Whoops! CIA Man Retracts Claim on Waterboarding

[Political Junky]

The non torture rules are there to help protect our troops if they are captured.
If you support torturing prisoners then you do not support our troops.

Bullshit. How many heads have we cut off?

A non-answer.

 

[SFC Ollie]

You are so naive to think the way we treat prisoners will influence the way our soldiers are treated.

History has already proven that logic is wrong.

The germans treated our prisoners far better than the Joos or the Ruskies didn't they?



I think even the japs treated our prisoners better than the chinese ones.

History is on my side.

Much of water boarding in History was not what was used by the US.

For instance the Japanese made sure you swallowed enough water that you couldn't swallow any more then beat on your stomach.

 

[Modbert]

Much of water boarding in History was not what was used by the US.

For instance the Japanese made sure you swallowed enough water that you couldn't swallow any more then beat on your stomach.

Funny you should mention that:

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/11/02/AR2007110201170.html

After World War II, we convicted several Japanese soldiers for waterboarding American and Allied prisoners of war. At the trial of his captors, then-Lt. Chase J. Nielsen, one of the 1942 Army Air Forces officers who flew in the Doolittle Raid and was captured by the Japanese, testified: "I was given several types of torture. . . . I was given what they call the water cure." He was asked what he felt when the Japanese soldiers poured the water. "Well, I felt more or less like I was drowning," he replied, "just gasping between life and death."

Nielsen's experience was not unique. Nor was the prosecution of his captors. After Japan surrendered, the United States organized and participated in the International Military Tribunal for the Far East, generally called the Tokyo War Crimes Trials. Leading members of Japan's military and government elite were charged, among their many other crimes, with torturing Allied military personnel and civilians. The principal proof upon which their torture convictions were based was conduct that we would now call waterboarding.

 

[SFC Ollie]

The non torture rules are there to help protect our troops if they are captured.
If you support torturing prisoners then you do not support our troops.

Bullshit. How many heads have we cut off?

A non-answer.

So you believe that if we promise to give all the prisoners we capture 3 hots and a cot, and make sure that they are asked politely about what they may or may not know, then this will stop the torture videos and beheadings? Get fucking real.

 

[rightwinger]

When US soldiers are tortured, don't the torturers think they are saving lives? American soldiers have information on tactics, capabilities, strengths and vulnerabilities.....by your logic, our soldiers can be tortured because the information will save lives

You act like we are fighting an enemy that isnt going to torture our soldiers when they create videos of themselves torturing people and cutting off their head.

Are you proposing that we sink to their level of depravity?

The US openly and proudly engaging in torture affects every future conflict we may be involved with. Any future enemy is now empwered to engage in waterboarding, sleep depravation, sexual abuse, hypothermia because the US has now defined these as acceptable practices.
When you son or daughter joins the military, this is the treatment they can expect....because we have said it is acceptable treatment

 

[SFC Ollie]

When US soldiers are tortured, don't the torturers think they are saving lives? American soldiers have information on tactics, capabilities, strengths and vulnerabilities.....by your logic, our soldiers can be tortured because the information will save lives

You act like we are fighting an enemy that isnt going to torture our soldiers when they create videos of themselves torturing people and cutting off their head.

Are you proposing that we sink to their level of depravity?

The US openly and proudly engaging in torture affects every future conflict we may be involved with. Any future enemy is now empwered to engage in waterboarding, sleep depravation, sexual abuse, hypothermia because the US has now defined these as acceptable practices.
When you son or daughter joins the military, this is the treatment they can expect....because we have said it is acceptable treatment

I can't believe that you still don't understand that our enemies today will do a lot worse than that and won't give a shit what we do or don't do.

 

[uscitizen]

You act like we are fighting an enemy that isnt going to torture our soldiers when they create videos of themselves torturing people and cutting off their head.

Are you proposing that we sink to their level of depravity?

