Release them all!
by Iraqi Association of the Victims of American Occupation Prisons

The Association of the Victims of American Occupation Prisons (1h1050 NGO) was founded by Haj Ali, the former mayor of Abu Ghraib and the victim of US torture depicted on the photograph with the hood and the electrodes.

in the name of Allah, most gracious, most merciful
we have honoured the sons of Adam; provided them with transport on land and sea; given them for sustenance things good and pure; and conferred on them special favours, above a great part of our creation. (israa' / 70)

Washington Post Editorial
War Crimes

Thursday, December 23, 2004; Page A22

THANKS TO a lawsuit by the American Civil Liberties Union and other human rights groups, thousands of pages of government documents released this month have confirmed some of the painful truths about the abuse of foreign detainees by the U.S. military and the CIA -- truths the Bush administration implacably has refused to acknowledge. Since the publication of photographs of abuse at Iraq's Abu Ghraib prison in the spring the administration's whitewashers -- led by Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld -- have contended that the crimes were carried out by a few low-ranking reservists, that they were limited to the night shift during a few chaotic months at Abu Ghraib in 2003, that they were unrelated to the interrogation of prisoners and that no torture occurred at the Guantanamo Bay prison where hundreds of terrorism suspects are held. The new documents establish beyond any doubt that every part of this cover story is false.

Center for Constitutional Rights files lawsuit against private contractors for torture conspiracy - Charges that U.S. corporations conspired with officials to torture detainees in Iraq

Synopsis

Two U.S. corporations conspired with U.S. officials to humiliate, torture and abuse persons detained by U.S. authorities in Iraq according to a class action lawsuit filed June 9, 2004, by the Center for Constitutional Rights (CCR) and the Philadelphia law firm of Montgomery, McCracken, Walker and Rhoads. The suit, filed in federal court in San Diego, names as defendants the Titan Corporation of San Diego, California and CACI International of Arlington, Virginia and its subsidiaries, and three individuals who work for the companies. It charges them with violating the Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations Act (RICO) and alleges that the companies engaged in a wide range of heinous and illegal acts in order to demonstrate their abilities to obtain intelligence from detainees, and thereby obtain more contracts from the government.

Torture of Iraqi POWs widespread: report
Military intelligence troops accused of abuses in 4 camps outside Abu Ghraib

WASHINGTON (AP) - Several U.S. guards allege they witnessed military intelligence operatives encouraging the abuse of Iraqi prison inmates at four prisons other than Abu Ghraib, investigative documents show.

Cuba Base Sent Its Interrogators to Iraqi Prison
By DOUGLAS JEHL and ANDREA ELLIOTT
May 29, 2004, NYT

WASHINGTON, May 28 — Interrogation experts from the American detention camp at Guantánamo Bay, Cuba, were sent to Iraq last fall and played a major role in training American military intelligence teams at Abu Ghraib prison there, senior military officials said Friday.

U.S. using some Iraqis as bargaining chips
By Mohamad Bazzi
Middle East Correspondent
May 26, 2004

BAGHDAD, Iraq -- U.S. troops wanted Jeanan Moayad's father. When they couldn't find him, they took her husband in his place.

Abuse of Captives More Widespread, Says Army Survey
By DOUGLAS JEHL, STEVEN LEE MYERS and ERIC SCHMITT
May 26, 2004 NYT

WASHINGTON, May 25 — An Army summary of deaths and mistreatment involving prisoners in American custody in Iraq and Afghanistan shows a widespread pattern of abuse involving more military units than previously known.

When is Prisoner Abuse Racial Violence
by Sherene Razack; May 24, 2004

My stomach contracts and I feel a deep chill in every  pore of my Brown skin when I see the prisoner abuse photos. I know that this is about racism. So why are so many publicly reluctant to say so? Or is it that we can't get our words into print? Only a  few people have noted that the photos remind them of prison abuse and police brutality of Black and Brown men in North America, and of  American military and covert operations in Latin America, the Caribbean, Vietnam and elsewhere. Most of these writers are  non-Western with the notable exception of  Washington Post staff writer Phillip Kennicott. Not mincing words, Kennicott maintains that "these pictures are pictures of colonial behavior, the demeaning of occupied people, the insult to local tradition, the humiliation of the vanquished." Using the words of Aime Cesaire, Kennicott actually names the abuse "race hatred."  The Egyptian writer Ahdaf Souief declares that the abuse reflects the "deep racism underlying the occupiers' attitudes to Arabs, Muslims and the third world generally." John Pilger calls it "modern imperial racism. " Recalling Vietnam, and the way that  the My Lai massacre is remembered only as a rare incident of exceptional violence, Pilger predicts that prisoner abuse in Iraq will come to be seen the same way,  as exceptional and unconnected to the national project of dominating racially inferior peoples. Two weeks into the scandal, the exceptional violence argument rules the day and the word racism is not even uttered as a possible contributing factor.

By Linda Burnham
War Times, www.war-times.org

The Abu Ghraib portraits of sexual humiliation and submission have exposed the unbelievably tangled strands of racism, misogyny, homophobia, national arrogance and hyper-masculinity that characterize the U.S. military. Militarized sexual domination is neither "contrary to American values" nor simply the work of a few "bad apples." It is, rather, a daily practice.

Brutal interrogation in Iraq
Five detainees' deaths probed
By Miles Moffeit
Denver Post Staff Writer
Wednesday, May 19, 2004 -

'VERY TROUBLING'

Pentagon records provide the clearest view yet of the U.S. tactics used at Anu Ghraib and elsewhere to coax secrets from Iraqis.