Saddam tortured, says lawyer

[seemslikeadream]

Amman - Former Iraqi president Saddam Hussein has been subjected to "physical and moral torture" by the occupying forces, his lawyer alleged on Tuesday.

"We have received a confidential report by the International Committee of the Red Crescent (ICRC) that the former Iraqi president was subjected to physical and moral torture on January 21, 2004 and that he suffered wounds as a result," Mohammad Rashdan told Deutsche Presse-Agentur.

He revealed that the ICRC's move to press for Saddam's release or trial after the handover of sovereignty to Iraqis on June 30 came after an "acrimonious meeting the defence panel held with head of the ICRC office in Amman on June 9".


He said that about 1 500 Arab lawyers, including 700 hundred from Jordan, had so far volunteered to defend the former Iraqi leader. - Sapa-dpa

more
http://www.iol.co.za/index.php?sf=2813&art_id=qw1087302781554B262&click_id=2813&set_id=1

[Fenris]

1. I don't approve of any torture...

But you've got to admit, if he's looking for pity, that's got to be the world's smallest violin.

:nopity:

[lovedems]

2. Man, the RW crack pots are going to have a great time with this.

I don't care how much he tortured his own citizens, it doesn't make it right for us to torture him. We are suppose to be the good guys. Well, we were from 1992-2000 anyway.

[markses]

3. You're referring to the time period

during which 400,000 Iraqi children died as a result of an immoral sanctions regime. Yeah, that was the height of moral conduct...:eyes:

[Barrett808]

9. I thought the number was closer to 1 million killed by sanctions n/t

[markses]

11. I think that's right

with about 400,000 children under age 5.

[treepig]

17. lots of details here

atually, in this link:

http://www.harpers.org/CoolWar.html?pg=1

[seemslikeadream]

28. Press Action Hero of the Week: KATHY KELLY

Press Action Hero of the Week: KATHY KELLY


Even if you possess only the slightest hope of someday witnessing the breakdown of the U.S. war machine or a reduction in U.S. military atrocities overseas, you’d be hard-pressed not to admire the work of Kathy Kelly?

During the last couple of decades, Kelly, co-founder of Voices in the Wilderness, has performed many admirable deeds, including meeting head-on the U.S. government’s possession of weapons of mass destruction and challenging its acts of militarism in Central America, Iraq and elsewhere around the world. Kelly is active in the Catholic Worker movement and has sought to counteract U.S. government horrors by trying to help its victims. Meanwhile, as a pacifist and war tax refuser, Kelly has bravely refused payment of all federal income tax for 23 years.

In the course of her work, especially since the founding of Voices in the Wilderness in 1996, Kelly has found herself in various skirmishes with state authorities. As she has discovered, the state does not look kindly on acts of disobedience against its authority, especially effective acts of resistance by people who do not fear the state’s retaliatory potential.

Kelly and other Voices in the Wilderness members were notified of a proposed $163,000 penalty against the organization and were threatened with 12 years in prison for bringing medicine and toys to Iraq in open violation of the United Nations-imposed sanctions on the country from 1991 through 2003. The U.S. government eventually fined the group $50,000, a sum which it has refused to pay.

This week, Kelly once again discovered that when you wage a non-violent campaign against the legitimacy of certain terror-related components of the U.S. government, the state will not hesitate to strike back. Kelly, a three-time Nobel Peace Prize nominee, was sentenced to three months in federal prison on Jan. 26, 2004 for trespassing on the property of the Ft. Benning military base in Columbus, Ga., in November 2003 as a form of protest against the School of the Americas/Western Hemisphere Institute for Security Cooperation.

more
http://www.pressaction.com/news/weblog/full_article/hero01302004 /

Kathy Kelly Biography

Voices in the Wilderness

Kathy, 50, of Chicago, IL, helped initiate Voices in the Wilderness, a campaign to end the UN/US sanctions against Iraq. For bringing “medicine and toys” to Iraq in open violation of the UN/US sanctions, she and other campaign members were notified of a proposed $163,000 penalty for the organization, threatened with 12 years in prison, and eventually fined $50,000, a sum which they’ve refused to pay. Voices in the Wilderness organized 70 delegations to visit Iraq in the period between 1996 and the beginning of the “Operation Shock and Awe” warfare (March 2003). Kelly has been to Iraq twenty times since January 1996, when the campaign began. In October 2002, she joined Iraq Peace Team members in Baghdad where she and the team maintained a presence throughout the invasion, bombardment and occupation. Kelly left Iraq on April 19, 2003.