The US openly and proudly engaging in torture affects every future conflict we may be involved with. Any future enemy is now empwered to engage in waterboarding, sleep depravation, sexual abuse, hypothermia because the US has now defined these as acceptable practices.
When you son or daughter joins the military, this is the treatment they can expect....because we have said it is acceptable treatment

I can't believe that you still don't understand that our enemies today will do a lot worse than that and won't give a shit what we do or don't do.

So you ARE saying that we should play just like they do?
If we do how would we be any better than them?

We should have poured the Jap prisoners belly full of water and beat on them?

Strange that I being an atheist oppose this torture and others claiming to be Christians do not.

 

[Modbert]

I can't believe that you still don't understand that our enemies today will do a lot worse than that and won't give a shit what we do or don't do.

See Post #43. The terrorists occupying the Middle East today are not worse than the Nazis and Japanese during World War II.

 

[SFC Ollie]

Are you proposing that we sink to their level of depravity?

The US openly and proudly engaging in torture affects every future conflict we may be involved with. Any future enemy is now empwered to engage in waterboarding, sleep depravation, sexual abuse, hypothermia because the US has now defined these as acceptable practices.
When you son or daughter joins the military, this is the treatment they can expect....because we have said it is acceptable treatment

I can't believe that you still don't understand that our enemies today will do a lot worse than that and won't give a shit what we do or don't do.

So you ARE saying that we should play just like they do?
If we do how would we be any better than them?

We should have poured the Jap prisoners belly full of water and beat on them?

Strange that I being an atheist oppose this torture and others claiming to be Christians do not.

You know full well that I am not advocating that behavior. I do contend that we did the right thing with these three terrorists. And I do not believe that playing nice will affect how the treat any of our troops they may capture. This is not the first grade and our enemies do not play nice.

 

[uscitizen]

Enemies not playing nice? How unwarlike of them.

 

[SFC Ollie]

I can't believe that you still don't understand that our enemies today will do a lot worse than that and won't give a shit what we do or don't do.

See Post #43. The terrorists occupying the Middle East today are not worse than the Nazis and Japanese during World War II.

From the link in post 43

That term is used to describe several interrogation techniques. The victim may be immersed in water, have water forced into the nose and mouth, or have water poured onto material placed over the face so that the liquid is inhaled or swallowed.

And beheading is still a bit worse. And to get a bit graphic we found one of our missing troops. He was missing both arms, both legs and his head. I can only pray they took his head first. is this the not worse you are talking about?

 

[uscitizen]

I can't believe that you still don't understand that our enemies today will do a lot worse than that and won't give a shit what we do or don't do.

See Post #43. The terrorists occupying the Middle East today are not worse than the Nazis and Japanese during World War II.

From the link in post 43

That term is used to describe several interrogation techniques. The victim may be immersed in water, have water forced into the nose and mouth, or have water poured onto material placed over the face so that the liquid is inhaled or swallowed.

And beheading is still a bit worse. And to get a bit graphic we found one of our missing troops. He was missing both arms, both legs and his head. I can only pray they took his head first. is this the not worse you are talking about?

Combat sucks. Been there.


I still do not support torture.
I will kill them I will NOT torture them. Heck I will not even make animals suffer.
Well maybe a fire ant or mosquito.

Just curious does McCain support torture?

Hmm checked and he appapently does not support torture. And he was a prisoner of war....
Hmmm

 

[SFC Ollie]

See Post #43. The terrorists occupying the Middle East today are not worse than the Nazis and Japanese during World War II.

From the link in post 43

That term is used to describe several interrogation techniques. The victim may be immersed in water, have water forced into the nose and mouth, or have water poured onto material placed over the face so that the liquid is inhaled or swallowed.

And beheading is still a bit worse. And to get a bit graphic we found one of our missing troops. He was missing both arms, both legs and his head. I can only pray they took his head first. is this the not worse you are talking about?

Combat sucks. Been there.


I still do not support torture.
I will kill them I will NOT torture them. Heck I will not even make animals suffer.
Well maybe a fire ant or mosquito.

Just curious does McCain support torture?

