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Today Jeremy Scahill reports the United States tortured detainees with germ warfare.
….an ongoing Spanish investigation is adding harrowing details to the ever-emerging portrait of the torture inside and outside Guantánamo. Among them: "blows to [the] testicles;" "detention underground in total darkness for three weeks with deprivation of food and sleep;" being "inoculated through injection with ‘a disease for dog cysts’";
Scahill also reminds us how America’s offical medical torturers at Gitmo force contaminated feeding tubes down detainees’ noses and throats (exposing all those tortured to the hepatitis detainees are known to carry, as well as HIV and other deadly infections):
Then, in front of the Guantánamo physicians the guards took NG tubes from one detainee, and with no sanitization whatsoever, reinserted it into the nose of a different detainee. When these tubes were reinserted, the detainees could see the blood and stomach bile from the other detainees remaining on the tubes." Medical staff, according to Tarver, made no effort to intervene.
Scahill, a Polk-award winning investigative journalist, reports US officials torture prisoners with gasoline enemas:
[While at] Bagram Air Base in Afghanistan "[former detainee Deghayes] also described seeing U.S. guards sodomize an African prisoner and alleged guards "forced petrol and benzene up the anuses of the prisoners."
"The camp looked like the Nazi camps that I saw in films," Deghayes said.
Germ warfare is a war crime. Medical torture is a war crime.
Unit 731 …. was a covert biological and chemical warfare research and development unit of the Imperial Japanese Army that undertook lethal human experimentation during the Second Sino-Japanese War (1937-1945) and World War II. It was responsible for some of the most notorious war crimes carried out by Japanese personnel….
Germ warfare attacks
* Prisoners were injected with inoculations of disease, disguised as vaccinations, to study their effects.[11]
After WWII, the Soviets tried the germ warfare commanders for war crimes
Although publicly silent on the issue at the Tokyo trials, the Soviet Union pursued the case and prosecuted twelve top military leaders and scientists from Unit 731… in the Khabarovsk War Crime Trials. Included among the prosecuted for war crimes including germ warfare was General Otozo Yamada, the commander-in-chief of the million-man Kwantung Army occupying Manchuria.
We protected and concealed them
After Imperial Japan surrendered to the Allies in 1945, Douglas MacArthur became the Supreme Commander of the Allied Powers, rebuilding Japan during the Allied occupation. MacArthur secretly granted immunity to the physicians of Unit 731 in exchange for providing America with their research on biological warfare.[7]
The United States believed that the research data was valuable because the Allies had never publicly conducted or condoned such experiments on humans due to moral and political revulsion.
Obama’s torturer protection program is just carrying on tradition. Don’t know if he can handle the truth, but he acts like we can’t. Far more likely, he’s afraid what we’ll do with it.
And if today’s picture release from Australia is any indication, we’ll find out. And so will Obama. And so will the war criminal military officers and war criminal secret police he protects in violation of the UN Convention Against Torture, thus breaking his Oath to uphold the Constitution.
Obama’s shown us his priorities, and his values. So have the oh-so-honorable United States military officers commanding Gitmo. And the equally …uh… worthy servicemen and women in the Gitmo and Bagram torture squads.
When Deghayes finally arrived at Guantánamo in September 2002, he found himself the target of the feared IRF teams.
"The IRF team sprayed Mr. Deghayes with mace; they threw him in the air and let him fall on his face … " according to the Spanish investigation.
Deghayes says he also endured a "sexual attack."In March 2004, after being "sprayed in the eyes with mace," Deghayes says authorities refused to provide him with medical attention, causing him to permanently lose sight in his right eye.
Spit.
To find out if "Semper Fi" means "always faithful to war criminals" should we ask the senior Marine officers commanding our Guantánamo enclave? Or should the war criminals’ protector-in-chief, Barack Obama, answer that?
At least someone would be answering for something.
37 Comments
Thanks for highlighting the article.
Miller needs to be brought out of his retirement to face a war crime trial. Compare his glowing summary of his career as opposed to the reality of what he caused to happen to people.
