorism suspects challenging their detention at Guantanamo Naval Base in Cuba. According to Clark's neo-Stalinist front group, the International Action Center, the U.S. is violating the detainees' human rights by not providing them with basic amenities such as "adequate clothing, underwear and footwear;" "fairly priced food, soap, tobacco and ordinary items;" and "complete latitude in the exercise of religion."

Photos and reports from Camp X-Ray show just the opposite. We're bending over backwards to accommodate these unlawful combatants. For example, to assist detainees in the practice of their religion, base officials posted a helpful sign in Arabic pointing to the direction of Mecca. How do the al Qaeda fighters return the favor? The Miami Herald reports that one detainee, who deliberately faced away from the sign, used Muslim prayer time to exhort his troops.

When they're not "praying," the detainees chow down on "culturally appropriate" meals three times a day. Several have been visited by Red Cross workers. And each detainee has received an orange jumpsuit, sandals, a canteen, sheet, blanket, and shampoo.

What, no conditioner? No goose down pillow? No dry cleaning? Oh, the brutality.

In addition to steam baths and pedicures, Ramsey Clark and Co. want "due process" for the al Qaeda operatives whom they claim are prisoners of war covered by the Third Geneva Convention. But no serious reading of international law allows the al Qaeda detainees to be defined as POWs. They did not fight with readily identifiable military uniforms; they did not carry arms openly; and they have no reciprocal respect for the laws of war.

No matter. Clark's agenda is neither peace nor justice. It is terrorist ambulance-chasing. He is far less concerned with freeing the innocent than with allying himself with America's enemies at every turn -- the gorier, the better. This is the man who:

-- Flew to Hanoi to give aid and comfort to the North Vietnamese while American POWs were being beaten, tortured, and killed;

-- Flew to Tehran to condemn the "Crimes of America" while his fellow citizens were being held hostage by Iranian militants;

-- Flew to Tripoli to cheer up Colonel Mohamar Qaddafi after the U.S. bombed Libya terrorist training facilities;

-- Flew to France to kneel at the feet of the late Ayatollah Khomeini;

-- Flew to Baghdad to consult with Saddam Hussein;

-- Flew to the defense of PLO leaders sued by the family of Leon Klinghoffer, the wheelchair-bound American tourist who was shot and tossed overboard from the cruise ship Achille Lauro by Palestinian commandos in 1986;

-- Flew to Yugoslav President Slobodan Milosevic's side, in a show of solidarity against American imperialism, to defend him against charges of genocide, rape, and torture against ethnic Albanians in Kosovo;

-- Flew to the aid of indicted Rwanda genocide conspirator Elizaphan Ntakirutimana, a Hutu pastor accused of luring hundreds of Tutsi men, women, and children into his church and hospital compound -- where they were massacred by gunmen and grenade-throwers; and

-- Flew to support the 1993 World Trade Center bombers (he played the race card for sympathetic minority jurors by decrying our racist judicial system), and continues to represent Sheik Omar Abdul Rahman, the scheming Muslim cleric now in federal prison for his role in planning New York City terrorist attacks.

Ramsey Clark's record is not one of principled pacifism, but of compulsive anti-Americanism. The peace-loving doves who follow his path are flying on blood-stained wings.

[boblandis]

Jack,

  I emailed you the link for the article. If anyone else should want it, here it is:

http://www.newsmax.com/showinsidecover.sht...2002/4/5/160126

[JohnS]

Should have clarified. It was Neb's post that was written by Ramsey Clark.

[Nebuchadnezzar]

Nogun-ri is but one of many cases of the killing of non-combatants by American troops in this century. At Mylai in Vietnam in 1968, more than 500 Vietnamese civilians were killed. At Masan in 1950, Cheju island in 1948, and many other places in Korea,,,,,

The Cheju 4.3 massacre is a horrific genocide of 30,000 innocent civilians on Cheju-do between 1948 and 1949. During this time, fully ten percent of the island's total population of 300,000 were massacred by the Korean police, army and anti-communist groups reporting to the U.S. Military Government in Korea (USMGIK). Similarly in Vietnam, it is well known that many innocent people were killed by the U.S. at other places. There were many 'Mylai's.

The US Military Government ruled South Korea from September 1945 until August 15, 1948. It was the government of Korea both in name and fact. Therefore, the U.S. bears direct responsibility for the Cheju uprising on April 3, 1948. Even after the Republic of Korea was established, the US military controlled the Korean army.

The Nogun-ri massacre is similar to the Cheju April 3rd Massacre. American soldiers killed hundreds of refugees, many of them women and children, who were trapped beneath the Nogun-ri bridge between the advancing North Korean troops and the digged in American troops. One American Veteran recalled his captain as saying: "The #### with all those people. Let's get rid of all of them." A former machine gunner said - "We just annihilated them."

When survivors and victims' relatives told their story and sought redress, they met only rejection and denial, from the United States military and from their own government. For decades in South Korea, an important American ally, the Nogun-ri claimants were discouraged from speaking out. After they filed for compensation in 1997, their claim was rejected by the South Korean Government on a technicality. The United States military repeatedly said it found no basis for the allegations. Those denials of truth make me angry.

It's a matter of human rights and conscience. The U.S. always talks about human rights but they have committed many war crimes against humanity in the name of "international laws" all over the world. I see two faces of America. The U.S must pay for their deeds sooner or later.

[boblandis]

Neb,

[Nebuchadnezzar]

Everything in that article was in the main stream media, do a little research, it is common knowledge.  

America has fought, maybe one or two wars where America was actually threatened, most have just been for economic reasons. America fights wars so she can continue to use a disproportion of the world