During the first two weeks of the Gulf War, she was part of a peace encampment on the Iraq-Saudi border called the Gulf Peace Team. Following evacuation to Amman, Jordan, (February 4, 1991), team members stayed in the region for the next six months to help coordinate medical relief convoys and study teams.

In 1988 she was sentenced to one year in prison for planting corn on nuclear missile silo sites. Kelly served nine months of the sentence in Lexington KY maximum security prison.

Kelly has taught in Chicago area community colleges and high schools since 1974. From 1980 - 1986 she taught at St. Ignatius College Prep (Chicago, IL ) She is active with the Catholic Worker movement and, as a pacifist and war tax refuser, has refused payment of all Federal income tax for 23 years.

Kelly helped organize and participated in nonviolent direct action teams in Haiti (summer of 1994), Bosnia (August, 1993, December, 1992) and Iraq (Gulf Peace Team, 1991). In April of 2002, she was among the first internationals to visit the Jenin camp in the Occupied West Bank. She presently helps coordinate the Voices in the Wilderness campaign.


Phil Berriganlast actions was at the Warfield Air National Guard base


Pepperwolf, W A M M and AlliantAction

We pledge to carry on the mission of disarmament that Phil Berrigan left us. One of Phil’s last actions was at the Warfield Air National Guard base in Maryland. In the Plowshares vs. Depleted Uranium action they hammered and poured blood on two A-10 warplanes—the type of aircraft used to drop about 95 percent of the 300 tons of radioactive depleted uranium (DU) left in Iraq after the first Gulf War.

Alliant Techsystems (ATK) is the Department of Defense’s largest supplier of DU munitions. ATK produced over fifteen million shells for the A-10 Warthog. Weekly vigils at Alliant Techsystems in Edina, Minnesota oppose this company’s profit from war.

On April 2, 2003, the Phil Berrigan DU Coalition sponsored a rally and civil disobedience outside ATK’s headquarters. Twenty-eight people were arrested while attempting to deliver a letter to CEO Paul David Miller. The letter questioned the company’s profit from death and destruction. On October 14, at the Hennepin County Courthouse, jury selection begins for the trial of the 28 DU activists.

The issue of depleted uranium affects many people, so activists with many different concerns can rally around it, including environmentalists, human rights workers, veterans, soldiers and their families, and even workers involved in production and clean-up. To learn more about DU and to get involved, please see links below and join us at the trial. Phil’s work goes on...