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” In August and early September of 2003, Maj. Gen. Geoffrey Miller, the man in charge of the Pentagon’s torture laboratory at Guantanamo Bay, was dispatched to Iraq, allegedly to Gitmoize operations there.
It seems to have worked, at least in one place. Soon after Miller visited with officials in charge of Abu Ghraib, guards there began to use working dogs, stress positions, extremely lengthy interrogations, isolation, yelling and nudity in order to try to wring information from prisoners — all techniques that had been used at Guantanamo and that the world would later see in photos released from an investigation in to what had gone on at the prison.
But according to the Senate committee’s report, before Miller met with the Abu Ghraib officials, he first made a little-known visit to the Iraq Survey Group, which was in charge of the hunt for WMDs in Iraq after the invasion.
Miller told the ISG they were “running a country club” by not getting tough on detainees, Chief Warrant Officer Brian Searcy, the ISG interrogation chief, told the Senate committee. Searcy said Miller suggested shackling detainees and forcing them to walk on gravel. Mike Kamin, another ISG official, told committee investigators that Miller recommended temperature manipulation and sleep deprivation. “
http://www.salon.com/politics/…..15/miller/
” After serving as the Commanding General, XVIII Airborne Corps Artillery, Maj. Gen. Miller had the opportunity to support the global war on terrorism as both the Commander, Joint Task Force – Guantanamo, United States Southern Command, Cuba, Operation Enduring Freedom and Deputy Command General (Detainee Operations) Multi-National Force – Iraq/Commanding General, Task Force 134 (the task force supervising detainee operations), Operation Iraqi Freedom.
“In recent years, our Army asked Geoff Miller to tackle two of the toughest jobs in the Global War on Terror,” said Cody. “He responded to each of these challenges with determination and conviction.”
“The last five years have offered me the opportunity to help this Nation win the Global War On Terror,” Miller said. “Leading a joint task force in Guantanomo Bay where great Soldiers, Sailors, Marines, Airmen, the Coast Guard, and our dedicated civilians who came together to do one of the most difficult missions,” he said. “They made our country safe and helped save American lives.
“Finally in Iraq as the commander of Task Force 134, where I served with a great group of Soldiers willing to do the heavy lifting of detaining suspected insurgents and developing critical intelligence to help win the war,” Miller said. “This group of great Americans shouldered the additional responsibilities of putting right this mission for the Nation.””
http://www.globalsecurity.org/…..army01.htm
Thank you, Dr. Murphy. Recommended. I will add more later; going to get some links.
kirk, this is AMAZING depravity, even worse then I imagined in my worst scenario
cheney MUST go to jail
I posted over at Marcy’s the other day that Australia had more photos they were going to release. Thank you for this post.
This is beyond words. But not beyond justice.
And Nancy Pelosi is being attacked instead of Bush and Cheney? WTF??
For the longest,the the NeoCONS denied torture was ever used!
How could Pelosi be briefed about practices that allegedly didn’t exist??(Snark)
WHERE are the pitchforks folks?
A picture is worth a thousand words.
Give visual rebuttal of all the diabolical,deviant behavior of the Bush administration.
Then,a new meaning will be forever attached to the phrase “Grapes of Wrath”.
” Since the story first broke, last Sunday, of the death of Ibn al-Shaykh al-Libi, the Bush administration’s most famous “ghost prisoner,” and the source of a tortured lie that was used to justify the invasion of Iraq, numerous websites have been running a photo, purportedly of al-Libi, which is, in fact, a picture of Abu Faraj al-Libi, a little-known “high-value detainee” in Guantánamo, also previously held in secret prisons run by the CIA, who was seized in Mardan, Pakistan, on May 2, 2005.
To correct this widespread misunderstanding, here, courtesy of the British human rights group Cageprisoners, is a photograph of Ibn al-Shaykh al-Libi:”
http://www.andyworthington.co……h-al-libi/
OMG. Why hasn’t Obama replaced the whole lot of them? How will these criminals behave when they come back to the US?
How much worse can it get? For you Doctor, can you enlighten us on this need for torture and why our country is so bellicose? Our love of war certainly goes beyond the $$ gains, though that’s a significant factor.