I would hope not.

 

[rightwinger]

I can't believe that you still don't understand that our enemies today will do a lot worse than that and won't give a shit what we do or don't do.

So you ARE saying that we should play just like they do?
If we do how would we be any better than them?

We should have poured the Jap prisoners belly full of water and beat on them?

Strange that I being an atheist oppose this torture and others claiming to be Christians do not.

You know full well that I am not advocating that behavior. I do contend that we did the right thing with these three terrorists. And I do not believe that playing nice will affect how the treat any of our troops they may capture. This is not the first grade and our enemies do not play nice.

What happens 20-30 years from now when we capture war criminals and try them for the way they treated American soldiers?
- They can tell us "I only waterboarded that soldier 70-80 times"
- We kept your daughter nude 24 hours a day while male guards ridiculed her
- That soldier was kept awake for only six days
- We didn't torture...it was a "stress position"

None of this treatment of American soldiers is mistreatment according to the Bush version of the Geneva Convention

 

[SFC Ollie]

So you ARE saying that we should play just like they do?
If we do how would we be any better than them?

We should have poured the Jap prisoners belly full of water and beat on them?

Strange that I being an atheist oppose this torture and others claiming to be Christians do not.

You know full well that I am not advocating that behavior. I do contend that we did the right thing with these three terrorists. And I do not believe that playing nice will affect how the treat any of our troops they may capture. This is not the first grade and our enemies do not play nice.

What happens 20-30 years from now when we capture war criminals and try them for the way they treated American soldiers?
- They can tell us "I only waterboarded that soldier 70-80 times"
- We kept your daughter nude 24 hours a day while male guards ridiculed her
- That soldier was kept awake for only six days
- We didn't torture...it was a "stress position"

None of this treatment of American soldiers is mistreatment according to the Bush version of the Geneva Convention

Didn't we court martial a few people for some of those activities?

 

[PatekPhilippe]

CIA Man Retracts Claim on Waterboarding | Foreign Policy

Well, it's official now: John Kiriakou, the former CIA operative who affirmed claims that waterboarding quickly unloosed the tongues of hard-core terrorists, says he didn't know what he was talking about.

Kiriakou, a 15-year veteran of the agency's intelligence analysis and operations directorates, electrified the hand-wringing national debate over torture in December 2007 when he told ABC's Brian Ross and Richard Esposito in a much ballyhooed, exclusive interview that senior al Qaeda commando Abu Zubaydah cracked after only one application of the face cloth and water.

"From that day on, he answered every question," Kiriakou said. "The threat information he provided disrupted a number of attacks, maybe dozens of attacks."

No matter that Kiriakou wearily said he shared the anguish of millions of Americans, not to mention the rest of the world, over the CIA's application of the medieval confession technique.

The point was that it worked. And the pro-torture camp was quick to pick up on Kiriakou's claim.

"It works, is the bottom line," conservative talk show host Rush Limbaugh exclaimed on his radio show the day after Kiriakou's ABC interview. "Thirty to 35 seconds, and it works."

A cascade of similar acclamations followed, muffling -- to this day -- the later revelation that Zubaydah had in fact been waterboarded at least 83 times. Had Kiriakou left out something the first time?

Now comes John Kiriakou, again, with a wholly different story. On the next-to-last page of a new memoir, The Reluctant Spy: My Secret Life in the CIA's War on Terror (written with Michael Ruby), Kiriakou now rather off handedly admits that he basically made it all up.

"What I told Brian Ross in late 2007 was wrong on a couple counts," he writes. "I suggested that Abu Zubaydah had lasted only thirty or thirty-five seconds during his waterboarding before he begged his interrogators to stop; after that, I said he opened up and gave the agency actionable intelligence.

"Now we know," Kiriakou goes on, "that Zubaydah was waterboarded eighty-three times in a single month, raising questions about how much useful information he actually supplied."

[ame=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1ytCEuuW2_A]YouTube - The Price is Right losing horn[/ame]

Time sure has a way of things. Thoughts USMB?