http://www.worldwidewamm.org/newsletters/2003/1003/du.html



Spentastic don't look your opinion may change! KKKEEP YOUR HEAD

Wednesday, Dec 25, 2002 - Start Audio
-00:00 Dennis Bernstein: introduction: dangers of depleted uranium, interview with foremost expert, Major Doug Rocke.. about the rogues gallery of Iran-Contra scoundrels seeping back into the White House again..
-00:52 Dennis: use of depleted uranium (DU), now w Major Doug Rocke, who led the DU cleanup after the Gulf War.. Doug: I'm a combat veteran of both Vietnam and the Gulf War, and a physician.. at the end of the ground war in Iraq, I was put in charge of DU cleanup.. we disposed of the chemical and biological weapon material that Iraq possessed, blew up the storage facilities, which released the chemicals back on all our troops.. (details many toxic and hazardous materials).. toxins from oil fires, immunizations that caused damage to the immune system.. plus all the *normal* toxins of war.. finally depleted uranium. 350 tons of DU fired in the war.. I became ill within 72 hours of beginning to clean up the DU.. toxic heavy metal, radiologic poisoning.. started getting respiratory problems, kidney problems.. Dennis: was the US aware that blowing up the Iraqi weapons depots would blow toxins back on our own troops?.. Doug: absolutely, we had discussions, and the US command felt it would be better than letting the Iraqis move them out to where they wanted to detonate them.. when we blew the munitions, all the alarms went off.. but the alarms were ignored.. the first acknowledged use of DU was by the Israelis in the Sanai in 1973.. in the Gulf War we fired over a million rounds.. each round is 3/4 pound of solid uranium.. warthog aircraft.. a tank round is 10 pounds of solid uranium.. we left 350 tons of DU waste scattered all over the Middle East.. when a DU shell hits a target.. explodes, burns, poisons, kills.. an awesome weapon.. vaporizes too.. uranium dust and gas.. the radius for (70 yards) around a contaminated target.. US military says six inches of dirt must be scraped out for 150 feet around each vehicle.. and all the metal shrapnel must be collected.. CHILDREN ARE PICKING MILLIONS OF THESE ROUNDS UP AND PLAYING WITH THEM.. we know our soldiers were picking them up.. about the lack of medical care for US veterans.. Gulf War Syndrome.. but only a handfull of the ill vets have received care.. and none of the Iraqi civilians have ever received help.. Congressman McDermott verified contamination remains.. millions of people affected.. 159,000 US soldiers have received disability benefits.. 15,000 soldiers dead..

http://www.flashpoints.net/index-2002-12-25.html

[lovedems]

16. OK, you are correct but I chose 1992-2000 as a time when we were at

peace, well respected around most of the world, weren't invading countries illegally, didn't reinvent concentration camps, didn't tell the rest of the world to fuck off. Just to cite a few examples. You can't say that about Reagan and Bush 1 administrations. 1992-2000 seem like a dream compared to what we are doing now and what we were doing before under Reagan and Bush.

Maybe I should have said between 1992-2000 we were attempting to get back to the good guy role.

[seemslikeadream]

18. Are you talking about me?

;)

[lovedems]

25. No, but I liked the article you posted.

:)

[seemslikeadream]

30. Thanks so much

Everything seems like a dream to me.

[lovedems]

31. You and me both!

Well, mine is more like a nightmare. I keep telling my husband to pinch me, I want to wake up! I don't like this nightmare! Hopefully I will awaken on November 3rd and I can start to recover.

[treepig]

19. nothing to see here, let's all move along now . . . .

Let the Bloody Truth Be Told:
A Chronology of U.S. Imperialism

or, winning hearts and minds everywhere, ca. 1992-2000

SOMALIA 1992-94 Troops, naval, bombing U.S.-led United Nations occupation during civil war; raids against one Mogadishu faction.
YUGOSLAVIA 1992-94 Naval NATO blockade of Serbia and Montenegro.
BOSNIA 1993-? Jets, bombing No-fly zone patrolled in civil war; downed jets, bombed Serbs.
HAITI 1994-? Troops, naval Blockade against military government; troops restore President Aristide to office three years after coup.
ZAIRE (CONGO) 1996-97 Troops Marines at Rwandan Hutu refugee camps, in area where Congo revolution begins.
LIBERIA 1997 Troops Soldiers under fire during evacuation of foreigners.
ALBANIA 1997 Troops Soldiers under fire during evacuation of foreigners.
SUDAN 1998 Missiles Attack on pharmaceutical plant alleged to be "terrorist" nerve gas plant.
AFGHANISTAN 1998 Missiles Attack on former CIA training camps used by Islamic fundamentalist groups alleged to have attacked embassies.
IRAQ 1998-? Bombing, Missiles Four days of intensive air strikes after weapons inspectors allege Iraqi obstructions.
YUGOSLAVIA 1999 Bombing, Missiles Heavy NATO air strikes after Serbia declines to withdraw from Kosovo. NATO occupation of Kosovo.

http://www.neravt.com/left/invade.htm

[lovedems]

23. Thanks for pointing out my error without being so insulting.

I made a generalization that I obviously shouldn't have.

