Torture

6. (S) I find that the intentional abuse of detainees by
military police personnel included the following acts:

a. (S) Punching, slapping, and kicking detainees;
jumping on their naked feet;
b. (S) Videotaping and photographing naked male and
female detainees;
c. (S) Forcibly arranging detainees in various
sexually explicit positions for photographing;
d. (S) Forcing detainees to remove their clothing and
keeping them naked for several days at a time;
e. (S) Forcing naked male detainees to wear women's
underwear;
f. (S) Forcing groups of male detainees to masturbate
themselves while being photographed and videotaped;
g. (S) Arranging naked male detainees in a pile and
then jumping on them;
h. (S) Positioning a naked detainee on a MRE Box,
with a sandbag on his head, and attaching wires to his
fingers, toes, and penis to simulate electric torture;
i. (S) Writing "I am a Rapest" (sic) on the leg of a
detainee alleged to have forcibly raped a 15-year old
fellow detainee, and then photographing him naked;
j. (S) Placing a dog chain or strap around a naked
detainee's neck and having a female Soldier pose for a
picture;
k. (S) A male MP guard having sex with a female
detainee;
l. (S) Using military working dogs (without muzzles)
to intimidate and frighten detainees, and in at least
one case biting and severely injuring a detainee;
m. (S) Taking photographs of dead Iraqi detainees.
(ANNEXES 25 and 26)

8. (U) In addition, several detainees also described the
following acts of abuse, which under the circumstances, I
find credible based on the clarity of their statements
and supporting evidence provided by other witnesses
(ANNEX 26):

a. (U) Breaking chemical lights and pouring the
phosphoric liquid on detainees;
b. (U) Threatening detainees with a charged 9mm pistol;
c. (U) Pouring cold water on naked detainees;
d. (U) Beating detainees with a broom handle and a
chair;
e. (U) Threatening male detainees with rape;
f. (U) Allowing a military police guard to stitch the
wound of a detainee who was injured after being slammed
against the wall in his cell;
g. (U) Sodomizing a detainee with a chemical light and
perhaps a broom stick.
h. (U) Using military working dogs to frighten and
intimidate detainees with threats of attack, and in one
instance actually biting a detainee.
- Maj. Gen. Antonio M. Taguba, HEARING ARTICLE 15-6 INVESTIGATION OF THE 800th MILITARY POLICE BRIGADE



SFC Snider grabbed my prisoner and threw him into a pile. . . . I do not think it was right to put them in a pile. I saw SSG Frederic, SGT Davis and CPL Graner walking around the pile hitting the prisoners. I remember SSG Frederick hitting one prisoner in the side of its [sic] ribcage. The prisoner was no danger to SSG Frederick. . . . I left after that.

I saw two naked detainees, one masturbating to another kneeling with its mouth open. I thought I should just get out of there. I didn’t think it was right . . . I saw SSG Frederick walking towards me, and he said, “Look what these animals do when you leave them alone for two seconds.” I heard PFC England shout out, “He’s getting hard.”
- Specialist Matthew Wisdom, hearing in the case against Sergeant Frederick at Camp Victory near Baghdad

Racism

Press passes can't be that hard to come by if the White House allows that old Arab Helen Thomas to sit within yards of the president.
- Ann Coulter defending Jeff Gannon



We shall wipe them out, every one of them, men, women and children. There shall not be a Japanese left on the face of the earth.
- Winston Churchill quoted by Richard Burton



But we [the U.S.A.] didn't come this far because we are made of sugar candy. Once upon a time we uh, elbowed our way onto and into this continent by giving smallpox infected blankets to Native Americans. Yes, that was biological warfare. And we used every other weapon we could get our hands on to grab this land from whomever and we grew prosperous. And yes, we greased the skids with the sweat of slaves.
- Paul Harvey, "radio legend"

Israel

One ton bomb to assassinate terrorist?