[ame=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MQ7QmLd2eVg&feature=related]YouTube - FARTING IDOL[/ame]

 

[QUENTIN]

“Yasser tearfully described that when he reached the top of the steps ‘the party began…They started to put the [muzzle] of the rifle [and] the wood from the broom into [my anus]. They entered my privates from behind.’ …Yasser estimated that he was penetrated five or six times during this initial sodomy incident and saw blood ‘all over my feet’ through a small hole in the hood covering his eyes.”
–Physicians for Human Rights, Broken Laws, Broken Lives: Medical Evidence of Torture by US Personnel and Its Impact

Waterboarding. It’s all we seem to discuss when comes to American torture. Whenever you see people discussing “enhanced interrogation” on your TV, chances are they’ll be throwing around the same tired arguments, all revoling around waterboarding. Why, of all the things we’ve done to our suspected (and not-so-suspected) terrorist detainees, is waterboarding the issue? Why confine the rapidly dwindling debate to that single technique? We’ve engaged in a lot of other practices that qualify universally as torture. Are sleep deprivation or “Palestinian hanging” not controversial enough? Is solitary confinement too mundane?

How about sodomy? Is that something we consider unremarkable?

“This is highly consistent with the events Amir described, including a traumatic injury and subsequent scarring process. Examination of the peri-anal area showed signs of rectal tearing that are highly consistent with his report of having been sodomized with a broomstick.”

–Physicians for Human Rights

That’s right; sodomy. Forcible anal penetration. The documentation of this and other forms of sexual humiliation is too extensive to be denied or pawned off on a couple of redneck privates. And we know now that sexual humiliation techniques were among those discussed and approved by the National Security Principals Committee, a White House group including Dick Cheney, Condoleezza Rice, Donald Rumsfeld, Colin Powell, George Tenet, and John “History will not judge this kindly” Ashcroft.

I don’t want to come off as minimizing the horror of controlled drowning. It’s just that there’s something about anal rape that brings the torture issue into sharp focus. Just once, I’d like to hear one of these American Enterprise Institute psychos, the ones that always trot out to defend the Neocons’ freakish obsessions, have to defend shoving a flashlight up a guy’s ass. I want to hear Frank Gaffney or Jonah Goldberg tell me why I shouldn’t be fucking mortified that raping prisoners was considered within tolerable interrogation practices by my country. I want Glenn Beck to justify butt-raping a suspect.

The next time I hear some idiot refer to Jack Bauer in defense of torture, I want to ask him what he thinks of Jack Bauer rogering terrorists with a broomstick. You’ve never seen that in the hours of not-so-subtle pro-torture TV drama we’ve seen since 2001, have you? Never saw Andy Sipowicz cornhole a skell on NYPD blue? Or Michael Chiklis on The Shield making a suspect drink his pee? Me neither. Something tells me that might have hurt their ratings.

“He also recalled having been forced to wear soiled underwear, often for weeks or months at a time. ‘I had diarrhea and I was in handcuffs. I was making my toilet in my underwear and I was very dirty. That was very painful.’ …When he asked to see the doctor he was told that ‘we brought a medicine to you.’ Laith explains that, in fact, ‘They brought to me bottles [of] urine and [they] told me if you do not drink these now we will bring your mother and sisters. Because I was hearing the voices of women and children, I [believed him and] drank it. I was in handcuffs and they poured the urine [into my mouth] and sometimes I vomited from that but when I vomited they kept on pouring [the urine] on my head … I died at that time.’ He said that he was forced to drink urine from the soldiers on eleven different occasions.”

–Physicians for Human Rights

The key to winning the debate on torture is to eradicate any illusions about just what this was, which is sick, twisted, and freakish beyond any usefulness in gathering information. And it becomes very clear in the light of a rectally inserted lightstick. Raise the specter of White House-authorized sexual abuse, and anyone who doesn’t shrink away from defending it will be doomed to be remembered as the guy who defended ass-rape and forced urine-drinking, which is the very least an American should suffer for trying to justify brutally raping prisoners.

