Army Destroyed Mock Afghan Execution Pics (Army Doc's released)

[truthpusher]

edited to add link

Link to Defense Department Documents (released by the government 1/31/2005, released by the ACLU 2/16/05): http://www.aclu.org/torturefoia/released/021605.html

http://www.newsday.com/news/politics/wire/sns-ap-afghan-abuse,0,1662929.story?coll=sns-ap-politics-headlines

Army Destroyed Mock Afghan Execution Pics

By LARRY NEUMEISTER
Associated Press Writer

February 18, 2005, 12:09 AM EST

NEW YORK -- Pictures of U.S. soldiers in Afghanistan posing with hooded and bound detainees during mock executions were destroyed after the Abu Ghraib prison scandal in Iraq to avoid another public outrage, Army documents released Friday by the American Civil Liberties Union show.

(snip)

"It's increasingly clear that members of the military were aware of the allegations of torture and that efforts were taken to erase evidence, to shut down investigations and to humiliate the detainees in an effort to silence them," ACLU Executive Director Anthony Romero said.

(snip)

An Army specialist told investigators that similar photographs were destroyed after images of torture at Abu Ghraib were leaked to the media.

complete story:
http://www.newsday.com/news/politics/wire/sns-ap-afghan-abuse,0,1662929.story?coll=sns-ap-politics-headlines

Link to Defense Department Documents (released by the government 1/31/2005, released by the ACLU 2/16/05): http://www.aclu.org/torturefoia/released/021605.html

[saigon68]

1. Thugs and Hoodlums

What else is new ? ---nothing

Typical behavior of the Bush Criminals and their military fascist allies.

[fooj]

2. OMG!! This stuff is coming at us from every angle!

Isn't it AGAINST THE LAW to destroy evidence?

[bunkerbuster1]

16. eh. "the law" is so 9/10.

we've turned a corner. We don't need no steenkin' law.

[UL_Approved]

3. The crime continues

How much farther will the GOP go to cover its ass? Who knows.

The whole torture scandal gets at the heart of the matter. What other crimes don't we know about if this stuff is true? And who does know about them?

[Bozita]

4. Pogo was right! --- We have met the enemy, and he is ...

... us.

from the Guardian article:

A medical examination by a US military doctor confirmed the detainee's account, yet the investigation was closed last October. "It is further proof that the army is not seriously investigating credible allegations of abuse," said Jameel Jaffar, a lawyer for the ACLU.

The latest allegations from Afghanistan fit a pattern of claims of brutal treatment made by former Guantánamo Bay prisoners and Afghans held by the US, and reported by the Guardian last year. In December the US said eight prisoners had died in its custody in Afghanistan.

In a separate case, which the Guardian reveals today, two former prisoners of the US in Afghanistan have come forward with claims against their American captors.

In sworn affidavits to a British-American human rights lawyer, a Palestinian says he was sodomised by American soldiers in Afghanistan. Another former prisoner of US forces, a Jordanian, describes a form of torture which involved being hung in a cage from a rope for days.

[truthpusher]

5. Link to Defense Department Documents

Link to Defense Department Documents (released by the government 1/31/2005, released by the ACLU 2/16/05): http://www.aclu.org/torturefoia/released/021605.html

[DRoseDARs]

6. Destruction of evidence, charming. I found this statement amusing...

"The specialist told investigators he considered those kinds of pictures bad because they would enrage the public."

So they were bad not because THEY WERE OF 'BAD' ACTS but because the public might react badly to them? :eyes:

[struggle4progress]

19. Destroyed to limit criminal prosecution. eom

[NYC]

22. The actions are the outrage, not the photographs.

"The specialist told investigators he considered those kinds of pictures bad because they would enrage the public."

The actions would outrage the public.

[chicagojoe]

7. Don't let the Bush Scum put this crap on OUR troops

They're making our troops do this shit, and then they let them take the heat. Maybe soon some of our troops will be in position to stop Bush.

[tlcandie]

8. They aren't even mentioning the video footage/story of the

thousands of disappeared Afghans who died in the trucks riddled with bullet holes. Those who didn't die by the bullet holes, made so they could breath, died from heat or suffocation and then were buried en mass in the desert by the truckloads!

:cry:

Convoy of Death
http://www.antiwar.com/deliso/?articleid=3209

[LynnTheDem]

9. It's not the torture; it's the PHOTOS!

If we don't see them, then it never happened.

So what if America officially sanctions torture! Lots of other nations torture, too. Besides, we only torture evil-doer terrorists and their families. If we torture them, they're terrorists. And we're not as bad as the Nazis.

Do as we SAY, not as we do! Or we'll torture YOU, too!

[Selatius]

10. This sounds like something the Israeli Defense Forces have been accused of

doing in the past with respect to Palestinians. It's disgraceful.

[truthpusher]

11. kick

[struggle4progress]

18. kick

:kick:

[pinto]

12. Army Destroyed Mock Execution Pictures

By LARRY NEUMEISTER, Associated Press Writer

NEW YORK - Pictures of U.S. soldiers in Afghanistan (news - web sites) posing with hooded and bound detainees during mock executions were destroyed after the Abu Ghraib prison scandal in Iraq (news - web sites) to avoid another public outrage, Army documents released Friday by the American Civil Liberties Union (news - web sites) show.

The results of an Army probe of the photographs were among hundreds of pages of documents released after the ACLU obtained a federal court order in Manhattan to let it see documents about U.S. treatment of detainees around the world.

The ACLU said the probe shows the rippling effect of the Abu Ghraib scandal and that efforts to humiliate the enemy might have been more widespread than thought.

"It's increasingly clear that members of the military were aware of the allegations of torture and that efforts were taken to erase evidence, to shut down investigations and to humiliate the detainees in an effort to silence them," ACLU Executive Director Anthony Romero said.

<more>

http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&ncid=703&e=1&u=/ap/20050218/ap_on_go_ca_st_pe/afghan_abuse

[Sporadicus]

13. Rate This Story Up!

You can't tell me this story isn't being deliberately suppressed...rating of 2.87? :wtf:

Any 'ordinary' person going to the trouble of clicking on the story to read it has at least a modicum of interest in the story, and isn't likely to rate the story as un-newsworthy. Freepers are attempting to bury it!

[truthpusher]

14. This is a duplicate, I posted the story last night....

...I also postedlinks to the Doc's that were just released:

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=102x1246827

[LeftHander]

15. Good thing the abuse

was an isolated incident by a few bad apple frat boys having fun....

It wasn't pervasive and widespread....

no....not at all...

(sheesh)

[TexasLawyer]

17. Proud to be a card-carrying ACLU member!

the torture needs to be exposed and stopped.

[daleo]

20. Destroying evidence of a crime is a crime itself.

In some ways it is a worse crime than the original crime, as it compounds that crime with another, and helps the original crime go unpunished. It also subverts the entire structure of justice. This needs to be prosecuted vigorously.

[jazzjunkysue]

21. I'm deafened by the screams of democratic senatorial outrage....

Oh. Sorry. My bad. That must have been democratic senatorial polite applause.

Sorry bout that.