If one American child was treated like this…
A Sunday Herald investigation has discovered that coalition forces are holding more than 100 children in jails such as Abu Ghraib. Witnesses claim that the detainees — some as young as 10 — are also being subjected to rape and torture. (Sunday Herald, Aug.1.2004)
That’s what they’re doing. Now here’s what he said:
…political opponents have been systematically raped as a method of intimidation, and political prisoners have been forced to watch their own children being tortured….Our demands are directed only at the regime that enslaves them and threatens us. When these demands are met, the first and greatest benefit will come to Iraqi men, women and children.
–President Bush, Oct.7. 2002
By our actions, our coalition removed a grave and gathering danger. We also ended one of the cruelest regimes in our time. Saddam’s rape rooms and torture chambers and children’s prisons are closed forever. His mass graves will claim no victims. The world was right to confront the regime of Saddam Hussein, and we were right to end the regime of Saddam Hussein.
–President Bush before Philippine Congress, Oct.18.2003
The systematic use of rape by Saddam’s regime to dishonor families has ended.
–President & Mrs. Bush during event to “globally promote women’s human rights”, Mar.12.2004
This sickening mess is intentional policy, not aberration. For God’s sake, they’re doing it all over the place in Iraq, how can it not be policy?
If the president can make a mockery when he speaks about child rape and torture, can there be anything else he says that is not a mockery? I hope to God the citizens of America come to their senses and remove this cruel administration.
Please see also the previous post with the link to Sy Hersh’s talk on this subject.
August 4th, 2004 at 08:54
What is the political upside to making the rape of children in custody official American policy? That is an absolutely ridiculous belief. Why can’t you just admit that the abuses in the prisons in Iraq were aberrations, carried out by ill-supervised and heartless losers who are now getting their just desserts?
Answer: because that would deprive you of making this a partisan hammer to bludgeon the President and Rumsfeld with.
August 4th, 2004 at 14:58
Toby- Did you click through to the Sunday Herald story?
Okay, the story quotes reps from several human rights groups who decry the secrecy and dearth of information. But why won’t the Americans be more forthcoming? Enough is known to raise major alarms.
“Proof of the widespread arrest and detention of children in Iraq by US and UK forces is contained in an internal Unicef report written in June.”
Look, child detention is “widespread”! All over Iraq.
And here’s what witnesses say happens to these kids:
“An Iraqi TV reporter Suhaib Badr-Addin al-Baz saw the Abu Ghraib children’s wing when he was arrested by Americans while making a documentary. He spent 74 days in Abu Ghraib.
“‘I saw a camp for children there,’ he said. ‘Boys, under the age of puberty. There were certainly hundreds of children in this camp.’ Al-Baz said he heard a 12-year-old girl crying. Her brother was also held in the jail. One night guards came into her cell. ‘She was beaten,’ said al-Baz. ‘I heard her call out, ‘They have undressed me. They have poured water over me.’
“He says he heard her cries and whimpering daily – this, in turn, caused other prisoners to cry as they listened to her. Al-Baz also told of an ill 15-year-old boy who was soaked repeatedly with hoses until he collapsed. Guards then brought in the child’s father with a hood over his head. The boy collapsed again”….
“The categorisation of these children as ‘internees’ is worrying since it implies indefinite holding without contact with family, expectation of trial or due process.”
From the horse’s mouth, “A highly placed source in the Pentagon said: ‘We have done investigations into accusations of juveniles being abused and raped and canÂ’t find anything that resembles that.’”
But Sy Hersh says he saw the video tape. I’ll trust Hersh long before I’ll trust a high Pentagon official.
Still, even they admit they hold and segregate kids aged 16-17. Just that means Bush’s claim that the “children’s prisons are closed forever” is a mockery.
August 4th, 2004 at 18:05
Oh, and Toby, I’d like to add a couple of things that respond directly to a couple points you make. (1) I actually agree that there is no “political upside” for America allowing prison torture and rape of children as a matter of policy. And I would suggest that there is no order that instructs an American soldier to rape a child. But I think it’s clear that the intentional policy is to imprison children for a variety of reasons–leverage on adults, suspected insurgent activity, whatever prompts the Americans to round up people, throw them in jail, and coerce them while there (the Red Cross thinks that 90% of these “internees” have done nothing and know zero or next to zero about the insurgency. After that, what happens to these “internees” is out of control. It isn’t just a few “bad apples”. So I agree with your notion that what happens is “unsupervised”. But that’s intentional too. These folks could be supervised. What they do, they do with the color of authority, even though they don’t need that direct order, “Hey, rape that kid”.
(2) If you think I enjoy this for partisan reasons, you’re dead wrong. This just makes me so sick, and I really, really hate seeing my country, that I love very, very much, involved in this sort of thing. Like I said in an earlier post, I should be jaded by now, after 25 years of research on and protest of torture in US client states, for example by grads of the School of the Americas. But it still hurts my soul deeply. There’s nothing more that I want than for it not to be true. But it is.
I say that I want Kerry to win because he’s the only chance we can stop this. Whether he will or not, or even come clean to the world in the next four years is unknown, probably doubtful. But the Bush administration is pathological and must be removed. Take a look at Steve Cambone, Rumsfeld’s aid and a principle designer of the current Terror War detention system. He’s done more to inspire terror against America than any other man. You just have to hope that a new administration will clean out these characters and send them back to a Stephen King novel, where they belong.
August 6th, 2004 at 12:09
If we have been incarcerating “pre-pubescent” kids in Iraq, I can only think it’s because they have been used to attack our troops. Have you ever met an American 6th grader from the projects? They’re as capable of homicidal violence as any “adult.” Sorry to say. And look at psychopathic cultures like the Car Swarm People in Gaza. They’ve got eight year-old boys strapped like banditos. Evil is evil, whatever its age or gender.
August 6th, 2004 at 15:15
Yeah, I’ve met thousands of 6th graders of all colors from lots of different backgrounds. I lived in Chicago for three years while working in the education field. I never met one I thought deserved to be raped in prison.
It’s hard to know exactly how these abhorent policies are transmitted. There is much secrecy, and now with trials starting there is an incredible whitewash. But make no mistake, use of detained children to pressure adults has been US policy.