But no one will pull the trigger. Even as more proof is revealed, nobody seems to mention the sodomy. The torture debate is limited to waterboarding alone. Why? Forget the 48 photos Obama has flipped on releasing (like the putz he’s turned out to be). There are known photos—you can see them at Salon.com—of a female prisoner being raped, and a male. Not to mention the kinky naked slave-stacking and forced masturbation–and the prisoner with a banana up his ass.

We blared Metallica at them 24 hours a day while they shat themselves, chained to the floor. We kept them in coffin-sized boxes for hours on end. We hung them from the ceiling. We made them jack each other off. We beat some of them to death. Many have lost their minds. Some these people were guilty of nothing but being in Afghanistan or Iraq and being swept up as part of an intelligence “mosaic.”

“Perhaps most important are the widespread anal scars that were observed. Not only are these scars highly consistent with anal trauma (i.e., as would result from forced sodomy or penetration with an object), these scars are in a location where accidental injuries would not occur.”

–Physicians for Human Rights

The inevitable dunderhead response, “they beheaded our people,” is a sickness unto itself. From Abu Ghraib to Gitmo, we’ve suffered countless such humiliating comparisons, judging ourselves by the lowest standards current events can offer. Sorry, but it is not enough to say we aren’t as bad as Saddam Hussein or the scumbags that killed Daniel Pearl. The very idea that we should measure our own conduct by theirs is a total failure of self-respect. Only the worst kind of scumbag can excuse himself by saying, “I’m incrementally better than the Taliban.”

“These brainstorming meetings at Guantanamo produced animated discussion. ‘Who has the glassy eyes?’ [Guantanamo Judge Advocate Diane] Beaver asked herself as she surveyed the men around the room, thirty or more of them. She was invariably the only woman in the room, keeping control of the boys. The younger men would get excited, agitated, even: ‘You could almost see their dicks getting hard as they got new ideas.’ “

–Phillipe Sands, Torture Team: Rumsfeld’s Memo and the Betrayal of American Values

What’s so sick about it is that the sexual nature of the torture seems so unnecessary. I mean, even if we were going to torture them, we could have stuck to waterboarding, pulling some fingernails or just beating the shit out of them. But menstrual blood smeared on their faces? Ass rape? What kind of people do that? What possible purpose does that serve that outweighs becoming known as the country that ass-rapes people? We couldn’t get enough answers, or false confessions, or whatever we were looking for, from regular brutality? We had to go all BDSM on these people?

The upshot is this: America is the country that rapes its prisoners. We’re sex criminals. That’s our thing now. And Obama’s refusal to “look back,” i.e. prosecute these incredibly serious crimes, ensures that it’s our permanent legacy. No national reputation can survive this simply by shrugging it off. We used to be seen as a bastion of freedom and decency around the world. That shit is over, folks. We’re like the Soviet Union with better movies now. When we talk about human rights, we are an international joke.

And when we talk about torture, we stick to waterboarding, because nobody, not even the “liberals,” are willing to face what we’ve done.

 

[QUENTIN]

Here's what Malcolm Nance, a "former master instructor and chief of training at the U.S. Navy Survival, Evasion, Resistance and Escape School (SERE) who underwent and trained in the waterboarding technique (in order to teach U.S. soldiers how to endure captivity at the hands of waterboarders such as Al Qaeda)" had to say about it:

When performed on an unsuspecting prisoner, waterboarding is a torture technique -- without a doubt. There is no way to sugarcoat it.

In the media, waterboarding is called "simulated drowning," but that's a misnomer. It does not simulate drowning, as the lungs are actually filling with water. There is no way to simulate that. The victim is drowning.

Unless you have been strapped down to the board, have endured the agonizing feeling of the water overpowering your gag reflex, and then feel your throat open and allow pint after pint of water to involuntarily fill your lungs, you will not know the meaning of the word. . . .