Feldman and Sfarad [in their 50-page report to the clerk of the Israeli Supreme Court] describe the killing of Hamas activist Salah Shehada, who was assassinated last July with a one-ton aerial bomb that killed another 14 people, injured 150 people and destroyed numerous homes in the vicinity of Shehada's home: "It greatly pains us to say the following, but we do not have any choice, because the legal and moral truth obligates us to present these facts, in their full severity, before the honorable court: liquidation is a war crime, the consistent, widespread policy of targeted liquidations bounds on a crime against humanity and the State of Israel has turned its pilots into war criminals that hunt wanted men as if they were on a duck hunt (and duck hunting is also against the law)."
- Aryeh Dayan, Haaretz, May 21, 2003



We are killing civilians in the streets of Gaza and Ramallah, in the alleys of Jenin and Hebron, we are chasing cars with helicopters and blowing them up with missiles intended for use against tanks on the battlefield, we are sniping at civilians walking out of the front door of their home, we are booby-trapping phone booths and planting bombs, we are sowing destruction and ruin in numerous families, and all this without any legal procedure, without any evidentiary infrastructure of anything being presented to anyone. This is the biggest victory of all of the architects of death in the cafes and shopping centers.
- Attorneys Avigdor Feldman and Michael Sfarad in their report to the Israeli Supreme Court



Between the first and last chapters, the document [by attorneys Avigdor Feldman and Michael Sfarad presented to the Israeli Supreme Court] presents a detailed list of all of the liquidations and all of the attempted assassinations that Israel's security forces carried out between November 9, 2000, the day that a helicopter fired a missile in Beit Sahour that assassinated Fatah activist Hussein Salim Abiyat and the two women driving with him in his car, and April 29, 2003, the day that a missile fired from a helicopter liquidated Popular Front activist Nidal Salameh in Khan Yunis, along with the man driving with him in his car.

In the 29 months that have passed between these two killings, Israel carried out no less than 175 liquidation attempts. In other words, the document says, one attempt every five days.

...[T]he 175 events did result in the death or injury of hundreds of bystanders that had nothing to do with anyone who Israel wished to assassinate.

In these 175 cases, says the authors, 235 people were killed and 310 injured. Only 156 of the dead were described as targets. The other 79 were their relatives, neighbors or just bystanders. The age of 31 of the incidental dead varied from two months (the baby Dunia Matar, a neighbor of Shehada's in Gaza) and 18 years; 11 of these victims were women. The statistics of the injured is even more problematic: five of the wounded were people whom Israel intended to liquidate but failed in the mission; the remaining 305 wounded were relatives, neighbors or bystanders.

... [T]hey cite... the "mistaken liquidation of the two Israeli security guards near the settlement Pnei Hever," which took place on March 13, 2003. Feldman and Sfarad allege that the latter incident would not have happened if not for the liquidation policy pursued by the army and political echelons. "The army's investigation of the incident proves that the victims of the liquidation were given no opportunity to surrender or to lay down their weapons," they write.
- Aryeh Dayan, Haaretz, May 21, 2003



The high number of bystanders harmed by the liquidation policy, the immense number of wounded, the number of destroyed families, the innocent citizens who were killed, the children that we have handicapped for life, all of these victims of the Israeli assassination policy stand at the gates of the honorable court in a long line, and prove more than any cold legal argument that the means chosen by the IDF to realize the policy of liquidations is blatantly unlawful and immoral.
- Attorneys Avigdor Feldman and Michael Sfarad in their report to the Israeli Supreme Court

Treaties

Geneva Convention relative to the Treatment of Prisoners of War
Adopted on 12 August 1949 by the Diplomatic Conference for the Establishment of International Conventions for the Protection of Victims of War, held in Geneva from 21 April to 12 August, 1949



Convention on Prohibitions or Restrictions on the Use of Certain Conventional Weapons Which May be Deemed to be Excessively Injurious or to Have Indiscriminate Effects. Geneva, 10 October 1980.

Women

Feminism is the radical ideal that women are huban beings.
- Unknown



"It would be a much better country if women did not vote."
- Ann Coulter, 2003



Rape

Rape reporting appears to be dependant on how stereotypical the circumstances surrounding the rape are. In a sample of women who had contacted rape crisis centers, Williams (1984) found that women were more likely to report rape to the police if the circumstances of the rape corresponded to the "classic" rape situation, which is characterized by the use of a high degree of force, the use of a weapon, and physical injury. Previous research findings indicate that the relationship between the victim and the perpetrator is the most important factor that influences a victim's decision to report a rape to the police (Williams, 1984; Feldman-Summers & Norris, 1984; Feldman-Summers & Palmer, 1980). Perhaps women who are raped by an acquaintance are less likely to report the assault because they do not perceive the unwanted sexual intercourse as rape (Koss, Dinero, Siebel & Cox, 1988). Rape, therefore, may be more easily recognized, given the aforementioned "classic" set of circumstances.
- Heather Flowe http://psy.ucsd.edu/~hflowe/acrape.htm