[LibertyorDeath]

34. Madeline Albright t had an answer re 400k Iraqi children dead

To fucking bad it's an evil World was the gist of her answer

[markses]

36. I remember her brutal and despicable response well

I can never see her as anything but a killer for it.

[sweetness]

5. Good Guys 1992-2000

am I missing something??

[markses]

13. You're missing the same

dementia that plagues our childiush faux "President" Bush: Everyone on my team is good; everyone on the other team is bad. Given this absurd premise, it follows that because Clinton was overseeing the thorough destruction of the Iraqi people from 1992-2000, that destruction was therefore good. See how it works. Perhaps if you regressed to the mind of a small child you would understand the twisted logic more easily?

[lovedems]

22. I can understand where you are coming from but why do you have to compare

what I said to being childish or compare it to those who blindly support the chimp?

You can disagree or prove me wrong with out being so damn insulting about it.

BTW, I didn't state anywhere in my post, nor did I imply anywhere in post that overseeing the sanctions of millions of Iraqi's as "good". I made the mistake of generalizing and several people have called me on it. That I don't mind. I do however take issue with being insulting about it.

[seemslikeadream]

7. Ronnie & Saddam

In 1982, as the Iran-Iraq war began to hot up, the USA quietly took Iraq off the State Department’s list of states that supported terrorism. This allowed money to start flowing from America into Saddam’s coffers.

Rumsfeld was accompanied on his Baghdad trip by Howard Teicher, the then US National Security Advisor. In 1995, Teicher lodged a sworn declaration in the US district court in the Southern district of Florida, saying: “While a staff member to the National Security Council, I was responsible for the Middle East and for political-military affairs. During my five years’ tenure on the National Security Council, I had regular contact with both CIA director William Casey and deputy director Robert Gates … Casey personally spearheaded the effort to ensure that Iraq had sufficient military weapons, ammunition and vehicles to avoid losing the Iran-Iraq war ... In 1986, President Reagan sent a secret message to Saddam Hussein telling him that Iraq should step up its air war and bombing of Iran. Similar strategic advice was passed to Saddam Hussein through meetings with European and Middle Eastern heads of state.”

Joyce Battle said that after this gentle scolding, the State Department was asked if Iraq’s CW programme would have “any effect on US recent initiatives to expand commercial relationships with Iraq across a broad range”. A State Department official said: “No. I’m not aware of any change in our position. We’re interested in being involved in a closer relationship with Iraq.”

By September 1984, the USA’s Defence Intelligence Agency found Iraq was continuing to develop its “formidable” CW arsenal and would “probably pursue nuclear weapons”.

Iran lodged a draft resolution with the UN asking the world to condemn Saddam for his use of poison gas, banned internationally by the Geneva Protocols. US diplomats began asking friendly nations to go for a “no decision” ruling. The US also said it was ready to abstain.

more
http://www.sundayherald.com/42648

[chelsea0011]

4. What the hell is "moral torture"?

[mr_hat]

10. Maybe it's similar to what happened in "A Christmas Carol"?

[daleo]

14. A few possibilities come to mind

- Maybe some Lyndie England like strip tease (it seems doubtful, as I don't think Saddam was particularly pious).
- Forcing him to do weird acts, or nudity, etc.
- Constantly reminding him of all the bad deeds he was responsible for, which might feel like torture.

Or most horrifying of all:
- Forcing him to look at photos of the BFEE, especially the not so long ago days when he was a member in good standing.

[spooked]

26. I think it means being smeared with American Menstrual Blood

http://www.mirror.co.uk/news/allnews/content_objectid=14042696_method=full_siteid=50143_headline=-MY%2DHELL%2DIN%2DCAMP%2DX%2DRAY-name_page.html

MY HELL IN CAMP X-RAY

"Jamal's most shocking disclosure centred on the use of vice girls to torment the most religiously devout detainees.