Waterboarding is slow-motion suffocation with enough time to contemplate the inevitability of blackout and expiration. Usually the person goes into hysterics on the board. For the uninitiated, it is horrifying to watch. If it goes wrong, it can lead straight to terminal hypoxia -- meaning, the loss of all oxygen to the cells.

One has to overcome basic human decency to endure causing the effects. The brutality would force you into a personal moral dilemma between humanity and hatred. It would leave you questioning the meaning of what it is to be an American.

 

[QUENTIN]

The suppressed fact: deaths by US Torture

After numerous delays sought by the Obama administration, it is expected that a 2004 CIA Inspector General's Report -- aggressively questioning both the efficacy and legality of Bush's interrogation tactics -- will be released tomorrow. A heavily redacted version of that document was already released by the Bush administration in response to an ACLU lawsuit and it remains to be seen how much new information will be included in tomorrow's version.

In anticipation of the release of that report, there is an important effort underway -- as part of the ACLU Accountability Project -- to correct a critically important deficiency in the public debate over torture and accountability. So often, the premise of media discussions of torture is that "torture" is something that was confined to a single tactic (waterboarding) and used only on three "high-value" detainees accused of being high-level Al Qaeda operatives. The reality is completely different.

The interrogation and detention regime implemented by the U.S. resulted in the deaths of over 100 detainees in U.S. custody -- at least. While some of those deaths were the result of "rogue" interrogators and agents, many were caused by the methods authorized at the highest levels of the Bush White House, including extreme stress positions, hypothermia, sleep deprivation and others. Aside from the fact that they cause immense pain, that's one reason we've always considered those tactics to be "torture" when used by others -- because they inflict serious harm, and can even kill people. Those arguing against investigations and prosecutions -- that we Look to the Future, not the Past -- are thus literally advocating that numerous people get away with murder.

The record could not be clearer regarding the fact that we caused numerous detainee deaths, many of which have gone completely uninvestigated and thus unpunished. Instead, the media and political class have misleadingly caused the debate to consist of the myth that these tactics were limited and confined. [ame="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OWkJVkdelwM"]As Gen. Barry McCaffrey recently put it:[/ame]

We should never, as a policy, maltreat people under our control, detainees. We tortured people unmercifully. We probably murdered dozens of them during the course of that, both the armed forces and the C.I.A.

Journalist and Human Rights Watch research John Sifton similarly documented that "approximately 100 detainees, including CIA-held detainees, have died during U.S. interrogations, and some are known to have been tortured to death."

The ACLU has posted online numerous autopsy reports of detainee deaths in U.S. custody. These are documents prepared by the U.S. military, and they are as chilling as they are reflective of extreme criminality.

A Daily Kos diarist today has more on these autopsy reports. Sifton describes numerous other cases of detainees tortured to death in U.S. custody:

* Jamal Naseer, a soldier in the Afghan Army, died after he and seven other soldiers were mistakenly arrested. Those arrested with Naseer later said that during interrogations U.S. personnel punched and kicked them, hung them upside down, and hit them with sticks or cables. Some said they were doused with cold water and forced to lie in the snow. Nasser collapsed about two weeks after the arrest, complaining of stomach pain, probably an internal hemorrhage.
*


* In December 2003, a 44-year-old Iraqi man named Abu Malik Kenami died in a U.S. detention facility in Mosul, Iraq. As reported by Human Rights First, U.S. military personnel who examined Kenami when he first arrived at the facility determined that he had no preexisting medical conditions. Once in custody, as a disciplinary measure for talking, Kenami was forced to perform extreme amounts of exercise—a technique used across Afghanistan and Iraq. Then his hands were bound behind his back with plastic handcuffs, he was hooded, and forced to lie in an overcrowded cell. Kenami was found dead the morning after his arrest, still bound and hooded.
*


* There may be other CIA homicides yet uncovered. One case of concern involves a detainee in the CIA’s detention program named Hassan Ghul, a Pakistani who was arrested in northern Iraq in January 2004. . . . I am starting to suspect that Ghul might be dead. After all, his name was redacted from the OLC memo, unlike that of other CIA detainees now at Guantánamo. Why would the CIA be afraid of mentioning Ghul? CIA doctors appear to have determined that Ghul was in poor health when he was captured, in fact, too unhealthy to be waterboarded. Unlike other former CIA detainees, human-rights groups have not confirmed that he was rendered to Pakistan or to a third country. Did the CIA perhaps torture Ghul to death? We do not know. He has now completely disappeared.

