"Top military officials have claimed
the abuse seen in the photos was limited to a few MPs, but Provance says the sexual humiliation of prisoners began as a
technique ordered by the interrogators from military intelligence."
|
|
Military Legal Blitz
ONE GRUNT DOWN!
Posted May 20, 2004 thepeoplesvoice.org
By: Ted Lang
Astonishing! Amazing! Can you believe this, and in secret, bureaucratic,
police state America! In exactly three weeks of breaking the Iraqi POW
torture scandal, we not only have a conviction, but sentencing as well. Now
that's got to be the absolute height of United States government efficiency!
In an Associated Press article entitled, "U.S. Soldier Is Sentenced to a
Year in Prison for Iraq Abuse," published in The New York Times on May 19th,
exactly three weeks to the day that CBS aired the Abu Ghriab prisoner abuse
photos on 60 Minutes, one of the hapless victims of the war crimes planned
and perpetrated by Lt. Gen. Ricardo Sanchez and Maj. Gen. Geoffrey Miller,
was sentenced to a year in prison. "Spc. Jeremy C. Sivits received the
maximum penalty Wednesday - one year in prison, reduction in rank, and a bad
conduct discharge - in the first court-martial stemming from the
mistreatment of Iraqi prisoners at the Abu Ghriab prison," states the
article by Scheherezade Faramarzi and Katarina Kratovac and others.
Of course, the story wasn't broken by CBS - just the pictures were. But
that got the attention of "reality TV" and "American Idol" members of the
American public. Graphic pictures of what's going on and wham! American
government moves responding to the will of the people!
While Sivits was being court-martialed and disgraced, the two conspirators
that carried out Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld's SAP plan, as augmented
by Defense Under Secretary for Intelligence Stephen Cambone, Sanchez and
Miller, were being featured in another AP article carried in The New York
Times that same day, entitled "General Pledges Investigation of Abuse in
Iraq." Apparently the top-level lead criminals did feel secure and
protected so testifying was no big deal.
"'We may find that the evidence produced in these investigations not only
leads to more court-martials, but causes us to revisit actions previously
taken. in cases which may have been handled to date by adverse
administrative action,'" the article quotes Lt. Gen. Ricardo Sanchez as
saying. The AP through these reports indicated that, "the two top military
commanders of U.S. forces in Iraq - Gen. John Abizaid and [Sanchez] --
appeared before a U.S. Senate committee to testify. Sanchez said the
mistreatment will be investigated thoroughly up the chain of command, 'and
that includes me.'" Miller was there as well.
Sounds like Sanchez said the right words, but that's all they are, words!
This "black project" thing of theirs goes right to the White House, as
evidenced by the president's counsel's memorandum to Bush warning of the
project's violation of the Geneva Convention. The Seymour Hersh piece in
The New Yorker points to the fact that there is a lot more evidence out
there, and getting to the top of this matter is relatively easy. Something
tells US that won't happen. They've got their scapegoats!
According to an article entitled "Definitely a Cover-Up" on ABC's website on
May 18th, Brian Ross and Alexandra Salomon quote Sgt. Samuel Provance:
"There's definitely a cover-up. People are either telling themselves or
being told to be quiet." The article goes on, "Provance, 30, was part of
the 302nd Military Intelligence Battalion stationed at Abu Ghriab last
September. He spoke to ABCNEWS despite orders not to. 'What I was
surprised at was the silence by so many people that had to be involved, that
had to have seen something or heard something.'" Also, "Top military
officials have claimed the abuse seen in the photos was limited to a few
MPs, but Provance says the sexual humiliation of prisoners began as a
technique ordered by the interrogators from military intelligence."
The information offered by the sergeant squares with the Hersh-New Yorker
article. In yet another article in The New York Times by Douglas Jehl and
Eric Schmitt on May 19th entitled "Officer Says Army Tried to Curb Red Cross
Visits to Prison in Iraq," the article details once again Sanchez's total
control of the Abu Ghriab war crimes situation. As specified in the Geneva
Convention, the International Committee of the Red Cross is the officially
designated neutral, multi-national investigative body designated by the 191
nations that signed the GC in 1949. The ICRC found and reported abuses
first at Guantanamo, where actual prisoners of war were detained and
captured, for the most part, in Afghanistan. Yet these prisoners of war
were identified as "terrorists," so the intelligence spooks, better
identified as American Gestapo, felt that they could do with the prisoners
as they damned well pleased.
The guy in charge at "Gitmo" that permitted as well as directed outrages
against prisoners was Miller, who was then transferred to Sanchez's command
in Iraq. The prisoners at Abu Ghriab were not combatants at all, but
kidnapped civilians. These illegal kidnappings, conducted in exactly the
same fashion as civilian "sweeps" by the Nazis during World War II, brought
innocent civilians into prison captivity for terrorist torture and
humiliation. But the American Military Gestapo has offered that these are
not captured enemy soldiers, but civilians! And that makes it more
acceptable?! In my humble opinion, it in fact makes it much worse!
The Jehl and Schmitt article states, "In an interview on Tuesday, the White
House general counsel, Alberto R. Gonzales, said he had not been aware that
the issue of whether the Red Cross should be allowed to conduct such
inspections was a point of dispute. He added, however, that he might have
had 'concerns' about allowing such inspections." Huh?! He went on to say
that the ICRC should have provided advance notice concerning surprise
inspections. But then how would they be a surprise? And this guy is a
lawyer???
This is the same guy who pointed out in a memo to Unser Fuehrer that the SAP
program violated the Geneva Convention. Now how would he know that, and not
know that the ICRC was the impartial inspection agency selected to conduct
these inspections? And of what value are scheduled inspections when you are
trying to uncover the evildoing being perpetrated against helpless, captive,
defenseless victims of war crimes?
-###-
©
Copyright THEODORE E. LANG 5/18/04 All rights reserved. Ted Lang is a political
analyst and a freelance writer.