Dr. Murphy, I was searching for info on the NAZI scientists and doctors who were brought to the US by the CIA (then still the OSS) at the end of WWII in order to make use of their gruesome research. In particular, I was searching for info on Dr. Kurt Blome, defendant in Nuremberg Trials, convicted and sentenced to death but brought to US instead. Thus began Operation Paperclip.
Search led me to this very interesting book, Secret Agenda, by Linda Hunt, @1991, pub’d by St Martin’s Press, Ny, NY. Excerpt from Prologue:
snip>
snip>
‘Paperclip’ evolved into MKULTRA, Code Artichoke and others – all shameful chapters in our nation’s history, the fruits of which are loose in the world today.
As you read this prologue you will recognize many of the same excuses being spewed today in trying to justify the depravity of the torture ordered by our dictators, Bush and Cheney.
Dr. Murphy, you have done a fine job of showing the use of Japanese torture. Please follow up with another telling of our use of the Nazi scientists depraved research. There may be those ‘out there’ who are still unaware of this aspect of “how we got to the point of using torture”.
Thank you.
Thank you Kirk and now I am going to be sick.
Scahill’s testimonies (Black Water) on Capitol Hell (that really was a slip but I like it) were riveting.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sdk4dIXqs7s
Obama war criminals “protector in chief”
Obama sure has changed his endlessly repeated transparency rap.
His willingness to protect those who tortured is shameful!
Hhoward Zinn “if you want to end terrorism you have to stop being terrorist’
Somehow, I don’t think even Jay Bybee’s memos cover these actions. The fig leaf offered by his perverted efforts doesn’t hide them. These, too, are war crimes, Mr. President. To say you don’t torture is an irrelevant legal distinction worthy of David Addington. When you protect and condone the torture of others, it makes you part of it. Criminal law 101.
What will you do? So far, you’re confirming that Chicago hasn’t changed much since Mr. Capone went down.
This was one hell of an article by Scahill, and there’s much more in it that any one posting could cover. Thanks for bringing it more public exposure. A very, very important article that belies the spin out there now, coming from the Oval Office, no less, that torture has ended.
Thanks, Jeff – I’m hoping our military and secret police’s deliberate use of “germ warfare” will go global this weekend, and I’d be delighted to see Scahill’s findings front paged here and across the planet.
Americans seem to have become inured to so much: I hope the phrase “germ warfare” wakens memories powerful enough to move folks.
I’m writing up more on Scahill’s piece, and I’ll be dleighted if I have the chance to read your observations.
In the meantime, I hope folks get the word out on this. As of this morning, Scahill appears to have a global scoop, and this Oxdown post is the only place that’s picked it up. Can’t wait to see the world learn what we have done – and are doing.
If this torture roller coaster keeps gathering speed it is going to take down, not only those who tortured, but those who are covering up and obstructing the criminal activity. I think that Obama is treading on really thin ice in his effort to cover up the criminal activity. It could destroy him and his presidency. But, life is full of choices and he chooses to make this stupid choice.
I have a question, Dr. Murphy? Maybe you could find out who is doing research on interspecies transfers of dog cysts? Is this possible? Aren’t most dog cysts benign?
What would be the purpose of such an experiment or research? It seems bizarre to me as an effective “germ warfare”. Even if the transfer were successful, if it produced the same effect as in dogs, there would be a benign cyst develop. This could be disfiguring, but not, technically, harmful. The effect would be social and personal debilitation. If a Muslim were infected with a dog cyst it would likely have severe psychological effects, since dogs are “haram” (filthy) and even contact with one can require ritaul cleaning before one can go to the mosque. A permanent state of contact would mean that one could not practice ones religion at all.
But this effect could be done by merely claiming that the inoculation was with “dog cysts”. In that case its psy-ops.
Hi cinnamonape -
Thanks for those excellent question. I’m trying to find a link to the Spanish investigators’ report, and hope that gives us additional info. I’ll see what I can find about huan exposure to pathogens known to cause cytsts in dogs.
Here’s a little bit on the “fear” on inoculation by haram items in Muslim countries.