And from Human Rights First:

The cases also include that of Abed Hamed Mowhoush, a former Iraqi general beaten over days by U.S. Army, CIA and other non-military forces, stuffed into a sleeping bag, wrapped with electrical cord, and suffocated to death. In the recently concluded trial of a low-level military officer charged in Mowhoush’s death, the officer received a written reprimand, a fine, and 60 days with his movements limited to his work, home, and church.

As many documented cases of detainee deaths as there are, these deaths have almost certainly been under-counted, as the military and CIA have simply failed to investigate many obvious homicides or even falsely characterized them as natural deaths. As The Medscape Journal of Medicine explained after reviewing all of the available autopsy reports of detainee deaths:

In a well-publicized death of an Iraqi general that resulted from trauma and asphyxiation, the on-site surgeon ruled the death "natural."[11] On review at autopsy, this death was eventually classified as homicide by the Office of the Armed Forces Medical Examiner.[8] According to the Church Investigation Report, in at least 3 deaths, "medical personnel may have attempted to misrepresent the circumstances of abuse, possibly in an effort to disguise detainee abuse."[21]

In the case of Kenami, detailed above by Sifton, this is what happened in the aftermath of his death:

No autopsy was conducted; no official cause of death was determined. After the Abu Ghraib scandal, a review of Kenami’s death was launched, and Army reviewers criticized the initial criminal investigation for failing to conduct an autopsy; interview interrogators, medics, or detainees present at the scene of the death; and collect physical evidence. To date, however, the Army has taken no known action in the case.

Needless to say, there has been very little accountability even for the deaths which the U.S. military itself acknowledges are homicides, as Human Rights First documented:

Since August 2002, nearly 100 detainees have died while in the hands of U.S. officials in the global “war on terror.” According to the U.S. military’s own classifications, 34 of these cases are suspected or confirmed homicides; Human Rights First has identified another 11 in which the facts suggest death as a result of physical abuse or harsh conditions of detention. . . .

Despite these numbers, four years since the first known death in U.S. custody, only 12 detainee deaths have resulted in punishment of any kind for any U.S. official. Of the 34 homicide cases so far identified by the military, investigators recommended criminal charges in fewer than two thirds, and charges were actually brought (based on decisions made by command) in less than half. While the CIA has been implicated in several deaths, not one CIA agent has faced a criminal charge. Crucially, among the worst cases in this list – those of detainees tortured to death – only half have resulted in punishment; the steepest sentence for anyone involved in a torture-related death: five months in jail.

It's not uncommon, of course, for our political debates to be distorted. But discussions over torture and accountability have descended to a new level. The picture that is most commonly conveyed -- that torture was confined to a small handful of cases, was highly regulated, and resulted in no long-lasting harm -- is pure propaganda, completely false. The reality -- that our "interrogation tactics" killed numerous detainees, who, by definition, are people confined helplessly in our custody, virtually none of whom has been convicted of anything, and at least some of whom are completely innocent -- is virtually never heard as part of these debates. It's vital that this changes.

 

[uscitizen]

I will not quote to save space.

On the deaths by US torture and the like it would not suprise me.

Remember the Jessica Lynch rescue lies.

Then the death of the footbali star guy ( dammit I forget his name) by friendly fire (3 US rounds in the forehead? ) was lied about as well. Many other cases I forget.
The military sure is not composed of saints just out for the protection of the US public.
It is also out to survive and thrive as an entity of it's own. As opposed to being reduced in size and power. I am not saying are going to mutiny or anything.