The hidden horrors of Abu Ghraib

[NNN0LHI]

http://www.salon.com/politics/war_room/2005/07/25/abughraib/

Monday, July 25, 2005 12:19 EDT

Last Friday was the deadline set by a federal judge for the Pentagon to release a stash of photographs and videotapes showing graphic proof of the abuse of detainees at Abu Ghraib prison in Iraq. The government ignored the deadline. Instead, in a secret brief filed with the court, it argued -- as it has done ever since the ACLU filed a Freedom of Information Act request for the photos last year -- that it shouldn't have to release the evidence.

Nobody knows what the government's latest argument is, but it may have something to do with the hit President Bush's flowery rhetoric may take if pictures of "freedom on the march" are shown to the world. As Editor & Publisher points out in a nice compilation of public comments about the secret images, we haven't yet seen the worst of Abu Ghraib. Not by a long shot.

http://www.editorandpublisher.com/eandp/news/article_display.jsp?vnu_content_id=1001218842

Judge Orders Release of Abu Ghraib Photos

By Greg Mitchell

Published: September 29, 2005 12:45 PM ET

NEW YORK A federal judge ruled today that graphic pictures of detainee abuse at Iraq's Abu Ghraib prison must be released over government claims that they could damage America's image. Last year a Republican senator conceded that they contained scenes of "rape and murder" and Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld said they included acts that were "blatantly sadistic."

U.S. District Judge Alvin K. Hellerstein ordered the release of certain pictures in a 50-page decision that said terrorists in Iraq and Afghanistan have proven they "do not need pretexts for their barbarism."

The ACLU has sought the release of 87 photographs and four videotapes taken at the prison as part of an October 2003 lawsuit demanding information on the treatment of detainees in U.S. custody and the transfer of prisoners to countries known to use torture. snip

"Basically what happened is that those women who were arrested with young boys/children in cases that have been recorded. The boys were sodomized with the cameras rolling. The worst about all of them is the soundtrack of the boys shrieking that your government has. They are in total terror it's going to come out."

Judge Hellerstein said today that publication of the photographs will help to answer questions not only about the unlawful conduct of American soldiers, but about “the command structure that failed to exercise discipline over the troops, and the persons in that command structure whose failures in exercising supervision may make them culpable along with the soldiers who were court-martialed for perpetrating the wrongs.”

[Manifestor_of_Light]

1. This must be the stuff Sy Hersh mentioned.

He described it but it was never released. I think they were the ones that Congresscritters saw and were horrified by.

[alfredo]

2. The more that is made public, the less the hit Obama would take

for going after the bush junta.

[SpiralHawk]

3. REPUBLICON 'family values' - so perverse, so driven by sniveling fear & hate

Republicon family values, frankly, are altogether anti-christian

[SurfingScientist]

4. They NEED to be made public.

The day these are published, the political shit will hit the fan big time.

It will be ugly, incredibly hard, painful, stomach-churning for any sane person. Everyone with a heart will weep.

But this needs to be done, else we cannot move on. Crimes that are not prosecuted and made public, for everyone and the next generations to be remembered, will happen again.

[tekisui]

5. Let's keep this momentum going.

Torture needs to be asked about at every press conference, every day, until convictions come.