Ironically, the first records of successful smallpox inoculation comes from the Caliphate of Turkey…where the wife of the British Ambassador obtained several inoculin spores and began the process in Britain. She was viewed as crazy at the time. But the practice spread.
Don’t have anything to back it up (Hey! I could be an idiot-in-the-box on a cable news show) is that it’s a psyop-terror technique seeing as how the Muslim world views dogs as unclean
Damn. Thanks for letting us know.
Kirk did you catch this one
Little Known Military Thug Squad Still Brutalizing Prisoners at Gitmo Under Obama
http://www.alternet.org/story/140022/
Was going to do a blog on this at my blog, maybe still will. But I’ve got one to do on Sec 5 of the Voting Rights Act at our local ACLU blog.
Thanks for shining the spotlight Kirk
Hi folks – thanks for reading and sharing your information and ideas.
To help get the word out, please reddit this post. Or, better yet, repost it somewhere (w/ props to FDL, natch *g*)
Best way to get the word out? Blog or comment or tell your community and elist(s) /newspapers / media about this.
Thanks!
this is one of the biggest stories ever and I don’t see it covered anywhere, I sure hope this gets the kind of coverage it desperately needs
Me too, perris. Even if America’s gulag guards used sham germ warfare on detainees, that is torture (psychological).
I’m quite surprised the info hasn’t been taken up. Folks read Alternet (where Scahill’s report appeared in full) as well as his own blog, and we sure have our share of readers at Oxdown.
But so far, no one’s picked up the story. I hope our commenters can raise the profile by letting progressive blogs know about the germ warfare torture Scahill reports.
The sick mother fuckers who authorized this belong in jail.
Maybe we could keep Gitmo open ,I can think of a few people who should spend some time there !
I couldn’t read this without thinking of Milgram and the Stanford Prison studies. Both reinforce what led to my father’s section 8 discharge in WWII, that ordinary people can be led to commit atrocities.
Giving authority to people that aren’t constantly on guard against brutality is wrong, and to not have independent observation with non discretionary responsibility to intervene is criminal.
This shame is hard to bear.
Now I am depressed! We need an independent prosecutor!
Greg Mitchell wrote a diary on DK stating he got a letter from the parent of a 19 year old soldier who was water boarded and other things which he won’t talk about. This young soldier describes being “guinea pigs for their sick, sadistic torture program. Then they sold their torture program to the sadists in the Bush Administration and became overpaid military contractors who spread this poison throughout our military.” This is beyond anything many of us can even comprehend. Cheney has been saying it isn’t anything our own soldiers don’t go through. Now we know they experimented and tortured our own kids. May they rot in hell.
I figured it was a lot worse then reported when Gitmo first was made public, but the Sy Hersh rumors and all this – it’s just drip – drip – drip. Had been wondering why Cheney was out and about – now I know. There is gonna be Hell to pay for this, Americans won’t go for torture for a bogus war
One of the worst aspects of this is the sense that we still don’t know how deep the depravity was – or is. Genital mutilation. Abducting, disappearing, and torturing children. Anal rape. Murder. Pentagon assassination squads (commanded by Obama’s new pick to command our failure in Afghanistan.)
Have we hit bottom yet?
How can we know?
gezze .. it’s all so “one toke over the line” ya know .. simply overwhelming .. it’s soooo bad as a matter of fact my fist reaction is denial .. simply utter disbelief …
As far as I’m concerned we should start demanding the impeachment of Obama for the war crimes he’s already committed. That will get his attention because there will be enough of a base of support from the crazy right to force him into doing the right thing.
If that’s what it’s gonna take, then that’s what should be done to prove to Mr. Transparency that truly no one is above the law.
Oh God, what have we become?
It is particularly interesting to me that Spain,a nation who was the victim of terrorist attacks themselves, is leading this tribunal -exposing the torture techniques.
Says a LOT about civility .
Says a LOT about this country’s(U.S.) lack of it.
If Obama is failing to prevent on-going torture, he is guilty of war crimes under the doctrine of command responsibility, also known as the Yamashita Standard. Per the Wikipedia:
Yamashita was executed.