Based on the short sentences, I asked where the justice was for the Iraqis involved because it certianly wasn't being found in the military courts that handed down those pitiful sentences. And now, there's another injustice to report on:
Abu Ghraib dog handler gets jail for abuse
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - A U.S. Army dog handler was sentenced to six months in prison for tormenting detainees at Baghdad's notorious Abu Ghraib jail with his unmuzzled Belgian shepherd, an Army spokeswoman said on Wednesday.
Sgt. Michael Smith, 24, faced up to 8 1/2 years in prison after he was found guilty on six of 13 counts brought against him. He will also have his rank reduced to private and must pay a total of $2,250 in fines for harassing and threatening inmates in 2003 and 2004, Army spokeswoman Shaunteh Kelly said.
After he serves his 179-day sentence, he will be released from the military with a bad conduct discharge, Kelly said. That is one step above a dishonorable discharge.
SIX MONTHS FOR THIS:
Sgt. Michael Smith terrorized prisoners with dogs and he got SIX MONTHS in jail?
On behalf of all Iraqis and everyone in their right mind who opposes this criminal administration, I am reposting my Daily Kos diary here in its entirety to remind the world of what these war criminals have gotten away with - so far. They must all be rounded up eventually and taken to the Intrenational Criminal Court to be made accountable for what they've done. One day - there must be true justice.
Note: Some mentioned in the following diary originally written in March, 2005 have also received their sentences, so I've updated as needed.
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March, 2005
- Amnesty International
Within one week of the attacks on the World Trade Center and Pentagon, Vice President Cheney stated on "Meet the Press" that the government was going to operate on "the dark side" and would "use any means at our disposal to achieve our objective".
- Donald Rumsfeld, US Secretary of Defense
"We expect other nations to treat our service members and civilians in accordance with the Geneva Conventions."
"It is often American men and women in uniform who fight for the freedom of others from tyrannical regimes that routinely use torture to oppress their citizens. From Nazi Germany to Bosnia, and Afghanistan to Iraq, American service members have fought to remove brutal leaders who torture and massacre."
"Despite international efforts to protect human rights around the world, repressive regimes continue to victimize people through torture. The victims often feel forgotten, but we will not forget them. America supports accountability and treatment centers for torture victims.""Torture is wrong no matter where it occurs, and the United States will continue to lead the fight to eliminate it everywhere."
- President George W. Bush, June, 2004
"At the age of 21, he had spent 10 days in a torture cell. He says it's a hard thing to talk about, even now. When he does, he describes sadistic brutality with matter-of-fact detail. His tormentors did everything to stop him from sleeping so that he didn't know whether it was night or day. 'Then they take you,' he says. 'They put you flat on a table. Then they tie your legs and hands and they put you under a water tap. Then they let the water tap drip. You cannot move your head and they say you have to confess.' This went on for hour after hour before he passed out. 'One drop,' he says. 'But it's like a bomb.' 'The other one was that they bring in an animal,' he says, searching for the English word. 'Yes, a goat. They put a lot of salt on your feet and they bring in the goat to lick your feet.' The process, he says, induces uncontrollable laughing and crying at first and builds into a loss of control of the nervous system -- eventually a loss of consciousness."
-- CanWest Interactive, June 29, 2003
"My family lived in fear of his men, who were always watching us. Family friends were assassinated, tortured, or just disappeared."
-- Sharif Ali, The Daily Telegraph, June 11, 2003
"She spent one year being moved from prison to torture center to prison and back. Her tormenters would hang her from a hook in the ceiling by her arms, which were bound behind her back. Sometimes they added electric shocks. Sometimes they beat her on the soles of her feet until they were engorged with blood and her toenails fell off. She was 25.
-- The New York Times, June 2, 2003
"As part of the prison routine, Issa was tortured daily, sometimes twice a day. Battery acid was spilled on his feet, which are now deformed. With his hands bound behind his back, he was hanged by his wrists from the ceiling until his shoulders dislocated; he still cannot lift his hands above his head. The interrogators' goal: 'They just wanted me to say I was plotting against the Baath Party, so they could take me and execute me. If they got a confession, they would get 100,000 dinars [roughly $40].'"
-- Newsweek, April 28, 2003
Torture under George W. Bush
Harmon is shown smiling over the corpse of prisoner Manadel al-Jamadi after a terrible torture and brutality that should be fully exposed to our people for what it really tells about this administration.
...
According to this article the torture is now called "Palestinian Hanging," (hanging one by the wrists tied behind them). In WWII it was called BAUM, and was used in the concentration camps as a normal punishment, especially of Jews and Russians. The intent was to slowly torture and kill.
