Whitewashing torture?

[Yo_Mama_Been_Loggin]

A veteran sergeant who told his commanding officers that he witnessed his colleagues torturing Iraqi detainees was strapped to a gurney and flown out of Iraq -- even though there was nothing wrong with him.

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By David DeBatto



Dec. 8, 2004 | On June 15, 2002, Sgt. Frank "Greg" Ford, a counterintelligence agent in the California National Guard's 223rd Military Intelligence (M.I.) Battalion stationed in Samarra, Iraq, told his commanding officer, Capt. Victor Artiga, that he had witnessed five incidents of torture and abuse of Iraqi detainees at his base, and requested a formal investigation. Thirty-six hours later, Ford, a 49-year-old with over 30 years of military service in the Coast Guard, Army and Navy, was ordered by U.S. Army medical personnel to lie down on a gurney, was then strapped down, loaded onto a military plane and medevac'd to a military medical center outside the country.

Although no "medevac" order appears to have been written, in violation of Army policy, Ford was clearly shipped out because of a diagnosis that he was suffering from combat stress. After Ford raised the torture allegations, Artiga immediately said Ford was "delusional" and ordered a psychiatric examination, according to Ford. But that examination, carried out by an Army psychiatrist, diagnosed him as "completely normal."

A witness, Sgt. 1st Class Michael Marciello, claims that Artiga became enraged when he read the initial medical report finding nothing wrong with Ford and intimidated the psychiatrist into changing it. According to Marciello, Artiga angrily told the psychiatrist that it was a "C.I. or M.I. matter" and insisted that she had to change her report and get Ford out of Iraq.

http://www.salon.com/news/feature/2004/12/08/coverup/index.html

[UpInArms]

1. wonder who and where those others are?

Col. C. Tsai, a military doctor who examined Ford in Germany and found nothing wrong with him, told a film crew for Spiegel Television that he was "not surprised" at Ford's diagnosis. Tsai told Spiegel that he had treated "three or four" other U.S. soldiers from Iraq that were also sent to Landstuhl for psychological evaluations or "combat stress counseling" after they reported incidents of detainee abuse or other wrongdoing by American soldiers.

Nice way to make there just not be a problem - turn it into someone else's sanity :(

A case of:

Don't believe your lying eyes.

[shanti]

3. sickening, simply sickening

n/t

[Somawas]

2. Most disturbing thing I've read in a long time.

In the 70's and 80's it finally became smart politics for the KGB to decide that dissidents were insane and ship them off to mental hospitals instead of Lubiyanka or the work camps. Kept a few political prisoners under the radar a lot longer.

[neweurope]

4. Yes. Don't forget obligatory mental health screening for all of you.

[malachi]

5. Have we hit bottom, yet? Purely evil shit. The payback on this bad karma

is going to be mindboggling.

[HereSince1628]

6. Advanced search isn't working but I think this is an older story

I realize its part of a Salon story with a current date,

[RobinA]

7. I Don't Know Why

they bother whitewasjing it. 51% of the population has just indicated that they don't care whether we torture or not. Oh right...Old Europe still doesn't like it.

[Just Me]

8. Maybe these witnesses should reside near the Hague,...

,...in protective custody.

This story really is horrifying!

[MsMagnificent]

9. These are the poor, downtrodden people we were to liberate?

It appears they're simply out of control there.
This is getting to the 'babykiller' stage... How can any person with morals (True morals-- not Republican) survive with psychopathic 'brethren'
It surely is looking more and more like Vietnam with each passing day -- complete with Napalm dropped on civilians.

There have been a scandal nearly every day now for weeks -- SO WHERE THE F*** IS ALL THE U.S. PRESS COVERAGE?!

[Mokito]

10. I know where they are! But you ain't gonna like it!

It implies a certain anus...

[daleo]

11. Sounds like the old Soviet Union

People that disagree with the authorities are labeled as crazy, and put in mental wards and asylums. If they wanted out, they "got sane" again.

[talk hard]

12. The whitewash is getting help from the dittoheads and Faux News

One particular bone of contention that lingers in my craw is this very subject. It has been determined by those left of center that the "torture" was, in fact, nothing more than hazing and putting panties on detainees' heads.

I am profoundly saddened by half our population that is content to be spoon fed propaganda.

The data regarding our treatment of the opposition are crystal clear. It is probably the most disgraceful actions by our country, and god knows there's lots to choose from in that assessment.

I am ashamed to be an American.

[saigon68]

13. THE KGB used to do this.

[struggle4progress]

14. kick

:kick:

[0007]

15. Evil is beating the holy fuck out of the truth these days, 'eh?

[Overseas]

16. Glad this news is getting covered. kick. n/t

[grumpy old fart]

17. If we only had a media that would follow up on such incidents.....

Ford, and all of us, would be better protected.....Keith?