{"id":580,"date":"2004-05-03T10:58:31","date_gmt":"2004-05-03T14:58:31","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blogs.law.harvard.edu\/yulelog\/2004\/05\/03\/war-crimes\/"},"modified":"2007-02-05T20:51:15","modified_gmt":"2007-02-06T00:51:15","slug":"war-crimes","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/yulelog\/2004\/05\/03\/war-crimes\/","title":{"rendered":"War crimes"},"content":{"rendered":"

<\/a> The Christian Science Monitor<\/em> has a stunning comprehensive report on the abuse of Iraqi prisoners of war by American soldiers: US general: Abu Ghraib abuse coverup<\/a>, by Tom Regan (posted May 3, 2004). The article includes many hyperlinks to other news sources and background information. It quotes both sides, those who are outraged as well as those who say this is a nearly meaningless flap. But the latter easily discredit themselves, as the quoted Jed Babbin of the National Review<\/em> does, when they equate “the empty heads” of John Kerry and Noam Chomsky in what can only be considered a cheap attempt at demagogic obfuscation. Perhaps putting Kerry and Chomsky in the same group was an attempt at levity — I can just see the Rightwingers laughing their asses off at this one — but it’s hardly funny given the evidence:<\/p>\n

The New Yorker reports that a military investigation carried out by Maj. Gen. Antonio Taguba, uncovered evidence of “war crimes”<\/a> against the inmates, including: breaking chemical lights and pouring the phosphoric liquid on detainees; pouring cold water on naked detainees; beating detainees with a broom handle and a chair; threatening male detainees with rape; sodomizing a detainee with a chemical light and perhaps a broom stick.<\/em> [More…<\/a>]<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

So, aside from punching the wall, what can you do? Write letters to your political representatives — regardless of whether you’re in the US or in Canada or elsewhere — and let them know that you support the actions of whistleblowers and those who expose abuse, and that you’ll support politicians who share your views.<\/p>\n

The allegation by Brig. Gen. Janis Karpinski, the former head of US military prisons in Iraq, is the first hint that the “patterns of abuse” (as she described it) could go farther than originally expected. Brigadier General Karpinski was relieved of her command earlier this year during the investigation into abuse at the prison.
\nThe Washington Post reports that Brig. Gen. Karpinski blamed most of the abuse on a group of regular military intelligence officers<\/a>. Karpinski said in an interview that the US military was trying to shift the blame “exclusively to her and the reservists.”
\n<\/em><\/p>\n

“We’re disposable,” she said of the military’s attitude toward reservists. “Why would they want the active-duty people to take the blame? They want to put this on the MPs and hope that this thing goes away. Well, it’s not going to go away.”<\/em><\/p><\/blockquote>\n

[More…<\/a>]<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

If you can stand it, take a look at these photos on Memory Hole<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The Christian Science Monitor has a stunning comprehensive report on the abuse of Iraqi prisoners of war by American soldiers: US general: Abu Ghraib abuse coverup, by Tom Regan (posted May 3, 2004). The article includes many hyperlinks to other news sources and background information. It quotes both sides, those who are outraged as well […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":311,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[600],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-580","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-yulelogstories"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/yulelog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/580","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/yulelog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/yulelog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/yulelog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/311"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/yulelog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=580"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/yulelog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/580\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/yulelog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=580"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/yulelog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=580"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/yulelog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=580"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}