My men and I forced our way into Dachau 3-B in Muhldorf, where we cut down 20 to 30 prisoners hanging this way.
6.(S) I find that the intentional abuse of detainees by military police personnel included the following acts:
a.(S) Punching, slapping, and kicking detainees; jumping on their naked feet;
b.(S) Videotaping and photographing naked male and
female detainees;
c.(S) Forcibly arranging detainees in various
sexually explicit positions for photographing;
d.(S) Forcing detainees to remove their clothing and keeping them naked for several days at a time;
e.(S) Forcing naked male detainees to wear women's
underwear;
f.(S) Forcing groups of male detainees to masturbate themselves while being photographed and videotaped;
g.(S) Arranging naked male detainees in a pile and
then jumping on them;
h.(S) Positioning a naked detainee on a MRE Box,
with a sandbag on his head, and attaching wires to his fingers, toes, and penis to simulate electric torture;
i.(S) Writing "I am a Rapest" (sic) on the leg of a detainee alleged to have forcibly raped a 15-year old fellow detainee, and then photographing him naked;
j.(S) Placing a dog chain or strap around a naked
detainee's neck and having a female Soldier pose for a picture;
k.(S) A male MP guard having sex with a female
detainee;
l.(S) Using military working dogs (without muzzles) to intimidate and frighten detainees, and in at least one case biting and severely injuring a detainee;
m.(S) Taking photographs of dead Iraqi detainees.
8. (U) In addition, several detainees also described the following acts of abuse, which under the circumstances, I find credible based on the clarity of their statements and supporting evidence provided by other witnesses (ANNEX 26):
a.(U) Breaking chemical lights and pouring the
phosphoric liquid on detainees;
b.(U) Threatening detainees with a charged 9mm pistol;
c.(U) Pouring cold water on naked detainees;
d.(U) Beating detainees with a broom handle and a
chair;
e.(U) Threatening male detainees with rape;
f.(U) Allowing a military police guard to stitch the wound of a detainee who was injured after being slammed against the wall in his cell;
g.(U) Sodomizing a detainee with a chemical light and perhaps a broom stick.
h.(U) Using military working dogs to frighten and
intimidate detainees with threats of attack, and in one instance actually biting a detainee.
Torture and accountability in the 'war on terror'
The report recalls the US administration's repeated claims that it is committed to what it calls the "non-negotiable demands of human dignity", and that it is leading the global struggle against torture. A government's condemnation of torture and other ill-treatment must mean what it says, however. The US administration's condemnation has been paper thin, as shown by the series of government memorandums that have come into the public domain since the Abu Ghraib scandal broke. These documents suggest that far from ensuring that the "war on terror" would be conducted without resort to human rights violations, the administration was discussing ways in which its agents might avoid the international prohibition on torture and cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment. During this time, the government's voice was notable by its absence in the public debate in the USA since 11 September 2001 about whether torture is ever an acceptable response to "terrorism". Such silence may also betray a less than absolute opposition to torture and ill-treatment.
...
There is a tendency, not least amongst the US military, to euphemize aspects of war and violence. Killed and maimed civilians become "collateral damage"; torture and cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment become "stress and duress" techniques; and "disappeared" prisoners become "ghost detainees". Euphemizing human rights violations threatens to promote tolerance of them. In similar vein, there has been a noticeable reluctance among senior members of the US administration to call what happened in Abu Ghraib torture, preferring the term "abuse". Members of an administration that has discussed how to push the boundaries of acceptable interrogation techniques and of how agents could avoid criminal liability for torture might display a particular reticence to call torture by its name.
When it suited the US government's aims in its build up to the invasion of Iraq, the administration cited Amnesty International's reports on torture in that country.(12) When the alleged abuse involved US agents, its response was denial and disregard for the organization's concerns.
- Amnesty International
The Convictions: Justice?
Sivits, 24, pleaded guilty to dereliction of duty and three other counts related to failure to stop the abuse and to taking a photograph of the abuse that night.
...
...in sentencing Sivits to a year of confinement, Pohl ordered that he be discharged from the Army for bad conduct and that his rank be reduced to private.
Under a deal with prosecutors, Sivits agreed to testify against six other soldiers in exchange for what is known as a special court-martial, which carries a maximum one-year jail sentence.
FORT HOOD, Texas - Sgt. Javal Davis, who admitted abusing detainees at Abu Ghraib in late 2003, was sentenced Friday to six months in a military prison and given a bad-conduct discharge from the Army.
A nine-man military jury deliberated for about 5½ hours to determine the punishment for Davis, a former Abu Ghraib guard who earlier this week confessed to stepping on the hands and feet of a group of handcuffed detainees and falling with his full weight on top of them.