Prisoners who had never seen an "unveiled" woman before would be forced to watch as the hookers touched their own naked bodies.

The men would return distraught. One said an American girl had smeared menstrual blood across his face in an act of humiliation.

Jamal said: "I knew of this happening about 10 times."


http://www.jihadunspun.com/intheatre_internal.php?article=3433&list=/home.php&

"These are the very same Crusader Governments who not long ago were exposed for their brutality in Camp X-Ray, where they systematically tortured Muslims, and had prostitutes taunt Muslim inmates while smearing them with menstrual blood."

[corriger]

29. ah the american Gulag

how the US sickens me.

[seemslikeadream]

38. EINZELHAFT

EVERY DEATH CREATES NEW ENEMIES
MORE TERRORISTS
MORE DANGER
MORE DEATH
AND REMEMBER...

HE IS JUST GETTING STARTED...

BUSH'S PLAN FOR PEACE
IS THE PEACE OF THE COMMON GRAVE

http://www.bushflash.com/pax.html


Wumpscut
Totmacher

sie ahnten nichts von mir
von meiner wilden gier
doch als du kamst zu mir
da wurde ich ein tier
kein gedanke an danach
als ich dir die knochen brach

tot tot tot ich mache dich tot
tot tot tot von blut alles rot

tot

fuer mein naechstes leben
schoepfe ich neue kraft
ich bin dem toeten ergeben
in der einzelhaft

tot tot tot ich mache dich tot
tot tot tot von blut alles rot
tot tot tot ich mache dich tot
tot tot tot von blut alles rot

ein dahinsichen
von gottes hand
ich kann dich riechen
und das denken verschwand

tot tot tot tot tot tot tot ich mache dich tot
tot tot tot von blut alles rot tot tot tot tot

ich mache dich tot ich mache dich tot
ich mache dich tot ich mache dich tot

sag mir was du willst
dass du meine sehnsucht stillst
ich mache dich tot fuer immerdar
von blut alles rot auf gottes altar

tot tot tot ich mache dich tot
tot tot tot von blut alles rot

ich mache dich tot fuer immerdar
ich mache dich tot glaub mir es ist wahr
ich mache dich tot fuer immerdar
ich mache dich tot auf gottes altar


TRANSLATION

Wumpscut - Deadmaker

They didn't expect me
never expected my wild lust
I turned into an animal
No thought about afterwards
When I broke your bones

Dead, dead, dead I make you dead
Dead, dead, dead stained from blood so red

Dead

For my next life (life after death in the religious sense)
I get the power I need
I’m a slave to the killing
In solitary confinement

("einzelhaft" (solitary confinment) has become part of the german vocabulary after the terrorist attacks of the Red Army Fraction during the 70's. It's used for people in prison, who are put into complete isolation not just from other people, but from all kinds of information. It's what might be known in the US as "sensual deprivation", a kind of torture-technique to destroy people's self.)

Dead, dead, dead I make you dead
Dead, dead, dead stained from blood so red
Dead, dead, dead I make you dead
Dead, dead, dead stained from blood so red

Wasting away
By God’s hand
I can smell you
And my thought disappeared

Dead, dead, dead I make you dead
Dead, dead, dead stained from blood so red
Dead, dead, dead, dead

I make you dead I make you dead
I make you dead I make you dead

Tell me what you want
That you fill my longing (that you satisfy my desire)
I make you dead for evermore
God’s altar stained from blood so red

Dead, dead, dead I make you dead
Dead, dead, dead stained from blood so red

I make you dead for evermore
I make you dead believe me its true
I make you dead for evermore
I make you dead on God’s altar

[corriger]

39. and overload. There are a multitude of techniques

Destruction of self is the intent
it happens too in society and the workingspace, harcelement professionnel et moral (mobbing), psychoterror it is called in germany. Same bit, similar results.

