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May 20, 2005
This is How Dilawar Died
All the media, including the New York Times which published this harrowing account sourced to Army's own criminal investigation into the case, still refers to this as "abuse." I urge you to read it all:
The prisoner, a slight, 22-year-old taxi driver known only as Dilawar, was hauled from his cell at the detention center in Bagram, Afghanistan, at around 2 a.m. to answer questions about a rocket attack on an American base. When he arrived in the interrogation room, an interpreter who was present said, his legs were bouncing uncontrollably in the plastic chair and his hands were numb. He had been chained by the wrists to the top of his cell for much of the previous four days.
Mr. Dilawar asked for a drink of water, and one of the two interrogators, Specialist Joshua R. Claus, 21, picked up a large plastic bottle. But first he punched a hole in the bottom, the interpreter said, so as the prisoner fumbled weakly with the cap, the water poured out over his orange prison scrubs. The soldier then grabbed the bottle back and began squirting the water forcefully into Mr. Dilawar's face.
"Come on, drink!" the interpreter said Specialist Claus had shouted, as the prisoner gagged on the spray. "Drink!"
At the interrogators' behest, a guard tried to force the young man to his knees. But his legs, which had been pummeled by guards for several days, could no longer bend. An interrogator told Mr. Dilawar that he could see a doctor after they finished with him. When he was finally sent back to his cell, though, the guards were instructed only to chain the prisoner back to the ceiling.
"Leave him up," one of the guards quoted Specialist Claus as saying.
Several hours passed before an emergency room doctor finally saw Mr. Dilawar. By then he was dead, his body beginning to stiffen. It would be many months before Army investigators learned a final horrific detail: Most of the interrogators had believed Mr. Dilawar was an innocent man who simply drove his taxi past the American base at the wrong time.
The story of Mr. Dilawar's brutal death at the Bagram Collection Point - and that of another detainee, Habibullah, who died there six days earlier in December 2002 - emerge from a nearly 2,000-page confidential file of the Army's criminal investigation into the case, a copy of which was obtained by The New York Times.
Like a narrative counterpart to the digital images from Abu Ghraib, the Bagram file depicts young, poorly trained soldiers in repeated incidents of abuse. The harsh treatment, which has resulted in criminal charges against seven soldiers, went well beyond the two deaths.
In some instances, testimony shows, it was directed or carried out by interrogators to extract information. In others, it was punishment meted out by military police guards. Sometimes, the torment seems to have been driven by little more than boredom or cruelty, or both.
There remain thousands and thousands of pages reports from internal investigations and reports that have yet to see the light of day.
Today I have one demand, and one demand only.
Declassify it all, now.
I believe, and they obviously fear, all that the antiwar movement has been saying about ending the occupation, about bringing the troops home, about being accountable, about providing reparations and restitution, all of it, would just follow.
Bring it out. Let us know. Let us hear the testimonies. Let us see the cells, the shackles, the x-rays, the autopsy reports, the survivors, the graves, every last bit.
Declassify it all.
Posted by zeynep at May 20, 2005 04:47 PM
Comments
I'll tell you what the people I know would say:
1. They're just saying that to vilify (poor) Bush.
2. The liberals are trying to undermine the authority of the United States military again.
3. It's not my problem. You're just stirring up trouble.
4. I don't need to hear talk like that.
5. I'm proud to be an American.....duh.
6. I don't care what they do to them. I only care what happens to me.
I really hope you're legitimate, because I don't expect much of the human race.
Posted by: at March 31, 2006 11:59 PM