The 27-year-old reservist from Roselle, N.J., faced up to 6½ years in prison for battery, dereliction of duty and lying to Army investigators. A deal with prosecutors, however, reportedly capped his sentence at 18 months.
Davis said he saw detainees being physically mistreated and sexually humiliated by other guards, but that he failed to help them or report the abuse, as required under military law. He also admitted lying to an Army investigator by denying his misdeeds at the Baghdad prison.
...
Defense lawyer Paul Bergrin implored the jury of four Army officers and five senior enlisted men to go lightly on Davis, saying he is a good man and a good soldier who has already been punished enough for a brief lapse in judgment.
Bergrin said Davis will forever have a felony conviction on his record, and that he has performed 10 months of menial duties, including painting curbs and picking up trash, while confined to a U.S. base in Iraq after his arrest.
"How much more do we kick him when he's down on the ground?" he asked.
Krol pleaded guilty to a charge of conspiracy abuse and two counts of abusing detainees. He pleaded not guilty to a charge of slapping a detainee in the face. He admitted to pouring water over naked detainees and forcing them to crawl on the floor, throwing a foam football at the same detainees while they were handcuffed while lying naked on the prison floor.
In addition to the 10-month prison sentence, Krol was reduced in rank to private and will be given a bad conduct discharge. He could have been sentenced to up to one year in prison.
Staff Sgt. Ivan Frederick
Frederick was found guilty of one specification of conspiracy to maltreat detainees, one specification of dereliction of duty for failure to protect detainees from maltreatment, four specifications of maltreatment of detainees, one specification of assaulting a detainee and one specification of committing an indecent act.
(Sentenced to 8 years).
A military panel, consisting of four officers and six enlisted Soldiers, convicted Spc. Charles A. Graner Jr., 372nd Military Police Company, of five charges: conspiracy, dereliction of duty, maltreatment of detainees, assault and committing indecent acts.
(Sentenced to 10 years).
SAN DIEGO (AP) - A Navy SEAL lieutenant has received a punitive letter of reprimand for allowing men under his command to abuse an Iraqi detainee who later died during CIA interrogation at Abu Ghraib prison.
Army Specialist Megan Ambuhl has become the third military police reservist and fourth U.S. soldier convicted over Abu Ghraib prisoner abuse. For standing by while abuse occurred and failing to intervene or report it, Ambuhl was convicted on Oct. 30, 2004, of dereliction of duty and sentenced to reduction in rank to private and loss of a half-month's pay.
(Additional charges were dropped in exchange for her guilty plea.)
A U.S. soldier broke down in tears yesterday as he admitted abusing inmates at Abu Ghraib prison, receiving a lighter sentence in return for his testimony against others charged in the scandal.
Spc. Armin Cruz, 24, was the first Military Intelligence soldier convicted in the scandal. His trial came as the investigation into the abuses appeared to move beyond the military police who so far have been at the case's center.
Prosecutors accused Cruz of forcing naked prisoners to crawl along the floor and later handcuffing the men together.
(Sentenced to 8 months).
Prosecutors at Fort Hood, where England's case has been sent for trial, submitted nine counts to the military court last week that together carry up to 16 1/2 years in prison, her legal team said today.
(sentenced to three years)
According to a charge sheet obtained by the Post, Harman is accused by the Army of taking photographs of that pyramid and taking pictures and videotape of Iraqis who were told to strip and masturbate in front of other prisoners and guards.
She is also charged with taking photographs of a corpse and posing for a picture with it; jumping on prisoners as they lay in a pile; and attaching wires to a detainee's hands as he stood on a box with his head hooded and telling him he'd be electrocuted if he fell off the box.
...
Attorneys for Harman argued that charges related to the photographs of hooded detainees should be dismissed, because victims must be aware of abuse in order to be abused.
(sentenced to 6 months)
5) The Army continues to investigate and hold people accountable when appropriate:
§ 341 Investigations
§ 226 of these investigations are closed or completed
§ 159 of these closes/completed investigations required no disposition since the allegations were not substantiated
§ 120 actions have been taken against 109 Soldiers with the following disposition:
- 32 Courts-Martial actions
- 56 Non-Judicial punishments
- 32 Administrative actions (relieved of duty, separated from service, reprimanded)
Saddam Hussein is jailed and awaiting his trial for war crimes.
(currently on trial)
George W Bush was recently re-elected President of the United States.
[editor's note, by catnip] Note: It's not my practice to write diaries that contain lists of others' quotes with very little or no comment from me about the content. But, in this case, I believe the evidence I've presented speaks for itself. Having read scores of pages in order to research this diary, I am left speechless and just plain horrified once again.
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Help the Iraqis find justice. End the war.
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