« Culture of Life | Main | Rendered by Mistake »
March 07, 2005
Mistreatment of Detainees? You must be Insane! It's just Ramadi Madness.
A soldier who tried to report the torture of detainees was found to be insane" at the insistence of his commanding offier and evacuated from Iraq in restraints on a stretcher when he refused to back down:
An Army intelligence sergeant who accused fellow soldiers in Samarra, Iraq, of abusing detainees in 2003 was in turn accused by his commander of being delusional and ordered to undergo a psychiatric evaluation in Germany, despite a military psychiatrist's initial judgment that the man was stable, according to internal Army records released yesterday....
Although his name is not listed in the documents, the episode precisely matches events described publicly last year by California National Guard Sgt. Greg Ford, a former state prison guard and Navy SEAL team medic whose complaints were dismissed by the Army in October 2004 as lacking sufficient evidence. Ford said last night, after hearing what the documents stated, that he is the sergeant described.
The soldier complained that he had had to resuscitate abused detainees and urged the unit's withdrawal. He told investigators that the unit's commander, an Army captain, responded by giving him "30 seconds to withdraw my request or he was going to send me forcibly to go see a psychiatrist." The soldier added: "I told him I was not going to withdraw my request and at that time he confiscated my weapon and informed me he was withdrawing my security clearance and was placing me under 24-hour surveillance."
A witness in his unit told investigators that the captain later pressured a military doctor -- who had found the soldier stable -- into doing another emergency evaluation, saying: "I don't care what you saw or heard, he is imbalanced, and I want him out of here."
The next day, after the doctor did another evaluation, the soldier was evacuated from Iraq in restraints on a stretcher to a military hospital in Germany, despite having been given no official diagnosis, according to the documents. A military doctor in Germany ruled he was in stable mental health, according to the documents, but sent him back to the United States for what the soldier recalls the doctor describing as his "safety."
Well, many of us have been referring to the worldwide detention system the U.S. has set up with no oversight as "the Gulag." I guess this completes the circle: now, just as in the Soviet Union, people of conscience are being declared insane.
There was another part of the story where a soldier "compiled a 20-minute video" titled "Ramadi Madness" documenting the torture and the maltreatment. When the video was found, the unit's commander immediately knew what the urgent task at hand was:
The unit's commander told Army investigators he was concerned about the images becoming public and promised to take steps to "minimize the risk of this and other videos that may end up in the media."...
In the "Ramadi Madness" case, investigators determined the video "contained footage of inappropriate rather than criminal behavior" and determined that the detainee who was kicked was not abused.
The "inappropriate" behavior included "a soldier kicking a wounded detainee in the face and chest in the presence of 10 colleagues and soldiers positioning a dead insurgent to appear to wave hello."
Imagine if we had found photos of dead American soldier posed as if giving a thumbs up to the camera. And some Islamic cleric or official had said it was "inappropriate" but not enough to warrant any punishment. Imagine our horror.
Posted by zeynep at March 7, 2005 11:37 AM
Trackback Pings
TrackBack URL for this entry:
http://www.underthesamesun.org/mt-tb.cgi/413
Comments
One more reason everyone should be listening to Democracy Now!, which did a complete segment on Greg Ford - last December
Posted by: Eli Stephens at March 7, 2005 12:48 PM
Democracy Now is wonderful.
But how do we stop these people? I have tried just about everything I can think of that is legal and none of it seems to have any effect. I am putting in 3-4 hours per day (average) on peace work, and I feel desperate at this point because (just like in the fall of 2002) it seems the USA is going to make more war soon and there is no stopping them.
Posted by: Susan - USA at March 8, 2005 12:26 AM
I don't think there are any easy answers to this. It would seem that the Bushies could care less about the opinion of a few million marginalized peaceniks, but massive public opposition would be noticed, at least by lawmakers coming up for reelection.
Posted by: frigatebird at March 15, 2005 07:59 PM