[Freddie Stubbs]

33. How do you morally torture some who is amoral?

:shrug:

[spooked]

37. If he thinks the U.S. is the "Great Satan"

then I think he might feel morally tortured if we made him take up allegiance to Jesus, for example.


22 May 2004
The Indpendent (UK)

Abu Ghraib: inmates raped, ridden like animals, and forced to eat pork

http://groups.google.com/groups?q=abu+ghraib+jesus&hl=en&lr=&ie=UTF-8&selm=c8mqia%242t4v%241%40pencil.math.missouri.edu&rnum=3

"Ameen Saeed al-Sheikh says that he was tortured and ordered to denounce Islam. Mr Sheikh says that his leg was broken when one of the soldiers started hitting it and ordering him to curse Islam. "They ORDERED ME TO THANK JESUS that I'm alive," he says."



Or, perhaps we showed him photos of his slain sons. I don't care how immoral HE is or was. As a mother, I can't help but feel for any man who has lost his children in this manner, and I don't think anyone deserves the kind of abuse we have shown that WE are capable of dishing out under this administration!

[Freddie Stubbs]

46. Forced to eat pork?

I suppose that could be pretty bad. ;)

[corriger]

40. you completely miss the meaning and what it is

on edit the point is that there is nothing 'moral' about it, it is in fact amoral (if psychotic is equated to be 'amoral') and the nearest to english words to describe it are terror, the methodical, purposeful, non-relenting terrorisation of the individual.

[spooked]

41. Ok, so you're saying that nothing

could bother Saddam because he is amoral...

Well, maybe it bothers God then.

[lumpy]

49. spooked

Very good retort. I can believe Saddam was abused. Graib proves that.

[bluestateguy]

6. Well

Though I do not condone torturing Saddam Hussein, I'm much more concerned about the torture of the thousands of prisoners at Abu Grahaib, most of whom have been shown to be innocent.

[justjones]

8. Trying to find out the location of those WMDs, no doubt.....

:eyes:

Otherwise, what information are they trying to get out of him?

Or is it that on top of all the other criminal behavior this Administration is involved in, they are a bunch of Sadistic wackos as well?

[demnan]

12. Yeah I'd like to know what moral torture is

sex-related?

[Doctor Smith]

15. I assume he means psychological torture.

Sleep deprivation, fake executions, loud music, sensory deprivation, etc...

[corriger]

24. it does

as his advocate is French he is going to use the French term (in English as the article is).

[kentuck]

20. Sometimes I have to double-check to see....

if I'm reading free republic.....

[Tight_rope]

21. Good case for a "Mistrial"...he's a free man...mark my words! n/t

[toopers]

27. He may be freed . . . .

to be killed in the streets.

[pinniped]

32. Patrick Swayze from Red Dawn...

"Geneva Convention, never heard of it."

[depakid]

35. Gee, do you think?

Whatever's been done to the others has likely been done to Saddam, only they'll be more certain not to leave marks.

[Berserker]

42. Who cares what they did to that piece of shit!

If I were there I would have wanted to shoot the bastard myself before he crawled out of the fucking hole he was hiding in. NO sympathy from me! Torture is to good for him! I never wanted the US to go to Irag but to have sympathy for that piece of shit is beyond me. Look what he did to his people!

[Bonobo]

43. Okay, what did he do, in your words please...?

[Berserker]

44. Are you for real?

[Bonobo]

45. I'm real, and I really doubt yo know how to compose a reply to my question

"He gassed his own people for God's sake!" no doubt...

[robbedvoter]

48. And don't forget the "rape rooms" and the torture!

[robbedvoter]

47. What did he do to his people again? (as opposed to what we do?)

Why the personal grudge? Did he try to kill your daddy too?
P.S. Is "Irag" bigger or smaller than "Abu Garam"?

[lumpy]

50. Well get your patooty over there.

There is a need for torturous interrogators, Berserked one. Sooting the prisoner won't yield much info, though.

[Fear]

51. no comment

c'mon, everyone could see this one coming......with all the other torture scandals in the open, this is an easy one.