Saturday, June 27, 2009

One reason the government is determined not to let the extra photographs of prisoner abuse under Bush-Cheney come to light is that they would show that exactly the same torture techniques we saw at Abu Ghraib were systemic across every major theater of combat as the US turned into a rogue nation under Bush-Cheney. Bagram may well have been among the worst - and it's still operating (though, presumably, without torture since the day after Obama's inauguration). The BBC has been investigating some of the reports. Its story comports with everything we know about Cheney's determination to torture prisoners using the techniques perfected by the Communist Chinese:

The BBC interviewed 27 former inmates of Bagram around the country over a period of two months... None were charged with any offence or put on trial; some even received apologies when they were released. Just two of the detainees said they had been treated well. Many allegations of ill-treatment appear repeatedly in the interviews: physical abuse, the use of stress positions, excessive heat or cold, unbearably loud noise, being forced to remove clothes in front of female soldiers. In four cases detainees were threatened with death at gunpoint.

"They did things that you would not do against animals let alone to humans," said one inmate known as Dr Khandan. "They poured cold water on you in winter and hot water in summer. They used dogs against us. They put a pistol or a gun to your head and threatened you with death," he said. "They put some kind of medicine in the juice or water to make you sleepless and then they would interrogate you."

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